Two of Swords — Spiritual Message of the Day

Being a “TWO” card in the suit of the mind, Swords, the Two of Swords is about things like duality, choices, decisions, compromise, and balanced thought. In the RWS version, the strangely ethereal scene on this card indicates a quiet serenity, albeit perhaps one of indecision. Also, the woman’s blindfold indicates impartiality, although it also may be interpreted as having a quiet, undistracted mind. This leads to the following quote from Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now:

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

The quietness Ram Dass is referring to is not just an admonition to stop talking for a while, although that is often good advice. He is referring to the cultivation of a quietness of mind so that we can truly listen to the Divine … or, at the very least, to the person talking to us.

I have noticed that human conversations are often more like serial monologues then true dialogs. They would benefit greatly from being a balance of speaking (which we love to do) and true thoughtful listening (which it seems we don’t like to do). While other people are talking, we are concentrating more on what we’re going to say next than on what they are saying. At a deep, soulful level, this attitude and habit both results from and contributes to our ego-illusion that we are separate from each other.

Worse yet, we treat our relationship with the Divine the same way, only more so. If we listen at all, we listen through a distorting filter created by our hopes and fears. Usually though, our “conversations” with the Divine are merely a litany of our complaints and requests. This is unfortunate because the world around us constantly whispers so much wisdom in its every detail—from the rush of a storm to the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings—if we will but watch and listen with a quiet heart and a still mind.

In the mid-1990s, Neale Donald Walsch wrote a series of books called Conversations with God in which he relates his extensive discussions with the Divine on a variety of topics. Some people find it highly unlikely that God would pick this particular man to give his wisdom to. However, I doubt that God thought that Walsch was more special than anyone else. Instead, Walsch’s specialness was simply his willingness to listen, which is something that the rest of us never really do.

One way to learn to listen to the Divine is to practice listening to the people around you. Try this: For just one day, really listen to what people say when they speak to you. Give them your full attention and think about what they’ve said before you even begin to consider your response. Not only will you begin to hear things you don’t expect, but you will find that people will like talking to you a lot more.

If you enjoy these words of spiritual advice from the cards, you will love my book, The Soul’s Journey: Finding Spiritual Messages in the Tarot.
The image on this post is a card from my RWS 2.0 Tarot deck. 

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