Hearing the voice
within

What do you do when you need an answer? Most of us search. We read, we ask, we listen, we compare. More information, more opinions, more data. And often we come out of the search more uncertain than we went in, because every new voice we gathered added one more person to a room that was already crowded.

But was there really something you did not know? Or were you simply too loud to hear what you already knew?

In the Sufi tradition this is called sukut: not the absence of speech, but making room to listen. In Zen there is a famous question a student puts to his master: “What is your teaching?” The master does not answer, he simply pours tea, until the cup overflows. When the student protests, he says: “What can I give you while your cup is full?”

In Anatolia the same wisdom is said another way: “Speak little, listen much.” This is not a rule of manners, it is a method. Because the voice inside you does not shout. It does not insist, it does not try to convince you, it does not trick you. It says its piece once and then waits. If you do not hear it, it will not repeat itself, but it will not leave either.

Why does it get harder to hear?

Because the voice within you and the noise in your mind do not speak at the same volume. Anxiety speaks loudly, it hurries, it tells you disaster stories. Habit is persuasive because it is familiar. And the expectations of other people are the most cunning of all; most of the time they imitate the sound of your own voice.

The voice within is different: it is unhurried. It does not shame you, frighten you or push you. It is usually a very simple sentence, and when you hear it something in your body loosens, as if you had let go of a breath you had been holding for a long time.

So how does Sakin make this easier?

Sakin does not give you an answer. It opens the gap in which you can hear your own.

It does this in three places. With Breath it slows the body down, because a calm voice cannot be heard in a fast body. With Intention it places a single sentence at the start of the day, so that instead of the day dragging you along, you carry the day. And with the Inner Mirror it reflects your question back to you; it does not give advice, it lets you look through your own map.

Sometimes the answer you need is not to learn more; it is to stop, to feel, and to listen to the voice within.