Listening

My teacher called that kind of perception listening. Everything in Present Homeopathy starts with it. It’s actually a skill that can be trained up to the insane levels – especially with the help of our remedies that become our true guides and teachers here.

Usually people (and even homeopaths) think listening skills depend on our “sensitivity”. But look, no one seems to know what this “sensitivity” is about and where it comes from! Therefore most of us attribute this “sensitivity” to the body – thinking the latter has something to do with perception.

Such understanding comes from a mechanistic interpretation as we deal with different kind of sensors and instruments in modern life. Following such thought, sensors seem a must-have for perception. And of course, camera sensors, microscopes and telescopes have their limits.

I’ll not argue, but first of all I invite you to explore these limits. Let me introduce your our first teacher of listening. Evelyn Glennie is deaf percussionist who hears better than most of us do. She says: “My aim really is to teach the world to listen. That’s my only real aim in life.” Please, do not miss this unique lesson she gives:

Maybe for some learning Homeopathy from a percussionist does not seem a good idea. Well, I learned Homeopathy from almost everyone. Pure homeopaths despite owning a huge arsenal of remedies and piles of books contribute no more than 5-10% to the Present Homeopathy. These 90-95% that are lacking we are going to learn somewhere else. Evelyn Glenn is worth listening at least several times. And when you listen to her again, let’s say after a couple of years of intense training and practicing in Present Homeopathy you are going to discover you’ve missed the most important part of the lecture. I wish you do not miss it now.

Present Homeopathy is absolutely universal. It is interdisciplinary. It applies to every process that is happening in Life. It applies to Life itself. It is Life itself. Ideally training in Present Homeopathy begins as we open our eyes in the morning and continues throughout all the day up until we get asleep. And it may continue even in sleep in some cases. It is all about awareness of the present moment. That’s what’s Listening is all about.

Similar to Evelyn Glenn’s, my primary aim is also to teach homeopaths to Listen. It is the first, but very important step that has huge consequences.

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1. Listening appears to be simple and natural

Many patients I work with naturally discover listening in 1-3 consultations. They simply discover they perceive themselves reacting to the remedies live. They also perceive the process of making the remedies. Usually I have to ask the questions at first, to kind of guide their attention. When they grasp it, they do not need assistance anymore, they tell me what’s happening themselves, they take the lead, so that I can relax and enjoy the transformation we experience together.

The same happens with my colleagues – both doctors and pharmacists. We just sit and listen together.

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2. Listening sets us free.

When we discover we are able to listen, a lively vast new real world opens for us. Suddenly these old books, philosophies, authorities with their opinions lose importance. We still may refer to these, but first of all we rely on our own perception. Because remedies become perceptible! They are perceptible like all other works of art: paintings, music, books, etc. There is no end to subtlety of perception though.

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3. We also discover we are able listen to others

I mean we listen not only to words they say, but to become open to their worlds and their way of perception.

Here we learn how to share experiences directly: we start to experience what others feel. And we become open enough to share our own sensations with others.

So that if we listen to a colleague telling about his real remedy experience (especially if it is happening live, in real time) we experience his/her sensations as if these were our own.

Just imagine what homeopathic life looks like when we experience patients reacting to the remedies live during consultations and we also experience our colleagues during group provings in the subtlest details. I know that sounds unreal, but such was my practice in the last 15 years.

That may seem fun, but beware! That’s going to radically change the way we perceive remedies, Homeopathy, ourselves and the world around us.

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4. Listening is a revolutionary shift from knowledge to perception.

Listening is here to surprise us. If it doesn’t, it means we are not listening, but involved into our own ideas. One of the most important conditions for listening to happen is having no prejudices.

When we listen, we forget everything we know about humans, world, remedies, everything. We even forget what our body looks like. We even do not know who we are and where. Because if we do – these are prejudices that are literally incompatible with listening.

If we meticulously explore the sensations, listen to them day and night, if we thoroughly explore the very process of perception, sooner or later we come to a staggering conclusion:

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5. Sensations appear not to belong to the body at all. Sensations are about how we perceive the body as well as the whole world around us.

