Your Own Inner Voice

By Alan Vaughan

Venture Inward, Nov/Dec, 1993

Alan Vaughan, an intuitive and a parapsychologist who teaches psychic techniques, is the author of Doorway to Higher Consciousness (from which this article is adapted) and other books.


The channeling phenomenon may seem like quite an alien thing to most people, who would never themselves dream of becoming entranced and letting some "spook" speak through them. But ask those same people if they have ever heard an inner voice give them advice, had an intuitive flash of insight, experienced a mystical union with some higher power, or had a powerful dream of inspiration, and the hands go up. It is then that they - you - are experiencing the channeling phenomenon. You are coming in contact with your higher consciousness.

In ancient Greece, Socrates referred to his channeled inner voice as daemion (akin to the Latin word "genius"). Socrates's inner voice spoke to him only to tell hi m, "No. " Once, when he started down a narrow, bending street in Athens, his inner voice said, "No." So he took another route. A few minutes later, a herd of pigs ran through the street that he had been warned about.

Subsequently, when Socrates was sentenced to death on a charge of impropriety, he was given numerous opportunities to escape. But his inner voice was quiet. And so Socrates went calmly to his death by poison, since his inner voice did not command otherwise.

Socrates taught by asking his pupils questions. Their own inner voices supplied the answers. According to this great teacher, we are all capable of channeling the wisdom of the ages because we have past lives where we learned such wisdom.

Inner voices are not restricted to the wise, the prophets, or the saints. As the voice of the higher self - the God within - inner voices are heard by all of us, if we will only listen. The Voice transcribed by Helen Schucman for A Course in Miracles hinted that it was the Christ consciousness speaking. Voices of inner inspiration and beauty may also command wisdom and give us the answers to our questions of life. Our inner voices are likewise capable of helping us discriminate in listening to channeled teachings from others.

How can we evaluate or assess the plethora of channeled material? Whether we like it or not, we are all bombarded with advice and information in our complex world. We don't have time to research every source, channeled or otherwise. We have to make our decisions based on the responses of our inner voices. If they tell us, "Yes, this will work for you," we go with it. If our inner voices are silent or tell us to keep looking, we know that it will not work for us - at least, not now.

Religious groups often tell us that they have the bottle of truth from which all should drink. The spiritual marketplace is lined with bottle after bottle, all labeled "truth." But there is no spiritual Food and Drug Administration to investigate those bottles. We are on our own. That means we have to learn to listen to our inner voices if we want to know what is good for us, what, if any, bottle of "truth" will meet our needs. Perhaps we need to mix our own special formula for our individual needs.

The way our higher selves interact with channeled teachings is not only with inner voices but also with feelings, tinglings, internal energy, or just instant knowing. Sometimes we will react to the poetic beauty of the teaching more than to its content. If our inner voices say, "Yes, this is wonderful," and our scalp tingles, and we feel stimulated and energized, then that is the signal that we have found a special "ingredient" just right for us.

As we continue in our search for the right ingredients, we may become weary. There are thousands of channelers, whether we call them mediums, inspired writers, philosophers, mystical poets, or religious prophets. There are thousands of books to read, speakers to hear. Before long, we may find that we have forgotten more than we remember. That is exactly the time to distill all we've read and heard about into our own special elixir of truth. I call this distillation process "channeling your own metaphysics."

A good way to activate your channeling consciousness for receiving loud and clear messages from your inner voice is to review a few famous metaphysical statements and teachings. Once you have started the "truth inspection" line of questioning, you can go on to channel additional statements of special meaning to yourself.

Here are a few statements to get you started. You may wish to write them on a piece of paper and then record your inner voice's response to each one. You can compare your responses to mine, but don't copy my responses since I am not trying to sell you my truth bottle.

1. Know yourself.

Response: If that's not the beginning of knowing, what is?

2. The truth shall set you free.

Response: I may have created a prison for myself with my learned, intellectual attitudes. If I listen to my true inner voice, I can free myself from accumulated rubbish I have put in my own way.

3. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.

Response: If I make God's will mine by attempting to harmonize my attitudes with my own higher self, I can participate in the coming of Heaven on Earth. Maybe, like charity, Heaven begins at home.

4. Love is the answer.

Response: I have so many questions. Why should only one answer be given for all? Perhaps love is the first answer to the first question. "What have I come into the world to learn?" If so, what is the second question? "What can I teach others?" seems to be the answer, which brings me right back to love.

5. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Response: Maybe it should be the other way around, "Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you." If I can forgive myself, I can forgive others. If I can love myself, I can love others. If I can help myself, I can help others. The original saying wants me to refrain from treating others without respect. I'll put it in reverse order: If I can respect myself, I can respect others.

