Question 186: About receiving divine guidance.

Question 186: How do we truly know if we are receiving divine guidance?

People who believe in higher spiritual powers such as God, Jesus, Krishna or other saints and gurus, often ask for guidance. How do they know if they are picking up on the right guidance?

For example, I read about a man who asked Christ to guide him, and he thought Christ was guiding him to follow Calvinist theology and that the Bible was inerrant. However, after several years he gave up on those ideas and asked for new guidance. Why didn’t he know how to discern true guidance? Why are sincere people misled?

Here is a way to evaluate the guidance we think we are receiving: Oneness in the Infinite Spirit is reality; the sense of separation from the Infinite Spirit produces the illusion of separation. So, any religion, doctrine, dogma, or belief that teaches separation from Spirit and all other life will be false.

Take Calvinism, for example. It teaches separation from the Creator and from others. It says only an “elect” will be saved. Yet, that would mean some people are or will be separated from the Creator. That is impossible, so Calvinism is a false doctrine.

The other issue was the inerrancy of the Bible. No written words can possibly be inerrant. Absolute truth cannot be conveyed through written words. Words are separate bits of information that can be misunderstood, mistranslated, and misinterpreted.

Truth can be discerned through intuition, which goes beyond words. It comes through as whole ideas and concepts of soul-realizations. True intuition taps into the unconditional love and wisdom of the Infinite Spirit.

Using this guideline of the oneness of all life and unconditional love, we can evaluate all teachings of religions and their denominations, sects, variations, and off-shoots.

Any religion that says people can be killed for their wrong beliefs about God or lack of belief in God is obviously a false religion. Yet, millions of people cling to such religions because they don’t know how to discern the truth.

Any religion that claims its followers are special and deserve a privileged place in heaven, and also says that non-believers will be consigned to hell, is also a false religion. Yet, many people cling to such ideas.  It makes no sense for a person to pray for guidance to bring someone else into the same delusion he is in.

To summarize, when looking for guidance, not only in religion but also in politics and social life, consider the whole picture and think of the golden rule of behavior: Whatever we do to others we do to ourselves. It cannot be any other way.

The main reason intuition is so important is this: It is a clear sign that you are connecting with your inner spiritual guidance system. Intuition is a direct signal from your deepest self that you are navigating from your true center. – Gay Hendricks

To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of wisdom. –Gautama Buddha