John Wolf on Recognizing Guidance

Recognizing Guidance
By John Dorsey Wolf
Discovering that there was guidance available for me did not come naturally. In retrospect I can see that it was being sent for a very long time, but I didn’t recognize it until I attended Monroe’s Gateway and Guidelines programs. In conjunction with what Jim Austin just posted on day-to-day practices, it’s timely to reconsider our understanding of guidance, or our compass, as Rita refers to it.
We are never without connection and a source of guidance from the non-physical part of ourselves (which we should not forget extends to everything), but we are not always tuned in to it. Furthermore, our compass may be giving us direction that we don’t even recognize as such.
Excerpts from Rita are copied below to stimulate further thinking about the subject and to encourage you to consider your own interests in using, or not using, your compass.
Following Rita’s material is input from my joint mind that includes some non-traditional forms that our greater consciousness might use to provide us guidance. No two people will sense their guidance in the same way, and there is certainly no single “correct” way that it occurs.
How do you sense your guidance?

Rita, “Guidance” December, 2014, from Rita’s World:
So, perhaps begin here. If you have learned to experience guidance, however you conceptualize it, you recognize firsthand that it is a source of material, or of judgements, or of knowings, other than your more commonly available mental processes. That doesn’t make this source “other than” yourself. It doesn’t inherently make it anything. All you know about it is that it is not your ordinary mental process at work, or at least is not apparently your ordinary process.

Rita, “A Compass” February 2014, from Rita’s World:
You have a compass.
What good is a compass to a navigator who doesn’t know it exists, or doesn’t consult it? None. But the compass is there, used or unused. Why should you or anybody fear getting lost, as long as you are consulting your compass? And if you don’t consult it – tacitly or not, that is, doing it consciously or automatically, either one – how can you expect to follow any course?
F: Between us, we’re in a nautical mood today, I see. I take it you mean what the church would call conscience, only in a wider sense than knowledge of whether an action or thought or projected action or thought is good and evil.
R: The physical self forms what we loosely call an ego, and that ego is conscious of what the senses report to it, plus what its reactions to its environment report to it as emotions. As long as the ego’s world remains bounded by such limits, you have a very small boat in a very big sea, terrified of storms, navigating at random, subject to course correction by emotional reaction to any stray circumstance. But when that ego realizes that it has a compass, everything changes, or can change, if the compass is intelligently used. The ego’s higher self (call it) not only can read the compass, it can connect to GPS. It not only knows where the boat is, it knows how it got there, and why, and where it set out for. And – stretching the analogy quite a bit, but true to life – the higher self knows that it is the cause as well as the experiencer of the circumstances the little boat finds itself in. Or, not quite. Let’s say, it recognizes that no storm or difficulty or anything that comes to be experienced is either random or purposeless.
But, let’s drop the analogy at that point. You see that I mean to say that if it were up to you (as it often seems to you) to shape your lives, you would be vastly overmatched.
F: Always outnumbered, always outgunned, as I read somewhere.
R: So in this particular instance, if it were up to Charles as his ego exists or you as your ego exists and neither of you were in connection with your “higher selves,” your non-3D components that have never left you nor ever could leave you, then yes, you’d be lost in moments. But it is the very connection with the non-3D that renders this possible. Renders your lives possible.
F: And in the non-3D part of ourselves we live and move and have our being.
R: Well, isn’t that a perfectly valid way to describe your situation?
F: It certainly seems so to me, and of course I find it satisfying to have a way of understanding the 2,000-year old Christian tradition without having to sign on to their contemporary understandings of it. I mean, all that knowledge and wisdom, couched in language that we find unmeaningful – I always knew it meant something, even if it didn’t mean what it was explained to mean.

