How Do You Connect To Your Inner Voice

[sparklekaz]

One of my favourite small poems is called 'The Voice'.

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you--just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.”

Shel Silverstein

My question is - Do you listen to the voice that speaks inside you? Is there a special way in in which you access this; Or is your connection to this voice, inner wisdom, higher self, call it what you will, so strong that you don't have to work at it? Can you tell me of any instances when you've listened to this voice and acted upon it. Or situations when you've ignored it and ended up regretting it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and stories.

Love and light
Kaz

[donq]

Hi Karen,
I think I used to tell this story before but would like to share it again in case there are someone who haven't read it. And I hope I will tell it better this time.
When I was living in the forest temple (around 30 years ago), everyday I had to patrol around our forest temple as much as I could (which still was so many miles) to prevent a wildfire (not wifi because there was no phone or electricity there yet. lol). It was an uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation. The villagers who lived in the forest around there had to burn their old plantation (mostly Cassava) to grow the new ones and sometimes could not control the fire.
That time, there were only my friends (1 layman and 3-4 monks) and I living in our temple and had to do this job or our temple and our forest might not be survived. Even so, we still lost hundred acres every year. Our temple was on the mountain. There was only one pond there and no way we could use the water from it to help putting out the fire. The only equipments we had were long knives and hoes. Here was what we did to stop the fire. Whenever we saw any fire from a long distance, we started to (I don't know if I will use the right words here) separate the forest? I mean we tried to cut the trees as much as we could so that the fire could not burn into the way we didn't want. And the next thing was trying to put it out by cutting the long branch with many fresh leaves. Then, we used that branch to swat on the flame as much as we could and tried to changed its way. Yes, we had to change our branched as many times as possible after they were burnt. Sure, we had to wait until the fire was weaker and could do that only after we separate the forest.
To make to long short, once after I was trying to swat the flame, I realized I went too far into the fire and the wind suddenly was changing and the fire was going to surround me. I knew immediately that I was no way out. If I was very very lucky, I might be survive but no way my whole skin would. At that very moment, I heard a sound. It was the sound of the young deer that living in our forest temple. I knew that as I used to saw him once or twice. But he was so careful not letting anyone saw him, for his own survival. When I looked back, I still wonder that how did I knew it was his voice? I never heard any deer crying before in my life!
Anyway, back to my story. The voice of our deer came out from the dense grasses that was higher than my height. And I used to see and knew that these dense grasses took up very long space. If I made a wrong move, I would be well roasted in those grassed for sure. But no time for me to think twice. I put down my knife on the ground so that I could move faster and rushed into those grasses and moved forward as fast as I could. It took me more than 30 minutes before I went through it while the fire was running after me so fast. At the back of my shirt and my hair were burnt a bit but finally I still survived.
After the fire was extinguished a few hours later, I went back to the same spot. I found every trees around there were well burnt. And it took me many minutes before I could find my knife under the deep ashes. Its handle was gone, became ashes, too.
This was the true story. I didn't add anything more than the truth. And the truth might even be worse than this. It's just that English is not my first language so this is the best I could tell.   
So, I agree that my connection to this voice, whether it was really the deer's voice or just my inner wisdom, higher self etc. really saved my life.
It's 2 a.m. here and I have to say goodnight.
P.S. It was sad that my dear deer didn't survive that time. He did survive the fire and not the human. I knew later that some villagers saw him fleeing from the fire and killed him at the spot. They were very poor villagers and ate anything they could eat, even snakes! As I already told in some of my old posts that their children even had to eat some grilled gecko as their lunch.  
 
       

[mojomojo]

One of the reasons, I joined a spiritual forum, was to hear other people's spiritual experiences, I think I can say, that I have always been quite open with mine.
My intention in doing that, was to perhaps be of some comfort to others who may have had experiences, and may have felt isolated or alone because of that, and so it remains.
Whether you chose to believe or not, is completely up to you.

As far back as I can remember, I have always had an inner voice, for a long time it was as clear as talking to a person standing next to you, this then seemed to fade and was replaced with visuals, you will instantly recognise visuals as they tend to come in very vivid flashes or images, the voice still comes in from time to time.
Although not an inner voice, I sometimes get this horrible feeling, a feeling that makes you, just want to get out of there, when a close death is about to happen, I had completely forgotten about this until about a year ago.
The latest visual was of my wife in a supermarket, I saw her fall, and a crowd of people rushing to help her, she standing back up and saying she was ok.
I thought nothing more of it, until she returned home, and noticed she was walking funny, when asked what was wrong, she said nothing, she has a very stubborn streak.
It was only much later on that night, that she admitted she had fallen in the supermarket.

Voices internal, the latest one is quite tame really, I was on my daily walk to the park, my inner voice said, "you will be attacked", to which I instantly replied, "oh no I won't", thinking by denying it would somehow diffuse it. Went around the park and started the journey home, part of that journey takes you along a narrow path, where there happens to be an atm.
There was two men by the atm, as I walked past, one swung around, and in his drunken slur, barked, "what the hell are you looking at" and started moving towards me.
Fortunately his partner in crime was of a more amicable disposition and pulled him back, you can only laugh, told you it was tame.

Voices external, I wanted to include this as it was the first time I have ever heard a voice directly in my ear.
For those that do not know, my wife suffers from chronic pain, she spends a lot of nights awake in pain
This night in particular, I was fast asleep, and was awoken by a woman's voice directly in my ear, saying my name.
I lifted my head, looked across the room and saw my wife half stooped in pain by the dresser.
We know who the voice belongs to, as the connection between this person and my wife is unbelievable.

I will leave it at that, as I have said, take from it what you like.



Mojo.

[Vinay]

Hello Karen wonderful question.

We know that inner voice is in there. Thats why we call it "inner" voice right?
It can't be defined by Biology or type of Science.
So why can't we access it?
Imagine a pond (representing mind) on bright full moon day, the image of moon gets reflected on the surface of pond (our inner voice) but it is very blurry. Why is it blurry because of our thoughts . Our thoughts are like ripples in this pond of mind.

So to stop these ripples or thoughts you have to calm your mind by meditation (or any other technique you might know ).
Once the thoughts are gone , the surface of the pond becomes free from ripples and we see that vibrant image of moon or our inner voice.
Don't keep saying "Go away thoughts! Go away thoughts!" just realize that they are there and move on.
If you keep saying "Go away cloud! Go away cloud!" is the cloud going to move? no. Just wait after sometime the clouds or thoughts will move automatically!
(no i have not experienced this yet! I got this knowledge from book of Swami Abhedananda (companion of Swami Vivekananda) )
I hope this helps !