(3) Happy is he who speaks in! the ears of the hearing. Now faith is the ear of the soul. And such the Lord intimates faith to be, when He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;" so that by believing he may comprehend what He says, as He says it. Homer, too, the oldest of the poets, using the word "hear" instead of" perceive" - the specific for the generic term - writes: "Him most they heard."

(67) Now what is it that makes the Hearing, that you can hear that which stirs and makes a Noise? Wilt thou say that it is caused by the Noise of that outward Thing which gives the Sound? No! there must also be somewhat that must receive the Sound, and qualify or mix with the Sound, and distinguish the Sound of what is played or sung; the outward cannot do that alone, the inward must receive and distinguish the Noise. Behold, here you find the Beginning of the Life, and the Tincture wherein the Life consists; for the Tincture of the Crack in the Springing up of the Life, in the Breaking-open of the dark Gate, stands in the Sounding, and has its Gate open (next the Fire-flash near the Eyes) and receives the Noise of whatsoever sounds.

(14) He called out, saying: "Whoever has ears to hear about the infinities, let him hear!"; and "I have addressed those who are awake." Still he continued and said: "Everything that came from the perishable will perish, since it came from the perishable. But whatever came from imperishableness does not perish but becomes imperishable. So, many men went astray because they had not known this difference and they died."

(1) The everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sinneth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself. Three things hinder us from hearing the everlasting Word. The first is fleshliness, the second is distraction, the third is the illusion of time.

If a man could get free of these, he would dwell in eternity, and in the spirit, and in solitude, and in the desert, and there would hear the everlasting Word. Our Lord saith, "No man can hear My word nor my teaching without renouncing himself." All that the Eternal Father teaches and reveals is His being, His nature, and His Godhead, which He manifests to us in His Son, and teaches us that we are also His Son.

(8) Namely, when we thus perceive by touch the warmth here in the body . And of it we have this audible proof: Namely, when we thus, after stopping our ears, listen to what is like the rolling of a carriage, or the bellowing of an ox, or the sound of a burning fire (within the ears). Let a man meditate on this as the (Brahman) which is seen and heard. He, who knows this, becomes conspicuous and celebrated, yea, he becomes celebrated.

(94) What of the coward then? His bravery is gone! Strive, then, from mere hearing to press on to seeing; Then ear too will acquire the properties of an eye; Your ears, now worthless as wool, will become gems; Yea, your whole body will become a mirror, It will be as an eye or a bright gem in your bosom. First the hearing of the ear enables you to form ideas, Strive, then, to increase the number of these ideas, That they may guide you, like Majnun, to the Beloved. To return; that prince played the fool,

(10) The ear (hearing) departed, and having been absent for a year, it came round and said: 'How have you been able to live without me?' They replied: 'Like deaf people, not hearing, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the tongue, thinking with the mind. Thus we lived.' Then the ear went back.

(17) Hermes: The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks and breathe with him; nay, he should have a hearing subtler than the voice of him who speaks. It is, son, in a body made of earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take its seat itself by its own self in nakedness. For neither is it possible on the one hand the earthly body should contain so much immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh, then, the soul for as it were an envelope. And soul itself, being too and thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature.

(181) Silence is this horse of wood, This Silence which causes you annoyance You say, "How strange the spiritual man is silent!" He answers, "How strange you have no ears! Though I utter cries, you hear them not; Sensual ears, however sharp, are deaf to my cries." The spiritual man, as it were, cries in his sleep, Uttering thousands of words of comfort; While the carnal man at his side hears nothing at all,

(190) For he is asleep, and deaf to the other's voice. But the perfect spiritualist who has broken his boat He is then neither silent nor speaking, but a mystery. That marvelous one is in neither of these states 'Twould be irreverent to explain his state more fully. These illustrations are weak and inappropriate, In short, the vengeance of That Jealous One (God) When the King awoke out of his trance to consciousness, When that incomparable one looked into his quiver,

(6) For neither can he who perceiveth It, perceive aught else; nor he who gazeth on It, gaze on aught else; nor hear aught else, nor stir his body any way. Staying his body's every sense and every motion he stayeth still. And shining then all round his mond, It shines through his whole soul, and draws it out of body, transforming all of him to essence. For it is possible, my son, that a man's soul should be made like to God, e'en while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the Beauty of the Good.

(48) Thus the second counsellor in the head is the ears, they stand open, and in all that soundeth the sound goes forth through them.

(7) 'He (the Self) of whom many are not even able to hear, whom many, even when they hear of him, do not comprehend; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able to teach him (the Self); wonderful is he who comprehends him, when taught by an able teacher.'

(13) 'By the words "He is," is he to be apprehended, and by (admitting) the reality of both (the invisible Brahman and the visible world, as coming from Brahman). When he has been apprehended by the words "He is," then his reality reveals itself'

(8) He is not apprehended by the eye, nor by speech, nor by the other senses, not by penance or good works. When a man's nature has become purified by the serene light of knowledge, then he sees him, meditating on him as without parts.

(5) But some doubt arises when we consider the phenomena of hearing.

Perhaps we are to understand the process thus: the air is modified by the first movement; layer by layer it is successively acted upon by the object causing the sound: it finally impinges in that modified form upon the sense, the entire progression being governed by the fact that all the air from starting point to hearing point is similarly affected.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the intervenient is modified only by the accident of its midway position, so that, failing any intervenient, whatsoever sound two bodies in clash might make would impinge without medium upon our sense?

Still air is necessary; there could be no sound in the absence of the air set vibrating in the first movement, however different be the case with the intervenient from that onwards to the perception point.

The air would thus appear to be the dominant in the production of sound: two bodies would clash without even an incipient sound, but that the air, struck in their rapid meeting and hurled outward, passes on the movement successively till it reaches the ears and the sense of hearing.

But if the determinant is the air, and the impression is simply of air-movements, what accounts for the differences among voices and other sounds? The sound of bronze against bronze is different from that of bronze against some other substance: and so on; the air and its vibration remain the one thing, yet the difference in sounds is much more than a matter of greater or less intensity.

If we decide that sound is caused by a percussion upon the air, then obviously nothing turning upon the distinctive nature of air is in question: it sounds at a moment in which it is simply a solid body, until it is sent pulsing outwards: thus air in itself is not essential to the production of sound; all is done by clashing solids as they meet and that percussion, reaching the sense, is the sound. This is shown also by the sounds formed within living beings not in air but by the friction of parts; for example, the grinding of teeth and the crunching of bones against each other in the bending of the body, cases in which the air does not intervene.

But all this may now be left over; we are brought to the same conclusion as in the case of sight; the phenomena of hearing arise similarly in a certain co-sensitiveness inherent in a living whole.

(74) And keep aloof from it even as women do." A person put this question to a philosopher, "O sage, what is true and what is false?" The sage touched his ear and said, "This is false, But the eye is true and its report is certain." The ear is false in relation to the eye, If a bat turn away its eyes from the sun, Still it is not veiled from some idea of the sun; Its very dread of the sun frames an idea of the sun, That idea of light terrifies it,

(9) So, if thou forcest me somewhat too bold, to speak, His being is conceiving of all things and making [them]. And as without its maker its is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He not unless He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth, in deep, in all of cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of everything. For there is naught in all the world that is not He. He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things that are not in Himself.

(12) 'He (the Self) cannot be reached by speech, by mind, or by the eye. How can it be apprehended except by him who says: "He is?"'