Inner Voice and Self Will

How does one hear his inner voice? How should he distinguish it from wishful thinking/thoughts that arise in him?
Is there a self-will at all? What role does it play since every person's fate decides the end result?

A few months back, I was asked two questions about inner voice and self will by one of the readers in my other blog. To him, I discussed few things depending upon my knowledge, conscience, faith and understanding, giving him real life examples so that things become clear. The answer (comment) was long, and thus, I planned to write it down on this blog in the form of an article, giving it a unique title. Hope you find it timeworthy.

Inner Voice & Self Will

Any thinking that arise out of desire rather than necessity is wishful thinking. Any thinking that arise due to attachment with five senses is wishful thinking. Any thinking that has a bright beginning and a sorrowful end is wishful thinking. Any thinking that simply fulfills your desire is wishful thinking. Any thinking that never satisfies your desire is wishful thinking. Any thinking that you never want to renounce is wishful thinking. For example, watching movies, having parties, etc. Watch a movie, you want to watch another, again another, and so on. You won't die or develop health issues by not watching it, but still you want to watch again and again. Eat a pizza, you want to eat it again another day (if you liked it and if you have lots of money). You can't give up pizza. You actually eat pizza for satisfying your taste, rather than for health or for living. It is actually born out of desire rather than of necessity. Food is necessity, but choosing is desire. A Yogi (or anyone who wants to walk in the path of Yoga) eats the simplest form of food (easy to digest, easy to cook, and nutritious for body, and that which doesn't involve animal torture), while we choose to flavor them with spices, or else we don't like it. We spend hours on internet while a Yogi spends hours on meditation. We try to gain information and a Yogi tries to gain awareness. Information can get outdated. A movie we watched today becomes outdated tomorrow. But the awareness we gained today becomes a guide tomorrow (and that awareness is actually the inner voice). You can see the difference here. We choose everything out of desire, while a real Yogi lives a simple life - no attraction nor aversion, and only does what he has to do as ordained by his Guru or the scriptures.

Inner voice is not a voice at all. No one is going to whisper in your ears. Inner voice is actually an awareness in everything. Being aware of what is temporary and what is permanent, being aware of what is right and what is wrong, being aware of what is truth and what is illusion, being aware of the differences between desire and necessity, being aware of material and spiritual life; this awareness is actually our inner voice. And this awareness can be cultivated either through saintly association, through a spiritual Guru, through scriptures, or through meditation. If somebody says "I act by listening to my inner voice only", then it doesn't mean he hears something inside his ear, but rather it means he acts only being established in that awareness, i.e. he acts to fulfill the necessity, whether he really desires for it or not.

For example, I want to sleep all day. But that is simply a desire. The necessity is for me to work and earn for living. I want to eat delicious food, which is simply a desire. The necessity is for me to eat nutritious food whether it is delicious or not. A materialist simply acts by wishful thinking, while a spiritualist listens to his inner voice. One may think "isn't the success that is all required?". Yes, but differences lie here. An ideal materialist, at his best, becomes a successful person, earns lots of money, build a large house, make lots of friends, travels world, and so on, and in the last leaves everything behind (no money, nor relatives, nor material success he takes with him after death). A materialist, at his worst, becomes poor, alone (or just his family), depends on others for food, and so on, and in the last leaves everything behind (i.e. he neither takes poverty with him). But an ideal spiritualist, at his best, finds right association, does lots of charity, does lots of devotion, speaks for equality, doesn't partake in animal killing (rather speak against such acts), worship God, travel spiritual destinations, help the needed and the poor, study the scriptures, speak truth (or false when necessity, rather than for pleasure), and in the last leaves every material wealth behind (but takes virtue of all the good deeds, selfless services, and devotion he has done, as a Karma for his next birth). And a spiritualist, at his worst, may become poor, may become lonely, may not get chance for performing charity and donation, may not get chance to visit temples, and in the end leaves everything behind (except the virtue he did throughout his life). Feeling confused? Where has the spiritualist, in this case, done virtue and devotion so that he takes that Karma for his next life? Isn't it?

