Core Circle WSL - Insight
Opening Reading:
Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
- Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman
Check In/Sharing
Topic:
Insight; n. 1. The capacity to discern the true nature of a situation; penetration. 2. The act or
outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner.
Unitarian minister and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that Creation (Nature) is a far better and more appropriate scripture than any book. Knowing God is as easy as breathing, feeling, emoting, thinking, loving…, and our purpose is to discern as best we can what we were meant to be. In other words, be yourself in the same way that a tree is a tree, a river is a river, a spider is a spider, a mountain is a mountain… Emerson believed that every human soul is a manifestation of the divine, and we come closest to the divine through insight, or self-knowledge. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organ of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing by ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. …To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius. …A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.
For Emerson, intuition is the truest form of knowledge. Listening to (and heeding) the inner voice is the goal of spiritual practice. And through this knowledge and practice, we will create a better, truer, and more divine world.
Focus Questions:
Have you experienced an “inner voice?” When? How often? Under what circumstances?
Tell of a time when you listened to that voice. Or, when you didn’t! Do you trust it?
Do you believe, like Emerson, that your intuition is a message from beyond? From God?
What intuitions are you following in your life right now?
What intuitions are you fighting against (or ignoring) in your life right now?
Are there areas of your life where you always follow your intuition? Or, areas where you don’t?
How can your church, or your CORE Circle, help you?
Likes and Wishes
Closing Reading:
God is the whisper in the temple of your conscience, and He is the light of intuition. You know when you are doing wrong; your whole being tells you, and that feeling is God's voice. If you don't listen to Him, He becomes quiet. But when you wake up from your delusion, and want to do right, He will guide you. By constantly following the inner voice of conscience, which is the voice of God, you will become a truly moral person, a highly spiritual being, a creature of peace.
- Paramahansa Yogananda