Since this month's For You - By You column is about listening to the inner voice, I thought I would touch on the subject again myself.
As I've written before, one of my favorite lines from A Course In Miracles goes something like "The voice of God is as loud as our willingness to hear." The divine presence often referred to as the I Am consciousness resides in us all. When Jesus said "Rejoice, for the kingdom is at hand," it was this connection to the One that he was referring to. And it is at hand. We all have access to it.
Some of us hear it more clearly than others. There are those who seem to have that golden touch and are always in the right place at the right time. Some of them are aware that they are receiving guidance and some are not. The rest of us get flashes once in a while but most of the time, the voice of the Silence is drowned out by all the internal chatter of our minds and emotions as well as the ever-increasing volume of media and societal noise. But the Presence remains ever with us and with effort and willingness we can hear it more clearly.
What we find as we pay more attention to it is that it offers advice on all levels of our affairs. It may seem as if the voice of the Silence would only speak at momentous occasions when life-changing or even threatening events are happening. And yes, it's at these times that people often hear the voice the most clearly. But by paying attention, we find that it also speaks to the most mundane of our activities. And listening can bring small but worthwhile benefits.
When our middle child, Laura, was young she had an attachment to a blanket that she would not go to bed without. It happened that on a Saturday morning I noticed her blanket on the floor in the basement playroom. The voice suggested that I take Laura's blanket upstairs for her. Ego voice popped in with why should I take her blanket upstairs how is she going to learn to take care of her own things, etc. . . . and so the blanket remained. Fast forward to bedtime that night. There's Laura all snug in her bed with lights almost out and . . . no blanket! So there's good old dad going down two flights of stairs and stumbling around in a dark basement where the light had burned out during the day.
And all I had to do was listen.