Tapping Into Divine Inspiration:
The 6 Key Principles for Living an Inspired Life of Effortlessness and Joy

BY DR. WAYNE DYER

living a truly inspired life requires you to be able to transcend the lower self and learn to tap into divine inspiration.

There are six principles that are important to observe as we seek divine inspiration—they’re a blueprint to refer to as we reconstruct a life in-Spirit. I’m listing them in no particular order of importance because I believe that they’re equally essential to an inspired life.

Inspired Life Principle #1: Be Independent of the Good Opinion of Others

In order to live in-Spirit, we must adopt Arthur Miller’s trust that the Source is always working within us, or Walt Whitman’s belief that our ultimate calling “may be regarded by others as being useless—yet it is [our] dream, it is [our] lodestar.” In other words, divine inspiration must be our master, even though following it might disappoint others.

There are many well-meaning people in our lives who have ideas about what we should or shouldn’t be doing… relatives tend to be specialists in this area! If we let them guide us with advice that isn’t congruent with the inner calling of our divine inspiration, we’ll suffer the anguish—the “slings and arrows”—of an uninspired life. Each of us can feel what we’re being called to be; when we listen, we can hear our own impatient voices coaxing us to listen and complete the assignments we brought with us from the world of Spirit. But when we allow the opinions and dictates of others to determine what we’re going to be, we lose sight of our objective to live an inspired life.

We need to determine for ourselves how much we’ve allowed others to decide issues such as what we do, where we live, with whom we live, and even how we’re treated. We must know that absolutely no one else truly knows and feels what we’re here to accomplish in our inspired lives, so we must give ourselves permission to hear our inner guidance and ignore the pressure from others. Regardless of how absurd our inner calling might seem, it’s authentically ours and doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. The willingness to listen and act on our diving inspiration, independent of the opinions of others, is imperative.

Inspired Life Principle #2: Be Willing to Accept the Disapproval of Others

Logically following the last principle, this one notes that we’re going to incur the disfavor of many people when we follow our inclinations to be in-Spirit with our inspired living.

This isn’t a selfish or cynical attitude: When we begin to follow our divine inspiration, there will be a lot of resistance. In fact, the purpose of the “slings and arrows” sent our way is to get us to change our mind and be “reasonable,” which translates to “Do it my way!” However, as we gain the strength to ignore the pressure to conform, resistance will diminish and ultimately change to respect for our inspired lives.

When we steadfastly refuse to think, act, and conform to the mandates of others, the pressure to do so loses its momentum. All we have to do is endure some initial disapproval such as dogmatic persuasion, anger, pouting, silence, and long-winded lectures . . . and then we’re on our way to divine inspiration rather than frustration.

Here’s a recent example of this from my own life. I elected to have most of the royalties and all of the advance payments for this book go to a scholarship fund, and there were people who tried to get me to “come to my senses” and not “throw my money away,” which was how they viewed my decision. I have an inner voice that is overwhelmingly powerful, and I trust in what that divine inspiration tells me. I’d known for many years that one day I’d endow a scholarship fund at my alma mater, for instance—the thought of young, financially challenged students having the opportunity that I’d received as a young military veteran inspires me more than I can relate to you here in these pages. So I was comfortable with, and able to ignore, the disapproval I encountered, giving responses such as, “I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it,” and “Don’t waste your time and mine attempting to convince me otherwise.” And sure enough, the resistance I met was converted to acceptance. The people who receive the most approval in life are the ones who care the least about it—so technically, if we want the approval of others, we need to stop caring about it and turn our attention to inspired living.

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Divine inspiration doesn’t come from completing tasks or meeting goals; in fact, that’s the sure way to have it elude us. Returning to Spirit, you see, is an experience of living fully in the present moment. Our purpose in life isn’t to arrive at a destination where we find divine inspiration, just as the purpose of dancing isn’t to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing—and of life—is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where we are when the music ends.

Many of us are seduced into believing that having goals is necessary for an inspired life, especially since we’ve been brainwashed by slogans such as “If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’re there?” and “Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching a goal.” This kind of logic keeps us from feeling inspired because we live a life of striving while foregoing arriving.

A more rewarding spiritual truth is that there’s only now—and when this moment passes, it will be replaced by another one, ad infinitum. To use up our “present now” being consumed with a “future now” that will only turn into a “then” is the prescription for the absence of divine inspiration. Since there’s only now, learning to live in it and enjoy every present moment is the same as being in-Spirit.

Inspired Life Principle #4: Know That We Need Nothing/No Things to Be Inspired

We came into this world of boundaries from a formless energy field of Spirit. We arrived here with nothing/no things, we’ll make our exit with nothing/no things, and our purpose (God-realization) requires nothing/no things. We are all that we need for inspired living on purpose, and the things that continue to flow into our life are just symbols of the unlimited abundance of our Source.

