Your Questionable Inner Voice and Conscience

Swami Yatiswarananda: "Ordinary people should not mistake their own voice for the divine Voice which cannot be so easily heard as people think. Only when our minds are purified and our wills are united with the divine Will can we hear the Voice. Our whole being must vibrate with divine vibrations before we can hear the Voice. And, we should note that the Voice does not contradict reason but transcends it.

Can You Trust Your Inner Voice?

"In these days, it has become fashionable to hear 'inner voice', and most of these cases are of questionable nature." (pg. 274, Meditation and Spiritual Life)

Swami Sivananda: "The pure conscience itself is the "Inner Voice". But the difficulty in the ordinary man is that the voice of the lower mind, the voice of the brutal instincts, is often misunderstood as the voice of conscience. As a result of such misunderstanding, guided by his animal tendencies, he commits colossal blunders, involving danger to others. It requires a great degree of purity and calmness of mind to hearken the true Inner Voice."  (pg. 169, May I Answer That?)

Is Your Conscience Reliable??

Swami Sivananda: "According to the state of his knowledge man’s conscience is built up and changes from time to time with the correction of his views, in the light of further knowledge gained subsequently. The conscience of a child or a savage is entirely different from the conscience of a fully grown civilised man and even amongst civilised men knowledge varies so much that their consciences direct different lines of conduct. The conscience of a Sattvic man is very clean and very pure. The conscience of Ramji will not allow him to do one thing, but the conscience of Chatterji may allow him to do that very thing. Therefore, you cannot rely on conscience entirely, until you have cleared your mind and feeling from personal prejudice and predilections. Never mistake the lower mind’s promptings for the voice of the soul". (pg. 52, Daily Readings by Swami Sivananda)