Look, perception is no different for inner and outer. Body and world sensations – rumbling in the abdomen and birds singing in the yard – everything is perceived in exactly the same manner. I mean we are equally aware of these. Perception does not know what is mine and what is not. Perceptions treats everything equally.

Here all the ideas about “sensitivity” start to scatter to pieces. If we look closer – there is no such thing as “sensitivity” at all! We can’t find it anywhere. It is all Attention / Awareness that experiences everything: the body, the mind and the whole world.

Imagine we are in a dream right now. Imagine you read this text in a dream. Isn’t this possible? So what is our “sensitivity” in a dream? What does it depend on? How is it limited? How it is different from a sensitivity in a “real world”? If you stop for some time, contemplate on these questions, the further reading might not be necessary as you discover that….

6. Perception appears to be transparent

ONENESS

Perception is transparent.

James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 35

Actually, you discover that such Listening is not a skill anymore. Perception appears to be simply happening with no one standing in the path.

Please, perform a little experiment. Listen! Doesn’t matter to what: play music through the speakers or open your window. 1) Put all your effort in listening. How does it feel? 2) And now shut the effort off. Do not try listen at all. Even do not try not to try. What’s going on?

Hearing appears to be happening by itself – effortlessly, without any “I” involved. If we stop thinking WE are listening, hearing happens as before, only becomes much more acute and clear, not masked by any effort of the listener. It kind of takes the listener out of equation. And we do not feel detached from the source of sound and hearing process itself anymore. Transparency is the key. Sometimes they call it Neutrality even if it is the Love and Liveliness itself.

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7. Listening becomes a key to the Totality

Such transparent Listening not only opens the world of sensation for us – including incredibly subtle and peculiar ones, but also appears to be the key to the Totality.

Just imagine – Totality has nothing to do with intellectual constructs, such as the totality of symptoms in classical Homeopathy.

The real Totality, the One that is experienced (and nothing is experienced besides it, actually) is the most sacred Healing experience we can get. Also it is the most precious aspect the teacher can share with the student.

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8. We learn mainly through Listening

Learning to Listen from a capitol L has very little to do with knowledge. It is about fully sharing the sensations, stillness and Silence with each other.

James Jealous, D.O., the founder of biodynamics in osteopathy learnt that from his teacher Dr. Rollin Becker, D.O. who got this tradition from Dr. W.G. Sutherland.

I started learning listening from my teacher some 25 years ago. She learnt it from her teacher. And I also learned a lot from Dr. James Jealous’ students here in Lithuania, especially with Dr. Gintarė Sinkutė.

The days we were travelling and working with Gintarė in the same clinic were very special – the depth of Healing experienced with patients was amazing and Totality (The Tide as they call It in biodynamics) was present like never before. We called these working days “seminars”.

I mean listening is a living tradition that is transmitted from a teacher to a student. Or shared between colleagues. But it is shared directly, not through words. Therefore it is impossible to put it into books or videos.

I must confess: in the last 15 year period I’m in Homeopathy I haven’t experienced a single seminar that equals the depth of a normal working day with the patients in consultation room. Listening from capitol L is what makes the difference. When we Listen, we learn from the Life itself. Patients give us the amazing seminars and teachings.

Listening amazes and surprises us. I usually make and give the remedy I can’t justify rationally. I give it because the patient reacts to it in a very deep and peculiar way I haven’t experienced before! Actually, I haven’t seen anyone reacting to the same remedy in the same way…

And that’s mainly why I’m writing this text. I know this is a stupid thing to do. It does not convey the live experience. On the other hand for some 15 years I’ve been also looking for the words to express that to my patients and fellow homeopaths.

Listening is the key for Homeopathy to become truly alive. But learning listening is almost impossible without practicing together with the teacher.

9. Listening is universal

Listening in its wider sense has nothing to do with remedies. It is Listening to ourselves, to others, to the whole world that is happening as a whole in a present moment. It is Listening to a miracle of Life happening now. So even as I write this text – It’s here.

