Hearing and Listening
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
When musing on the difference between hearing and listening I recalled something I had heard – lol.
Bob Proctor had pointed out in his You Were Born Rich program that I was listening to that ‘we hear with our ears and listen with our emotions’.
To put this in context he uses the following diagram which was originated by Dr.Thruman Fleet back in the early 1930′s to give a clear picture to work with in the understanding of the mind.
Now, the Born Rich program uses this diagram to explain many things about the nature of ourselves and the working of the mind. It is an extensive and profound study and it is not possible to ‘bottom line’ it as it requires thinking about and working on to get the benefits it offers.
One of the major themes is that it is the paradigm in the subconscious mind which is responsible for the actions and behaviour of the body and thus determines what results we get in life.
The conscious mind thinks and takes in information through the 5 senses. This is the house of the intellect and reasoning factor. It has the ability to accept or reject any idea. The subconscious mind, which is also the emotional mind, does not have the ability to reject any idea that is passed to it repetitively by the conscious mind. This is how the paradigm is formed. Truly we become what we think about.
In the same way as there is a difference between hearing and listening the Born Rich program highlights that there is a vast difference between learning and gathering information. Read, Remember, Repeat does not necessarily mean learning. In fact it is merely using the mind as a filing cabinet. Real learning is not just the gathering of facts.
Learning is when you consciously entertain an idea, you get emotionally involved with the idea, you step out and act on the idea and you improve the results in some area of your life.
In considering the difference between hearing and listening in the same way it is almost as though hearing is a function of the conscious mind whereas listening involves the subconscious.
When looking up the subject on google I found this on a website called io9.com :
What is the difference between hearing and listening? According to auditory neuroscientist Seth S. Horowitz, the answer is attention. Hearing, he explains in a recent NY Times op-ed, is a passive action, an ever-engaged sense that is capable of not just perceiving, but triggering a reaction to, outside stimuli several times faster than our other senses — including sight. Horowitz equates hearing to an alarm system, a default setting that “operates out of line of sight and works even while you are asleep.” Listening on the other hand, is a decidedly active behavior, because listening requires focus.
This is a fascinating study when you think about it. It gives clues on how to be more successful in life for instance. It tells us that just because we have heard something doesn’t mean we know it or understand it. Knowing and understanding come come from listening, paying attention and focusing. Then, importantly, acting upon what we choose to listen to.
In writing this little article I am feeling that this investigation into the difference between hearing and listening can go on and reveal a lot of things. I’ll finish it here for now with the observation that we don’t say ‘I’m going to hear some music.’ We say, ‘I’m going to listen to some music.’ Isn’t that interesting?
We hear the words and music which is the fact of it. When we listen it is to the quality and the soul of what is behind the noises that we hear. It affects us throughout as opposed to merely gathering data.
Here’s a nice example from the Traveling Wilburys:
I don’t know about you, but I can say that I feel the song which is emotional language and has a certain satisfaction about it.
Just one thought, isn’t it interesting that in the legal system courts have ‘hearings’. They don’t have ‘listenings’. Maybe we would be better served by those instead.
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