Spiritual Practice: Relative Listening — Absolute Truth

This is a great spiritual practice to use to strengthen your ability to recognize the difference between Relative and Absolute realms, and appreciate your ability to change the Relative realm through your power of choice! The key to this practice is listening to what is going on around you.

The Process:

• Begin to pay attention to what you are hearing around you. It could be what other people are saying when you are involved in a conversation with them; it could be what a newscaster is saying as you listen to a broadcast; it could be the dialog of a movie or TV show you are watching. The key is to begin focusing on exactly what you are hearing.
• Select out a key sentence or two and ask yourself: Is this statement relative or Absolute? (Reminder: Relative statements reflect things that can be changed, while the Absolute is unchangeable.)
• You will notice that 99% of the time, the statements you hear are relative. If this is the case with the sentences you selected, become aware of how other people react to the statement. Do they support it or refute it — and is their language relative or absolute? Notice how quickly people can become absorbed in believing something as if it were Absolute.
• Play with a few of the sentences and see how you could choose to restate or respond to them, using your power of choice to ground the issue in an Absolute Truth. As you restate or respond to the statements from an Absolute perspective, pay attention to the shift in how you feel in terms of power, strength, and confidence.

Here’s an Example:

Suppose someone said: “The economy is in a nosedive and things are really tough!”

This is definitely a relative statement. You might choose instead to say, “I have dominion over the world of appearance! There is abundant supply available, and I claim Divine Ideas to manifest prosperity in my life.”