Learn To Be A Good Listener
If you wish to grow in the spirit of understanding, you must let the other person talk and prove his point to his satisfaction. Do not interrupt him, while he is talking. You know how exasperated you become when someone interrupts you, while you are trying to prove a point. At committee meetings, these words have been uttered quite often:- "But let me finish!" Listen more, talk less. You are made to listen. That is why you have been given only one mouth and two ears. If we were meant to talk more and listen less, we would have been given only one ear, right in front, and two mouths on the two sides. How funny we would look! And, mind you, there is no door with which to close the ears: they are always open. Before a word can be spoken, it has to cross two fences - two rows of teeth and two lips. Therefore, think twice before you talk. Never forget that of the unspoken word, you are a master, of the spoken word, you are a slave. Words, once spoken, cannot be got back. A villager came to a town, to visit some of his relatives. In villages, till today, they cleanse their teeth with wooden sticks. When he got up in the morning, the villager asked for one. They told him that in the cities they had only toothpaste tubes. The villager had never handled a toothpaste tube. As he squeezed it, out flowed a foot-long strip of toothpaste. He was taken aback. "Is there a way to sending the toothpaste back into the tube?" he asked. They said to him:- "No way! Once the paste has come out, it cannot be sent in!" Likewise, words which have been spoken cannot be sent in. Be a good listener. Therefore, listen not only with the ears, but also with the heart. Better than talking is listening. And better than listening is to enter the silence within. The great woman-saint of South India, Avvaiyar, prayed:- "O God, what is happening to me? I keep on talking and talking, as though there were mouths all over my body! When shall I cease from doing this? When shall I enter into the silence within?"
