Your inner voice is your only guide - learn to listen
Osho can you say something
about the "inner voice"?
"The
first thing: the inner voice is not a voice, it is silence. It says nothing. It
shows something, but it says nothing. It makes a gesture, but it says nothing.
The inner voice is not a voice. If you still hear a voice, it is not an inner
voice. 'Inner voice' is a misnomer, it's not the right word. Only silence is
inner. All voices come from outside.
For
example: you want to steal something and the 'inner voice' says: 'You should
not steal! - That's a sin! That's not the inner voice - that's just your conditioning:
you've been taught not to steal. It's society speaking through you. It seems to
come from within, but it doesn't ...
It's just
your social conscience. Society has to create internal rules in you because the
external ones are not enough. There is the police, but that's not enough - the
police can be fooled. There are the courts, but that is not enough, because you
can be smarter than the courts. External regulation is not enough, internal
rules are needed.
So society
teaches you that stealing is bad - one is good, the other is bad. It teaches
you more and more and keeps repeating it. It penetrates your being, it becomes
part of your inner world. So when you want to steal, suddenly someone inside
says: 'No!' And you think that the inner voice or God has spoken. No, nothing
like that. It's just society speaking inside you."
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So this false inner voice drowns out the real one?
"This
inner voice must be destroyed, destroyed, completely destroyed - at least so
much so that you can't understand it even if you hear it. And they have
succeeded. If you don't fight hard against them, you can't succeed. Their
exploitation is so old, their oppression is so old, their strategies are so
cunning ... and they have infinite power. What can you as an individual do
against them?
But if you go within and listen to your heart, you will gain such strength that no power on earth can enslave you again."
How does this destruction of our inner voice come about?
"From the very beginning, every child is misinformed and bent, misguided and misled. Parents don't do this knowingly, because they too are caught in the same trap, they have been misled themselves. For example, if a child has too much energy, the family feels uncomfortable, because an overly energetic child is a revolution in the house. Nothing is safe, nothing is safe. The energetic child will destroy everything. It must be stopped. Its energy must be blocked, its life must be restricted. It must be judged, punished and only rewarded when it behaves. And what do you expect? You expect him to be like an old person and not destroy anything you consider valuable.
Little by little, the child is forced to follow you because it is helpless. It is dependent on you, its survival depends on you. In order to survive, it plays dead. Only to survive because you give it food, milk and care. How can it develop if you are so much against it? Little by little, it sells its nature to you. Whatever you say, little by little it accepts it. Your rewards and punishments are what you mislead it with.
Little by little, it trusts you more than its own inner voice because it knows that its inner voice always gets it into trouble. Its inner voice has always proven to bring punishment, so its inner voice is associated with punishment. And whenever it doesn't listen to its inner voice and simply follows you blindly, it is rewarded. Whenever it is itself, it is punished, whenever it is not itself, it is rewarded. The logic is clear.
Little by little, you distract it from its own life. Little by little, it forgets what its inner voice is. If you don't hear it for a long time, you can no longer hear it."
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I always listen to my inner voice. But one voice says one thing and another says exactly the opposite. What should I do?
"These inner voices are just nonsense. They're just fragments in your head, they have no value at all. And sometimes you might think you're listening to an inner guide or a master from beyond - Master KH, or a spirit, a Tibetan spirit - and you can go on imagining these things. And you simply fool yourself.
These are all fragments of you. And if you keep following them, you go crazy - because one part pulls you north, another pulls you south. You start to fall apart. Remember, this is a neurosis - you have to learn to pay attention to all these voices. Don't trust any of them. Trust only the silence. Don't trust any voice, because all voices come from the mind. And you don't just have one mind, you have many. This is a persistent misconception - we think we only have one mind. That is wrong.
You have many. In the morning, one mind is up. Around noon, another mind is on top. In the evening, a third mind - and you have many ... You are a crowd! If you keep listening to these voices and following them, you will destroy your whole life.
You will go crazy. And you ask me: 'What should I do?' You shouldn't follow these voices. You should wait until there is silence. Observe them - calmly, at a distance, detached. Just look at them, observe them without identifying with any of them. It will take a little while until you have created the distance, because there are voices that are very, very satisfying, there are voices that are very satisfying for the ego."
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reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Birth of the New
Is it difficult to observe these voices?
"It's not a difficult process, you just have to realize that this is not your own voice, but the voice of your father, the voice of your mother, the voice of your rabbi, and you have to say thank you: 'Great of you to follow me this far, but this far and no further, this is the end. This is where we part company.
