Chapter 11 - The Inner Guide FAQ

This question is deeper than it may seem. I am not sure I can answer it fully. I will share what I believe is the nature of the inner guide, and perhaps when all that is said, the identity of the inner guide will be less important for all practical purposes.

Perhaps it is helpful to start by saying what the inner guide is not.

It is not an integral part of us, at least not yet. The inner guide is not your soul, nor is it a mental construct—it is not part of your psyche. It is also not part of ego as it manifests in you.

It is not an ascended master or a ghost left behind, such as those allegedly appearing in seances.

Although the inner guide may be appropriately called a spiritual guide, it is not a spirit guide in the sense that those who engage in channeling refer to them.

If you accept the premise that God is a spiritual reality, the nature of the inner guide is indeed spiritual, as in actuality it is a fragment of God. It is a gift from God that comes to reside in you, yet it is not of you.

The inner guide has its existence independent of you. While it does not need you to exist, there is a definite purpose for its presence in you.

I deliberately wrote that it is present in you because it is a personal gift. Your inner guide is there for you, and mine is there for me. Although they are of the same source and no doubt communicate with each other in myriad forms we are unaware of, each one is dedicated to the guiding of a single human being.

Is it a who or a what? That is a good question.

If we follow the common usage of the word "who" to indicate personality and "what" to indicate non-personality, then the inner guide, not being a personality, is not really a who. Revelation explains that a human being is endowed with personality and has the potential to evolve and become spirit. The inner guide is that spirit.

💡 NOTE: When I refer to "revelation" in this book, I mean the teachings of The Urantia Book.

The relationship between the human and the inner guide is a partnership. God is working amidst humans, fulfilling His-Her part of the partnership. The inner guide is perfect, and its technique is flawless. It is up to us to choose to cooperate.

💡 NOTE: The word symbol Him-Herself has nothing to do with gender neutrality on the human level. Deity is not subject to human gender qualifications. It is my personal preference to refer to God as both male and female (He-She, His-Her, Him-Herself). It simply feels more inclusive and more accurate to me to use this word symbol when writing to remind myself of this fact. I am aware of the sensitivity of gender issues in our generation, and this is my little contribution.

Indeed, the inner guide is separate from our internal voice of conscience, which is a purely human psychic reaction. The guide points to what is truly right ("true north") if and when we are able to hear and heed its guidance.

The simple, repeated practice is this: "Not my will but yours be done." This is an affirmation, a silent inner prayer we can remember and commit to every time we are faced with a choice. In other words, in every life situation, there is a perfect divine choice. We may not know what it is, in which case we can ask for clarity. We may know what it is and choose to ignore it. Or we may choose to follow our inner guide's leading. Choosing to subject our will to God's will is the sweetest and only gift of value we can offer.

As far as we can tell, the inner guide is simply and eternally a divine gift to each of us. They are of God, from God, and, for all practical purposes, they are God.

Their ministry is characterized by a flawless technique beyond the possibility of criticism. We have perfect guides; therefore the goal of perfection is certainly attainable.

Is this not a wondrous revelation?

This is the real meaning of being made "in the image of God," as per God's declaration in Genesis 1:24: "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness..." (NIV).

This is a tricky question. We would have to define who "you" are.

Many times, I have advised others to ask themselves who they are and report the answers. Invariably, their answers point to a part of their egoic self. I am fifty-four, married, and a father of two. I am a businessman. I am the CEO of a company. I am French. I am Christian. I am a single mom, etc. Yet, when they probed deeper, each person realized that they ARE NOT their egoic self.

There was a time when you were not any of these things, yet you were YOU. At one time in the past, you were twenty, single, and unemployed. You were not always a CEO, and there was a time you did not run a business. Will you materially change if you renounce your French citizenship and move to Canada or if you decide to follow a different faith tradition?

The question, "Who am I?" served as a pointer.

A pointer to what?

Revelation instructs us to fill in much of this missing knowledge. Humans on planet Earth are a composite. We have a physical body, and we have a mental construct, a mind, that operates through a physical organ, the brain.

Many traditions point to non-material aspects of our being. The Egyptian (Ka) is an early depiction of the inner guide as a protecting spirit. The Egyptians also believed in "an oracle from God in everybody."

Many traditions mention the soul and the spirit. How these differ is a matter of extensive interpretation. Revelation provides clarity. It instructs that spirit is a God-given gift to the human, a fragment of God that literally resides in the human mind but is not of it or part of it.

