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Namah Vol. 29, Issue 4, 15th January 2022

listening Self where the individual can pursue her listening skills in such a way that the very
a self-discipline that leads one to a creative act of listening facilitates the phenomenon of
space beyond the ambit of the ego. Ordinarily empathy. Counselling becomes enriched
the ego bounds one defensively to a socially with skilful listening and gives the client
adaptable zone but a creative individuation the much-needed sense of security and
can surpass it so that the listening Self support.
grows richer in its repertoire (5). Thus the
musician can increase the listening skill by The fourth stage
cultivating the ear for pitch and timber, tonal
register, harmonies and discords. The musician There is a fourth stage of development of
hears sounds like choirs of sound which the the listening Self where one rarely ventures
untrained ear can never hear. Yet such a unless one is deeply motivated to traverse the
skill requires to be developed in a spirit of hierarchies of consciousness. For it requires
inner discipline where one imbibes the silence one to come into experiential contact with
of the spheres to tune in to the music of the the higher echelons of consciousness. Levin
spheres (6). believes there is a restructuring of the figure
ground difference where the ontological
difference between beings and the Being can
manifest within the Gestalt of an auditory
situation (7).

From the Aurobindonian perspective, this
stage actually represents an experiential contact
with supra-cognitive planes of consciousness
which requires perception by supra-rational
faculties. When Beethoven stated before his
death that “I shall hear in Heaven (8),” the
deaf seer was actually indicating that he was
This is how we can understand that the in experiential contact with the soundless
aborigine without the sophistication of the music of the spheres where there was no
musician can still ‘hear’ the cyclone before surface that could be struck to produce a
our meteorological radar detects it! The sound. In the great spiritual tradition of India,
primitive human was one with the universal this soundless music is called the anahata
consciousness and could decipher messages dhvani from where great classical musicians
from nature for he or she could listen not only receive their creative inspiration for the ragas
a
with one’s ears but with the whole body, that can evoke different feelings in different
albeit with the whole physical consciousness milieus.
that even extends to the immediate physical
milieu that holds the body. Does the fourth stage indicate a reverting
back to the primordial sonorous matrix of
This is also a stage that the counsellor must infancy? Yes and No. Yes, because one is again
consciously develop so as to improve his or in contact with that primordial state with one’s

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