 Okay, so this is listening. So listening should be the way of learning about listening. Okay, so we are talking about listening. Please listen. Don't worry about words. Okay, so you listen this. Now you focus on one voice, one instrument. There are so many things being played. You can focus only on one voice of the singer or one instrument. If you want, you can close your eyes, keep the eye open, whatever. First, general listening. And second, when I requested you to listen and focus on one instrument. What's the name difference? Sir, actually when we listen generally, we listen it for the sake of entertainment. Means we don't want to respond. Please remain anchored in the experience. Don't get into the conceptual and theoretical part. Okay, fine sir. So what was the difference in the experience? You are more attentive. Final aspect, specific aspect. Okay. We are thinking what song it is and what language it is. Later on we are concentrating on the different instrument. Yeah, so there was a purpose. There's a choice. Earlier it is more like, okay, whatever is going on. And then we are more focused. And not necessarily we can focus on one instrument and then we can focus on another instrument. But at that time, we were focusing only on one instrument. And suddenly when I become conscious of one instrument, I become aware of what all other instruments are being played out. That's an interesting thing. When we are focusing on the violin, we suddenly realize, no, there is a brahangam also. There is a ghatam also. When we are listening, we are... Yes. So the first distinction about hearing and listening. And when I conduct in the class, actually I conduct in a slightly different way. The one class is totally dedicated to the listening and hearing, listening and notes taking. So when students are generally, not generally, always I reach to the class before the class, the starting time. And I play this. Students keep coming and then they find out, they search and find out a place sitting and going on what's happening, etc. And then I ask them, okay, what is the topic for today? Most of the time, they don't know what is the topic of the class. So then, but some of them in most of the classes come up, this is the class on listening. So then I said, okay, if it's a class of listening, please listen. And then they listen. And then third, so that is the time when the... The sound level, there is a silence in the class. And third time I ask them, okay, now you focus on one instrument. And then they become more focused. And there is a much more silence, a deeper silence in the class. So then I ask, okay, what was the difference? So first, they say, okay, when we were entering, we were wondering and we said, okay, this is the new sense, something is going on. We become a little more attentive. And in the third stage, we become the most attentive. So that is the first distinction I bring in the class. They said, this is difference in listening and hearing. Hearing, we all, we are simply, it's an act of perceiving sound, electromagnetic wave. We are receiving that's all. But what distinguishes hearing from listening is the choice. When I choose to listen, when I choose to hear, it qualifies as listening. So that's the first distinction. I can keep sitting in the class and keep hearing whatever is happening in the class. Or I can choose to pay attention. If that choice, the choice when connected to the act of hearing makes process called listening. That's the first thing. But there are different ways, different reasons why we suffer from suboptimal listening. This happens. So then I explain what are the suboptimal ways of listening? Why we suffer from suboptimal listening? For example, pseudo-listening. The easiest way is to look like I am listening, but I am not. You've seen in some of the classes, you enter in some and some students are like master, they start noting like that. And you ask one question and they are blank. So this is pseudo-listening, self-centered. We are listening, but this is more common in the conversations. Though I am listening, but actually I am framing my response. So one of my friends says, this is listening while loading your guns. I am listening and actually, psychologically, I am loading my guns. And the person stops for a second and I get the margin of the second, some space and I do like, I just don't stop. So this is the listening for loading your gun. Selective listening. I only listen what I listen to. Many students have this. Very clear. We suffer from the selective listening and then comes fill-in. When we don't understand the subject, we fill-in with our own story. You teach and many of you are teaching for so many years. After the exam, new subject is born. New mechanical engineering. Because students, they, I mean, and I'm also a student. We all are students. We fill-in with our own stuff in the skeleton to have a sense of completion in our mind. Sometimes we are very sensitive and particular about some of these things. Sometimes we are very particular about our identity, gender, nationality, clothing. The moment I hear a word in the whole conversation, attention and energy, that particular tour is a Bola case. So that's a, we are too sensitive about some of the ideas and when they are being touched upon, we become sensitive. We become like furious or become very, very sort of reactive. And last but not the least, and this is the disease which we catch as we grow old. Insulation. Bolo. We can do some exercise in the class. When do you, have you seen some, someone, for the insulation, I asked student, have you seen someone in spite of the great, this person doesn't move? And what is the difference between this person and the vegetable? Vegetable move only when on the frail pain. We also become like this at some point of time. It shakes up the students. It brings a questioning. It brings out a lot of questioning among the students. We are vegetable. Then there is some conversation about the dialogue. Listening. Why it is important? Because that is the bedrock of dialogue. The dialogue won't happen without listening. And dialogue is not only about exchange of information. Dialogue is about exchange of values and that's what make the whole process very risky. Because when I share my world, you and you share your world view and both of us are willing to share, actually both our world views get transformed at the risk. Great risk. I may change after listening you. So better I don't listen. So we talk about it and that is, that is about listening. You can make some exercise. Another, a good exercise on this is podcast. How many of you are aware of the podcast? Many of you must be aware of. You must have looking at these nature and science as a great journal. They are one of the journals. Articles, articles, there are some podcasts. So which convey the dealt in that journal in five minutes time. We can use these podcasts in our classroom. Run those podcasts. One benefit of running that podcast is that students get interested in some of these ideas. They get, they develop a taste of listening. See the present, our new generation, they are anyway very sort of open for audio visual medium. So better we give them that audio, that part of audio visual which will help them to become a better professional and better student and better scholar. So you can run those podcasts. You can run those tech talk in the listening skill class. For example, in one listening to this class, I run a five minute video tech, tech of one tech talk, very brief tech talk and I have prepared one, one test based on that tech talk. Six questions. Ask them how many of you have answered five or more, four or three? And then I ask one question. How many of you think that had I announced that there is going to be a test followed by this test of you would have performed better and almost 100% raise their hand. Yeah, if I knew, I would have done better. So that is the next distinction I bring about in the class. But objective attached to that listening decides the quality of listening. It is not only about listening, but we need to know what is the objective. If objective is to survive for next hour, I can keep my eyes open and survive and listen whatever come. But if objective is to win a Nobel Prize, bring about some fundamental change in healthcare industry, just for example, then the quality of my listening and the quality of my engagement with the subject and knowledge will be all together. So we, we need to, it is true to set these questions. Also, companies skill course is a wonderful opportunity to settle these, some of these questions. Why you are doing this course, what you are doing? Is it for a job? It is for bringing about positive change in the, on the planet? It is, is it about making yourself authority in the subject? What is that which is driving you if that question settled? The quality of listening, quality of notes taking, quality of learning, quality of interaction, everything will change. So, need to bring not only to the door of the subject, but door of life. We are actually sending out students to the arena of life. So these are the opportunities eventually. See there is no engineering problem or management problem or medical science problem. There are always, always life problem. For subject life problem, we need engineering and we need management, we need medicine or law or whatever. So if we can open up those possibilities, that will be like a wonderful thing.