The inner guide should not be thought of as living in the material brain. It is not an organic part of us. It may more properly be considered as indwelling the mind rather than existing within the confines of a single physical organ.

💡 The inner guide is, in fact, your spiritual aspect. The inner guide is "spirit in you." It is not "your spirit" as it is independent of you.

The short answer is no.

There is, however, a very definite connection between the inner guide and our soul.

Humans hold many beliefs about the soul. Before man realized that his evolving soul was fathered by a divine spirit, it was thought to reside in different physical organs. Many believed the soul was something beyond our human (animal) heritage.

Revelation indicates that the soul is not spiritual and that it is also not material. The soul is somewhere in between the material and the spiritual. In fact, there exists a definite relationship between mind, spirit, and soul. The soul is an entirely new creation cosponsored by mind AND spirit.

The soul is an experiential creation. In other words, it is created during our lives on Earth. It is the result of our actions and choices. The evolving soul is the harvest of our temporal decisions as faithfully reproduced by the inner guide.

The soul grows during our human lives. The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the mind and the inner guide as associated identities, proportional to its own evolutionary growth.

The short answer is: "From God."

How is it possible? you may ask. God is way out there, you may say. Yet many spiritual traditions tell us that God is everywhere. It is literally true, for "In Him we all live and move and have our being."

Revelation confirms the above understanding and adds that God is also very close to each and every one of us. God is spirit, and God sends a spirit fragment of Him-Herself to reside inside our minds as our inner guides.

Simply put: You can find God for yourself, by yourself, and in yourself.

One of the principal roles of the inner guide, which is of God and comes from God, is to pilot us (and it) back to God.

The greatest gift we can give God is to invite Him-Her to be an intimate partner in our lives. The soul is the result of this partnership. It is created from the human desire to know God and attain the divinity of the Creator and from God's (the inner guide's) impulse to know the human experience.

God is our divine parent. He-She has never and will never leave us to face our challenges alone. If a loving human parent would do anything to help their child, how much more will a divine parent do?

Imagine the path of our lives as footprints in the sand. When we look back at our lives, we can see two sets of footprints leaving their marks on our paths through the sand. It is our Father-Mother walking beside us, holding our hands.

During hard times, we may see only one set of footprints and ask God where He-She was when our need was the greatest.

"Well, my child," the answer will come, "I would never leave you. During those challenging times, there is but one set of footprints in the sand simply because I was carrying you."

God's guidance manifests in many ways.

We all know how difficult it is to be human. There is no Human User Manual, so to speak. That is why being assisted by a guide and learning from the wisdom of others is so precious.

I always felt grateful for all the help I received from the many humans who were instrumental to my personal development: my parents, my brother, extended family, friends, teachers and spiritual guides, and many other humans in generations past on whose shoulders I stand. I am that much more grateful for all the help that comes from divine sources. To think that my inner guide has been sent from God to personally take care of me! And of you and yours. How much is God appreciating each and every one of His-Her children, to send a personal gift to each and every one of them?

The Genesis description in the creation story is God saying (to whom?), "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The supreme commandment of God to us humans, which is an extension of this description, is "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect."

God, being a loving parent, is endowing you with everything you need to fulfill this mandate. Hence, the inner guide is there to guide you in the process of becoming perfect.

I invite you to contemplate the following affirmation from Father Thomas Keating:

"We consent to God's presence, letting God decide what he wants us to do. God seems to want to find out what it is like to live human life in us, and each of us is the only person who can ever give him that joy. Hence our dignity is incomparable. We are invited to give God the chance to experience God in our humanity, in our weaknesses, in our addictions, in our sins. Jesus chose to be part of everyone's life experience, whatever that is, and to raise everyone up to divine union."

Several years ago, when I was contemplating the story of the footprints in the sand, it became apparent to me that, little as I am, insignificant as I am, I may have the chance to help my Father-Mother. I realized that God can become my experiential parent only through this relationship. The inner guide, a fragment of God, is there to partner with me, a human mortal, in a glorious adventure in which God experiences human life from within.

Father Keating suggests there is a tremendous joy for God to be able to realize this experience. And I am the only one who can give Him-Her this personal gift (in my life).

The key insight is that we can choose to have a relationship with God inside us—with the inner guide. Relationships are an end in themselves. Every true relationship we have with another person—human or divine—is an end in itself. We have a chance to start our relationship with God right here, right now, as a first step in a long journey of evolution in the universe.

Revelation further instructs us that this partnership of guide and mortal is one of equals, so to speak. God has given us personality—our unique way of being in this universe. A human being on Earth is endowed with personality and is potentially spirit. The inner guide is spirit and pre-personal. Between the soul and the spirit, each requires the other to become immortal and free of the chains of time.

