Inner Guidance
Inner Guidance
OUR DIVINE BIRTHRIGHT
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Inner
Guidance
OUR DIVINE BIRTHRIGHT
S
Anne Archer Butcher
E
ECKANKAR
Minneapolis
www.Eckankar.org
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Inner Guidance: Our Divine Birthright
Copyright © 2013 Anne Archer Butcher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Eckankar.
The terms ECKANKAR, ECK, EK, MAHANTA, SOUL TRAVEL, and VAIRAGI, among others, are trademarks of ECKANKAR, PO
Box 2000, Chanhassen, MN 55317-2000 USA.
120904
Printed in USA
Edited by Patrick Carroll, Joan Klemp, and Anthony Moore Cover design by Doug Munson
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Butcher, Anne Archer.
Inner guidance : our divine birthright / Anne Archer Butcher.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
Summary: "Author Anne Archer Butcher’s account of getting help in her daily life through divine guidance, dreams, miracles, and spiritual experiences in Eckankar with Sri Harold Klemp, the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master"--Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-57043-385-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Spiritual life--
Eckankar (Organization) I. Title.
BP605.E3B88 2013
299'.93--dc23
2013001433
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi 1. Learning to Listen to God: How to Discover Inner Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Leaving the Church of My Childhood: Inner Guidance Brings a New Spiritual Direction . . . . 7
3. Portal to an Inner Library: Inner Guidance Reveals Mysterious Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. A Dramatic Welcome to a Life-Changing
Teaching: Inner Guidance Answers the Call
of Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5. You Will Have a Child Before You Are
Thirty: Inner Guidance and Prophecy . . . . . . . 41
6. Resolving Karmic Connections from the Past: Inner Guidance Opens an Ancient Door . . . . . . . 51
7.
The Ocean of Love: Inner Guidance during
an Out-of-Body Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8. There Is No Death: Inner Guidance Assists with a Loved One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9. Saying Yes to the Great Adventure of Life: Inner Guidance Opens Amazing Doors . . . . . . . 87
10. Facing a Real and Present Danger: Inner
Guidance for Overcoming Fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
v
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Contents
11. Breaking through the Hard Human Shell:
Inner Guidance Brings a New State of
Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
12. The Gift Has Already Been Given: Inner
Guidance to Accept Our Abundant Blessings . . . 115
13. Learning about Inner Masters: Inner
Guidance and Inner Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
14. What Is It That You Wish? Inner Guidance for the Greatest Vision of Ourselves . . . . . . . . 135
15. Taking the Next Step in Spiritual Unfoldment: Inner Guidance and Karmic Release . . . 143
16. Letting Go of Anger, Accepting Grace:
Inner Guidance through a Waking Dream . . . 149
17. Miracles I Can Do in a Minute: Inner Guidance and the Application of Spiritual Principles . . . . 157
18. Men in the House: Asking for Inner
Guidance Opens a Door to Spiritual Worlds . . . 165
19. I Knew You Wore Glasses: Inner Guidance
and Further Confirmation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
20. A Near-Death Experience: Inner Guidance Saved My Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
21. In the Heart of God: Inner Guidance to Sing HU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
22. Winning the Lottery of Life: Inner
Guidance on How We Create Our Lives . . . . . 199
23. Welcoming Healing and Health: Inner Guidance Provides Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
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24. A Gift of Life: Inner Guidance and Divine Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
25. Thy Will Be Done: Inner Guidance and
Surrender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
26. Spiritual Healing of Limited Beliefs: From Inner Guidance to Outer Abundance . . . . . . . . 241
27. Life or Death in West Africa: Inner
Guidance in Service to All Life . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Next Steps in Spiritual Exploration . . . . . . . . . . 261
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
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Acknowledgments
This book is many years in the making. The fact that it is complete means that I owe sincere thanks to several important people.
First, a special thanks to Sri Harold Klemp and his wife, Joan, for their continued inspiration and for teaching me the true meaning of guidance.
To my husband, Alden Butcher, for his endless love and abiding encouragement—I thank you from the depths of my being. What a gift you are to me! Along with our daughter Sarah, whose love and presence in my life shows me a greater potential for blessings than I ever knew was possible.