And once you have no more strange voices inside you, only then ... because in this crowd, in this marketplace that you have become inside yourself, it is almost impossible to hear your own voice. That is the beginning of being yourself. Then much more happens, but it happens naturally, you don't have to do anything.
The only thing you need to do is to negate the voices that have been covering up your own voice. Once that happens, you start to find your own insights."
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reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Ecstasy Is Knowing That Nobody Is Holding Your
Hand
"In the beginning, of course, you will feel completely lost. That happens in meditation. Many people come to me and say: 'We have come to find a way. The opposite happens, meditation makes me feel completely lost. That is a good sign. It shows that the influence of others is waning. That's why you feel lost, because the voices of others have given you guidance and you have started to believe in them. You have believed in them for so long that they have become your guides. When you meditate, these voices are destroyed. You have escaped the trap. You become a child again and don't know where to go. Because all the guides have disappeared ...
This is a revolutionary period in the life of being. You have to go through it with courage. If you can stay in it without fear, you will soon hear your own voice that has been suppressed for so long. Soon you will learn its language, for you have forgotten that language. You only know the language you have been taught. And this language, the inner language, is not verbal. It expresses itself in feelings."
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Old Age Is Beautiful
How far can we rely on this inner voice?
"If you don't listen to anyone, if you only listen to your own voice, even if you sometimes make mistakes, even if you sometimes do something wrong - don't worry. You will make mistakes because you are so used to following others that you have lost your inner voice. You don't know what the inner voice is. There are many voices and they all come from others. Sometimes the mother speaks - do that! Sometimes the father speaks - don't do that! Sometimes someone else, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Christ, a Chuang Tzu ... drop all these voices. Listen!
Meditation is deep listening, listening to the inner voice. When you become silent, the voices coming from outside fall silent. Chuang Tzu goes home, Buddha goes home, Jesus is no longer there, your father and mother are really gone. Everyone leaves and you remain alone in your emptiness. Then your nature asserts itself - and that is a blossoming. Just as a seed sprouts and germinates, your inner voice emerges and blossoms. And then follow it: wherever it leads you, follow it. Listen to no one, that is the path to the divine."
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reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Chuang Tzu and the Turtle
Is the inner voice always there?
"When you no longer listen to anyone, when you have become completely deaf, when no voices penetrate you and you have thrown out all the voices, when you have thrown out all the garbage, you are simply empty and come to rest within yourself - then you feel your voice. It's always there. Every child is born with it, every tree is born with it, every bird lives with it - even a turtle is born with it. And you can't confuse a turtle, you can't convince it by saying: come and die, we will protect you. The turtle will say: go home, leave me alone so I can drag my tail through the mud. As soon as you can feel your voice, you no longer need rules, you have become your own rule.
And the clearer your voice is, the more your steps go in the right direction. It becomes a stronger and stronger force, every step brings you closer to your destiny and you feel more at ease, you feel a deep satisfaction that everything is right. And you can make everyone happy and be made happy by them."
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Chuang Tzu and the Turtle
This inner direction is the essence of a natural life?
"The inner voice will guide you. Your direction will be completely different from what society says - completely different. But you are religious for the first time and not just moral. You are moral in a much deeper sense. Morality is no longer a duty, it is not imposed on you. It is not a burden, it is spontaneous. You are good, naturally good. You don't steal - not because society says 'stealing is forbidden', but because you can't do it. You won't kill because it's impossible. You love life so much now that violence is impossible. It's not a moral code, it's an inner orientation.
You affirm life, you revere life. A deep reverence comes over you, and everything else arises from this reverence ...
Find your inner voice and everything else will follow."
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reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Obeying the Warrior Within
The inner dialog
In the
twenty-four hours of a day, you should be silent for one hour whenever it is
comfortable for you. The inner dialog will continue, but take no part in it.
Uninvolved
listening
The key to
the whole thing is to listen to the inner talking, just as you would listen to
two people talking, but stay detached from it. Don't get involved, just hear
what one part of the mind is telling another part. Whatever comes, let it come;
don't try to suppress it... Just be an observer of what is happening.
Wild horses
A lot of
stuff will come out that you have accumulated over the years. The mind has
never been given the freedom to throw that stuff away.
If you give
the mind the chance, it will run like a horse that has broken its reins. Let it
run! You sit and watch. Watching, just watching, that is the art of patience.