This is a loving relationship. The inner guide has fully appraised your person before they chose you. Our guides embody God's commitment to be part of every intimate aspect of our lives.

That precisely is where all this is going. The first step in the long path to perfection starts, naturally, where we are just now—in our human existence on Earth. God is suggesting it is possible for us to be perfect, even as He-She is perfect, and provides the means for this process to unfold. It all depends on us humans heeding our inner guidance.

Wouldn't we all like to know how God is operating in us?

The inner guide is there to guide us. It is true, at the same time, that "in Him we all live and move and have our being" AND that God sends an actual fragment of Him-Herself to reside within our human minds.

A message to all past, present and future priesthood of mankind: Know that there are no intermediaries or other intervening authorities or powers functioning between the divine guides and their human subjects; God and humans are directly related.

In other words, while we may benefit tremendously from the insight and guidance of our human sisters and brothers who found God before us and are pointing the way, we need no one else in order to find God.

What we call "intuition" is a good place to start unpacking this. The English language provides a clue. What is a gut feeling? We simply know this is the right thing to do or say. We do not think it; we feel it.

Where is this feeling coming from? Since the conscious mind is more associated with the thinking faculty, the professionals would say it is coming from the subconscious mind. While humanity has conducted research and written books about it, the subconscious is still a great mystery. Revelation clarifies that the inner guide is not part of the human subconscious; it interacts with it.

In simple terms, you can think of the inner guide as a divine mentor residing in your mind, working with both your conscious and subconscious thoughts to guide you toward spiritual growth and understanding. It respects your free will and works with you, not against you. It's always there, trying to communicate with you and guide you, even though you might not always be aware of it.

Revelation informs us that the inner guide indeed influences our thoughts. It is important to make clear the fact that guidance is not a command. God does not command us to do this or that. We do have free will, and that is one of the highest tenets of the universe—that no being, whatever their level of authority—may impose on the moral free will of another. This has been decreed by God.

Imagine the delicacy of this task. The inner guide is endowed with a perfect understanding of our entire life plan and each situation we encounter. It invariably knows what is the perfect (divine) choice in each instance. The easiest way for it to do its job would be to tell us in no uncertain terms what that is. If that were the case, we would always know with certainty what is good for us, and life would be much easier. Wouldn't it?

Let's take, for example, my personal commitment to follow the Golden Rule—the principle of treating others as one wants to be treated. The version of the Golden Rule I like the most is to treat everyone as if they are my sisters and brothers, only not from the same mother. This is a simple yet powerful practice.

What happens when a driver cuts me off on the highway in a very dangerous way? What is the expression of this practice then? Can I still follow it when it's so hard and my emotions flare?

My sense is that this is precisely when the inner guide is present to guide me back to the commitment I made. It feels like a gentle nudge, as if saying, "Remember what you committed to practicing? Now is the best time to practice it, with this sibling of yours..."

One of the key tasks humans were given is to make decisions—to choose. As we very well know, we seldom choose with perfect knowledge. We must choose with imperfect information and in the presence of ego.

What we choose is what we become. It makes sense that God has commanded us to become like Him-Herself and then turns around and provides us with the fair chance of doing so by giving us an inner guide that knows at all times what choice leads us toward perfection in any situation.

The mind is the realm of the inner journey. We live and die by our decisions and choices. When we are "asleep," unaware, are we really free to choose? No. We are not free due to previous conditioning and lack of awareness.

The purpose of the inner journey is precisely to regain control of our lives, to make conscious choices. For that purpose, subject to our own decisions, we have been given a mind, and it is by mind that we live or die. So we must choose. Spirit, our inner guide, is there to provide the direction.

A key choice we must make is to cooperate with our inner guide. Our choice is to allow it to operate as it sees fit.

Revelation also refers to the inner guide as the "Thought Adjuster." The choice of word symbol "adjuster" indicates the relationship is not one of control. Its work is a loving act of taking what is and slowly transforming it to what it can be. Exactly what a divine parent would do, wouldn't they?

A loving parent helps the child learn by providing the environment whereby experience can be acquired. And so it is with God-within. It is slowly and deliberately spiritualizing our current mind by adjusting it.

God-within is helping us to become a little bit more godly with every decision we make. The Adjuster is not trying to control our thinking, as such, but rather to spiritualize it. The Adjusters are dedicated to improving, modifying, adjusting, and coordinating our thinking processes. They are wise and experienced manipulators of the spiritual potential of the human intellect.

