The Act of Listening is the Soil

Just listen, because if you are capable of listening and seeing the truth of what is being said, then thought will not act. If you are in that state of listening, the fact, the truth, will act. If a seed is planted in the earth and has vitality, it will grow. In the same way, the act of listening is the soil. The act of listening is only possible when there is attention, and attention does not exist if there is interpretation, evaluation, condemnation, or judgement of that to which you are listening. If you listen completely, attentively, without any observer who is the thinker, then that very act of listening will put away what is false, and you will listen only to what is true. The act of listening is the field. In that field every kind of seed is sown, and only the seed that has vitality, energy, strength, will come up, will flourish. That’s what we are doing now. We’re actually listening, neither accepting nor disagreeing nor judging. We’re actually listening so completely that the very act of listening destroys what is false and lets the seed of truth take root. The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 146-147