Listening

A close friend came up with an interesting question. What is listening? What is the encyclopedic definition? ... Time for more research... So, according to Wiki (The largest encyclopedia that exists) there is no definition. It refers to hearing. Most dictionary definitions describe listening as something percieved by sound. Therefore there "must" be sound to be able to listen? Does that mean there must be sound to be able to communicate. What about all those yoga practitioners that have to listen to whats happening inside their bodies. Does that make them all contradict the meaning of the word listen? Or does it mean that there's more meaning to the word than any dictionary cares to explain.

I believe the latter to be true. I think the word listen has been largely underestimated and misinterpreted. Evelyn Glennie is praised as being one of the best listeners in the world (google her), and she's mostly deaf. How can a deaf person be one of the best listeners in the world?? Especially if listening is surposed to mean hearing.

Let me enlighten you with a new proposal as to what the word listen really means:

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noun: listen verb: listening : A means of letting intangible information into your mind.
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(intangible basically means; something that you can't touch.)

It's as simple as that. Therefore, you don't really need to be able to hear what is going on to be able to listen to what's happening. Using that definition allows you to listen to your body with your mind or to listen to a musical with your eyes or listen to your stomach when someone is offering you junk food.

Of course listening is just the first step to master before you can enlighten yourself. And thats another thing. What is enlightenment? A lot of people may give you lengthy and often boring answers. I'm gonna write about that later. Time to go home.