Osho on Inner Voice, The inner voice is not a voice, it is an energy phenomenon

Question - Beloved Osho, How far can one rely on one's 'inner voice' ?

Osho - The first thing: the inner voice is not a voice, it is silence. It says nothing. It shows something, but it says nothing. It gestures towards something, but it says nothing. The inner voice is not a voice. If you are still hearing some voice, it is not inner. 'Inner voice' is a misnomer, it is not the right word. Only silence is inner. All voices are from the outside.

For example: you are going to steal something and you say the 'inner voice' says: Don't steal! -- this is sin! This is not the inner voice -- just your conditioning: you have just been taught not to steal. This is society speaking through you. It appears to be from within, but it is not. If you had been brought up in some other way and you were not taught that stealing was bad, or you were taught that stealing was good, then this inner voice would not have been there -- and you know it.

If you have been brought up in a family which is vegetarian, then the moment you see non-veg food, some inner voice says: Don't eat it -- it is sin! But if you have been brought up in a non-vegetarian family, then there is no problem. You simply cannot believe how inner voices say to other people: Don't eat it! It depends on what you have been taught.

This is not an inner voice, this is just your social conscience. Society has to create an inner arrangement in you because the outer arrangement is not enough. The police are there but it is not enough -- the police can be deceived. The courts are there but it is not enough, because you can be more clever than the courts. The outer arrangement is not enough; some inner arrangement is needed.

So society teaches you that stealing is bad; this is good, that is bad. It goes on teaching, continuously repeating it; it enters into your being, it becomes part of your inner world. So when you go to steal, suddenly somebody inside says: No! And you think the inner voice or God has spoken. No, nothing of the sort. This is just society speaking in you.

Then what is the inner voice? You are going to steal, and suddenly you become silent and you cannot steal. Suddenly you are frozen. A gap arises. Your energy stops. Not that somebody says: Don't steal! No voice is there -- just inner silence. But you are in the grip of the inner silence.

It happened: A great Buddhist monk, a mystic, Nagarjuna, was passing through a village. The emperor of the country was a follower of Nagarjuna, and he had given him a gold begging bowl with diamonds studded around it. It was very costly, and Nagarjuna was a naked fakir. When he was passing, a thief could not believe it: a naked man with such a tremendously valuable thing! So the thief followed him.

Nagarjuna was staying outside the town in an old ruined monastery. There were not even doors, so the thief was very happy. He said, "Now he will rest, or at least in the night he will rest, go to sleep. I can take it, there is no trouble." So he was hiding behind a wall.
Nagarjuna looked out and he said, "You had better come in and take this begging bowl so that I can sleep at ease. You will take it anyhow, so why not give it? I think it is better to give it to you. I would not like to make you a thief -- this is a gift!"

The man came in but he could not believe it. And in spite of himself he touched the feet of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna said, "Now you can go, because I have nothing else. You be at ease and leave me at ease."

But the thief said, "Just one thing: I would also like to be so unattached to things as you are. You have made me feel very poor. Is there any way that some day I can also attain to such a peak of consciousness?"
Nagarjuna said, "Yes, there is a way."

The thief said, "But one thing let me say first: don't tell me to stop stealing. Because whenever I go -- and I go to mystics and saints and I am a famous thief around here, so they all know -- they immediately say, 'First you stop stealing,' and that I cannot do. I have tried but that I cannot do, so please don't make that condition. Whatsoever else you say I will do."

Nagarjuna said, "Then you could not have yet met a mystic or a saint. You must have been meeting ex-thieves; otherwise, why should one bother about your being a thief? Be a thief! -- that is your business, that is not my worry. Just one thing I would like to tell you, and that is: Go, do whatsoever you feel, but be aware, alert. Don't do anything unconsciously, mechanically, robot-like."
The thief said, "This is perfectly okay. I will try it."

Nagarjuna said, "I will wait fifteen days in this monastery; you can come and report."
On the tenth day the thief came running, perspiring, and he said, "You are a tricky fellow! For ten days continuously I have been trying. When I go -- and this has been something of a miracle: never in my life have I been so unsuccessful -- I enter the houses, I open their treasures, and then I remember you and I watch, and when I become aware, I become so silent that I cannot move. My hands won't move! When I am unconscious my hands move -- but then I have promised you. I become conscious again -- I cannot take the thing with me. I have to leave it. For ten days continuously! So please, tell me something else."

Nagarjuna said, "That is the only thing. Now it is up to you to choose: you can drop awareness and remain a thief, or you can have awareness and let the thief be dropped. That is for you to choose. I am not saying that you should stop stealing. You go on stealing; if you can do it with awareness, then I am not worried."

The thief said, "That is impossible; I have tried for ten days. If I am aware, then I cannot steal. If I steal, then I am not aware." And the thief said, "Really, you have got me -- and I cannot leave this awareness now, I have tasted it. Nothing is worth it now, nothing is more valuable now."
Nagarjuna said, "Then don't bother me any more. Go and teach the same thing to other thieves!"

The inner voice is not a voice, it is an energy phenomenon. You are gripped in awareness, in silence. And in that silence, whatsoever you do is right; whatsoever is not right you cannot do. So I don't tell you not to do this, and do that. I simply tell you what Nagarjuna told the thief: Just be aware!

If you are not aware, then you will have to choose. If you are not aware, then there is always a choice of alternatives -- to do this or to do that -- and one is always puzzled. If awareness is there, there is no alternative. Awareness is choiceless. It simply allows you to do that which is right; it does not allow you to do that which is not right. There is no question of your choice. So don't ask how far one can rely on one's inner voice.

The first thing: the inner voice is not a voice -- it is silence. The second thing: you need not be worried about relying on "how far." Just remain in that inner space of silence, total science. Virtue is a by-product, it is not a discipline. It follows awareness like a shadow, a consequence.

Source - Osho Book "The Search"

^Top Back to Osho Discourses