The Inner Voice... OSHO

There is no other way to learn. If you make learning completely foolproof, so that no mistake is possible no error is possible, then you will become a parrot. You may start repeating words, sentences, but you will not know exactly the meaning of what you are saying.

So first find out the voices within you - and it is simple. Whenever you are deciding to do something, just sit silently and listen to the voice that is telling you to do this or not to do this. And try to find out whose voice it is. Once you have found it is your father, your mother, your uncle, your teacher, your aunt, your brother, it is very easy; then thank your brother and tell him, "It is so good of you; although you are dead still you are taking care of me. But please, now leave me alone."

Once you have told a certain voice clearly, "Leave me alone," your connection with it, your identity with it, is broken. It was capable of controlling you because you were thinking it was your voice. The whole strategy was the identity. You were thinking, "This is my voice, this is my thought," hence you were doing what it said. Now you know it is not your thought, not your voice; it is something foreign to your nature. Recognizing it is enough. Just be grateful to your father: "You are still taking care of me but I don′t need any more care. You have made me mature enough that now I can start taking care of myself." Get rid of the voices that are within you, and soon you will be surprised to hear a still small voice, which you have never heard before; you cannot decide whose voice this is. No, it is not your mother′s, it is not your father′s, it is not your priest′s, not your teacher′s... then a sudden recognition that it is your voice. That′s why you are not able to find its identity, to whom it belongs.

It has been there always, but it is a very still small voice, because it was suppressed when you were a very small child and the voice was very small - just a sprout, and it was covered with all kinds of crap. And now you go on carrying that crap and you have forgotten the plant that is your life, which is still alive, waiting for you to discover it.

Discover your voice.

Then follow it with no fear.

Wherever it leads, there is the goal of your life, there is your destiny. It is only there that you will find fulfillment, contentment.

It is only there that you will blossom - and in that blossoming, knowing happens.

OSHO
From Ignorance to Innocence #13