And to Henry Koster, for your friendship, editorial support, and remarkable dedication to this project, always given with tireless service.
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Introduction
The purpose . . . is to try to give you an inkling of where to go and what to do to open your heart so that you can have the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help you in your daily life.
—Harold Klemp
How to Survive Spiritually in Our Times¹
W e all have inner guidance. It’s the Divine speaking to us, to Soul, and it’s always
present in our lives, with us at all times.
Inner guidance is an exceptional spiritual tool. It opens the door of the heart to divine assistance, like having the wisest person in the world at our shoulder, helping with every decision.
Who wouldn’t w
ant that?
But for many, inner guidance is something rare and unexplored, available only to saints. That’s why I wrote this book—to show how I learned about inner guidance through the fascinating teachings of Eckankar, Religion of the Light and Sound of God, and to offer you, the reader, ways to become more aware of this great spiritual gift.
The stories in this book are from my own personal exploration of inner guidance. I offer them in the hope they will show you the way to your own stories, your xi
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own realizations of this wealth of guidance and direction in your life. It’s waiting for you to discover and cultivate for your own greatest good on every level—
spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
I think of inner guidance as a GPS, a global positioning system that is all-wise and all-knowing, leading me not only to my highest purpose as Soul, but also to a destination far greater than what I imagine.
How do you begin using inner guidance?
The first step is to learn to listen, to tune in to the still small voice within. This was my biggest challenge.
Early on I wondered what would become of my life.
I asked for inner help, and the teachings of Eckankar brought daily spiritual exercises. By practicing them I strengthened my inner connection with the Holy Spirit.
I learned to receive and follow divine guidance in every aspect of my life—relationships, family, health, and career.
Now I can clearly see how inner guidance, the Voice of God, was directing the show. I have had more than one fulfilling career, I’ve travelled the world, and I have a wonderful personal life. I enjoy a deep love and remarkable marriage, a beautiful family, and a profound, personal relationship with God. It has not been an easy journey, but it has always been truly worth it.
I believe we can each follow our inner guidance from God wherever we are in life—no matter what spiritual path we are on. I was raised as a devout Christian, yet I was led through my own spiritual experiences to the path of Eckankar, into the deepest mysteries of life. What I learned through Eckankar about inner guidance, as well as universal laws and the secrets of the inner worlds of God, may be used by anyone regardless of background or beliefs. These heavenly gifts are available to us all. They are meant to uplift and trans-Inner Guidance_Intro.p65
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form our lives, completely and profoundly.
To truly understand the blessings of inner guidance, each of us must experience it for ourselves. By sharing these stories of inner guidance in my life—how I acquired it and where it has led me—I hope to inspire you to embark on your own personal exploration of our divine birthright.
We can all discover how to connect with divine wisdom. We can open our hearts to greater joy, love, peace, and success. And we can each fulfill our highest and greatest destiny in this life.
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Learning to Listen to God:
How to Discover Inner Guidance
The Voice of God is speaking to us every day, in every way, in the smallest things in our everyday lives.
—Harold Klemp
How the Inner Master Works²
T he farmer down the road was the first person I approached with my question. During that
summer, I often ate breakfast with him. “Do you know how to talk to God?”
Like all the others I would ask, he could only respond with gentle amusement, warm chuckles, and a little instruction on how to pray.
I assured him I knew how to say my prayers. This was something different—I wanted to really connect with God and to hear God too. Perhaps all my neigh-borhood friends that summer wanted the same thing I did, but no one could tell me how to hear the Voice of God and have a real conversation.
Deep down, we all know how to talk to God. It is simple, really. But receiving the gifts of inner guidance is not so much about talking as listening.
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Inner Guidance: Our Divine Birthright
Listening was the lesson I needed to learn.
It was 1954, in rural South Carolina. I felt the desire for God stirring within me. What drove me to chat with my neighbors that summer was a distinct feeling that I had forgotten something important. It was like the fleeting memory of a dream that held a special key but, when I awoke, had escaped me completely.
Not knowing how to begin my quest for God, I turned to the people around me. I posed my childlike questions to my country neighbors, asking each of them, one after the other, if they knew how to talk to God. House to house I went, explaining how I felt—that I had forgotten something important.
