"A Letter to a Friend"

In this world there are so many distractions. You see situations and people, which tug at you constantly, tempting you without end. They bay at you like hounds, crying for attention. So loud and insistent are these many voices that you are deaf to the one voice that could truly help you. Many would say at this point, "Oh, here we go. He's about to tell me of some religion or philosophy that speaks of the only true path, the one and only way".

No, I speak not of religion. For many think of religion as a largely spent force, not relevant to their lives. What I speak of lies not in a determined doctrine that must be adhered to or any other dogma or scripture. It is the one still, soft voice that lies within all of us.

The pretend sciences of psychology and its like regale you with tales of your conscience or the disguise voices of a long dead parent or mentor. No, the voice I speak of lies deep within you, constantly whispering in your ear. It is at once loving but not commanding; expressing concern but never in a preaching tone. Such a voice is of you, yet strangely, not of you. When you still the "noise of the world" you will always find it.

The skeptic may arise and loudly proclaim," Great! Now, he is not only encouraging me to hear voices but pay close attention to them!" That is precisely what I am asking of you. Yes, you should be careful, for an obvious reason: those closest to you, not to mention others, may not understand.

It takes little imagination to realize that the revealing to others that you are not only hearing a voice within but also listening closely to its advice, will invite scorn if not concern for your "mental health". The human ego, while necessary for sheer survival, is also unforgiving of what it does not understand.

Yet the most strident critic would have to eventually admit that many great men and women have heard a calling from within them, that they learned from experience to trust. This is truly nothing new. However, many will say, at least implicitly, that such things are only reserved for long dead prophets, writers, or philosophers of the past. Certainly such things are not for the "practical"or the "realistic" of us.

They could not be more wrong. It is not the privilege of the few but a precious gift to us all. An incalculable bounty that each one of us possesses if only we would still the chatter of the world and simply pause to listen. To paraphrase a familiar refrain, the answer is not blowing in the wind but coming from within!