Inner Voice

Osho - Don’t believe in any Inner Voice. Just remain aloof, Just Watch

Question - I am always listening to Inner Voices. But one voice says one thing and another says just the opposite. What should I do?

Osho - There are many people here who go on listening to inner voices. These inner voices are just crap. These are just fragments of your mind; they have no value at all. And sometimes you may think that you are listening to some inner guide or you are listening to some master from the beyond – Master K H, or some spirit, some Tibetan spirit – and you can go on imagining these things. And you will be simply be fooling yourself.

These are all your fragments. And if you go on following them you will go crazy – because one part will pull you to the north, another part to the south. You will start falling apart. Remember, this is neurosis – you have to learn to watch all these voices. Don’t trust any. Only trust silence. Don’t trust any voice, because all voices are from the mind. And you don’t have one mind, you have many. That fallacy persists – we think we have only one mind. That is wrong.

You have many minds. In the morning, one mind is on top. By noon, another mind is on top. By the evening, a third mind – and you have many. Gurdjieff used to say that you have many selves, Mahavira has said that man is polypsychic. You are a crowd! If you go on listening to these voices and following them you will be simply destroying your whole life.

A young man was looking for work. In order to learn what he should do, he decided to meditate until he heard his inner voice. So he sat down and meditated for a very long time until he heard a voice from within. It said ’Be a carpenter.’ So the young man took a job in a woodworking shop and on the first day he broke the saw. The second day he cut his hand. And on the third day he got sawdust in his eyes and had to leave.

That night he thought ’There is a lesson to be learned here, for everything that happens to us is for the purpose of learning. Nature is speaking to me, if only I can hear. I shall meditate and it will come to me.’

And while he meditated a new voice within him said ’The lesson is that you must persevere in your tasks.’ So the next day the young man returned to the work again and ruined a fine cabinet. The following day he drilled a hole too deeply, hit a water pipe and caused a minor flood. Then he was fired. But he remained cheerful and said to himself ’All of this is for my benefit, it is to teach me some lesson for my own growth. I shall try again to listen and to understand.’

While he meditated another voice spoke from inside of him. It said ’The lesson is that you should not strive against nature. If your work is unfruitful do not work at all, for nature will always provide for you if your heart is open.’

So the young man spent the next day strolling through a pretty forest waiting for providence to supply his needs. As he passed beneath a large tree a branch suddenly broke off and fell on him, knocking him to the ground. He rubbed his bruises for a few minutes, then looked up at the clouds and addressed the sky. ’I don’t understand. I have followed the advice of all my inner promptings, yet everything is going wrong.’ But the sky made no reply and the young man sighed deeply and thought to himself ’I give up. I don’t care what the lesson is. I shall do exactly as I please and I certainly won’t listen to any more voices.’

Just then another voice inside of him said ’Aha! That is the lesson.’

You will go crazy. And you are asking me ’What should I do?’ You should not do anything according to these voices. You should wait for silence to arise. Watch them – indifferent, aloof, distant. Simply look at them, observe them, without getting identified with any voice. It will take a little time for you to create the distance, because there are voices which are very very satisfying, there are voices which are very gratifying to the ego.

A man was saying to his friends in a teahouse ’Last night I was meditating, and an angel appeared. And he said ”You have been chosen by God to be the new prophet.”’

One of the friends asked ’But why you?’

The man said ’I also asked the angel ”Why me?” He said ”Because you’re goddamned gullible.”’ Don’t believe in any voice. Just remain aloof, just watch. And watching, they will disappear – because if you don’t get identified you will not be feeding them and nourishing them. When all the voices have gone, then there is utter silence left. That silence is the voice of God.

Remember, God has no voice except silence. He never says anything. There is nothing to say; there is no verbal communication. But that silence, that utter silence, gives you clarity, gives you light, makes you capable of moving rightly. Not that it gives any directions, not that it gives you any maps, not that it supplies you any guides – nothing of the sort. It simply gives you eyes to see your path.

And then you start moving in life with eyes. Ordinarily you are moving blind. A blind man needs guides a blind man needs voices a blind man needs maps. A man who has eyes needs nothing. God comes to you as silence. God is silence. Remember it: only trust silence and nothing else – otherwise you will get trapped by the mind again and again. And to be trapped by the mind is to be in misery. To be free of the misery is to know what bliss is, is to know what benediction is.

Source - Osho Book "The Revolution"