Archive for the ‘Your Inner Guide’ Category
All of us have an inner voice – a ‘still, small voice’ which can serve as a constant guide, teacher and advisor if we allow it to. This voice is commonly referred to as intuition, but in fact it is the voice of your Higher Self trying to show you how to live, work and play in the most effective, joyful way possible. If you learn to listen to this inner voice and follow its promptings, your life will change in more ways than you can currently imagine. You will move from ‘hoping’ that you are doing things right to ‘knowing’ that you are doing so.
Knowing the difference between your own thoughts and the inner voice is a skill which develops with practice. However, there are certain rules which you can apply immediately to discern the voice of your Higher Self.
• The voice of the Higher Self will never tell you to harm yourself or other people in any way – physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually.
• The voice of the Higher Self will never discourage you or put you down, but will always be uplifting, encouraging and peaceful.
• The voice of the Higher Self will sometimes encourage you to do things which you don’t want to do (such as to take more care of your physical body) but when it does so you will know without a doubt that it has your very best interests in mind.
You have not reached this point in your life without already having heard the voice of your Higher Self. There have undoubtedly been times when you have heard it loud and clear, telling you to visit someone, say something comforting to a friend, study a certain subject or avoid doing something which could be harmful or negative. Listening to the voice as a matter of course is however, a skill that develops slowly. Here are ways in which you can listen to the voice more effectively…
• Get in to habit of being quiet, not only during meditation, but at other times too. It is easy to distract ourselves with sources of noise, but it is in times of silence when the inner voice is most easily heard.
• Pay attention to your feelings. The ‘voice’ does not always use words to convey its messages, but often speaks in the form of hunches, instincts and gut feelings.
• Spend time regularly in a natural environment, whether it is sitting by the ocean, walking through woodland or exploring mountains. In these natural settings the inner voice may choose to speak to you through nature itself.
• Keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings and experiences. Journaling is a very effective way of listening to the voice within. Simply write down a question in your journal and then write down whatever answer comes to you.
• Whenever you hear the voice within, follow its guidance. It is no good listening for advice from your Higher Self if you never take that advice. You need to use what you hear if you are ever going to reach the point where your life is in total harmony with the universe.
The more you listen, and the more you heed whatever advice or guidance you are given, the easier it will be for you to rely on your inner voice. Once you have learned to rely on that voice as a matter of habit, your life will become a much more joyous, successful and peaceful adventure.
We will round off our Inner Guide series by presenting two more important guidelines:
#2 – Follow your guide’s advice
Becoming a more powerful and evolved spiritual being is only possible if you learn to follow your guide’s advice. Often what your guide suggests may challenge your existing beliefs, attitudes or habits. Your guide may tell you to quit smoking, lose some weight or get a new job. Your guide may tell you to follow a different spiritual path or to break out of a restricting pattern of beliefs. He or she may advise you to be a little nicer to your colleagues, to show more compassion towards those less fortunate than yourself, and so on.
You will only grow if you follow all of this advice. It might not be comfortable to do this, and often it will be downright challenging, but if you follow through you will grow so much that when you look back at how you used to be, you will be amazed at the progress you have made.
#3 – Record your conversations for yourself and others
You should consider keeping a spiritual journal in which you can record the conversations you have with your inner guide. This will enable you to look back in a few weeks, months or years time and see what kind of progress you have made. You will be able to reflect on how following the advice of your guide has helped to change your attitudes, your outlook and your life.
Recording your conversations has another use too. Your journal can be passed on to your children, and then to your grandchildren, and so on. Or, if children are not a part of your life-plan, your journal can be passed onto others who you care for. It might not seem likely that your journal will be valuable to others right now, but your experiences with your guide could well help another traveller meet his own guide and thus evolve his own spiritual being.
