“…I’m afraid to make a mistake.”
Sri Aurobindo said, “The spiritual journey is one of continually falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, looking sheepishly at God, and taking another step.”
You can’t be so afraid of error. I have made a public ass of myself, and what I do is the minute I fall on my face I publicly claim it because I realize that it helps other people and it encourages them to have a willingness to risk in their spiritual work.
There are so many inner voices inside each of us, and each is saying, “I’m the deepest truth. Listen to me.” Your emotional needs are saying, “I’m real. You must satisfy me.”
You’re intellectual analysis is “Well, I don’t know about that, and I’m the final decision maker.” Meanwhile, every part of your body is saying “I’m tired. You don’t think you can really do that, do you?”
Each part of us has got this hierarchical system that is calling the shots.
In the Quaker tradition, the intuitive voice is called “The still, small voice within,” because the sensing and thinking mind are always blaring, and they have something to say about everything. To hear that little voice is a very delicate tuning, and that’s part of what meditation is about, learning about and how to read tracks that resonate with that place inside.
And so you listen the best you can, and then you act from the best the deepest place that you can hear.
-Ram Dass
