Most of us have heard the old adages about wisdom: "Intelligence tells you it's raining outside, wisdom tells you to put on a raincoat". "Knowledge
speaks, but wisdom listens". Knowledge is easy to find - just about anything can be searched on the net these days. But wisdom is much harder to
find. There are lots of people hawking
advice (like me), but true wisdom cannot be found in the external world.
That's because
wisdom is a purely internal process. Someone may give good advice, or "words of wisdom", but many people just file that away in
the mental filing cabinet, now part of "knowledge". Wisdom is in the now, in the present.
Finding the Inner Voice of Wisdom has been the most profound, life-changing experience I have ever had. No book, no practice, no ideas have trumped
the Voice of Wisdom in terms of
real effect on my life. Many people call the Inner Voice of Wisdom their "conscience". They are very similar,
but different. Conscience is the voice of morality, whereas the Voice of Wisdom encompasses your
true feelings of morality (not those imposed
by others), and also other guidance that has nothing to do with "right" or "wrong".
Put simply, the Inner Voice of Wisdom, in my experience, is the voice of my soul, my Higher Self. It does not shout, it does not scream, yet
it
speaks with certainty. It is a quiet voice - the ramblings of my monkey mind drown it out, so I must quiet the mind in order to hear it. If you
are not listening for it, you won't hear it. If you hear it and don't identify it as the Voice of Wisdom, you will likely ignore its suggestion.
When you are determined to find it, it is there. If you have little experience with it, it can be tricky trying to decide whether it is your True
Voice, or the voice of the Monkey Mind messing with you. The Ego usually doesn't like the things your Voice of Wisdom has to say - it puts up a
fight, puts up barriers, makes you question yourself.
Once you start pulling the thread of
"Where is the source of this thought?", the whole costume of the Ego starts to unravel, and the Ego is
determined to preserve itself. This is where you learn
discernment. With time and experience, you learn to discern for yourself what is the
Voice of Wisdom and what is "me playing tricks on myself".
The Voice of Wisdom has several identifying characteristics that help in identifying it:
1. You recognize it as being for the higher good, the good of others, and the genuine good of yourself.
2. There is a sense of certainty about it that you can discern with time.
3. It often contains an idea that you haven't thought of, or haven't been thinking of.
4. When you take the suggestion, there is a feeling of oneness, completion, of making the "right" decision.
5. The false voices can usually be identified: they serve the ego, they serve the status quo, they serve the "easy way out", they serve
rationalizations.
6. Often times, the Voice of Wisdom asks things of you that are difficult.
This thread is about
finding and identifying the Voice of Wisdom. Whether or not you follow it is at your peril. Many people don't want to
hear it -
it asks difficult things of us. But I promise, it has led me down the path of truth and understanding, and my life bursts at the
seams with love, hope, and promise. I've followed up with a thread about listening to the Voice of Wisdom, entitled
Future Control
edit on 12/30/2013 by TwoTonTommy because: added link