Think about it for a moment. Don’t you take great pleasure in reading about the spiritual and metaphysical experiences of other people? Don’t you enjoy learning how another person used his inner resources, universal laws and spiritual insights to improve his life? Of course you do – all seekers do. So why not put your own experiences down in writing? Why not record your own spiritual development – including your conversations with your inner guide – so that someone else can benefit at a later date?
Get a notebook and a pencil and take it with you when you go to meet with your inner guide. Make notes, record particular phrases which help you, write down anything which you think that you or anyone else will find useful to study at some point in the future. Not only will this help someone else further down the line but it will also help you to take your inner-world conversations out to the physical world and really start applying the lessons your guide teaches you.
This brings us to the close of our Inner Guide, but your relationship with your inner guide is only just beginning. Visit your inner guide often, and just watch how your attitude and your life changes. We assure you that you will be genuinely amazed.
When you meet your inner guide, you are actually coming into contact with the God-Force within you. You are meeting that aspect of yourself which is pure divinity. Therefore your guide has your best interests in mind at all times. He or she is there to help you live life to the full and to become all that you have the potential of becoming. Your guide can give you information, knowledge, insights and words of wisdom which apply specifically to your problems, your life and your situations.
To get the most out of your meetings with your inner guide, or your “conversations with God” if you will, there are a few simple guidelines which you would do well to adhere to. The first of these is:
#1 – Visit with your inner guide on a regular basis
If you had a hot-line to God, the creative force of the universe, and you had access to this force twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, how often would you use it? How often would you pick up the phone, give God a call and chat about your life? How often would you ask for help, inspiration, insight, ideas, suggestions, knowledge or wisdom?
The chances are that if you had such a hot-line you would use it regularly. You would want to make contact with the God-Force on at least a daily basis because by doing this you would be able to live life more fully and get the maximum “juice” out of your waking hours.
Well, you do have such a hot-line! Your inner guide, being a mental representation of the God-Force within you, is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days each week, and he or she will always be pleased to see you. You should therefore visit your inner guide often – at least on a daily basis. Talk about life, your family, your finances, your relationships, your career, your health, your spirituality. Talk about the wonder of creation, the higher planes of existence, the abundance of the universe, and whatever else you have on your mind.
Your inner guide, being the God-Force within you, will be with you for eternity. Your guide has been with you from the very beginning and will always continue to be with you – even after your physical body expires and your spirit progresses on to the next stage of its natural and eternal evolution. This alone is a very good reason to get to know your guide better through regular meetings and conversations!
All spiritual masters commune with their inner guides. Jesus of Nazareth called his “the Father within”. Others call the inner voice The Helper, their Higher Self, their Cosmic Consciousness, their Universal Intelligence and so on. What you call your inner guide is irrelevant. All that matters is that you listen to it!
If you have studied the law of attraction or metaphysical techniques in the past then you may already realise that the human imagination is the bridge between the world of the seen and the unseen. It is the imaginative faculty which enables us to go beyond the material plane of existence and begin to explore the worlds within us. This is why dreams, visions and visualisations – all products of the imaginative faculty – feature so prominently in the teachings of all truly knowledgeable adepts, from the Buddha and Jesus to modern-day teachers such as Deepak Chopra, Daniel Keaton, Stuart Wilde, and others like them.
The techniques presented in this series therefore utilise the imaginative facility which you already possess. It is important to realise that even if you are not able to visualise (imagine a picture in your head) you can still use your imagination in other ways. You can imagine the smell of roses as you walk through the garden of your soul. You can imagine the feel of the cool wet grass underneath your bare feet. You can imagine the sound of the waterfall in the background. Of course, if you are able to imagine visually then your inner walk will be enhanced with pictures, but this is by no means essential.
Here then, is a technique which all of you can use to come into contact with your inner guide, whether you can visualise or not. Study it thoroughly and you should be successful to at least some extent the very first time you use it.
