The Inner Voice of Wisdom

The Inner Voice of Wisdom

I've learnt to trust my instincts a lot more these days. But still it doesn't mean that I will abandon cold hard reasoning when it comes to making a decision; just that I will always allow my instincts to say its piece and give it due consideration.

Why should instincts be given such prominence? Isn't instinct driven by our animal desires?

To a certain extent yes, instincts are our hardwired animal behaviour. Evolution has honed our instincts to enable us to know exactly how to behave in certain life-threatening situations. Self-preservation is always the goal of animal instincts. When such instinctive behaviour are allowed to manifest in our civilized society, it exhibits itself as selfishness, cruelty and opportunism. People who never bother to develop their souls are slaves of animal instincts and suffer great karmic consequences for their actions.

As humans evolve into higher beings, the emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimensions of the personality becomes more developed. Our education, our life's experiences, our piety and our natural maturity brings us into this higher realms of existence. When we have spent enough time living on these higher planes, "instincts" begin to form. The soul always learns through pain and pleasure and when enough experiences have been accumulated, our responses become "hardwired". On the physical plane, we call it instincts. On the higher planes of emoton, intellect and spirit, sometimes we call it "intuition". Intuition is the holistic result of our emotional, mental and spiritual experiences. Intuition is spiritual instincts.

I listen to the voice of my intuition because it always has something valuable to say to me. It is a good barometer of my higher states of being. It tells me how to react and respond to the world around me. To know whether the intuitive insights that flash through our minds are reliable, we must be able to know the "noise level" that are present inside us. Noise comes from lust, desire, selfishness--the promptings of the ego. If we know how to filter out such noise from our minds, then our intuition will be crystal clear and consequently, reliable.

It takes practice and a great deal of mindfulness to benefit from one's instincts and intuition. To know them well is to have a wise teacher beside us all the time. Intuition, when separated from ego-driven noise, is our inner voice of wisdom.