(This is Part 2 in a series. Go back to Part 1.)
The third step is about listening. Strangely enough, not listening to anything in particular really, but just listening. Listening to see what might be there, listening to the sound of the rain and the sound of children playing.
Most of all it means listening to our insides, listening to that which exists in the realm beyond thoughts. It's like standing on a highway watching all the shiny cars go past and then gradually becoming aware of a mountain that can be seen in the spaces between the passing cars.
If we pay attention for awhile, we'll become aware of something that can be called our inner guidance, for want of a better phrase. It just seems to know what to do and where to go, in the most uncanny way.
Yet it's not showy; it doesn't call attention to itself. It's patient; it has no agenda. It's not trying to get somewhere. Moreover, it is not separate from us in any way. It can't be because it is our true nature.
How to recognise our inner guidance and distinquish it from the various thoughts in our heads?
One important clue is that inner guidance does not come from concerns about safety or security. It's not against those things—or anything else—but it doesn't come from there. It's not looking for security because it already exists there; it is security itself.
Another clue is that inner guidance comes from great aliveness and possibility. It's not thinking about limitation. But it's not interested in building empires either. It just seems to consistently direct us towards greater aliveness.
It has a definite sense of "Yes!" about it, as if we just remembered a word that was on the tip of our tongue and suddenly we feel that, "yes, that's it." Even when there are great difficulties on the surface, there's a sense of deep alignment inside, as if one has suddenly by some magic wandered upon a life-giving path.
Our inner guidance isn't wordy or literary. It's always simple and brief. It can be something very everyday, as in "wash the dishes," or it can be something more sweeping, as in "begin this project now"—a project we may never have imagined until that moment.
And it has a quiet definiteness about it. It has no quality of uncertainty or debate, as in "There's 4 reasons for this but on the other hand there's 3 reasons for..." There's none of that. It's simply, "Go here; do this; call so-and-so." It's simple. It just knows.
It can be recognized, most of all, because it comes from love. Whether we call it unconditional appreciation or simple kindness or deep compassion, that's where it comes from; that's where it lives; that's what it is.
It doesn't have a message because it's not trying to say anything, but if it did the message would be: I love you. Just that. It has nothing else to say, really. All the other things it says are just a footnote to that.
I love you.
If we wanted to boil everything down to a single phrase, a single affirmation, a single mantra that would somehow encapsulate everything, I think that would be it:
I love you.
Consider for a moment that perhaps light can't exist without darkness. Consider for a moment that perhaps light and darkness are simply two faces of the same thing.
Consider: If there were nothing but light we would see it as darkness, because we would have nothing to notice it against, to contrast it with. Darkness makes light possible.
It is only because darkness exists that we can notice the light shining in the darkness. Isn't that remarkable? It is only against the darkness of the night that we can see the majestic light of the stars. Existence is a package deal.
All is needed, all is necessary. When we see that, we see that reality itself is the best judge of how it should be. How should reality be? It should be like this right now, just like this. How do we know? Because it is this way.
After awhile something becomes obvious, as if someone has been asking us for all these years, "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" and we finally say, like a simpleton: "Uh, General Grant?" It's kind of like that. Everything just becomes the way it is.
Seeing this, we might surrender. A surrender deep down, like a swan dive, into the rightness of existence, into the silence of existence, into those deep, mysterious waters where we're grateful for reality to be however it is and to go wherever it goes.
Then we might just listen in silence to the divine song, listening in silence to the flute of compassion hiding everywhere, playing everywhere. Come to the window, listen! The infinite heart is playing its melody through the bluebird as it sings in the tree.
—jim sloman, 4.2.04 for Dec 10
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