The inner guide makes mind changes and spiritual adjustments as we may willingly and intelligently authorize. It does not take advantage of us or in any way arbitrarily influence us. It respects our sovereignty and is always subservient to our will. We are the captain; it is the pilot.

It is very hard for the Adjuster to send direct messages to us because our material mind is extremely imbalanced as we are constantly busy with many thoughts, emotions, and sensations. The Adjuster operates best when the human mind flows freely in the liberated but controlled channels of creative imagination. In other words, when we are not busy thinking compulsively. This is one key reason why a consistent practice of meditation, or any deliberate practice intended to help the mind quiet down, may help us be more receptive to inner guidance.

The inner guide is especially able to communicate with us when we pray and worship. When we engage in such activities, we consciously choose to open our side of the channel. It is at times like these, and sometimes during sleep, that the Adjuster is able to arrest the mental currents, to stay the flow, and then to divert the ideation activity of the mind. The result is a deep spiritual transformation in the higher levels of our consciousness.

We are also more amenable to the work of the inner guide when we sleep.

Have you ever wondered about the significance of your dream life?

While we sleep, the Adjuster works on the materials our conscious mind produces during our waking hours. It attempts to achieve only that which we have previously fully approved of by the decisions and choices we made during times of fully wakeful consciousness. Yet some of our grotesque dreams indicate their failure to make efficient contact. Indeed, the inner guide faces formidable challenges.

In simple terms, the Adjuster tries to work with our minds during sleep, attempting to register its spiritual concepts in our minds. However, this often results in distorted representations in our dreams due to the differences between human and divine thinking. Our own emotions and desires can also interfere with these divine messages, leading to the absurdities we often experience in dreams.

As we progress in our spiritual journeys and are more aligned with the divine leading, our dream lives will represent this increased alignment in the form of more sublime dreams. Our waking lives will represent this alignment in the form of more true, beautiful, and good lives. Godly lives.

The main challenges the inner guide faces are related to our material nature. The Adjuster is spirit, and we humans are material. The soul, the result of the interaction between the spiritual and the material, is somewhere in between. The soul is neither material nor spiritual. With the vast majority of humans, the Adjuster must patiently await the liberation of the soul from the almost complete domination of the energy patterns and chemical forces inherent in our materiality.

For example, consider the process of thought in the human brain. This process is governed by electrical signals passing through neurons, a complex network of nerve cells. These electrical signals are a form of energy pattern, and the process is regulated by various chemical forces, including neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that transmit signals from one neuron to another. This process of thought is a physical phenomenon, and it is limited by the laws of physics and chemistry. It allows us to perceive and understand the physical world, but it does not directly enable us to perceive or understand the spiritual truths that the Thought Adjuster is trying to communicate.

These energy patterns and chemical forces are not a result of ego, but rather, they are fundamental aspects of our physical existence. They are the processes that make life possible, but they also limit our perception and understanding to the physical realm. This can make it difficult for the Thought Adjuster to communicate spiritual truths to us as these truths are of a different nature and exist beyond the physical realm.

It is not only the Adjuster that is challenged. We are too. The chief difficulty we experience in contacting our Adjuster consists in this very inherent material nature. Counter to what you may think about yourself, from the point of view of the Adjuster, it is almost impossible to register these inspiring spirit leadings in an animal mind so completely dominated by the chemical and electrical forces inherent in our physical natures.

While God is all patient and all loving, God-within is really tormented by our thoughts. The inner guides are particularly tormented by those purely selfish thoughts. They are distressed by our disregard and irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of our foolish animal fears and childish anxieties.

When we are dominated by selfish thoughts and disregard for the divine, it can lead to a state of isolation, sorrow, anxiety, and despair. The Thought Adjuster, in its mission to guide us toward spiritual growth, can be thwarted by these attitudes. However, the Thought Adjuster does not punish us for our selfish thoughts. Instead, it continues to work patiently and persistently, respecting our free will. The consequences of selfish thoughts are not a punishment from the Thought Adjuster but rather the natural result of such attitudes.

The short answer is...to the source of all things. We are the captain of the ship, the inner guide is the pilot (navigator), and the ship is going back home, to the source of all things.

Isn't this a lovely proposition? A very long voyage that leads back home, to meet our Creator face to face.

The voyage starts here, during our lives as mortals, the first lives we've really ever had. You and your guide are jointly constructing a potentially immortal soul, which will be the vessel of your personality on your long journey back home.