You will want to ride the horse, direct it this way or that, because that is
your old habit. You have to practice some patience to break that habit.
Wherever
your mind goes, just watch. Don't try to impose an order on it, because one
word gives way to another, and another, and a thousand more, because all things
are connected.
Say what
you think!
If it is
comfortable and possible, speak your thoughts aloud so that you can hear them
for yourself; for within the mind thoughts are subtle and you may not be fully
aware of them. Speak them out loud and be very conscious and mindful that you
remain well detached from them. Decide to say whatever comes into the mind, but
be completely unbiased and neutral.
It is
absolutely necessary to patiently empty the mind for six months, because all
your life you have done nothing but load it with thoughts. If you remain patient
and diligent, then six months is already enough; on the other hand, it may take
you six years, or six lifetimes! It all depends on you, whether you work on
this method wholeheartedly and seriously.
Slowly, slowly - very vaguely - you will begin to hear the coming silence and experience the art of listening.
Listen to your heart and accept your individuality
"Go to a church and you will find your crowd, you will find replicas of your being. Maybe the language is a little different, the ritual a little different, but the basics are the same. The basics are: man must be reduced to a civil war.
The first
day you realize this, what the priests have done to you, is a day of insight.
"And the first day you drop all this nonsense is the day of the beginning of liberation.
"Do what your nature wants to do and do what your inner qualities bring about. Listen not to the scriptures, but to your own heart. This is the only scripture I prescribe.
Listen very
carefully, very consciously and you will never be wrong. If you listen to your
own heart, you will never be divided.
"When you listen to your own heart, you move in the right direction without ever thinking about what is right and what is wrong.
So the
whole art for a new humanity will consist of the secret of listening to the
heart - consciously, attentively, mindfully.
"And by all means follow it and go where it leads you. Yes, sometimes it will bring you into danger - but remember, these dangers are necessary to make you mature. And sometimes you will stray - but remember again that these straying events are part of growth. Often you will fall. Rise again, because that's how you gather strength - by falling and rising again. This is how you become integrated.
However, do
not follow the rules imposed from outside. No imposed rule can ever be right
because rules are invented by people who want to rule you.
"Yes,
sometimes there have been great enlightened people in the world - a Buddha, a
Jesus, a Krishna, a Mohammed. They didn't give the world rules, they gave their
love. But sooner or later the disciples get together and start making codes of
conduct. Once the master is gone, once the light is gone and they are in deep
darkness, they grope for certain rules, because now the light in which they
could have seen is no longer there. Now they have to rely on rules.
"What
Jesus did was the whispering of his own heart, and what Christians continue to
do is not the whispering of their own hearts. You are imitators - and the
moment you imitate, you insult your humanity, you insult existence.
"Never be an imitator, always be original Don't become a copy. But that's exactly what happens all over the world: carbon copies and carbon copies.
Life is
really a dance when you are an original - and you are meant to be an original.
And no two men are alike, so my way of life can never become your way of life.
"Surround the mind, absorb the Master's silence, learn his grace. Drink as much as you can from his being, but do not imitate him. When you immerse yourself in his spirit, drink in his love, receive his compassion, you can listen to the whisper of your own heart. And you are the whisper. The heart speaks in a very still, small voice; it does not shout.
"Listen to the silence of the Master so that one day you can Listen to your own innermost core and then this problem will never arise: "I am doing something I should not do and I am not doing something I should do. "This problem only arises because you are dominated by external rules and are an imitator.
"What is right for a Buddha is not right for you. Look how different Krishna is from Buddha. If Krishna had followed Buddha, we would have missed one of the most beautiful men on this earth. Or if Buddha had followed Krishna, he would have been just a bad specimen. Just think of Buddha playing the flute. He would have disturbed the sleep of many people; He was not a flute player. Just think of Buddha dancing, it looks so ridiculous, just absurd.
"But
it's the same with Krishna. Sitting under a tree without a flute, without a
crown of peacock feathers, without beautiful clothes, just sitting like a
beggar under a tree with his eyes closed, nobody dancing around him, nothing of
the dance, nothing of the song, and Krishna looks so poor, so impoverished.
Or think of
Jesus walking on the lake and try it yourself, who will pull you out of the
water.
A Buddha is a Buddha, a Krishna is a Krishna, Jesus was Jesus and you are you. And you are in no way less than anyone else. Respect yourself, respect your own inner voice and follow it."
Osho online
library https://www.osho.com/osho-online-library/the-books
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