Voices

We often associate people who "hear voices" as having some kind of mental illness. To some extent, this may be true. But if that were the only criteria I would have to say that most of us would be considered mentally ill.

All sorts of theological and psychological theories have been offered to explain these almost audible words that we find jumbling around in our heads. It wouldn't be a problem to say that the words we're hearing are thoughts we create in our minds but that raises a lot of questions.

How does one explain the fact that we have competing voices in our heads pointing us in different directions? When I have a desire to help others and think of doing something kind, I often have fear present as well, with thoughts attempting to dissuade me from taking a risk and possibly being vulnerable. I'm quite sure that we all have similar experiences. Why would we create that for ourselves? If it is truly us that creates these words then it seems we are quite fractured and fragmented beings. So is the goal to have only one dominant voice that we hear? If so, how do we know which voice is the one we should listen to?

Perhaps the answer is that we aren't the creators of these voices. But if not us, then who? A more spiritual take on it would be to suggest that we're in the middle of a battle between good and evil and so we must choose sides. The good side is, of course, represented by God while the evil side is represented, in the red corner, by the Devil. I will be honest in saying that I once subscribed to this belief, or a variation on it, for quite some time, although it never made an abundance of sense to me whenever I attempted to examine it critically.

It troubled me to no end, the idea that somehow Satan - who presumably didn't have the voice of some 'Super' Satan in his head - was motivated to rebel against God of his own volition, whereas we humans are only able to choose between which side we're going to follow. But if you allow the possibility that we don't need the Devil in our heads to choose evil, that our evil thoughts and desires come from deep within us as part of who we are, are we evil people in our core? Or does it mean that that which is positive also comes from deep within? And if this is the case, we've just gotten rid of the significance of any supernatural beings and we're back where we started - deeply fractured and fragmented people.

That's not all. The thing that disturbed me the most about the idea that we need to listen to the 'good' voice of God over the 'bad' voice of the Devil is that it leaves little to no room for our OWN voice!

Nevertheless, before tossing aside this script calling for influential cosmic forces, I shall choose, instead, to recast it. Consider the above explanation but instead of 'God' being a separate divine being, 'God' becomes our essential Being - who we truly are, in our essence - and so the voice of 'God' can now be seen as the impulse of our Authentic Self to become more manifest in the world. In short, it's the voice of our beating heart that animates us.

What about the other voices we hear, the not-so-good ones? Where do they come from? They come from this process of moving from simply Being to Becoming. They represent the gracious and patient process of our growth and development - as individuals, as humanity, as the universe - in becoming tangible expressions of our intangible perfection. Having a mind that allows us to perceive our true nature was only possible by developing a mind that is able to create thoughts, seemingly on its own at times, and these 'bad' voices - though they originate from various experiences - are the product of our relative immaturity. And as our immature ideas begin to die and give way to new ideas, our lives are transformed. Sometimes this is a very slow process for us as individuals and there's no guarantee as to how far we will be when our lives come to an end. But the purpose of creation is much bigger than us as individuals and our continually expanding yet limited understandings.

In a very real sense, all voices - 'good' and 'bad' - are birthed from God/Being/Consciousness because It encompasses everything that is.

But where does that leave us?

What do we do with all the voices???