"It seems to me, you live your life like a candle in the wind. Never knowing who to cling to when the rain comes in..."
-Candle in the Wind, 1973
Sources for universal truth proliferate on earth today. It seems that each month, or week, or day, a new book or theorist or philosophy takes off in the mass market, providing a wonderful opportunity for people to increase their level of awareness.
With the volume of information out there, how do you decide what has value? How do you determine which pieces of information are, in fact, based upon universal truth rather than falsehoods? How do you know for sure if this one book or seminar is beneficial for you personally?
Once again, and I know you've heard this from Karen's guides before, use your intuition as your guide. Exactly how does one use intuition in this case? Don't hesitate to engage in a book, teleseminar, workshop, or audio program if you feel drawn to it; you needn't count on your intuition as being so reliable that you can predetermine the value of the content of everything that interests you. Instead, participate with an open mind and sense how the information is making you feel. If you feel repelled [pushed away] or closed, it's likely that the information is not beneficial for you at the moment, and perhaps never will be. If, on the other hand, the message gets you excited and very interested, you feel drawn in, then you have likely hit upon something truthful and beneficial.
Use your other powers of sensing value. Do the prescribed exercises or tasks seem tedious or onerous? Do the exercises seem boring? Answering these two questions can also guide you to the potential that working any recommended program has for your personal benefit. There's tremendous variation from one person to another regarding their willingness to commit to levels of exercise, but if you can sense you will not commit, then you are either not ready for the information or it holds no value for you.
Perhaps you're thinking about a perpetually lazy person who never tries his hand at anything, so how could he decide the usefulness of this information? If he rejects it perhaps he is being lazy. True! But laziness is a form of maintaining a level of awareness in which one finds comfort. It is for each individual to determine for her or himself when to expand. This fact indicates to you how intuition works. When ready, the person wanting to expand will draw in beneficial circumstances, information, and people.
Lastly, remember that not all information from one source may benefit you even if some does. For example, when you read a book, you may find that several chapters resonate within you, yet another chapter does not. Your sense of reason should be recognized as knowing that different information from the same source does not equate to all the information having the same value or level of truthfulness. And even the most enlightened source may fail to access truth for reasons of personal bias or individual masks filtering information.
It is good to know that the truth lies within you. Truth is not necessarily what the crowd thinks. Truth is not necessarily a product that is popular or trendy. Truth is not "dictated." Truth is known when it is discovered. It feels good. It feels loving. It feels right.