The Inner Voice

"The experiences that come to us when we live in obedience to the inner Voice are miracles of beauty and joy. Let us not be afraid to follow that Voice even if at first we are so poorly attuned to it that we do not hear it correctly. There is no need to be afraid of mistakes or even of failures. Any mistakes which may be made by a person who is obedient to the still, small Voice will be few, and he can quickly pick himself up again and soon be wholly immersed in the Spirit of God. Mistakes of the personal sense are not fatal; not one is forever. Success in God is forever, but human failure is only the illusion of a day." -- Joel Goldsmith

"The 'Divine Ear' is not an auditory nerve. It is the all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to Whom each need of man is always known and by Whom it will be supplied." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 7, Lines 23-26

Oh, what a misunderstood and abused phrase: the Inner Voice. It is a made-to-order tool for the ego, a perfect way to do what we want by 'following guidance.' We can follow our fears and say, "I heard a 'no,' so I am not doing it." Or we can indulge in fantasy and say we are following our hearts. The personal self is a maze of vested interest and self-justification. Which voice are you listening to? How can you know?

The Inner Voice is not personal. It is closer than personal. It never indulges the personal self, yet it always leads us in ways of utter fulfillment. Yes, this seems like a paradox. But if we can even for a moment release all need to define or justify or weave a story about whatever the Voice says, the transmission is clear and we can simply trust that within the big picture, even the little self is fulfilled.

One way to know which voice you are following is this: how much of your time and attention goes into the comfort and indulgence of the personal self? In other words, how much time and attention goes into taking care of the physical body (this includes your 'personal' environment, care of the home, gardens, and yard, your car, your family, your animals, your stuff), of the emotional body (intimate relationships, talking on the phone to friends, e-mails, escapist reading or watching movies, recreational eating and drinking, even playing music and other artistic endeavors, wanting to be humanly good or successful, etc.), or of the mental body (our work, our so-called spiritual reading, study, thinking, trying to figure it out, rationalizing, etc.)? All of these are feeding aspects of the illusory notion of a personal self. All of these take up pretty much 100% of the time in our dream, even those of us who are supposedly on 'spiritual' paths.

So how is it possible in this world to hear a different Voice? We are so accustomed to the strident demands of the illusory self, the contrived fears and lusts and indulgences, the fragmented and split allegiance and attention, that we mistake them for the real. In A Course in Miracles Jeshua ben Joseph tells us: "The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. He is the Call to Return with which God blessed the minds of His separated Sons. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn this. Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you. The Holy Spirit is the call to Awaken and be glad." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section II

You see, the alleged personal self is never glad. It is reactively pleased when it gets something it wants, and reactively displeased when it doesn't. But it is incapable of joy. Joy has no edges, no boundaries. It's not attached to anything. It IS. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Joy, is the Voice that is your True Self. It is not personal because YOU are not personal. Who you are has no edges, and no personal interests. Who you are is not limited to the vested interests of one tiny speck of creation. Who you are is Infinite, Limitless, Omnipresent Love.

So which voice are you following today? The illusory personal, which always weaves deeper illusion as it goes, until we don't know where we are or how we got there? Or the only real Voice, the Voice for God, which brings Peace and quiet Joy and utter certainty of Self? The choice is not hard; but as Jesus said, it takes effort and great willingness to reverse ourselves in this way. The momentum has been in the direction of illusions for so long. The Inner Voice leads us in a new direction, and is the only trustworthy guide out of the pain and forgetfulness of the personal dream.

"Our meditation is a quietness, a stillness, a state of receptivity, in which we open our consciousness to the impartation of the Spirit. Then, when the Spirit answers--when we receive the impulse that gives us that sense or awareness that God is present--the Spirit which we have touched, lives our lives." -- Joel Goldsmith