LISTEN up..!

Here's something that i came across when i was catching up with some reading and it just makes me wonder bout the ways things are with me and how i am ........ a friend was just telling me the other day as to how i should LISTEN..!..hmmm well just to share with you what i read...
Its an extract from an Osho discourse:

TUNE IN SO THAT YOU CAN ...LISTEN RIGHT

To listen is so difficult.To listen means to be here, now. To listen means to be without any thought. To listen means to be alert and aware. If these conditions are fulfilled, only then you listen.
The mind goes on spinning a thousand and one thoughts, and the mind goes on moving- in the past, in the future. How can you listen? And whatever you listen to, it will not be right listening at all. You will listen to something else which has not been said at all, you will go on missing that which is said- because you will not be in tune.
To listen well ordinarily means to listen in a deep receptivity. When you listen, if you are arguing, judging, saying, "yes, this is right because it doesn't..." If you are continuously sorting out things inside, you are listening but not listening well. You are listening with your past mind interfering...It is not you judging, it is your past. You have read and heard a few things, you have been conditioned for a few things. The past wants to perpetuate itself. It does not allow anything new; it allows only the old that fits with it.
To listen rightly means to listen obediently. This word obedience is beautiful. you will be surprised to know that the original root from which the word obedience comes is obedire- it means 'a thorough listening'. If you listen totally you will obey. You will not need any decision on your part. Truth is self-evident. Or as the Jewesh tradition says, "to bare your ear". If you have really opened your ear and there is no interference and no disturbance inside, and no distraction, you have not only opened your ears, you have opened your heart. And if the seed falls into the heart, sooner or later it will become a tree.
Ear locks have to be removed. Fear of truth is the basic lock. You are afraid of the truth beause you have lived in the lies.....for so long that all those lies are afraid, if the truth comes they will all have to leave you. The moment you come closer to truth, the mind will become disturbed. It will create much stir, raise must dust, create a cloud around you so that you cannot hear what truth is.
Buddha has said that unless you are fearless you will not attain the truth. When you bow in a church, mosque or temple, to a statue , scripture, or tradition, where is you bowing coming from?..just watch inside- and you will find fear, fear and fear. Faith appears only in the death of fear.
Faith means trust. How can a fearful man trust? He is always thinking, protecting, defending. How can he trust? To trust, you need courage. To trust you need to take risk. To trust, you need to move into danger.
The Chinese ideogram for crisis consists of two symbols: one means danger, another means opportunity. Yes, that moment is a critical moment when you are facing danger and opportunity, both. If you don't go into danger you will miss the opportunity. If you want opportunity you will have to go into danger. Those who know how to live dangerously, only they are religious....!


Hmmmm...quite some reading huh?...well i dont really know bout the religion part...but surely if you look at it, it gets us thinking as to what we really do....do we really LISTEN?...what can the implications of not really listening be?...dont know ..have to find for myself...well surely this is something that has got me thinking..and probably someday when i discover it will i be liberal if not religious atleast....! What bout you?;-)