Meeting Your Inner Guide
The first step to meeting your inner guide is to become as relaxed and comfortable as possible. Sit in a chair and close your eyes. Take several deep breaths and then deliberately relax every part of your body. Start with your feet and then work your way up slowly to the crown of your head. Make sure that you relax your facial muscles as fully as possible. If your head lolls forward a little then don’t worry – this just means that you are relaxed fully.
Now imagine that you are walking through a beautiful inner garden. Hear birds singing in the foreground and a waterfall in the background. Breath in the invigorating air, and feel it purifying you both inside and out. Feel the warm rays of the sun shine against your body. Smell the scent of your favourite flowers. Spend several minutes enjoying the tranquillity and serenity of this garden.
Sit down on the grass in the garden of your soul and invite your inner guide to come to visit with you. Ask your guide to come in a form which you will find comfortable and pleasing.
Now wait. Listen for your guide approaching. Hear your guide slowly walk towards you from the far end of the garden. Imagine that your inner guide sits down in front of you. If you can visualise then you may wish to note what your guide looks like, but this is by no means essential.
At this point you can ask your guide’s name. Wait for an answer. This will usually just pop into your consciousness. Thank your guide for accepting your invitation and say that you would like to sit and talk for a while. Hear your guide’s response to this.
Spend as long as you wish talking with your inner guide. Ask a question and then wait for an answer. Often the answer, like the name of your guide, will just pop into your consciousness. The voice of your guide may sound like your own voice, or it may sound totally different. Just accept the voice and the words it carries. Ask more questions. Talk about anything that is troubling you and ask for possible solutions. Talk about your life and ask for comments from your guide.
When you are ready to leave the garden of your soul, thank your guide for this precious time and stand up. Walk back out of the garden the way you came and then open your eyes.
This first encounter with your guide can be incredibly special, but some people may doubt its validity. You may wonder if the encounter was merely a product of your imagination. The answer to this is that it was and it wasn’t. You used your imagination to create the garden of your soul and meet with your guide, but your conversation with your guide was impromptu. Indeed, the answers your guide gave you may not have made you feel comfortable. Your guide may have told you to get yourself together, to forgive someone you hold a grudge against, or to do something which you wouldn’t ordinarily think of doing.
Hollywood is fascinated with the topic of a person reaching his full potential by tuning into his inner spiritual advisor or guide. Movies which tell the stories of people doing this are almost invariably box office blockbusters. For example, in the Star Wars trilogy of films, young Luke Skywalker’s ambition to become a Jedi Knight can only be achieved if he successfully learns to listen to and use “The Force” within him. Those movies were made decades ago, yet they are still incredibly popular. So much so that all three movies have been re-mastered and re-released so that a whole new generation can enjoy them.
The fascination with stories of “tuning in” and “making good” is universal. The idea of us being able to tap into a source of knowledge and wisdom within us is eternally appealing. Why? Because it strikes a chord. Because many of us, perhaps most of us, know instinctively that such things are more than flights of fancy. We know that they are actually well within the realms of possibility.
Most of us have experienced communication with this force of inner wisdom on at least a few occasions without even trying. The inner voice speaks to us often through hunches, ideas and sudden realisations which, when followed up, help us live life at a higher level. Real-life accounts of people who did this can sometimes be quite astonishing. Think of the mother who instinctively feels that all is not right with her child, then checks this out and finds that he was about to open a bottle of pills. Think of the international businessman who dreams that his next plane trip will end in disaster, so decides against taking it and finds that the dream was a genuine warning.
If such instinctive (one might say accidental) communication with the wisdom within us can help us so greatly, just imagine what life could be like if we deliberately came into contact with it and consciously listened to what it has to say. We would come to a place where we could receive guidance on a daily basis; where our decisions can be discussed before being made; where we can learn about life and our place here on earth not from other individuals but directly from the spiritual wisdom within us.
The goal of this Inner Guide series is to get you to such a place. Our aim here is to teach you how to contact and communicate with your inner guide – the voice of wisdom and knowledge within you.
