To discern the insights of consciousness amid all the input the human mind receives, both from the external world and from its often incessant internal voices, can be tricky until we become seasoned in knowing the difference.

Sometimes the voices within us are so persuasive, they fool us. This is especially the case when the issue in question involves something we really want—something to which we are strongly attached.

An example is romantic love. You’ve of course heard the saying that “love is blind.” Well, it’s often also deaf in terms of the voice of consciousness!

We can believe so fervently that we have found the “love of our life,” or what many of us think of as our “soulmate,” and rush headlong down a path that leads to great heartache because we have been drawn by either our ego or the need to feed what Eckhart Tolle calls our “pain-body.”

For instance, a man of fifty, happily married over twenty years and with two daughters, suddenly found himself drawn to a woman who was part of a social group that gathered to hear folk music each Sunday evening at a cozy European venue.

This husband wasn’t looking for a romantic interest, being perfectly satisfied with his first and only wife. Yet when he started talking to this particular woman on those evenings out, he suddenly felt a powerful attraction that overwhelmed his defenses. It came out of the blue.

It wasn’t that the woman was particularly beautiful; on the contrary, she was in many ways quite plain. Neither was she what one would think of as “sexy.” Indeed, nothing about her put out vibes that were flirtatious. Nevertheless, a voice within this man boomed, “She's the one for you!”

It’s at this point that countless people shipwreck their current relationship—we've seen in a lot lately with some rather famous people in politics and show business. Compelled by what they think of as their inner voice, they become convinced that this person is “the one for me.” Consequently, they leave their marriage, unite with their new love—and look back sometime later with deep regret as they yet again appear in divorce court, having lost the original mate to whom they truly were suited.

In this particular man’s case, there was a very different outcome. Being a person with some experience of discerning the voice of consciousness, he didn’t jump to the conclusion that he was meant to be with this woman who had so riveted his attention. Instead, he recognized that she had been brought into his life in order to bring some unfulfilled aspect of him to the surface so that he could attend to it.

What do you do when a powerful attraction suddenly hits you like this, knocking you off your feet? Well, what this man did was sit with it. Neither acting on it nor trying to deny what he was feeling, he allowed himself to just be with the situation and all that it evoked in him.

He also shared what he was experiencing with his wife, who was astute enough and centered enough not to become enraged and go beserk, or even to become jealous, but to join him in sitting with the feelings he was going through.

Sitting in stillness, allowing all of his feelings to have full expression and yet not acting on any of them, the man began to understand what was happening to him. He realized that the impassioned voice within him wasn’t that of his true self (which never speaks with such desperation, neediness, or urgency), but an aspect of him that simply hadn’t matured yet—an area of his life in which he hadn't yet shifted from unconscious to conscious.

In our essential being, all of us are whole. There’s no neediness, no emptiness, no searching for fulfillment. Our center is absolutely fulfilled, rapturously perfect, joyously complete.

But in terms of our everyday experience, what’s true of us in our center isn’t necessarily manifest in practice at first. On the contrary, it’s an evolving reality. It becomes true of us as we enter into the journey of manifesting our essence, which is an ongoing process.

In other words, our true being—our essence—exists at the level of a potential we have, until we become attuned to it and develop it.

Fleshing this out is a lifelong journey, during which divine consciousness gradually becomes incarnate in our everyday reality. God, in whose being we participate, at last becomes enfleshed as us.

As we grew up, some aspects of who we really are developed successfully. Other parts of us were stunted by parental, societal, and other influences that either overtly or inadvertently wanted us to be different from who we truly are.

The result is that we are rather like an outstretched hand with the fingers parted. The fingers represent the developed parts of us, and the V-shaped gap between them represent the parts that didn’t develop.

When we bump into someone who has developed in those aspects of ourselves that failed to develop, they feel like an instant “fit.” This triggers the powerfully overwhelming feeling we call “falling in love.”

The voices that lead us down the garden path aren't in any way our enemy. On the contrary, their intent is to serve us in our journey into consciousness. Situations that plunge us into emotional turmoil as we follow such voices have the potential to awaken us to an aspect of ourselves in which we are still asleep. They alert us to where our inner being hasn't yet filled out some area of our life. It's a painful way to learn, but it's all part of the journey.

The key is to listen to the voices we hear in our head but not act on them. When we sit with them instead of acting them out, we experience our true knowing, which shows us the purpose of what we are going through. Sitting with all that is churning inside us, but refusing to jump when a voice says "jump," opens the way for the fullness at our center to spread into this area of our life and thereby transforms our everyday experience.

Our true voice is always the calmness beneath the stormy surface chop of our emotions. It's the deep current of stillness, untouched by all of these surface dramas. It's a knowing that's characterized by a palpable silence—"the sound of sheer silence."

Opportunity for Reflection and Sharing

A.  Can you think of a time when a powerful voice within you caught your attention and led you astray for a time in some facet of your life? How did you start to wake up to the fact you were being led by the voice of the ego or pain-body instead of your inner knower?

B.  Have you had an experience, whether in relationships, at work, or sinome other aspect of your life, in which you were able to discern the difference between the voices in your head and your inner knower, thereby avoiding a painful lesson?

C.  Today, as a result of your experiences, how do you approach a situation in which you aren't sure which direction to take?

Section 2, Part 5 Will Be Posted on Monday, June 21