Invisible friends
Inner dialogues, sacred silence, and the true connectivity that's already ours.
Recently a friend and I were talking about the rarity and preciousness of real conversation these days. ‘Real,’ as in, the kind of conversation where you feel free to speak what’s on your heart, trusting that you’ll be truly seen and heard by the other. The kind of heart-to-heart and mind-to-mind exchange that uplifts and nourishes both parties.
“I mostly talk to my parents in my head,” she admitted. “They were always the ones who understood me best.” (Her parents have been gone for a decade or more.)
That caught my attention. Because although I’ve never talked to dead people [except for one time, when I commanded get the fuck out of my house!, to whatever had no business there], lately I’d been very acutely aware of a different type of inner, one-way conversation, similar in some ways to the one she was describing—although having nothing to do with the hereafter. More on that in a minute.
Anyway what I’m saying is, although I’ve not poured out my innermost heart and tenderest longings to the deceased, as my friend does, I well understand the temptation to speak internally to those not present. It’s something we’re seemingly wired to do; one of those ubiquitous aspects of the egoic veil structure common to just about all of us.
Why do we do it?
My theory is that this strong habit of attraction we have, to various kinds of inner monologue—because it’s not really an interactive dialogue, is it? It’s just us talking to an imaginary listener—that this is a phenomenon designed solely to distract us away from noticing our own plain-as-day divine nature.
So clever, so simple.
Besides the infernal noisiness of the inner chatterer, engagement with its monologues hinders our ability to stay present: Trips to the past, fantasy projections into the future. Who said what to whom, that one time, and this is what you should’ve said to them back then, but didn’t. Or this is what you’re going to say, next time the subject comes up. Or whatever.
Time-travelling, to everywhere except the here and now. And always faithfully accompanied by that internal yap-yap-yapping. I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.
No presence. No silence.
Presence and silence, however, are non-negotiable aspects of our true sacred identity. Which is always already right here.
If you were to imagine your true divine self as being like a fish—bear with me, here—presence and silence are like the water in which it swims. Presence and silence are its environment, its world. Furthermore, that divine water permeates and saturates every molecule of its own being. It is what the fish breathes. There is no place, within or without it, where the waters of presence-silence are not.
You could say that the fish, while a distinct entity in its own right, is, at the same time, one with the present-silent water.
But back to our own predicament:
No presence, no silence.
Just noise and storytelling. Which, funnily enough, sets the stage for the very opposite of silent presence.
Noise and storytelling are not, of themselves, powerful roadblocks to self-realization. Of themselves, they’re not much of anything. We needn’t actually pay any attention to them at all, theoretically at least. Inner noise and storytelling are nothing more than hypnotically alluring invitations to the dance.
We’re the ones who keep paying attention to them, automatically lending an ear every time the dance band tunes up for another go-round. We’re the ones who get dazzled or frazzled or flummoxed over and over again, by those inner invitations, causing us to continually say yes to the same old tango. Yes to the same old dance partner.
We’re the ones who end up freely choosing the veil-inspired chatterbox, in other words, instead of the divine perfection that’s always already here.
Monologues for nobody
Back to the kind of inner monologue I’ve become hyper aware of lately. It’s all come about because I’ve inadvertently given my internal chatterbox a job. And we all know how much the egoic structure loves a job. My little fella writes. Or rather, edits.
Me, I prefer to write from authentic inspiration. I wait til I feel that energetic-spiritual-creative zing! that lights up my field. And then I go for it. A rush of words and ideas starts tumbling into my consciousness; that’s when I drop what I’m doing, and grab a pen or a keyboard, to start writing down what’s coming in.
And that’s a beautiful process, as far as it goes. But that torrent of words is usually pretty raw. Bits are missing. There are themes that require extra development. The entire piece needs editing. Polishing. Further explanation and clarification of key points.
My writing is rarely ready for prime time, in the original state in which it first appears.
So. Who is ready to help, red editing pencil in hand? Who’s eager to judge the quality of sentence construction? Who happily corrects my grammar and punctuation? Who delights in sharing its advice on how this essay will be perceived and understood by readers?
There is nothing at all wrong with diligent editing, believe me. Nobody would want to have to decipher my tangled scribbles prior to its loving attentions.
However. In my case, although the creative spark itself comes from pure inspiration, you can be pretty sure the invisible friend has spent an extra couple of days methodically chewing it over, before anyone else gets to see it.
It’s one of the primary reasons I’m not super keen to write any more books; a full length project like that would give the inner editor a fulltime job for at least a year. Chew, chew, chew. Swallow and repeat.
Anyway, the upshot of all this thorough mastication, is that through long habit, my veil-inspired little friend no longer even needs the pretense of an invisible listener, to whom its stories should be addressed.
