We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
When looking for answers, we look outside. But if we were to look inside, focus on our inner world, listen to that inner voice, we would be amazed at its resourcefulness.
Each of us has a higher self, and it speaks through the heart. If you learn to ignore or pause the mind’s chatter, you can hear it.
The mind can only think and believe, and make mistakes; the heart does not think, it only knows. Listen to it — that’s your higher self.
What is the higher self?
The term “higher self” has often been used in spirituality and psychology, but there are different definitions of the word.
You can imagine your higher self as a guide, a wiser entity, who is always there with you and that can talk to you when you need their advice.
Their advice may appear in the form of images, symbols, dreams, intuitions, or synchronicity. Here are three possible definitions of the higher self.
Higher self = best self
This would be the easiest, most basic definition. The higher self is the best version of yourself.
If you can think of all your best qualities, your best and highest state of mind, your energy at its peak, you can then imagine your higher self as the entity that embodies that.
Naturally, we can’t be in that state 24/7. We can, however, consciously choose to be closer to our higher self, each day and no matter what we may be going through at the time.
Higher self = consciousness
We human beings tend to identify with things that are not us and that have nothing to do with us. We identify with our set of beliefs, our society, our job, etc.
But it goes beyond that. We then identify with our own thoughts (or the mind) and our own physical sensations (or the body). Though it’s a different “layer” of identification, it’s still mostly an illusion.
Because our innermost core isn’t body or mind, but pure consciousness and awareness — the higher self.
In a way, the higher self is an expansion of the self because any form of identification, including body or mind, can only be limited, whereas the non-identified self is unlimited.
Higher self = wiser self
There is a fun exercise in psychology and personal development where you write a letter to your old self, which is the person you are right now.
Basically, the future version of yourself — wiser, enlightened, experienced — writes a letter to the person you are right now to offer guidance and give a different perspective.
You can imagine that as your higher self: the self who knows more, who has already seen all the things that are meant to happen in your life, that has a better understanding of your real purpose.
So whenever you feel stuck, whenever you are looking for answers or simply have the desire to grow and discover things, that’s the person you should connect with because that person knows more than you.
Best higher self quotes
We all have an inner teacher, an inner guide, an inner voice that speaks very clearly but usually not very loudly. That information can be drowned out by the chatter of the mind and the pressure of day-to-day events.
Dean Ornish
I only do what my gut tells me to. I think it’s smart to listen to other people’s advice, but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can tell you what’s right for you.
Jennifer Lopez
Some people get their identity from their feelings, others from their thoughts, others from their social roles. But this identification with a part of the personality destroys the freedom which comes from the experience of the pure “I”.
Roberto Assagioli
Look inside yourself for the answers — you’re the only one who knows what’s best for you. Everybody else is only guessing.
Charles de Lint
By learning to trust your intuition, miracles seem to happen. Intuitive thoughts are gifts from the higher self.
Susan Jeffers
If you want to learn to trust your vibes, you must maintain a peaceful and relatively calm attitude. When you are tense, nervous, or anxious, your energy gets tangled up and blocked, and cannot enter your heart center, where your higher self and your vibes communicate.
Sonia Choquette
If you investigate the matter deeply enough and wide enough, you will find that happiness eludes nearly all men, even though they are forever seeking it. The fortunate and successful few are those who have stopped seeking with the ego alone and allow the search to be directed inwardly by the higher self.
Paul Brunton
Notice what happens when you follow your intuitive feelings. The result is usually increased energy and power, and a sense of things flowing.
Shakti Gawain
We always know which is the best road to follow, but we follow only the road that we have become accustomed to.
Paulo Coelho
The mind always thinks about the means and how one should act. It takes control and tries various options. The heart in contrast does not think.
Vadim Zeland
Your higher self is focusing love and guidance into your life in every second of your life, and it is your choice to either prevent that focused energy or to allow it.
Teal Swan
Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.
Shakti Gawain
If you connect with a greater part of yourself, I call it higher self, that’s an experience, and when you do this, knowledge comes in, including intuition, and it’s always about: “what’s my heart’s sole desire?”
James Redfield
Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.
Henry Winkler
Our inner guidance comes to us through our feelings and body wisdom first — not through intellectual understanding.
Christiane Northrup
If you have the desire to change your life, your circumstances, your perspectives, hold fast to your inner commitments and listen to your inner knowing.
Victoria L. White
A cloud does not know why it moves in such a direction, and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion. This is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
Richard Bach
Your lower self sees you at the center of the universe; your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity.
Peace Pilgrim
There is no second or higher self to search for. You are the highest self; just give up the false ideas you have about yourself.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Short higher self quotes
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Jane Austen
The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself, everything that you want you already are.
Rumi
Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.
Joyce Brothers
You have the power to choose consciousness.
Amy Leigh Mercree
Your heart and gut are still your best guide.
Naveen Jain
Listen to your inner voice, for it is a deep and powerful source of wisdom, beauty and truth, ever flowing through you.
Caroline Joy Adams
Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing a fool.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust your inner guidance to reveal to you whatever it is you need to know.
Louise Hay
There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.
Rumi
We must attend to what our inner guidance is nudging us toward.
Julia Cameron
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Goethe
