Joining the Listener

 

        Last night, I bought a book, The Untethered Soul.  I'm considering it as a text for this fall's Connecting group.

 

       In his first chapter, Michael Singer discusses the incessant chatter of inner voices.  These voices take many viewpoints and assume many "personalities".  Which one, we wonder, is my true voice?  Which is the real me?

 

       Singer's answer is none of the above.  We are none of those talkers.  We are the one who listens. 

 

       In meditation this morning, I played with his idea.  My mind was filled with chatter – heavy drama happening.  I turned to the one who listens and asked:  "Are you enjoying all this?  Are you entertained by the drama going on inside me?"  I remembered how I was as a 7-year-old hunched over the radio on Sunday afternoons, raptly absorbed in episodes of "The Shadow".  I wondered if the listener were engaged in a similar way with my drama.

 

       The listener remained quiet – very quiet, gently quiet.  Yet, somehow, there was an answer – a felt sense.  No words.

 

       My translation of this felt sense was "duh-uh" – a bit like the expression teens use with parents who seem clueless in the face of the obvious, except there was no attitude in this "duh-uh".  I got the message.

 

       Shortly after, during an extended period of grace, I joined the listener.  We sat together, connected as one, in a delicious quiet.

 

       I'm amazed.  The listener is so patient, so unafraid.  What a wondrous companion – pure presence, loving and detached, with no judgment, no power in the traditional sense and no inclination to control or change anything.

 

       I think of God.