Sayings about hearing

He who has ears to hear let him hear

I believe that’s a quotation from the New testament and of course many of our sayings do come from the Bible and then from the works of Shakespeare and then from other great poets and writers.

But what what does this saying mean?

Everybody is born with hearing via their ears but this saying seems to be implying that there’s some other kind of hearing that not everybody attains.

So it doesn’t matter how wonderful a speech someone makes nor what’s an interesting conversation a friend is trying to have with you if you don’t have the right kind of hearing. And this involves a lot more than just the ears then what they’re saying is lost on you.

Because the senses don’t act independently and when you’re talking to someone it’s not just the words that you’re saying but they are reading your face and your eyes. They are reading your bodily movements.

This is where there could be problems for some of us if we are not familiar with understanding people’s faces and knowing their emotions and so on.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression

I could read him like a book

So there are different sorts of seeing and hearing probably far more than I would know about. So you may have eyes and ears that function normally but it is hard to learn how to hear and to see more deeply and more sensitively and not all of us achieve this. Because we we don’t know what we don’t know, if you see what I mean.

It reminds me of a young man proposing to a woman he loves but she remains

Deaf to his entreaties

Similarly Audi self might send us messages about the deeper needs of our self. But we may not hear these we may not notice anything.

How do we learn to hear?

It’s partly through contact with other people and through school,studying works of art and literature.

Maybe some people are more likely to notice these things.

If you’re living in a very unsafe country then you don’t have any space in your mind or how to take in more than what’s essential.

But it’s interesting there is always more to see a more to hear a more to learn if we learn how to be open to it