12. The Inner Voice
The so-called “inner voice”, the spiritual part in humans to which they can listen, is intuition!
The popular saying 'first impressions is always the right one' is no coincidence. Just as there is a profound truth to all such expressions and sayings, so it is here. Impression is generally understood to be intuition. For example, what is felt by a person when they first encounter a stranger is either a kind of warning for caution to complete repulsion, or something pleasant to full sympathy, in some cases also indifference. Now, if this impression shifts entirely through the judgement of the intellect during the course of the conversation and further interaction, or is blurred to the point that the thought emerges that the original intuition was wrong, it almost always turns out in the end of such acquaintances that the initial intuition was correct. This often happens to the bitter pain of those who allow themselves to be misled by the intellect about the deceptive nature of others.
Intuition, which is not bound by space and time and is connected to its kind, the Spiritual, the Eternal, immediately recognizes the true nature in others, is not deceived by the cleverness of the intellect.
Error is completely excluded from intuition.
When it happens that people are misled, there are two reasons that cause the confusion: Either intellect or feeling!
How often do you hear people say: “In this or that matter, I once let my feelings guide me, and I fell into it. You should only rely on your intellect!” Such people make the mistake of misinterpreting feeling for the inner voice. They praise the intellect and do not suspect that it is precisely the intellect that plays a major role in feelings.
Therefore, beware! Feeling is not intuition! Feeling emanates from the gross physical body. It produces instincts which, guided by the intellect, give rise to feeling. There is a significant difference compared to intuition. The joint work of feeling and intellect, on the other hand, gives birth to imagination.
Thus, on the spiritual side, we only have intuition, which transcends space and time. On the earthly side, we only have primarily the gross physical body bound by space and time. From the body, emanate instincts which, through cooperation with the intellect, trigger feeling.
As the finest and highest form of matter, the intellect, a product of the brain bound to space and time, can again produce imagination with the cooperation of feeling. Therefore, imagination is the result of the collaboration between feeling and intellect. It is ethereal, yet lacks spiritual power. This is why imagination can only be retrospective. It can only ever influence the feelings of its own producer, never sending a power source out to others. It therefore only acts backwards on the feeling of those whose imagination it is, igniting their own enthusiasm, but never effecting the surroundings. Thus, the stamp of a lower level is evident. Intuition is different. It carries spiritual force within it, creative and invigorating, thereby having an emanating effect on others, rousing and convincing them.
So, on the one hand we have intuition, and on the other hand, we have body-instincts-intellect-feeling-imagination.
Intuition is purely spiritual, existing beyond space and time. Feeling is fine coarse matter, dependent on instinct and the intellect, thus on a lower level.
Despite the fine-coarseness of feeling, however, a mixture with the spiritual intuition can never occur, nor can there be any clouding of intuition. The intuition will always remain pure and clear because it is spiritual. It will also always be clearly felt or ‘heard’ by humans when ... it is really the intuition that speaks! However, the majority of people have closed themselves off from this intuition, placing feeling in front of it like a dense covering, a wall, and then mistakenly regard this feeling as their inner voice, whereby they experience many disappointments and then rely all the more solely on the intellect, not suspecting that they might be deceived precisely through the cooperation of the intellect. Because of this, they hastily reject anything spiritual, which has absolutely nothing to do with their experiences, and attach themselves even more tightly to the inferior.
As in many other cases, the fundamental problem here is the voluntary submission of these people to an intellect that is bound to space and time!
Anyone who completely submits to their intellect also submits entirely to its limitations, and as a product of the gross material brain, it is firmly bound to space and time. Thus, they chain themselves entirely to the gross material.
Everything that humans do is done voluntarily. They are not chained in any way, but chain themselves! They allow themselves to be governed by the intellect (for if he did not want it, it could never happen), which, by its own nature, also binds them to space and time, no longer allowing them to recognize or understand what is spaceless and timeless. Subsequently, a shell, a boundary, overlays the spaceless and timeless intuition because of restricted comprehension, and people are either no longer able to hear anything, as their “pure, inner voice” has faded, or they are only able to “hear” the feeling connected with the intellect instead of the intuition.
It creates a false notion to say: feeling suppresses pure intuition; for nothing is stronger than intuition, it is the highest human power, and can never be suppressed or only impaired by anything else. It is more accurate to say: One makes oneself incapable of recognizing intuition.
Humans themselves are always the cause of failure, never the strength or weakness of individual gifts; for it is precisely this basic gift, the actual power, the strongest of all in humans, which carries all life within itself and is immortal, is given to each individual equally! Therefore, no one has anything over the other. All differences are merely in the way they are used!
Moreover, this fundamental gift, the immortal spark, can never be tarnished or soiled! It remains pure even in the worst mud. You only have to burst the shell that you have imposed on yourselves through the voluntary limitation of the faculty of understanding. Then, abruptly, it will blaze forth, pure and clear as it was in the beginning, unfurling fresh and strong, and connect with the Light, the Spiritual! Rejoice in this untouchable treasure within you! Regardless of whether you are valued by those around you or not! Any dirt that has accumulated around this spiritual spark like a dam can be thrown off by honest goodwill. Once you have done the work and uncovered the treasure again, you are as just as valuable as anyone who never buried it!
But woe betide those who continually close themselves off from the will to do good out of convenience! At the Hour of Judgement, this treasure will be taken from them, and they will cease to exist.
Therefore, wake up, you who shut yourselves off, you who cover your intuition with the blanket of intellect, resulting in a limitation of the faculty of understanding! Take heed and listen to the calls that come to you! Whether it is tremendous pain, a strong mental shock, great suffering, or intense, pure joy that is able to burst the darkening veil of lower feeling, do not let any of these things pass you by uselessly. They are aids that show you the way! Rather than waiting for such things, set to work earnestly for all that is good and spiritual ascent. Through this, the separating layer will soon become thinner and lighter, until at last, it finally flutters away, allowing the still pure, unblemished spark to burst into a blazing flame. However, this first step can and must only come from individuals themselves; otherwise, they cannot be helped.
You must make a clear distinction between wish and will. Nothing is accomplished through wishing; it leads to no progress. It must be the act of willing, for that is what also brings about action, which already carries the deed within itself. With earnest willing, the deed has already begun.
Even if many people have to take many side paths because they have only been bound by their intellect up to now, they should not shy away from it. They will gain too! For them, it is a matter of clarifying their intellect, slowly peeling away and resolving all that inhibits them in their individual experience of all the side paths.
Therefore, go forward undaunted! With earnest volition, every path leads to its goal!