As I move through my daily life, I’ve lately noticed in rather acutely startled bemusement, that just beneath the surface of my consciousness, the internal chatterbox has been telling fascinating stories about key episodes from my earlier days…to absolutely no one. Writing its own endless bestsellers without me.
Sacred silence
Q: Whatever the content of our own chatty interior monologues, they always pull us out of presence. So how does one go about making the inner chatterbox shut up?
A: We can’t. Or rather, we can, but it’ll come right back, the moment our attention wanders. Such is the hypnotic power of our habitual agreement to the dance.
The solution, as always, is to go back to the radio analogy. (I know, sorry. Fishes, tangos, and now vintage radios, all in a single essay. What can I say.)
To find real relief from the inner noise, we choose a station that’s higher up on the radio dial. In that higher frequency bandwidth, the inner chatter simply fades away. Its low frequency transmission can’t reach you where you are.
It’s possible that it’s still yapping away somewhere farther down the dial, I suppose, but now there’s nobody to hear it. Because you’ve turned away from it, and are now approaching a hushed and hallowed present-moment realm of shimmering silence, luminous with the beauty of your own true nature.
Pausing on the threshold of this inner space, it’ll very gradually dawn that what you are witnessing is your own normal, everyday divinity. Your own breathtakingly sacred, yet utterly unspecial true identity.
This radiant frequency field is part of your own human beingness; it came with you as standard equipment, when you entered the world and took form. Its silent aliveness is always here, and always accessible.
So subtle you could almost miss it. Especially if you’re uh, distracted by other things.
I’ve written alot about sacred silence in other essays. How it’s a divine frequency that palpably permeates mind, body and spirit; how with repeated exposure to it, it slowly and gently entrains all parts of the self to re-member themselves in the oneness of their own true divine identity. How true silence is nothing to do with sound or its absence; rather, it’s the underlying frequency field that sound arises in.
An endless fountain of universal connectivity
But there’s more. And for this bit (which is beyond my own current experience or expansion) I rely on information from Jacqueline Hobbs. She says that this interior space of easily accessible inner silence, is also a portal of infinite potentiality. That when you’re 100% ready to enter it, the entire universe becomes available to you.
Meaning, in this case, that any and all beings can be in communion. Real 2-way exchanges; richly divine communication, without the cumbersome use of words. All instantly transmitted and received in oneness.
Jacqueline refers to this universal bush telegraph as the gold frequency. (Her more comprehensive definition of the gold frequency can be found in the glossary section of her Oracle Girl website, if you’re interested.)
I should add that this described connectivity is nothing to do with psychic abilities. Psychic gifts (and the information they bring in) belong to a lower bandwidth than the ultra pure one that is being described here.
Anyway, she says all beings and the earth itself are naturally tuned to this gold frequency. Our radios come with this station pre-programmed at the top of the dial, in other words. It’s part of what we already are.
The catch here (or I should say, the non-negotiable prerequisite) is that in order to open up to the infinite flow of universal connectivity, heaven and earth need to first be flowing unobstructedly through our own non-judging heart.
Oh. Right. Okay. Bummer.
It means we can’t be avoiding, shielding our eyes or otherwise bypassing anything about our own sometimes extremely challenging lives, OR about the sometimes extremely challenging world around us.
But that makes sense, when you think about it…because in order to be a conduit of unobstructed flow, by definition we need to allow everything in. It’s all or nothing, in that sense. So our divinely neutral, un-judging heart must learn to stay open to absolutely everything it encounters. Tricky as that can sometimes be.
But worth it, don’t you think?
When our own sacred spiritual heart flows freely within this inner sanctum of silence, communication will be instant, wordless and effortless. So it seems logical that mobile phones and zoom calls will quickly become clunky, obsolete relics of the past. What’s more, all knowledge worth knowing will be at our own fingertips—putting Google (and the internet itself) out of business.
I’m hardly an expert at mastering the 100% non-judging heart. As anyone who’s ever met me can testify. But I do have a certain amount of experience I can share, on the topic of wordless divine communication. And if you’ve experienced this sort of luminous interaction yourself, you’ll undoubtedly recognize its heavenly hallmarks:
Divine communication unfurls slowly like a fragrant flower in bloom; incredibly rich and multifaceted, its wisdom finds its way into your heart and deepens over time. Paradoxically, the 2-way communication itself is instant. Radiant information and energetic sensation are silently transmitted, felt and received in a flash. All in a manner that is wholly beyond the need for words.
It’s beautiful beyond description.
In short, as our silent hearts strengthen and mature into the kick-ass, light-bearing vessels they were always meant to be, not one of us will ever again yearn for meaningful conversation, or for the sense that we are truly seen, understood and loved. No more desire for invisible friends, in other words. Any sense of isolation or loneliness will be a thing of the past.
How could we ever feel lonely when we know ourselves in infinite wholeness, and intimate connection with all that is?
I’ll shut up now, ‘nuff said.
The silence is calling.