Rita, “Manifesting the non-3D being” and “Openness to guidance” February 2014, Rita’s World:
No one is bereft of a pole star, no matter how it may look to others or even to themselves. But that doesn’t at all mean that they will or should therefore conceptualize it the same way or even be aware of it as such. You may be a woodsman or a mechanic or – make it as 3D-oriented as you please – the access to guidance is there, recognized or not, conceptualized or not.
Different strokes for different folks, and each will know his or her own way. So I would rephrase it somewhat to say, the more you are able to stay in touch with your non-3D component, the more likely you are to stay on the beam – but this predicts nothing about how this will manifest. In some it will be a mystical bent, in others an intellectual abstract curiosity, in others a severe allergy to the mention of anything metaphysical, etc. The variations are as numerous as the types of people, and of course everyone who exists is right! That is, people are not created defective, no matter how it may seem to you. Their values may be antithetical to yours (and to each other’s); their beliefs may be contradictory; they may manifest many evil traits; they may seem blind to reality. It doesn’t matter: they were no more created “wrong” than you were. Everybody is a perfect expression of what they were created of, and nobody is perfect measured from any abstract table of values or attributes.
R: …With that understood (that this isn’t for everybody), I decline to prescribe specifics, as everyone’s circumstances, opportunities and limitations are different, and a specific answer would have too much weight for some people, leading them either to feel that their own guidance is wrong, or to rebel against what does not resonate. The simple answer is, you will know what is right for you. Just – ask guidance! Where else is the knowing going to come from?
That said, of course there are generalities I can give you without the risk of discouraging people. Openness to your own guidance is the key to all of it. The only thing external guidance (such as this) can do is to remind you “from the outside,” as it will seem, and get your attention.

DeMarco, Frank; Warren, Rita (2009-06-01). The Sphere and the Hologram: Explanations from the Other Side (Kindle Locations 7318-7322). Hologram Books. Kindle Edition.
That is, just as there are individuals at your level who do no introspecting and are therefore unaware of the guidance that comes to them even from their own conscience, let alone other levels of their being, it is still relatively rare for people to be aware that they are interacting with other levels of themselves in other lifetimes. It is somewhat less rare for people to be aware that they are interacting with a form of guidance, whether they call it God or guardian angels or their higher self. But probably a majority of people in the West are unaware of this. And this is of course what makes their life so difficult.

[John Wolf:]
From My Joint Mind:
Guidance from angels and burning bushes doesn’t always fit well in this era, and for that matter neither does the use of stone or golden tablets. These, along with visions of notable figures have received a lot of attention; however, they can create grandiose expectations and detract from recognizing and utilizing the constant tie to one’s greater self.
Guidance can come in many forms, and in some forms it is often not recognized as such:
It can be an urge.
It can be an attraction or repulsion.
It can be physical or mental pain. Pain is an excellent mechanism for getting your attention and moving you in a direction that results in less of it. (It’s definitely motivated me to drop one interest and pick up a different one or two.)
It can be in the form of a “roadblock”. Ah, you say, Isn’t overcoming obstacles a good learning experience? And we say of course, that’s why we put them there! (I asked if those are meant to be challenges added to the path we’re on, or motivation to change direction. The answer was, “We provide the opportunities, you make the choices!”)
It can be in the form of failure. Success builds confidence in a given path but rarely moves humans to try something different. (I experienced a number of “failures” that I could see later had opened up terrific new opportunities, and in retrospect can see the same phenomena with large groups of people; such as a bankrupt firm.)
It can be in the form of direction, but never in such a way as to supplant free will.
It can be in the form of wisdom. One of the most wonderful aspects of knowledge is that it can enable one to determine one’s own direction.
We don’t mean to imply that every instance of the items on the list above is always guidance; however, it can be that way far more often that you might think.
Sometimes people assume that guidance will enable them to escape unpleasant and hard work, uncertainty, pain and suffering, and setbacks as you may look at it. Your compass may in fact take you right into the middle of that kind of trauma! What your compass will do is align you to your best development from the viewpoint of your greater self and it will align you to the greater good of all.
Many people go through their entire Earth life without any awareness of their connection and their compass, and that in no way limits our interest in helping or changes the fact that every life, long or short, is meaningful and valuable well beyond what you can perceive while on Earth. (Noted are Rita’s words about “guidance isn’t for everyone”, meaning it may not be part of their mission or purpose.)
For people like you who do want an active interchange with the rest of themselves we would advise this: Be strong with your intent, be open to a variety of possible mechanisms, and listen carefully to the thoughts that come from your gut and your heart. Look for it, expect it, it is there and with persistence you can find it. But don’t fret, even when you can’t find it, if you need it, it will find you!
Via John