‘There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
– Rumi
“Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.”
– Gandhi
“Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.”
– Shunryu Suzuki
What exactly is this inner voice? How do we listen to it? What is its ‘job’?
I believe is that it is this inner voice that connects us all. This voice is a collective wisdom. I equate it with what my heart or gut tells me – my intuition. I believe that aligning myself more with this inner voice is what brings me more freedom from being ruled by my ego (the ‘other’ voice), which are fears and other negative things that keep us small, disempowered and feeling separate. This voice is also the voice of our greatness.
“There is a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it.
Give more of your life to this listening.
As brightness is to time,
So you are to the one who talks
To the deep ear in your chest.
I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears
When that one steps near and begins to speak.”
– Rumi
Who is what Rumi calls ‘that one’ chatting to us and giving us the inside scoop?
There is a long history of a spiritual element being attributed to this phenomenon; in fact the word ‘intuition’ comes from the Latin word intueri which is roughly translated as meaning ‘to look inside’ or ‘to contemplate’. What researchers say is the main differentiation between intuition and thinking about something is exactly that – there is no weighing up and thinking about the pros and cons of something with intuition. One study (see NPR story) found that following your intuition in fact made you happier with your decision in the long run that when you weighed up the factors involved.
“Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything.
If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.”
– Henry Winkler aka ‘The Fonz”
Nobody is suggesting that there is no place for the mind – let me be clear! It is very useful for doing taxes, putting together IKEA furniture and assembling the everlasting TO DO list! But what I am talking about is two other things. First, what are the big things that get on the lifelong To Do list – what is important and the right thing for you? Second, getting to know the WHO that is in your heart.
“The mind is the instrument
By which you detect
The inner world.”
– Muktananda
”When developed sufficiently, intuition brings immediate comprehension of the truth.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.: – Carl Jung
I have experienced that when I start to follow this inner voice, it starts to reveal more to me. This is the inner relationship.
Contemplation, meditation and other practices are – in part – designed to quieten the conscious mind in order to be more open to the inner voice. Often the constant chatter we all experience is more tied to our fears, to do lists, issues we are trying to resolve in our hearts. This chatter is not the Inner voice, it is the ego. It is this that assists in purifying the mind and heart as a way to connect more deeply and often with this inner voice, this voice of the heart or the voice of God.
“What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for Self-realization.
Continue to ask yourself:
What is it that hears?”
– Bassui
The ‘clean’ heart allows us to experience this closeness to that voice of the heart, just as the quiet mind allows us to hear it. All of the various religions and spiritual schools of thought have rituals and prayers and guidelines that tell us and guide us how to go about this purification of the senses.
“What is deep listening?
Sama [Sufi worship] is a greeting from the secret ones
Inside the heart, a letter.
The branches of your intelligence
Grow new leaves in the wind of this listening”
– Rumi
These spiritual practices range from things like physical yoga, which helps our bodies be ‘pure’ (or not ‘noisy’ and distracting), to meditation or prayer, which involve conscious turning within to connect with this voice and our heart. They help align the mind with the Inner Voice so that they are not separate and so that they begin to work together. Even rituals like lighting candles (representing the flame within the heart) or singing songs (that open our hearts and still the mind and connects us to the other singers, if there are some) purify us in this way. Then there are the more active ways of purifying ourselves as well. Therapy or other self-development help us cut through all the ‘dirt’ we build up in life by letting go of fears and bad experiences and learning to have a fresh, un-jaded heart and mind. This take constant ‘spring-cleaning’!
We should have clean and pure heart.
(Psalm 66:18, 1 John 1:9)
“Develop the inner vision and the habit of listening to the inner Voice; and you are assured of unshakable Peace and infinite Joy.”
– Atharva Veda
While it takes practice and a certain quietness and ‘purity’ to tune into this inner voice, it can scream really loudly sometimes – especially if you ignore it! In fact I have noticed n myself and in others that if you ignore those gut feelings or heart’s desires (not to be mixed up with just plain of desires!) then either you get really miserable or numb. In fact it takes courage and, well guts, to live holding this voice, this illogical logic! To trust that your heart, your gut, your self knows what the heck it is doing! Any of us who have taken a leap of faith to follow our dreams know this!
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
– Steve Jobs
Another reason we strive to tune in to this heart-voice is because the quality of anything spiritual can only be understood by the heart and not by the mind. It is experiential and involves the emotions and is at its essence love. Who can understand love with the mind!? Nobody! This is why different saints have used songs, poetry and allegorical stories to communicate the experience of the heart
“Someone asked once, What is love?
Be lost in me, I said. You will know love when that happens.
Love has no calculating in it. That is why it is said to be a quality of God and not of human beings.”
– Rumi
“Still your mind in me, still yourself in me, and without a doubt you shall be united with me, Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart.”
– Bhagavad Gita
“The heart is the resting place of the mind. When you release the mind from unnecessary thoughts, very naturally it flows into the heart. This is when meditation takes place of its own accord, spontaneously.
A mind that has united with the heart is called great because it generates golden ideas. Such a mind can turn an ordinary moment into a divine occasion.”
– Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
Imagine a life where every ‘ordinary moment’ was a ‘divine occasion’! Living in this constant state of ‘divine occasion’ is what is known as self-realization, perfection or nirvana. Where we have 24/7 connection to the Inner Voice. This is living in love. Don’t be fooled! This may sound a bit fluffy but to live this way and to get there in the first place you need courage. You need strength. You need stamina and perhaps most of all you need to be fearless! To live like this you need to be surrendered to this world of the non-tangible, the non-logical at times and what we don’t understand can bring up our fears about the unknown, the uncontrollable, the unpredictable.
Luckily for us, we can take baby-steps and build our trust in this inner voice. As you follow your heart and take risks to leap into this unpredictable world. The more we do it, the more we align ourselves with our hearts he more we trust it and the easier it becomes. Also, luckily for us, this takes us toward what is known in Sanskrit as dharma, meaning both ‘right action’ and ‘that which supports. Dharma is like pro-active karma and is also known as the path of righteousness. Dharma is both the path that the Inner voice reveals to us and it is that which supports us when on this path. Basically it is magic! If you follow your heart then you are supported to keep following your heart. Bonus!
“The secret of dharma is hidden in the cave of the heart”
– Mahabharata
So this is my conclusion. If I listen to my Inner Voice, heart, gut, intuition then I will follow my dharma (while being supported by it!) and purity of body (umm.. aka going to the gym and eating good food!), mind (meditation and other things like that), then I live a life of love. For this I foster courage and while taming my senses and practicing non-attachment for the outcome (remember this is not a logical path!) then I trust in the crazy adventure that is my life!
“On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.”
– Bhagavad Gita
For me an important postscript about the relationship between ourselves and our inner voices – between which there really is no difference – is that this is a private conversation that does not need to be justified. It is for you to discover what is your own path and what is right for you. I believe that when we ignore this voice because we are scared that our heart’s desire may not be what other want us to do we cause ourselves so much hurt. It is in this light that I also strive to accept other’s life decisions as them following their hearts and that I can never really understand the mysterious relationship between another and their own inner self.
