How do you discern the truth?
Seeking spiritual guidance helps you live a more fulfilling life. How does your inner truth arrive? It varies with each individual but many experience it as a stronger, more pressing thought than the usual ones. It comes out of nowhere, like a flash, leaving peace and relaxation in its wake. Some feel a pull towards an action such as driving down a different route, being drawn to a particular book on a store’s shelf, or calling a friend out of the blue—all of which bring positive results. Sometimes the guidance comes as a stark warning against a danger.
These are clear, authentic messages, but often the guidance appears more subtly, making it more difficult to differentiate the true voice from the many other voices swirling in your head. What are the ways that help you discern the truth when the guidance is not so evident?
Listen to your bodily sensations
The best way involves paying attention to the body. Your body provides certain clues or sensations when you experience truth. It’s a matter of determining what these are. My training to be a retreat guide helped me develop clear guidance in this way. Each week, I sat opposite another trainee who would think of a color, flower, or chakra. I would take a moment of silence or imagine a blank screen before sensing the correct answer. Because I received immediate feedback, I began to notice how the true answer, compared to the false ones, created a different feeling in my body. This physical sensation varies with each individual, so there is no set description of what to expect. For me, I noticed an energy coming towards my third eye like a lightening flash. Even if I came upon the correct answer by chance, I could tell I was only guessing when this bodily sensation went missing. Now the guidance comes with no words, simply an imprinting on my psyche accompanied by a deep knowing that this is the truth.
It takes practice to learn how your body reacts when experiencing deep truth. When the phone rings, try to determine who is calling. The instant feedback enables you to sense how your body feels when the correct answer arises. Of course, expecting or desiring someone to call can easily cloud the truth because your mind interferes, thinking it must be that person when often it’s not. You can practice with anything that gives a fast response. You could sense whether a car in front of you will or will not turn at the next intersection or if an upcoming traffic light will stay green. When my sons would watch a baseball game, I’d ask them to see if they can guess ahead of time the outcome of a pitch—strike, ball, foul, or hit. The immediate feedback helped them discern how their body reacted with the correct answer.
True guidance is in alignment with your deepest desires
You need to be careful you don’t block the truth because you don’t want to hear its message. You may feel scared or inadequate to the task asked of you. Your true guidance is in alignment with your deepest desires but perhaps not compatible with your egoic ones. With practice, you’ll learn to trust the voice of authentic truth with its accompanying bodily sensation. I have painfully discovered that left to my own devices, I fail. But if I follow that true inner voice, even though it may be uncomfortable at first, life opens up.
Clearing your psychological wounds, habits, or false beliefs also helps you access your true guidance because there’s less interference. Seeing a counselor or spiritual guide aids this process because they can often recognize your psychological issues and egoic ploys more clearly. Without a guide, you can easily be fooled. You may think you have the true answer when in fact it’s a lesser one stemming from your desire to escape an unpleasant situation, look good, or avoid a difficult task. Having an outside person help you access your true voice is a wonderful way to begin. After a while, thanks to their help, the counselor or guide becomes less important because you’re now able to discern the true guidance on your own.
Using imagery to discern the truth…
Guided imagery can powerfully connect you with your authentic guidance. Situate yourself in a safe, quiet space for reflection. After taking a few deep breaths, envision a higher being, spiritual teacher or angel standing before you. After asking your question, watch for the answer to appear. It may come in words, symbols or simply an inner knowing. You could also imagine several paths, symbolizing the different ways to proceed, and observe which one your body wants to move toward. It’s best if you can make or listen to a recording, so you can totally relax and fully open to the process.
Using imagery to discern the truth can be tricky. Teresa of Avila makes a distinction between imaginal and intellectual visions. Imaginal visions involve specific imagery whereas intellectual visions are imageless. They simply create a strong imprinting on your mind accompanied by an inner knowing. Teresa claims that false positives decrease with intellectual visions, because there’s less chance for your psychological material to interfere. This underscores the important of clearing your psychological material as much as possible. There’s even less obstruction from the mind when the reaction to truth occurs as a bodily sensation.
Clear the static and sink into the truth
Spending time in silence each day also helps you clear the inner static and sink into the place where truth dwells. Lao Tzu’s saying, “Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear” succinctly conveys this directive. Sometimes, a spiritual practice such as a mantra or watching your breath sufficiently helps settle your mind to hear the truth. Gardening, walking in nature or any repetitive activity are other ways to still the mind. Often the answer comes when you’re not thinking about it. For important decisions, I recommend going on retreat. This allows the everyday busyness and mind clutter to quiet even more.
Finding your bodily reaction when truth surfaces, receiving help from a counselor or spiritual guide, employing guided imagery, and spending time each day in silence are important ways to access your inner truth. All these take work, but life becomes much more fulfilling when you can discern and follow your true guidance.