Hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit
David Hoffmeister
Posted by aplecompte on March 22nd, 2010
During the dictation of the Course, Jesus told Helen and Bill, “You actually have to study the notes. It’s not like osmosis. I am giving it to you, but you must study the notes.” For me it was the same. Study the Text and then do the Workbook. The Workbook has very explicit daily instructions on what to do, how to do it and how long to do it. The Course also has the Teacher’s Manual so that you can fine tune your learning and listening instrument to really hear the Holy Spirit’s voice. For those who feel the Course is their path, I just say, “Hang in there with the Text, Workbook and Manual.”
Before I was hearing the Holy Spirit clearly, I was intuiting the Holy Spirit. I was feeling intuitions and impulses and promptings that felt very wonderful. I was like I had a feather in my heart chamber and there was tickling in my heart, the very core of my being. And I went, “Wow, this is not an intellectual experience; this is spectacular. I feel so good and the tickle is guiding me.” So initially, it was follow the tickle. It got me into actually being able to hear the voice.
Learning to tell when you are hearing the Holy Spirit from when you are hearing the ego is a matter of discernment. Jesus said, “The one right use of judgment is to see how you feel.” So practice being in touch with how you feel. During your mind training, the more attentive you get to your thoughts, the more you are able to notice an upset, which is a clear indication that you are in alignment with the ego, with wrong-minded perception and thinking.
The cosmos, with objects and figures moving in and out of awareness, is all part of a trick. It may seem like there are times when you follow the voice in your mind and it seems to lead you down a dead end road or to a state of upset; but its simpler to think of it this way: You are just choosing your state of mind moment by moment, and every moment is a clean fresh opportunity to choose again. That keeps it very simple and keeps your thinking away from guilt. If you look at your life and your linear experiences and start saying, “I must have been tricked there,” you get into analyzing the past and trying to figure out the future. Those are always defenses against the present moment.
The Holy Spirit is your own voice because it always knows your best interests in every perceived situation. You are created by God, and the Holy Spirit speaks for God. There are many ways that you can hear it. It can feel like a stream of thoughts, or it can have an audible quality to it. Some people hear it as a speaking voice. But that is just a form and you are paying attention to content, not the form that it comes in. Discernment is important because the way out of faulty perception is to tune into that voice and hear it clearly and consistently. That is the purpose behind everything I do, and the purpose behind your lives, to come to that discernment.
Hearing the Voice for God - in Text, Workbook and Manual
Tags: Self
