Listening

Suhas and Hiral – one of my closest friends and one of his closest cousins, resp – recently brought this amazing game from one of their (common) closest cousins, a game called OSHO – Heart to Heart Tarot (A Unique Tool for Spiritual Quest).

The ‘tool’ had a big set of cards – big in size, like those real (stupid?) tarot cards. Every card had an amazing picture painted on it, with a word/virtue linked to it – things like wholeness, patience, deathlessness, and eighty odd such cards. The other thing was the book - the instruction book, which had detailed description about the attribute written on the card. Like any other simple ‘game’, one had to pick a card (spread upside down on a table, next to a magic crystal ball – just kidding) from the bunch and the ‘Reader’ would read out the significance from the Instruction book (or just speak out of mugged up knowledge). Simple as that!

The interesting part, it was a ‘game’ for all of us - the night Suhas and Hiral brought this ‘tool’ in, it was pretty late and I was half asleep. They still made me pick a card and it read ‘Listening’. Then someone read through the instruction book, and I was quite impressed by the excerpt, I had to tell Kaushal about it. Kaushal is an insanely crazy Osho-fan. He dropped by my place, I showed him the cards, he made me pick one and guess what? Of eighty odd cards, I happened to pick “Listening” again!

Considering these coincidences and the motive of the ‘tool’, I fondly started believing that it was a ‘message’ and I had to pay attention to that. Probably God wanted me to ‘listen’ to what He had to say about ‘Listening’. (Now that sounds/reads dramatic. I know!)

Whatever be the reason, I felt it made great sense:

Listening:

Listening is one of the basic secrets of entering into the temple of God. Listening means passivity. Listening means forgetting yourself completely – only then you can listen. When you listen attentively to somebody, you forget yourself. If you cannot forget yourself, you never listen. If you’re too self-conscious about yourself, you simply pretend that you are listening – you don’t listen. You may nod your head; you may sometimes say yes and no – but you are not listening.

When you listen, you become just a passage, a passivity, a receptivity, a womb: you become feminine. And to arrive, one has to become feminine.  You cannot reach God as aggressive invaders, conquerors. You can reach God only… or it will be better: God can reach you only when you are receptive, a feminine receptivity. When you become yin, a receptivity, the door is open. And you wait.

And how true is that!

Image Source: iasos.com