A person cannot be considered spiritualist if he has no faith for God, no love for scriptures, no equality for every creature, no discrimination between truth and false. A spiritualist doesn't need money to make donation, doesn't need to visit temples to worship God, doesn't need bulk of scriptures to chant the holy names of God, and doesn't need to travel the world to help the needed and the poor. Speaking truth doesn't need money, chanting the name of God doesn't need education, speaking against animal cruelty doesn't need much effort (one can simply deny such act and aware others at his best level), and helping the poor and the needed doesn't need much wealth. In this age of internet and communication, one can simply speak for needed through different medias and posts. This can be done, isn't it? Again, doing everything isn't actually necessary to increase virtue. One should just follow a simple rule, "help ever, hurt never, have faith in God". Anyone can do it, even the poor. Throughout the life, a person gets many opportunities to increase virtue or sin. Cheating others is a sin, which a spiritualist denies at his best level. But for a materialist, cheating and lying is necessary. Or else, he cannot progress in this competitive world. Business cannot happen without lying and dominating others, so lots of sins are accumulated if one lives just materialistic life. Spiritualistic life doesn't need domination, cheating, arguing, and all those. Have you ever seen Sadguru lying and cheating others? Have you seen him quarreling speaking false words? And yet he has not failed in doing virtue. Even if one does sin while walking in a spiritual path, that sin will still be considered virtuous, because he does that sin not out of pleasure, sensual desires, and attraction or aversion, but for the welfare of the world and nature.

Therefore, a spiritualist accumulates lots of virtue as a Karma for next birth, whereas a materialist accumulates more sin and less virtue. Because a materialist acts based on what it bursts in his head (sometimes necessary, sometimes unnecessary, sometimes sinful), whereas a spiritualist listens to his inner voice and acts accordingly (which in most cases is virtuous). And this is the difference between wishful thought and inner voice.

[Note: I only told the difference between an ideal materialist and an ideal spiritualist. But in this world, no one is actually materialistic only or spiritualistic only. We are the mixture of both. So, we will be doing sin as well as virtue. But one thing is sure that if we are inclined towards materialism, we mostly do whatever comes in our head, without considering whether it is good or bad. For example, throwing a cover of noodles in the road right after eating food. But one who is more inclined towards spirituality, he doesn't act quick. He thinks for a while, sees around if there is dustbin available, and if he didn't find, he puts the cover in his pocket and throws wherever he finds the right place, or in the worst case, he feels little guilt and sorry (for the Nature) and throws it on the sideway where he sees lots of accumulated dusts. The difference here is, materialist doesn't care what is right and what is wrong, and also doesn't feel guilt for his wrong-doings, whereas a spiritualist sincerely asks for forgiveness to God whenever he does (or has to do) wrong.]

For the next question, yes, there is a self-will. Go and grab a pizza, and eat by your will. You will enjoy for a while. Isn't that self-will? You can decide whether to buy a pizza or not, or something else, or nothing at all. Who can get control over you? Isn't it?

But, does that change your life or your perspective of looking at things whether you eat a pizza or momo or nothing at all? Does it give you long-term results or turn your life into another direction? Of course not. God doesn't actually care whatever you eat for a day (actually God is only a spectator, we live by our own Karma, and nature acts upon that Karma). You simply live by your nature, and likes and dislikes. Only the thing that is certain is your long-term setbacks, your long-term state of life, your marriage, your nature, your birth, the sin and virtue you'll accumulate, and your time and cause for death (and few others which I might have missed). The rest is variable.

What if I slap myself right now? Can I say my life is miserable, and the planetary positions at this time is against my favor? No. It will simply be my nature to act stupidly. But my nature isn't going to examine my future or long-term success and failure. Our self-will isn't going to change our life, but our fate and Karma will surely change our life. Our future isn't in our hands even though what we do in a day is up to us. "Everything is prewritten at the time of our birth" - this is not actually written by God, but by our own Karma of past lives. And that EVERYTHING doesn't include everything like our daily routine of eating, sleeping and defecating, but the long-term success and failures. The rest depends upon our will and action.

For example, we can choose whether to go to school or not on any weekday. If we go, we study, and if we don't go, we simply copy the lessons another day from a friend. Nothing big happens whatever we do. But do we choose whether to go school or not in weekend? Of course not. If we don't go, nothing happens, but if we go, everyone teases us for being foolish. There will be some setback or regret. Same case is the fate (or badluck). Only the difference is, we know (or can know easily) when is the weekend, but we will not know when is our bad luck waiting to happen. And another difference is, weekend occurs after fixed interval of days, but goodluck/badluck can occur anytime; we are always unknown to it. But it doesn't mean it is not certain. Only God knows.

