In the world there are many speakers who amaze with their eloquence, but few are the people who know how to listen. To know how to listen is very difficult; few are truly the people who really know how to listen.
When the teacher, the lecturer, the speaker speaks, the audience seems very attentive, as if following in detail every word of the orator. Everything gives the impression that they are listening, that they are in a state of alertness, but in the psychological depths of each individual there is a secretary who translates each word of the orator.
This secretary is the “I,” the Myself, the Self. The work of said secretary consists in misinterpreting, mistranslating the words of the orator.
The “I” translates according to its prejudices, preconceptions, fears, pride, anxieties, ideas, memories, etc., etc., etc.
The students in the school, the listeners who make up the audience, are really not listening to the orator. They are listening to themselves, they are listening to their own Ego, to their beloved Machiavellian Ego that is not willing to accept the real, the true, the essential.
Only in a state of alert novelty, with a spontaneous mind free from the weight of the past, in a state of full receptivity, can we really listen without the intervention of that terrible ill-omened secretary called I, Myself, Self, Ego.
When the mind is conditioned by memory, it only repeats what it has accumulated.
The mind conditioned by the experiences of so many yesterdays can only see the present through the murky lenses of the past.
If we want to know how to listen, if we want to learn to listen in order to discover the new, we must live according to the philosophy of momentariness.
It is urgent to live from moment to moment without the worries of the past and without the projects of the future.
Truth is the unknown from moment to moment. Our minds must always be alert, in full attention, free from prejudices, preconceptions, in order to be truly receptive.
School teachers must teach their students the profound significance contained in that which is to know how to listen.
It is necessary to learn to live wisely, to refine our senses, to refine our conduct, our thoughts, our feelings.
It is useless to have great academic culture if we do not know how to listen, if we are not capable of discovering the new from moment to moment.
We need to refine attention, refine our manners, refine our persons, things, etc., etc., etc.
It is impossible to be truly refined when we do not know how to listen.
Crude, rough, deteriorated, degenerated minds never know how to listen, never know how to discover the new. Those minds only understand, only grasp in a mistaken way the absurd translations of that satanic secretary called I, Myself, Ego.
To be refined is something very difficult and requires full attention. Someone can be a very refined person in fashion, clothes, dresses, gardens, cars, friendships, and yet continue inwardly being rough, crude, heavy.
Whoever knows how to live from moment to moment truly walks on the path of true refinement.
Whoever has a receptive, spontaneous, integral, alert mind walks on the path of authentic refinement.
Whoever opens to all that is new, abandoning the weight of the past, the preconceptions, the prejudices, suspicions, fanaticisms, etc., marches triumphantly along the path of legitimate refinement.
The degenerated mind lives bottled up in the past, in prejudices, pride, self-love, preconceptions, etc., etc.
The degenerated mind does not know how to see the new, does not know how to listen, is conditioned by self-love.
The fanatics of Marxism-Leninism do not accept the new. They do not admit the fourth characteristic of all things, the fourth dimension, because of self-love. They love themselves too much, they cling to their own absurd materialistic theories, and when we place them in the terrain of concrete facts, when we demonstrate to them the absurdity of their sophisms, they raise the left arm, look at the hands of their wristwatch, give an evasive excuse, and leave.
Those are degenerated, decrepit minds that do not know how to listen, that do not know how to discover the new, that do not accept reality because they are bottled up in self-love.
Minds that love themselves too much, minds that know nothing of cultural refinements, crude minds, rough minds that would only listen to their beloved ego.
Fundamental Education teaches how to listen, teaches how to live wisely.
The teachers of schools, colleges, and universities must teach their students the authentic path of true vital refinement.
It is useless to remain ten and fifteen years in schools, colleges, and universities if upon leaving we are inwardly true pigs in our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and habits.
Fundamental Education is urgently needed because the new generations signify the beginning of a new era.
The hour of true revolution has arrived, the instant of the Fundamental Revolution has come.
The past is the past, and it has already given its fruits. We need to understand the profound significance of the moment in which we live.
Samael Aun Weor
