Quotes about Attentiveness

One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected. Fifty pairs of eyes were not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought.

When the soul is understood and attended to, we can be liberated from hurry, preoccupation, unsatisfied desires, and chronic discontent.

When you listen for the words of God and follow them, you will hear more. When you do not listen or do not follow, you will hear less and less until finally you may not hear at all.

Concentration is another name for what we have called activity in reading. The good reader reads actively, with concentration.

Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening

Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.

I've heard girls like it when you listen

People only see what they are prepared to see.

A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You're better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character.

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.

One good way to listen is to listen with a sacred text: a psalm or a prayer, for instance. The Hindu spiritual writer Eknath Easwaran showed me the great value of learning a sacred text by heart and repeating it slowly in the mind, word by word, sentence by sentence. In this way, listening to the voice of love becomes not just a passive waiting, but an active attentiveness to the voice that speaks to us through the words of the Scriptures.