"When we listen to another through the filter of our prejudices, opinions, and beliefs, we are listening only to our own thoughts; we do not truly hear the other. What we hear instead is the image of the other that we have created, and this image is in turn a reflection of our own self image.

Can you listen with your full being? Not simply to words, but to the meaning behind the words? Can you listen without judgment, without censorship or comparison? Can you listen without analysis or classification, without the filter of your ideals and conclusions? If not, then there will be no true communication.

It is insight into truth, into reality, that frees our minds. However, insight can only occur when we listen, not only to the words of others, but to the meaning behind them. When we listen with complete attention, without preconceived opinions, we perceive the reality beneath words and images. We perceive the true as the true, the false as the false, and the relationship between the true and the false.

If you listen, not just to these words, but to the birds in the aspen, to the wind as it gently rustles the leaves, to the stirring of the person next to you, and to the whisper of the brook in the distance, and then if you hear all of this as one sound, one movement, then you are listening with your full being."

from The Fabric of Self: Meditations on Vanity and Self
Love, by John McAfee