Hearing voices on the way to greater awareness, and how to keep yourself mentally sane amidst chaos

One of the major milestones you will witness yourself crossing on the path of waking up to the true nature of reality is sensitivity.

You know that there are pain sensing nerves more concentrated on your palm than your arm. But if your pain sensing ability on the arm was somehow made to become heightened as much as that of your palm, things will change for you. Now you will begin to notice sensations which you earlier were oblivious of.

Something very similar happens when you walk the path of enlightenment and awareness. As your awareness grows, so does your sensitivity towards subjects which you earlier did not know about. You will feel deeper connection with objectives. Here is an example to understand better:

Most of us grow up drinking milk. Whether the milk comes from cows, buffaloes or any other animals; we don't think much of. We also are not aware how the entire ecosystem works in dairy industry. But something drastic happens when we seek the path of enlightenment. You find out how the dairy industry work, the brutalities the milch cattle is subjected to during their entire lifetime and their gruesome end.

When you become aware of all that, you question whether such tremendous suffering of some creature is justified to bring a glass of milk on your table when your body absolutely do not need that glass of milk at all.

You begin to empathize with the pain of those animals. Then you realize the level of demand there is for milk products and how people have developed their own unaware arguments in support for the consumption of animal milk.

And this is just an example of the milch animal. There are animals being bred for meat, eggs, milk, protection, and competition. When you see the entire canvas, you begin to hear the Moos, and the Baas, the Cockadoo, the Woof and the Neighs. These are but just a handful of sounds representing animals in pain and suffering. If you take a look at other countries say for example China, you can hear almost the entire Jungle.

All these sounds bring you immense discomfort. The discomfort comes from a feeling of helplessness. You are uncomfortable about your own insufficiency to do anything about the injustice someone is being subjected to before you.

All this happens when you set yourself on the path of greater awareness.

Now, there are people who can not compose themselves while treading the path of enlightenment. Many lose it. The magnitude of the bleakness of the situation and the amount of effort it would take to cause even an iota of change brings them to the realization of how minuscule, tiny, insufficient they are. Or at least they begin to see themselves that way. Here is another way to deal with this situation that will align your energy where it is needed:

Find ways to contribute. Forget the scale or the magnitude of the contribution. The one who is going deaf because of all the noise one is hearing must practice that individual contribution matters. If a thousand people take a step forward, it is a thousand steps. But essentially, one person is only taking just one step forward. Therefore, always remember that individual contribution, no matter how small, if aligned in the right direction is immensely powerful than turning a blind eye upon finding yourself insufficient or incapable.

Very powerful story: A man was walking on the beach when he saw thousands of starfish laying on the sand dying out. They must have been washed ashore by the waves. There were thousands of starfish for as far as he could see. All of them would die in a few hours out in the Sun. It broke his heart. He walked few steps and found another picking each starfish and throwing it back in the ocean. The man looked at him with a disbelief in his eyes and couldn't hold back. He asked: "You know you can't save all of them. What does it even matter?" Another man stopped for a second, picked up another starfish and flung it in the sea and said: "it matters to this one."

Incredible story to recall whenever you find yourself unable to cope up with the heightened sensitivity on the path to enlightenment.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely yours

Siddharth Soni