One of the first milestones in this journey is the fusion of the soul with the inner guide. Two that become one. A mortal being fusing with the divine Adjuster into one personality! That is the beginning of our existence as spirit beings. It usually happens long after we graduate from this planet and from our mortal existence.

Subsequent to mortal fusion, the Adjusters share your destiny and experience; they are you. After the fusion of the immortal soul and the associated Adjuster, all of the experiences and all of the values of the one eventually become the possession of the other so that the two are actually one entity.

You may ask yourself how all this is possible. We are, after all, here on Earth, and we are, indeed, mortal.

True. This mortal life is but the first step. The invitation is to look forward into the future.

It is indeed true that we are of this earth. Our heritage is of the animal kingdom. I mean no insult when I say we start our adventure in this universe on Earth as no more than glorified monkeys. We indeed come from dust, and our Earthly bodies do indeed become dust again. But unlike monkeys, we are potentially much more. If we really desire it, we have a glorious adventure in front of us as divine children of the one Creator of all.

The key, as always, is choice.

Remember the blue and red pill that Morpheus gives Neo in the first film of The Matrix trilogy?

It is now, during your mortal human life, that you may decide to survive. I am not trying to scare you with the nonsense of hell and purgatory. Even after death, in the beyond, we will be given all the opportunities to choose, and choose we must.

The soul grows and evolves with the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature. Revelation assures us we will all experience one true opportunity to make one undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice. The soul must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.

We choose to listen to inner guidance. We choose to seek God only to find He-She has already found us long ago.

And then?

Contrary to popular opinion, choosing God does not require giving up our personal will. Quite the opposite, actually. This choice does not so much consist in the negation of our will—"Not my will but yours be done"—as it consists in our positive affirmation: "It is my will that your will be done."

This choice is a continuous dedication, a vow to be renewed every moment.

Simply put, you are the hero of your own life. You have a mission, should you choose to accept it.

What is this mission?

Service without end in the universe of universes, starting, naturally, where we are—here and now. It starts with a decision.

One decides to find God for oneself, by oneself, in oneself. Then, one simply is a little bit more godlike today than yesterday. Multiply that by eons, and you have a roadmap of your mission. While all of this may sound very theoretical, I invite you to put it to the test.

The journey—the decision, the consecration, and the action—is a purely personal experience inasmuch as a relationship with God is purely personal. We do not need anyone or anything to find God. All it takes is a desire that leads to a decision and a dedication to a constant practice. We become a little bit more like God simply by choosing consciously to do His-Her will.

And how do you do that?

Our simplest choice is to share our inner life with God. The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of our willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such an inner life possible.

We live and die by our decisions and choices. As long as we are not free to choose due to previous conditioning and lack of awareness...we are not free.

The purpose of the inward journey is to regain control of our lives—to make conscious choices. The rest of your life is based on a choice. Have you chosen?

All this talk about choosing can be a bit overwhelming. After all, I am a simple mortal in this world, going through a challenging life. Money, relationships, stress, pressure...isn't this quite a challenge already?

It is perfectly reasonable to ask, "Why should I choose to share my life with God?"

It is even more reasonable to ask this when you are not sure what God is, who God is, and what your relationship is to Him-Her.

Plainly speaking, from a utilitarian point of view, we could ask, "What's in it for us?"

Good question.

To be frank, fifteen years ago, I did not ask that question. Nor did I ask it ten years ago. Actually, I never really asked myself that question. I was not looking for God. Rather, I wanted to rid myself of the immense pain in my chest. Much later, I realized the pain was the result of an unfulfilled life. I was very much misaligned, and that was producing emotional as well as physical pain in my psyche and my body.

I wanted out!

I wanted peace!

I do not remember asking to be happy, though. Nor did I ask to have an "easy" life. In hindsight, what I wanted the most was to get rid of the pain.

I am not sure what's in it for you. That is really for you to discover. God works in mysterious ways, even when we do not believe in Him-Her.

When I started to contemplate a personal relationship with God, my life was transformed. It was, and still is, a very gradual and long transformation.

What's in it for me? I do not feel alone anymore.

I always knew I was guided and protected. It was and still is a feeling I cannot deny. Today I also feel loved, accepted, and cared for on a very personal level. I really feel God is my parent, and that feeling is the main source of comfort, strength, and gratitude in my life.

Through the challenges of life, I am able to connect to a source of sublime peace of mind and superb tranquility of spirit—the peace of the Lord, if you will.

What is it that you want?

It is time to trust and ask as a little child would and ask.