Apr 15, 2022
Listening to the Silence
Can you hear the silence? What is your inner voice telling you? Do you dare to listen to yourself?
“Listen to the person behind the words,” says William Ury. I think the secret of effective communication is hidden here… It is important to focus not only on words, sounds, speaking the language properly, but also on the person himself, his soul.
These are the times to re-learn to listen. In fact, most of our problems stem from not listening. However, we have two ears for one mouth. Isn’t that even enough sign of the importance of listening?
By listening, we have to be selective about what we listen to… Because listening is like filling an empty container. Filling it with good things will do you good, too.
Of course, in order to fill it, first of all, it is necessary to empty the container and make it ready.
The fact that we don’t listen is because our bowl is always full. Because there is no place, what we hear does not stay inside us, it flows from the surface…
Listening is an art. It is the gateway to learning. Our failure to learn effectively is because we are destroying this art.
He has to learn to listen because some opportunities knock on your door very lightly. In fact, doors are constantly clicked, but people can never hear because of the noise they are used to.
To listen is to focus. Our inability to focus is due to directing our attention to unnecessary things (screens, internet, social media, etc.).
To listen is to understand, to produce and to reason. To reason is to obey the divine order and to be aware of the purpose of creation.
The best solidarity is to listen to each other. Listening to our neglected family on the occasion of the closure, or being thousands of kilometers away by sitting next to each other and pretending to mingle, immersed in the screens we have. Now is the time to choose.
Don’t just listen to pessimistic music, negative voices, toxic people, social media, misleading and negative news, selfish and evil whispers, stay away from them…
Perhaps the most beautiful and most difficult thing for listening is to listen to yourself.
We have rediscovered silence during this pandemic period. In the silence, we began to hear voices that we could not hear before. Sometimes this excited us, sometimes frightened us, sometimes surprised and sometimes calmed us.
Being able to listen to ourselves… The most difficult thing to listen to… Because, especially if your own conscience is speaking… If it is constantly judging you… You try to silence it… but in vain…
The only solution is to break the silence… You turn to the screens involuntarily. You turn on the TV and turn up the volume. Even if you don’t listen, let there be sound, make noise, break the silence… Is that why everyone hides behind headphones? To escape both the outside world and the inner voices?
But if you can also listen to your inner voice… Like a friend… Calmly…
Maybe that’s what it means to be at peace with yourself!
Accepting self-criticism when appropriate, noticing mistakes and sins, understanding, confessing… Then regret and repentance…
To finally feel that you are forgiven, to make peace with yourself and to find inner peace. It’s like being reborn… being prepared to empty the vessel, to fill in the best instead.
I think this will be the biggest gain of closing in the pandemic. To be able to face yourself, to be purified, to take refuge in the Almighty Creator (cc), to take radical decisions on the way to be a blessed person.
Making peace with silence, being able to hear it, being able to talk to it. Turning inward, discovering great treasure, intending to stay away from toxic people, minimizing our distance from the screens…
Being able to listen to silence in different times and environments… Each one has a different experience. At sahur, on the prayer mat for tahajjud, at sunrise, at sunset… Each one is beautiful in its own way… Different feelings, different thoughts… Being able to rediscover oneself. Passing an important stage in the search for meaning in life…
Those who do not know how to listen cannot communicate. They talk loudly for hours, but this only breeds conflict and quarrels.
As you improve listening, you need less talking or being spoken to understand. So much so that after a certain point the need to talk disappears. There is now a path from heart to heart. Only eyes and hearts provide communication, feelings are shared, communication loss is reset, one hundred percent integrity of meaning is achieved.
In Sufi meetings this goes to a very advanced level. Not just between two people, but within a group, without saying a word, a complete unity of meaning is formed. Hearts are filled and overflowed not with empty things, but with enlightenment and wisdom fed from a divine source.
Those with a heart tie speak very quietly when necessary, speak little and get along easily. Those who are far from the heart, on the other hand, speak distantly and loudly, they talk too much, and the more they talk, the more their disagreement increases.
This closure period is an important opportunity to regain our ability to listen, which we have blinded and deliberately closed. Either our psychology will be turned upside down by the sounds that we cannot escape even if we plug our ears, or we will go on our own inner journey, discover a new ‘I’ and dive into priceless depths. The choice is ours…
My article titled “Active Listening Gains” may also interest you.
This is the English version my article published a year ago, last Ramadan.
Aykut GÜL