In other words, these things have no value in and of themselves because everything in the physical world is changing and will dissolve back to nothingness anyway. The objective Universe is not made up of things—it’s made up of waves of motion that simulate the things we’re taught to believe are real. Once we accept that, from an infinite perspective, everything we see in nature isn’t really what it seems to be, we’re able to convert what we view with our eyes into a knowing about all things. Then we can recognize that the objects we believed we needed to find divine inspiration are nothing from Spirit’s perspective. This is what distinguishes the physical person from the spiritual person, the inspired person from the uninspired person.

We’re beings of Spirit, living from mind (rather than the body with all of its inherent restrictions), so if we communicate with God in the language of light and energy, its divine inspiration, we’ll see His tolerant amusement at our preoccupation with the illusion of possessions.

We don’t need more of anything for an inspired life; rather, we need to take our attention away from what we see and move into the miraculous world of Spirit, where joy and bliss await us.

Remember: We’re already connected to everything that we think is missing from our life. Below and above the ranges that our eyes and ears perceive, the entire activity of creation remains invisible and inaccessible—but when we shift from sensory searching to trusting what we know, we discover the folly of chasing after anything in order to feel an inspired life. All we need is a conscious realignment so that our thoughts begin to match up vibrationally with Spirit, which we know is a part of us already.

This principle is extremely important in working toward an inspired life because it motivates us to act on our divine inspiration—after all, we don’t want to be full of regrets because we failed to heed our ultimate calling.

Attempting to do something, even if it doesn’t succeed, is inspiring because we don’t tend to regret what we do, we regret what we didn’t do. Even following a futile attempt, we’re inspired in life because we know that we gave it a shot. It’s wondering whether we should or shouldn’t try something that leaves us feeling stressed and incomplete.

Divine inspiration has nothing to do with whether we win or lose; in fact, if we just play the game of life, we’ll have plenty of wins and losses, regardless of our talent level. If we fail to even try because of fear of rejection or doubt about our talent, we’re going to go through life wondering, and that’s what keeps us from finding and feeling divine inspiration.

Most of us, myself included, can remember the intensity of our first romantic attraction—just as we can recall what happened when we didn’t follow our divine inspiration. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d been able to act on that strong inner call in high school, when I had an enormous crush on a beautiful girl named Janice Nelson. I wanted to ask her out, but I let my fear of being rejected keep me from taking the steps to act upon my inner desires for an inspired life.

On several occasions I even dialed her phone number and hung up when she answered. I never overcame my foreboding thoughts and, in effect, was left to die wondering.

Many years later, I danced with Janice at our 30-year high school reunion and told her how I felt back then. I even confessed the way I’d hang up the phone because of my trepidation. Janice, to my everlasting delight—and chagrin—said, “I always had a crush on you. I would’ve loved to have gone out with you, and in fact I tried to leave you clues to call me. But you never did.” Ouch! That’s a perfect example of regretting what I didn’t do.

There’s an ancient aphorism that goes: “If you really want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” In essence this means that all we desire will arrive in our life when and only when we’re aligned vibrationally with the energy of our Source. Our ego won’t be consulted or get to determine the schedule—the Creator reveals Its secrets of divine inspiration when It’s good and ready. Our job is to take the focus off of the when and put it on being connected to our originating Spirit. Our job is to stop challenging and demanding responses from God, and instead be more like Him. Our job is to understand and accept that all of the things that show up even in our inspired life, which we often find contradictory or troublesome, are there because we’ve attracted them . . . and we need to have these obstacles in order to clear an opening for our true Spirit purpose to emerge. This may require a change in thinking patterns.

As always, our job in God-realization is to become more like God—that means surrendering to the timetable that’s always perfect, even when it seems to be full of errors. Keep these six principles handy and access them anytime you find yourself lacking divine inspiration. Remember, too, that we’re called to this world of inspiration, which beckons us to “let go and let God,” as they say in the recovery movement. I also love this advice, which was tendered by one of my favorite teachers, Napoleon Hill: “If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way. Don’t wait for great opportunities. Seize common, everyday ones and make them great.”

This article on living in alignment with divine inspiration is excerpted from Living an Inspired Life: Your Ultimate Calling by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

About The Author

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, affectionately called the “father of motivation” by his fans, was an internationally renowned author, speaker, and pioneer in the field of self-development. Over the four decades of his career, he wrote more than 40 books (21 of which became New York Times bestsellers), created numerous audio programs and videos, and appeared on thousands of television and radio shows. Visit his website: drwaynedyer.com