That Glorious Gem Within : Intuition

In Native traditions, it's often known as that "spiritual sense" within. Living outside of concrete reality and without any need for conscious reasoning.

It can be irrational, and even spontaneous on arrival.

According to Carl Jung psychology it's unlike "feeling" or "thinking" where contents hold the character of something derived or deduced (by logic or reasoning) consciously and willfully.

Intuition, on the other hand, has the character of a FACT or a certainty given to you via the unconscious.

In medieval times it was considered a "magical power", gifted only to the most enlightened. But, throughout the years, we've come to understand it isn't reserved only for the priest or elite. It's for all.

"Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest".

-ZEN MASTER DOGEN

In Ancient Egypt the heart was the seat of intuition and the core of wisdom, not the brain. While writing and doing a little bit of research I came across an interview with a Lakota tribe member. Something he said stood out, "we've educated the wisdom out of ourselves".

Sages from the East view it as a spontaneous resonance with the Tao (the ALL true Force behind life). And with a quiet mind, and open spirit, it has room to rise up naturally without force. It's been the way for many.

Seemingly from out of nowhere is how beautiful poems found their way onto blank pages. And how colorful textures, shapes, and tones brought canvases to life. It's how some of the greats composed classics :

"You ask me where I get my ideas. That I cannot tell you with certainty. They come unsummoned, directly, indirectly - I could seize them with my hands - out in the open air, in the woods, while walking, in the silence of the nights, at dawn, excited by moods which are translated by the poet into words, by me into tones that sound and roar and storm about me till I have set them down in notes".

- LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Philosophers, Authors, Inventors, Investors, Hunters, Entrepreneurs, Doctors, Mothers, Fathers, Explorers and Scientist, and every other profession to add to the list. Are filled with intuitive types.

Albert Einstein, about one of his own theories, said :

“I was sitting in the patent office in Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: if a person falls freely, he won’t feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.”

Anthropologist Charles D. Laughlin, in his book Communing with the Gods: Consciousness, Culture and the Dreaming Brain, says of the approximately 4000 cultures in the world, 90% seek and value alternate states of consciousness, especially dreams. This is because intuitive experience is a normal part of life for them. It’s built into their education, community events, ceremony and other societal practices.

Even pre-industrial Western societies valued the intuitive. The ancient Greeks consulted the Oracle at Delphi. For centuries, the oracle of Apollo at Delphi was the highest-regarded religious institution throughout ancient Greece. Political actions, forecast of wars and their outcomes, prophecies, what type of grains or seeds to plant. The Delphic Oracle was the most influential source of wisdom, and how people would directly communicate with the gods.

But, as the advancements of industrializing a society approached so came the divide between our intuitive nature, and the skepticism, and denial of it.

Along with reason, science, and imagination. Intuition has for millennia been one of the greatest tools for discovering truths - knowledge of self, nature, and the world at large.

This mysterious phenomenon that works beyond conscious awareness. A deep seated wisdom not dependent on reality, culminating from a lifetime of experiences. When regarding the collective consciousness, this wisdom reaches much deeper than the knowledge and experience of any one individual.

Because, from a spiritual perspective, we're all connected. The Tao, or Chi, or Prana in India, and Mana in Polynesia. Or the Aura, and Mayan Chu’lel, or Egyptian Ankh, or the Great Spirit in Native cultures, and even Holy Spirit if your Christian. Is shared by all.

This is the same spiritual energy we're a part of, and one with. It runs through us, creates, flows in all things, and is all things. It's us, and we it, and without it, nothing is. Get it?

So today, we're bringing it back to the forefront. Sparked partly from a recent conversation on the Show and partly because it's something that's been brewing inside of me for a while now. Time to talk it up, rather than shut it down. Exploring, testing, and experiencing it for ourselves. This wonderful, powerful, hidden gem within.

How much more POTENTIAL, FREEDOM, KNOWLEDGE, CREATIVITY, might we tap into? There's only one way to find out. And the cool thing is, you've got all that you need to get started, right where you're at. Right now.

'Til very soon,

PEACE.