6. When there is no vision, the people perish.

Response: King Solomon said that in the Book of Proverbs. His people did not perish. They must have had vision. In all our lives, we must foresee the unforeseeable, must acknowledge the higher forces, and trust to a higher truth that guides us through perilous times. Vision leads us to change even before we know that change is necessary. We now live in such a rapidly changing world that we must envision ourselves today as we will be tomorrow in order to be there when tomorrow catches up.

7. Mind is the builder.

Response: This is Edgar Cayce's most profound statement. If we build on that, we use our minds to do the building. If we create yet another concept, it too comes from the mind-realm and can be given physical reality. Our dreams, visions come through the mind and begin to build us in their shape. If we are created in the image of God, our minds can build His realm in us.

8. We are all one.

Response: What if we were not all one? What if each of us was just what we look like - individuals enclosed in different pods of skin? How would we know we were one? If we begin to feel the same impulses, a vast network of interconnected telephones, if We all begin to ring at the same time, we know that we are joined by a central signal. When we feel deeply empathic with each other, we become telepathic and sympathetic. If we feel as one and think as one, we must be part of the same central network. Just because our telephone lines are invisible does not mean that we cannot ring each other's hearts to find out who is home.

9. We create our own reality.

Response: When I look around at "our" reality, I wonder who is to blame. The reality reported in the newspapers seems pretty awful. Should I be taking the blame for the droughts and floods, for the murders and mayhem shown on the television news, for the bombs of terrorist groups, for the children abandoned and abused? Answer: Reality, again, like charity, begins at home.

10. Truth is not decided by a show of hands.

Response: Wouldn't life be easy if it were? We could guide our actions by opinion polls, ask our parents, clergymen, teachers, and bosses what they think is true, then act accordingly. We might find a tremendous consensus, but would others' truth work for us?

I feel lonely sometimes when my truth is not the truth acclaimed throughout the land. But the consensual truth keeps changing as new individual truths mass together and influence the majority. I used to believe that I ceased to exist beyond my skin and that my brain was me. Now I believe my flesh, brain, and blood are only tools for the real me to operate. More people are finding the same truth - that they are more than the sum of their physical parts. Will we create a new consensus?

Perhaps, one day, all of us will agree to a truth that enables us to participate as individuals in a joint building enterprise, to create the reality most of us find appealing. That might mean breaking away from old dogmas. If Columbus and Copernicus had the courage to believe in the truth of their personal findings and prove that the earth
was not flat, not the center of the universe, perhaps we can find the courage to believe our own personal discoveries, to set the trend for a truth based on what works. Especially, what works for us.

When we speak of "seeing the light," it means much more than understanding something. It refers to a mystical experience that achieves profound contact with higher consciousness and initiates the process of channeling the higher self (what the Bible calls "the Holy Spirit"). A 1981 Gallup poll showed that nearly one-third of Americans surveyed have had what they call a religious or mystical experience.

A 1973 poll conducted by Andrew Greeley's National Opinion Research Council revealed 35 percent of respondents reported having had a mystical experience. In psychological tests, those respondents scored highest of any group ever tested, implying a soundness of mental health. Greeley's 1987 poll showed two-thirds of those surveyed reported "psychic experiences."

Our culture tells people they must be mentally deranged if they hear voices or see lights. Yet, if the findings of these polls are accurate, it is the scientific establishment that is out of step with consensual reality. It seems that it is a normal and widespread phenomenon to undergo a mystical experience.

One of the most common oaths leading to a mystical experience is the near-death experience. The Religious Experience Research Unit, founded by Sir Alister Hardy at Oxford University in England, has been conducting a census study of mystical experiences for many years. For some people, they report, the experience instantaneously changes their lives. Many others tell of a gradual development of a sense of being joined with God or higher powers.

Here are some hints for opening the door to your higher consciousness:
1. Envision a bright celestial light;
2. Feel joy building up within yourself and raising your vibration;
3. Let your consciousness rise above your body to meet that light;
4. Merge your consciousness with the energy of that bright light;
5. Begin to channel that higher consciousness by listening to your inner voice, observing with your inner eyes;
6. Experience surges of healing energy within your body as the higher contact grows stronger and the light grows brighter.

It is relatively easy to judge channeled material from other sources, as our inner voices are quick to make pronouncements about its validity. We can inspect the lives of channelers and those who follow them and easily judge the fruits of their lives. If their lives are positive, loving, and creative, the teaching is working for them. If they are fearful of the future, unwilling to take responsibility for their lives, blame others for their difficulties, they have fallen into an ego trap. We might advise them to change the channel.

We all have the same choice: whether to follow some authority's well-meaning advice or act on the guidance of our own inner voices. We must take responsibility for our lives. It behooves us to create the very best connection we can, to the best advice we will ever get: from our own inner voices.