8 Steps to Higher Guidance

Whenever you need special guidance but find none forthcoming, try following these suggestions:

1. Ask for guidance while focusing at the Spiritual Eye (the point between the eyebrows).
2. Wait for a response in the heart center. Be completely impartial. Don’t intrude your personal desires into this process. Pray, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”
3. If no guidance comes, think of several alternative solutions. See if one of them receives special endorsement in the heart.
4. Guidance often comes only after an idea has been made concrete by setting it in motion. If, therefore, you receive no answer in meditation, act in whatever way seems reasonable to you, but continue to listen for guidance in the heart.
5. At a certain point, if your direction is right, you will feel the endorsement you’ve been seeking. But if your direction is wrong, suddenly you will know it is wrong. In that case, try something else, until the endorsement comes.
6. To refuse to act until you receive inner guidance is good only if you can keep your level of energy and expectation high. For it is high energy and high expectation that attract guidance. If you must act because you have no other way of maintaining that level of energy, then go ahead and act. Often, it is better to act, even in error, than not to act at all.
7. Even if you feel inner guidance, never presume on it. That guidance may tell you, metaphorically speaking, to go north, but if you cease listening you may not hear it when, at the next corner, it tells you to turn east.
8. A problem is half solved already once it is stated clearly. In seeking guidance, form a clear mental picture of what it is you need. Then hold that picture up to superconsciousness at the point between the eyebrows. People often struggle for a long time to find the inspiration they want. No time at all is needed: only sufficient mental clarity, and energy.

Never use the claim of inner guidance as an argument for convincing others to listen to you. The flow of superconsciousness is always humble, never boastful. It doesn’t cooperate with attitudes that discourage others from seeking their own inner guidance.

To tell a person, “This is what my intuition tells me, so this is what we must all do,” is to say, in effect, “God will speak only through me, not through anyone else.” Such an attitude sooner or later gets its comeuppance. The divine law does not endorse pride.

Start a New Meditation Practice or Inspire Your Current One

The 10-week Ananda Course in Meditation online course is designed to provide in-depth instruction in scientific meditation techniques that bring more peace, deeper relaxation, and focused concentration to every area of your life, regardless of outer conditions.

These techniques are based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi.

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