Whenever you experience a disturbance in your mind, know that God inside you is sending you a signal to slow down and turn within.

God is your own higher Self. It is always communicating with you, guiding you to correct your thinking by steering you away from your lower ego-self to your Higher Self.

Your Higher Self is your true nature. It is a divine inner presence that is the source of all that is good, pure and noble. Identifying with it brings you inner peace and happiness because your higher Self is of the nature of bliss itself.

Even though you and I are softly prompted by God inside us, we seldom hear Him.* Our preoccupations with outer happenings and our daily concerns prevent us from tuning to God inside us. And so, we often miss His guidance.

One of the most powerful ways that God communicates with us is by giving rise to certain emotions within us.

Tune in to God inside you through your emotions

Thoughts give rise to emotions. And, emotions reflect the type and quality of thoughts. For example, negative thoughts such as judgements and expectations of others can evoke negative emotions such as impatience and anger. Positive thoughts of acceptance and understanding of others engender feelings of compassion and love.

Unstable stack of rocks symbolizing negative emotions that arise from not tuning in to God inside youYou may have noticed that whenever you harbour negative emotions, your mind is agitated and unhappy. Conversely, whenever your thoughts and emotions are good and noble, you experience peace or happiness. This is experienced by all people everywhere.

By giving rise to certain uncomfortable emotions that disturb the mind, God—our own Higher Self is sending us a message to stop, observe the emotion, link it to the source thought and recalibrate our minds towards peace.

Peace itself is happiness. We don’t have to look outside for something to make us happy. All we have to do is to be mindfully aware of our thoughts and choose loving, positive thoughts.

Since negative thoughts disturb the mind while loving, positive thoughts make it peaceful and happy, the choice to be happy lies in our own hands.

What are some divinely prompted negative emotions? Let me share a recent personal experience…

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed some gorgeous roses growing in my neighbour’s side yard. She is not interested in gardening and I seldom see her outside. This rose bush was planted by the previous owner of the property. When I saw the exquisite pink roses, I was tempted to pluck a few. “She wouldn’t care. She probably hasn’t even noticed them,” I said to myself.

As soon as I had these thoughts, I started to feel fear. My heart rate quickened, and my eyes darted about looking to see if anyone had caught me staring at the roses.

Thankfully, I quickly became aware of the fear and the discomfort I was feeling, I immediately dropped the thought of stealing. “Forget it! It’s not worth it!” The instant I cut off the negative thought, I became peaceful and calm. I remember thinking to myself, “Nothing is worth more than my peace of mind!”

Whenever fear comes from desiring some selfish gain, know that God inside you is reminding you that what you are contemplating on is wrong.

I’m sure we all have been hurt by something that someone did or said. We often carry the pain and feelings of anger for years afterwards.

It’s hard to let go and forgive. One of the biggest reasons why we deliberately hold on to unforgiveness is because we think the perpetrator of the hurt doesn’t deserve it.

When you hold on to unforgiveness, it backfires on you. It creates bitterness and anger that burn you up inside.

The anger we feel is engendered by God inside us. It is meant to be painful so that we can choose forgiveness and be free of the shackles of the past.

When we finally decide to surrender to God, to forgive and be free, He alone is the one who provides us the wisdom and strength to do it.

Now what about when we inflict pain on others? What happens then? The immediate result of giving pain is getting it back by the way of mental agitation. Even if you say that you gain a certain satisfaction in retaliating, that satisfaction does not bring you inner calm and balance. It erodes your sense of dignity and self-respect.

What’s more, in the long run, the Law of Karma will catch up with us and ensure that we have to suffer the consequences of our negative actions.

The mental turbulence we feel when we deliberately inflict pain on others is the way God prompts us to regret and try and make amends. When we do that, we bring peace to our own minds and to the relationship. These feelings are congratulatory messages from God that affirm we are on the right path.

Every emotion is a divine message

White dove symbolizing tuning in to God inside youEvery emotion is a beautiful message from God. When you understand this, you will feel you are always guided and protected by Him.

Normally when the mind is disturbed, we blame it on something or someone outside. But we have to develop the habit of seeing the hidden guidance of God in all our emotions and reform our own thinking.

A few months ago, I received a text message on my phone that had been forwarded to me. It had a powerful lesson on being responsible for your own thoughts and emotions without blaming it on someone else.

If you know the author of the following words, please let me know in the comments below. Here’s the message as I received it:

You’re holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee? “Because someone bumped into me!” Wrong answer. You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it until you get rattled. 

So we have to ask ourselves, “What’s in my cup?” When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? Anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions?

Life provides the cup, you choose how to fill it. Today, let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, kindness, gentleness and love for others. 

As we imbibe and strengthen these positive traits in ourselves, they become our own nature. The inherent divinity within us manifests clearly when we purify our minds in this way.

Have faith and surrender

When we have faith that the divine is constantly guiding and leading us to our soul’s evolution through the emotions we feel, it becomes easier to surrender to that higher power and walk the path of spirituality.

Life becomes simple, peaceful and balanced when you tune in to God within you.

This article was inspired by a talk on chapter 10 of the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Aparajitananda.

*God, our Higher Self has no gender. I have used the pronoun “Him” for ease of writing. Please feel free to replace this pronoun with Her or It as you feel comfortable.

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Manisha Melwani

Manisha Melwani is a teacher and the author of, "Your Spiritual Journey" She offers spiritual and wellness solutions for life and stress management. She teaches classes in personal growth, stress management and meditation. Contact her for more information or to have her speak to your group or organization. She also offers private counseling sessions on-line.
Manisha Melwani

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