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What does it mean for us to listen to other people?

To know how to listen means to put yourself in the other person’s place, totally, entirely. It means knowing how to hear the voice of their soul. If you do this, in a state of profound silence, and if you can stop your mind nagging for a moment, then you’ll understand what it means to love.

Knowing how to listen is an art. We confuse all sorts of things – for example, we confuse listening with keeping quiet. Listening is not just keeping quiet. Listening is putting ourself in the other person’s place, in a state of inner silence. It means clearing a space deep within us, and allowing the other person to occupy it. Knowing how to listen means making an abstraction of our own life, all our suffering, all our anxieties, our own reactions and impluses.

Listening is the very first notion of Love. The other person has something to tell you, they always have so many things to teach you. The other person is the one who is suffering. We’re there to listen to what they have to say, but we know from the start that they won’t tell us about their pain. They’ll tell us all sorts of things which remain at the surface of themselves, they’re able to express the things that overflow, but the secrets of their soul, the deepest truth of their suffering, these are things that no-one can discover unless we know how to love them. They’ll only be able to tell us all of their pain if we make silence within ourselves, if we know how to listen. It’s not thinking - « Yes, I know, he already told me that, I know all about that … » No! That’s not listening.

Listening means understanding that you don’t know the other person, you know nothing about them. You don’t know them because you can’t hear them. Hearing doesn’t mean just noting the sound of their voice. Hearing, and knowing how to listen, means hearing the silence between two people, from soul to soul. It means hearing the vibration of their soul like an echo of our own. It’s knowing that in that silence, when two people are face to face, and that one of them has come to pour out their suffering to the other, that they are no longer themselves, and we have to be there to receive them; we have to be there, ready, with out-stretched hands and an open heart, because they will only be able to express a tiny part of what they are. But it’s up to us to do what’s necessary in order to hear the things they do not say.

How many times have I heard your idle chat! You explain everything, and you repeat to others the things that you’ve heard. That’s a very serious affair for the human soul, because those people have shared their secrets with you. Why do you repeat those secrets to others? Why all this idle chit-chat, which wears you down and destroys you? Because you know very well that once you’ve done that, you won’t be at peace with yourselves. There’s an anxiety that settles in, deep within you, deep within your soul. You are no longer at peace, because you’ve betrayed a confidence.

We have to respect other people, no matter how banal the words they’ve shared with us. It’s their life, it’s not ours; and their life is sacred. Everything they’ve said to us belongs to them alone. Sometimes, this person has nothing other than their life, their experience, their history, and in a few moments, we can destroy what could have been created if we are not acting from Love.

Knowing how to listen means putting yourself in the other’s place, totally, entirely. It means knowing how to hear their soul. If you do this, in a state of profound silence, and if your mind can stop chattering for a moment, you will understand what it means to Love. The instant you feel the soul of the other person vibrating close to you, you’ll want to take them in your arms, express that love to them, but it’s rather like dealing with a wild bird -  any sudden gesture, and it will fly away. Let’s attempt to tame their soul. It’s only through infinite gentleness that it will gain the confidence to offer itself to us.

This is why we should never judge by appearances. Don’t think of people as ‘vegetables’ because you imagine they’re not as intelligent as you would have liked. Who is hiding behind that stubborn brow, or those viscous eyes, or that raucous voice? It’s a soul that’s hiding there, a soul with all its wealth of experience, and sometimes it’s come to test your reactions to its apparent ugliness. They often come to allow you to judge, weigh them up, analyze. Whatever you do, don’t do that! You’ll be judging God and you’ll be judging yourself.

You condemn yourself when you judge people, because as soon as a soul feels judged, it is diminished, it is disconsolate, its vibrations can no longer communicate. It’s a light that’s been extinguished. We don’t have the right to destroy people. Let’s not judge, let’s not make a psychological analysis of all the phenomena of life. Try and create something different through this Love, this human condition which is superior to all others. And all these people that we may have judged to be unworthy of us, often – and remember this – often they are many times greater than we are.