You can relate this to the story of King Ravana. His misdeeds of abducting Sita, and his death from the hand of Lord Rama, and even his birth was known to Lord Vishnu before Treta Yuga even started. Ravana's daily life routine might not be certain, but the sins he has to do, and the type of death he has to obtain was certain. King Daksha to be died was certain, that’s why the Shakti was born as his daughter to be the primary cause of his death. Hanuman to help Rama was certain (before Hanuman was even born). Kansha to die from the hands of Krishna was certain. Didn't Kansha tried to prevent his death? Didn't he prisoned Krishna's parents to kill their 8th child to surpass the prediction? Didn't he send his demon-armies to kill all the new-born babies in Vrindavan? Didn't Ravana act on his free will to obtain the protection of Devi? Didn't Suddhodhana (who knew the future of his son) tried to prevent his son (Siddhartha Gautam) from experiencing the unpleasant phenomena of nature (and life)? But fate is fate. No matter they did what, no matter they tried to prevent the prediction at all cost, their fate happened as it was predicted to happen. Of all the prediction, death is the most important one. No one can deny or prevent it. Although fate is left upon us to choose, it still is certain since a person cannot think anything beyond his fate. But a person can get less if he do not act. Fate can also balance or cancel the evil effects of Karma. Sage Markandeya was destined to die at the age of 16. But his fate made him immortal. His fate of turning towards Lord Shiva made him immortal. He had two choices, either to repent on his life, or to worship Lord Shiva, which was certain too. If he hadn't worshiped Lord Shiva, the Mahakal form of Lord Shiva would have been unknown to the Universe. To let the world know that there is some force even greater than Yama, the Lord did all the Leelas. If we were on his place, we could have choose to repent our whole life.

We only choose one out of many alternative certainties. We cannot think beyond our fate, and thus cannot act beyond our fate. Remember that repenting on our life is the result of Karma, whereas turning towards right direction, or towards knowledge, or towards God is the result of fate. Without fate, knowledge of turning towards right direction is impossible.

Fate is stronger than Karma because Karma is certain where fate is left upon us to choose. But whatever we choose, we all act upon the forces of nature.

Half of my life, I was materialistic, and now I am inclined towards spirituality. I was told (many years ago) by an astrologer (family priest) that I will give up meat at certain stage of my life, also I will turn towards spirituality and always speak on its favor. He said so when I was small and was a meat-lover, when I had no interest in worship and reading holy books, and when I didn't know much about God. So, I thought that day will come at the old age. But surprisingly, that day came much faster. It was my Karma to turn towards spirituality in this life. But it was my fate to turn at this young stage. Before, I was a meat lover, but now I am an animal lover. My life turned its way drastically. I am thankful for that too (although transition didn't happen that easily), because I have started spiritual life from this young age. But hey, don't think me a Yogi, haha. I am just utilizing atleast some of my life time in learning and doing something good and beneficial for others and myself (and other times just doing things of interest remembering God and asking for his blessings), instead of acting and living ignorantly all the time. And I think, we all can do this, i.e spend sometime on the thought of God and His principles, atleast for a while in a day. If we start from this age, it will be easier for us in the later days. Who knows, we may not live till that day to begin our spiritual life. So good things should be embraced right after we start knowing about it.

So, whether we consider self-will or fate, it's the same thing. Self-will is one of the many possibilities of our action, and that too is known by God. It's just like planning for the subject to study after school life. We can plan what to study and what to become in the future, or what happens if we choose another subject. If we, from our level, can predict what can happen in the future or what we will probably become (upto certain level), then why not God who is all-knowing, knows more than us? The only difference that exists is, our set of probabilities may or may not come true, whereas the probabilities written by our Karma (and fate) will surely come true, atleast one in each undertakings.

Just remember in short term, Karma is the reaction of past lives (which is fixed), whereas fate is the number of possibilities to grab in this life (which is up to us to choose). Whatever we do by self-will or by compulsion, that will just be one among those infinite invisible pre-written probabilities.

[Note: Remember that all these are explained from my level, who is simply a seeker. If you find a real Guru, please ask this question to him as well. You will get deeper insights. Most of the explanations here are based upon Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures (rather than my imaginable thought). If you read Bhagavad Gita, you will understand in much better way than from this article. Remember that you can't find direct answer to your direct questions, but if you read Bhagavad Gita with faith, all of your questions and doubt will surely come to an end. It contains answers to all life questions, but hidden underneath the verses. Only the devotees can extract those information.]

But for those who is full of bias heart, who spend their time on material pleasures only, and who has no faith and love for God, for them God and the scriptures are on the level of fanaticism only.

Composed On: October 20, 2020