The beauty of the Present Homeopathy is in implementing Listening into everyday practice. So that all the practice – 100% of it – is Listening. We do nothing throughout the consultation, but Listen. That’s the most simple and natural practice one can imagine. It is learned in a very simple way. It may even seem too simple to comprehend:

As I was starting this website I got a message James Jealous has passed away. I can’t express how big this loss is. But I wholeheartedly invite you to get acquainted with one of the most loving and dedicated Healing Masters of our time.

Please, visit jamesjealous.com. You’ll find his book, named “An Osteopathic Odyssey” there as well as some reflections from the Master. The book is amazing. It is by far the best and deepest book on healing ever written. Do not expect a textbook though. These are just hints written in a form of a diary. But again, it’s all about practice. Entering the world of real perception we need some live guidance.

10. Totality is all we are listening for

I know, it all sounds very strange for homeopaths who still think Totality is something we prescribe for. Well, if we really prescribe for the Totality, we are already experiencing it, we experience Healing. Because Healing and Totality are synonyms. Actually, there is no need for prescription at all if we find ourselves in Totality.

Up until now the search for a Totality has been kind of intellectual in classical Homeopathy: questioning, writing down the symptoms, analysing, repertorising, differentiating, etc.

But if we come to this from a perspective of transparent perception, finding Totality is not something we do. Totality is already here. It is always here. We can’t find it. We may become open to it though.

The Healing comes at the moment we surrender and experience Totality with our patient. Every homeopath knows how it feels, but tends to attribute that to the well selected remedy. James Jealous points it out very beautifully:

Actually, when classical homeopath experiences similimum, he/she experiences THAT.

THAT also supersedes every successful treatment. All the true Masters of Healing speak the same. Hippocrates called that vis medicatrix naturae. Galen said “I bind the wound, God heals it“. Listening is the tool to experience that miracle of Healing happening.

When we get to THAT point, differences among various healing methods disappear. All the true Masters whatever methods or systems they use appear to apply the same principle, e.g., here there are no differences between homeopath and surgeon anymore

11. We Listen to the process of consultation

Totality is never static, it is experienced as a process, as Liveliness itself. Imagine the consultation is based on pure live experience. Imagine it happens in the present moment and never is targeted to the past or future.

So when the patient comes with his illness, he’s feeling himself not whole, he’s separated from the Life/ Totality. In Russian (some of my teachers were Russians) they call healing “исцеление” that means “making it whole again”. And the healer, “целитель” is the one who “makes it whole”. So healing is all about returning to the Totality.

If we live in Totality, everything is experienced as it is. Our patients appear to be a perfect expression of that Totality – each in his own way.

But when the patient enters our room, we also enter his world and we kind of lose our Totality – similarly as we lose joy when someone comes to us mourning. It happens because of Love and compassion. We consciously enter into someone’s world that is full of suffering. When we are in Peace and we know the Self, it feels like entering the bad dream.

So even if we are awake and we know it’s dream, we also feel trapped and we do not know where and why. And even if we know how to awaken in our own dream, that patient’s dream appears to be quite different. It is a different maze and different traps that we are used to.

Our job is to explore this world and find the way out. Imagine it is like the game in these escaping rooms that became a popular entertainment lately.

So we start to look for the Light, for Health, Totality – it’s all the same, you may call it as you wish. James Jealous suggests:

It would be nice if we can start at least with the hint of Totality. But usually we start with pain and problems.

But we have the remedies as our guides to Liveliness and Totality. Our usual path leads through several stages:

1. We get into that pain.
2. We experience what stands beyond it (emotions, situations, etc.)
3. We start seeing the context of all that is happening. And by experiencing that context we enter the stillness. The Mind becomes still. There are almost no sensations in the body here. Stillness is everywhere. The world stops.
4. And here we may experience the Totality or the Tide. There is nothing more beautiful than this. It is returning Home, to the Whole. It is Healing.