Listen to your ‘Inner Sense’

          A boy was constantly scratching his head.  His father looked at him one day and said, “Son, why are you always scratching your head?”

          “Well”, the  boy responded, “I guess because I am the only one who knows it itches.”

          This is inner sense! Only you know.  Nobody else can know.  It cannot be observed from the outside.  When you have a headache, only you know – you cannot prove it..  When you are happy, only you know – you cannot prove it.  You cannot put it on the table to be inspected by everybody, dissected, analyzed.

          Inner sense has it own validity.  But because of the scientific training, people have lost trust in their inner sense.  They depend on others.  You depend s much that if somebody says, “You are looking very happy,” you start feeling happy.  If twenty people decide to make you unhappy, they can make you unhappy.  They just have to repeat it the whole – day – whenever you come across them, they have to say to you, “you are looking very unhappy, very sad.  What is the matter? Somebody died or something?” And you will start suspecting; so many people are saying that you are unhappy, you must be. 

          You depend on people’s opinions.  You have depended on people’s opinions so much that you have lost all tract of inner sense.  This inner sense has to be rediscovered, because all that is beautiful and all that is good and all that is divine can be felt only by the inner sense.

          Vivekananda went to Ramakrishna, and he said, “There is no God! I can prove it – there is no God.” He was a very logical skeptical man, well educated in Western philosophical thinking.  Ramakrishna was an uneducated, illiterate person.  And Ramakrishna says, “Okay, so prove!”.

          Vivekananda talked much, gave all the proofs that he had.  And Ramakrishna listened, and then he said, “But my inner sense says God is – and that is the final authority.  All that you are saying is argumentation.  What does your inner sense say?”

          Vivekananda had not even thought about it.  He shrugged his shoulders.  He had read books, he had collected arguments, proofs for and against, and he had tried to decide whether God exists or not according to these proofs. But he had not looked in.  He had not asked his inner sense. 

          It is so stupid, but the skeptical mind is stupid, the logical mind is stupid.

          Ramakrishna said, “Your arguments are beautiful, I enjoyed.  But what can I do? I know! My inner sense says he is.  Just as my inner sense says I am happy, I am ill, I am sad, my stomach is hurting, that today I am not feeling well, so my inner sense says God is.  It is not a question of debate”.

          And Ramakrishna said, “I cannot prove it, but if you want, I can show you,” Nobody had told Vivekananda before that God can be shown.  And before he could say anything Ramakrishna jumped – he was a wild man – he jumped and put his feet on Vivekananda’s chest! And something happened, some energy jumped and Vivekananda  fell into a trance for three hours.  When he opened his eyes, he was a totally different man.

          Ramakrishna said, “What do you say now? God is, or God is not? What does your inner sense say now?”

          He was in such tranquility, such stillness, as he had never known before.  There was such jubilation inside, such well-being, such overflowing well-being.  He had to bow down and touch Ramakrishna’s feet and say, “Yes, God is.”

          It is through the inner sense that God is known.