Thanking

I think as long as you are a human being
there is thanking, gratitude for being,
not for being human,
but for being
what you fundamentally are.
Thanking for the sake of thanking.





Jean Klein

Photo:  Peter Bowers

listening

We cannot precisely say what this listening is, because it is not a function. It is without intention. Being free from intention also means being free from concentration.  In both we are looking for a target, looking for a result, but in listening we are simply open, directionless.

In listening there is no grasping, no taking.  All that is listened to comes to us.  The relaxed brain is in a state of natural non-function, simply attentive without any specific direction.  We can never objectify listening, because that would mean to put it in the frame of space and time.  It is listening to oneself.

In listening to oneself there is no outside and no inside.  It is silence, presence.  In this silence-presence there is total absence of oneself as being somebody.

In listening we are not isolated.  We are only isolated when we live in objects, but free from objects we live our essence where there is no separation.  In listening there is not a you and not another.  Call it love.





Jean Klein
The Book of Listening
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Only Love

In the end there is only love 

and love can never die, 

can never be born, 

can never die.  

Jean Klein

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Silence

Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally, is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it

simply is.

In silence all objects have their home ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape

and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by silence.

Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond positive and negative. Silence dissolves all objects. It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind. Silence has nothing to do with mind. It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because it is our nearness. Silence is freedom without restriction or center. It is our wholeness, neither inside nor outside the body. Silence is joyful, not pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling without a feeler. Silence needs no intermediary.

Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty. It is untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates.  Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence is the absence of absence.

Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative when it comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning. Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art. Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.

The one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.





Jean Klein

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Thanking

I think as long as you are a human being 

there is thanking, gratitude for being, 

not for being human, 

but for being

what you fundamentally are.

Thanking for the sake of thanking.

Jean Klein

Transmission of the Flame 

Photo: Peter Morgan

Thanking

I think as long as you are a human being 

there is thanking, gratitude for being, 

not for being human, 

but for being

what you fundamentally are.

Thanking for the sake of thanking.

Jean Klein

Transmission of the Flame 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

What is devotion?

Jean Klein:  It is being in the total absence of oneself.  It is the deep feeling of one's homeground, one's origin where the devotee and the devoted are not two.  In the absence of oneself there is the global feeling of our dwelling place.  So devotion means to free ourself from what we are not.  When we are free from ourself, what we are shines.  Devotion means offering what we are not, offering for the love of offering, without anyone who offers anything to anyone.





Jean Klein
The Book of Listening

Devotion

Q.  What is devotion?

Jean Klein:  It is being in the total absence of oneself.  

It is the deep feeling of one's homeground,

one's origin where the devotee and devoted are not two.  

In the absence of oneself there is the global feeling of our dwelling place.   

So devotion means to free ourself from what we are not.
When we are free from ourself, what we are shines.

Devotion means offering what we are not,

offering for the love of offering,

without anyone who offers anything to anyone.

Q.  What is the place of devotion in the path of knowledge?

JK.  Devotion is the driving power to understand that the seeker is the sought.

Devotion is an energy, a forefeeling that brings us to the devoted.

It is a global feeling, not fractional like thinking.

When knowledge is not integrated in our totality,

our global sensation, it remains an intellectual representation.

So devotion integrates knowledge in being knowledge.

Jean Klein

From:  The Book of Listening

Photo:  Peter Bowers