My quest was simple: God knew what I had forgotten and would tell me, if I could just discover how to make this all-important connection. My neighbors were stumped and referred me back to my mother.
My mother helped. Mom told me that we all come into this world with the gift to hear the Voice of God, but the world keeps us so busy that we forget. She told me that at one time she felt that she had the ability to hear, but she had almost completely lost it. Mom reminded me that I must always remember to listen.
Certainly I did not know then what I’ve come to understand now. Prior to our birth in this world, we are guided by Divine Spirit to create a plan that will take us toward our greatest destiny. Surely God knew what I was here for and what my life was about—but I wanted to know too.
We each are Soul, and we are always connected to God—and yet we can become distracted from that in-timate relationship by the routines of life. That was what Mom helped me understand. We must listen to hear the call and find our way. God is speaking to us all the time.
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My farmer friend told me that if he had ever known how to talk to God, he had long forgotten. We built a friendship in our little talks that summer, and it filled my days with happiness. He made me feel safe asking questions and validated my quest. He told me that children probably stand a better chance than any of us to get in touch with God. Both of us seemed to want to keep that connection alive.
I wanted to fulfill my unique, individual potential and not forget who I was and what I came here to do.
In my early search for knowledge, truth, guidance, and direction, the farmer and my other friends continued to talk to me. They also wanted to hear the Voice of God.
M y mother emphasized that in order to be able to talk with God, I would have to learn to listen better.
She told me I would have to sit quietly and really pay attention.
Listening was not my strong point, especially as a child. But I began to work at it.
I began to hear the distant thunder as God’s commands, the wind in the trees as God’s whispers. I began to experience the breath of God moving the curtains in my bedroom. This was a first step, and years later when I began studying the teachings of Eckankar, I was happy to hear Sri Harold Klemp speak of God’s voice being heard as sounds in nature—running water, thunder, the song of birds. The Sound of God comes through in all these ways; and as a child, just beginning this practice, I heard these sounds and assumed God wanted to talk to me just as much as I wanted to talk to God. So I listened.
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Inner Guidance: Our Divine Birthright
can begin to connect more fully with the Divine. Gradually, I began to hear the Voi
ce of God as insights that came from within, as well as in outer sounds. I began to receive small ideas and directions about my life.
Because I was listening, I could hear God’s Voice speaking to me more and more clearly about both the important things and the smallest details of life.
Sometimes this communication came as an inner voice; sometimes I heard messages in the words of others or in the world around me. If things were not going well, I might hear words of encouragement. “Just wait,” the voice would say inwardly, and I would know that help was on the way. Within minutes, the phone might ring, and there would be my dear, upbeat Aunt Joyce, offering a chance to go out on an adventure for the day.
My trust in this inner voice grew. It gave me an exhilarating sense of the interconnection of all life. What could happen next? I wondered.
A s we learn things, we make mistakes. We venture into areas that bring us intense lessons. It happened for me.
Trying to make things happen became my interest—
not to simply listen for the guidance, but to direct it myself, to command it. This may be a stage we all go through. It gives us a heady sense of power, but it takes away love, and eventually it may stop the inner guidance.
Rather than remain in a happy frame of mind, expecting good things to happen and doing what I could to facilitate that, I tried to turn it into a magician’s game.
Fortunately, the guidance I received instructed me about this as well.
One day, I heard a stern warning: “This is not a game.”
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At a young age, I was learning that we receive those things with which we align ourselves. When we align ourselves with our highest spiritual good, we come into harmony with it and allow that which already exists to manifest in our world.
We do not try to connect with inner guidance so we can manipulate life or others. We defeat our higher purpose if we try to use this gift in that way. I am grateful to have learned this lesson early.
By expecting the best and surrendering this image of the best or highest good to God, we receive much more than we ever dreamed.
So as we express our desires, our greatest prayer might simply be, “Thy will be done.” That is what we do if we want the greatest good for ourselves and others, and it is the way to avoid limiting ourselves and our potential. Always, our greatest good is God’s will, even when it may not seem to be what we want.