Many spiritual teachers say that it is necessary to follow the desires and goals of your heart, your soul, and then life will be harmonious and happy. And they are completely right, but there is a difficulty: how do you understand that it is the call of your soul and not something else?

After all, there are times when you, let’s say, strongly and strongly want something, feel that you need it right away, and when you finally get it, there is disappointment and emptiness. You’ve deceived yourself and fallen under the influence of someone else’s opinion, and that desire doesn’t really belong to your soul.

And a similar thing can happen with anything: communication and acquaintance with a person, a trip to some place, a meal, buying a product, choosing a profession, and so on.

Personally, I always try to pay attention to this nuance: do I have to talk myself into it at least a little bit when I want something? Because if you’re proving to yourself that you need it, then you probably don’t really need it. Yes, it may be good and right, but it is not yours, because the soul does not need arguments – it knows everything right away.

I found two more important criteria in Osho’s talks.

How to understand what the soul says, not a ego?

When you follow the voice of the ego, sooner or later problems arise. You get trapped in misery. You have to observe this: the ego always leads to misery, absolutely always, always without exception.

So we create 90% of the problems in our lives ourselves, and if we shift responsibility to others, it will be difficult to learn to hear ourselves. Yes, we are confused by advertising, beautiful reviews, and imposed opinions about what is considered “right” and “good,” but we are still responsible for our own choices.

Also note that Osho made a special emphasis on the fact that choices from the ego always, without exception, lead to suffering, but this truth is hard to accept when it comes, for example, to relationships.

Many relationships begin as they say for good, and end up not so good. So it is worth bearing in mind that perhaps the desire to be with this person did not come from the soul, but from other motives and reasons. In order to understand this, you must first be honest with yourself and look inside yourself, instead of blaming your partner for everything.

How to understand that it is my soul that I hear?

There’s a simple way to hear your soul: change your habitual surroundings. Whenever you listen to nature, it leads you to well-being, contentment, silence, bliss. That should be the criterion. You will inevitably make many mistakes; but there is no other way. You have to observe your choices, where the voice comes from, and then you have to see where your choices lead to, because a tree is known by its fruit…

When I did not yet know that my choice would lead to good results, afterwards I noticed a feeling of lightness and flight in my chest and waves of energy running through my body. Though during the choice itself there were fears and doubts.

So we must watch ourselves and always be careful what we do and what the consequences are. Through trial and error, we will learn to understand and realize which desires are real and which are just illusion and deception.

I wish you to master this art by all means, because for the feeling of happiness and usefulness of our lives depends on it.