This morning, I got a message from a new friend on Twitter. It went like this: “Looking forward to hearing what your thoughts are on the soul? Is it an unknown distant aspect of your life or do you have inner guidance? Please share your experiences.”

I think this is such a great question. We all need inner guidance in these days, but what is it? How do we access it?

What I have learned in my own life is that true guidance, or wisdom, does indeed come from within myself IF I am still and open to receive it. But I have to really be open – hungry in a sense — because the nudge that comes from that unknowable source within myself, the impulse, the insight, sometimes appears in a flash and is gone in a flash.

I experienced this process in quite a dramatic way one time when I was a young fellow working on a ranch in the interior of British Columbia. I’d been given a job burning some brush in a meadow. Evidently I wasn’t paying enough attention to what was going on, because I looked up and realized, suddenly, with dismay, that the fire I had started was getting away on me.

It was reaching out in an ever-expanding circle toward some nearby haystacks and the entire BC interior forest.

Of course, my attention re-focused very quickly. I grabbed a shovel and beat furiously at the nearest flames. I put the flames out in one spot in the circle – or so I thought — and moved on to the next spot. But the trouble was I when I looked back at where I thought I had put the fire out, I saw it was starting up again.

Panic began to loom. What was I going to do? I knew I had to be still if I was going to be able to cope with the situation effectively.

“It’s all-right,” I said to myself. “It’s all-right.” I spoke these words to myself continuously, as I slowed down and began taking a much more methodical, painstaking approach.

I didn’t think about what the fire might be doing anywhere else. Instead, I took one little bit of the circle of fire at a time, and made sure the flames were really out in one spot before I moved on to the next. Finally, after an exhausting process, that also became strangely satisfying and fulfilling, I was able to look around me and see peace in the meadow. No fire anywhere.

I’ve found many times in my life that when I am still, I know what to do. A confirmation appears, or a new sense of direction.

The word “soul” can mean different things to different people. It’s like the word God, that means different things to different people. But there is a source of wisdom and courage and inner peace within us that although it can’t be defined, is infinite and unconquerable and very real.

Not only that. Most important of all is this. I find that the more willing I am to pass through that door marked “stillness” – the more I open myself to stillness – the more I realize that Truth, or God, is not separate from me. It is the very nature of my own true character. It is the very core of my being.

I’d love to hear your own thoughts and experiences on the great question that my friend on Twitter put to me. Please join in the conversation, if you will.

In stillness the answer came is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Happiness inner peace

I have a little pouch in my shirt pocket where I keep my glasses when I’m not using them, so when it was time to head for home I put my glasses back in their pouch. An hour or two later, I went to my computer to check my e-mails, and naturally put my glasses on. Shock and dismay. One of the lenses was missing. My spectacles were broken and I hadn’t even realized it.

JoAnn, always a good ally when something untoward happens, confirmed my thought that a screw had come loose in the glasses. But the big question was — where on earth was the lens?

I called the coffee shop, and asked them if they could look for it. JoAnn and I looked everywhere. No sign of a missing lens.

Finally, after the assistant at the coffee shop reported she hadn’t been able to find anything, I gave up my search, and resigned myself to the fact I’d have to buy a new lens. Around eight o’clock in the evening, I sat down in my chair in the living room to relax and watch a little TV.

I took off my shoes to relax my feet, and put my orthotics into my house shoes. I picked up one of the house shoes, and started to put it on, but something wasn’t right.

I looked down. What did I see?

My missing lens was sitting, or I suppose I should say lying on the orthotic in the back of the house shoe. How did it get there? I have absolutely no idea. I cannot begin to conceive how it got there. But that is where it was.

“Seek, and ye shall find,” the Bible tells us, and it is perfectly true. They are beautiful words. If we do not seek, we will not find. But there’s a catch in the ancient Scripture, I have found. A paradox, if you will.

When I stopped seeking my missing lens — I found it.

When JoAnn stopped searching for a good relationships some years back — there I was! (Oh dear, how self-righteous and self-important can you get?)

When I stopped searching for truth and happiness — it appeared.

It’s as if at a certain point we have to relax our grip, our intensity, our yearning — our wanting — and simply surrender.   When we are still, it opens a door to magic. The creative process which wants to bring to us what is right for us is free to do so.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” someone said. I’d say life works in mysterious ways too.

Changing gears here, before I go, I’d like to express deep thanks to some fellow bloggers who have been kind enough to include posts of mine in their blog carnivals. A blog carnival, by the way, according to Wikipedia, “is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly.”

Lila Jirel has included my post, “A path of true joy and strength beckons you,” in her Carnival of Inspiration and Motivation, at www.cultivatepositivity.com.

James Wortz has included “A prayer of gratitude for my body” in his Living an Intuited Life Carnival at www.intuitedlife.com.

And Christina has included “Old husband finally learns new trick,” at her Everything Worth Reading Carnival at www.Everythingworthreading.blogspot.com.

These are great websites. Hop on over. I know you’ll enjoy visiting them and perusing the many excellent posts they have to offer.

When I gave up the search — it appeared is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Happiness inner peace

I paused a moment. “Yes I did,” I replied. “I saw a really great movie. It was so much fun — haven’t laughed so much for a long time.”

He wanted to know what the movie was, and I told him, “The Proposal.”

His ears perked up. “I thought that wasn’t very good,” he said, “That’s what the reviews said.”

“I know,” I said. “I thought I’d give it a try anyway. I find that sometimes reviewers just don’t see a movie the same way I do.” The fact is, not only were JoAnn and I laughing all the way through the movie, but it also had a very sweet and touching, genuine quality to it. Endearing. “That’s how it should be when you see a movie,” I said to JoAnn later. “It leaves you feeling happy and uplifted.”

Let’s move on to yesterday. I’m in the gym working on my back muscles when my friend Jack, the lawyer, asks, “Did you do anything fun over the weekend?” I tell him I saw The Proposal, and of course he says he had thought about going but was put off by the negative reviews.

So I give him the same positive feedback I had given Shawn at the coffee shop. “Good, I’ll go and see it,” says Jack. “Mind you, don’t give me a hard time if you don’t like it,” I say. “I’ll ask for my money back,” he grins, as he goes to work again on his bench press.

We need experts, of course. How could we make it through without them? But let us not allow experts to take over responsibility for our lives. Let us be true always to the eternal principle expressed so beautifully by William Shakespeare: “This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

I’ve thought about this many times in relationship to my own health. It’s wonderful that there are capable doctors and healers out there. My own doctor is a gem of a man. But there is a delicate line somewhere which, though it may be a little hard to discern at times, I know I must always respect.

Somewhere along the way there is only one person who really knows what should be done, or not done, and it is not an external source or authority of any kind — it is my own intrinsic wisdom, the wisdom of my own eternal truth, my own eternal essence.

Of course, experts can take many forms. Parents sometimes play the role of an expert, and goodness knows none of us would be here if it were not for the care and love our parents provided us back along the way. But in the matter of relating to my own son, I find it works much better when I abandon the façade of the expert — and relate to him simply as myself.

The truth is we all have an authority and wisdom that is natural and proper to us — an authentic wisdom, an authentic authority. We do not need to try to make ourselves be more than we truly are, neither do we need to be overly impressed by the authority and credentials of other people.

Chances are we have hardly touched the surface of the proud, limitless wisdom and understanding available to each one of us from within ourselves.

Experts have their place — but ultimately you’re responsible is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Happiness inner peace