Intuition and developing intuition

What is intuition or Intuitiveness?

The word intuition brings a sense of the unrealistic and improbable to one’s mind. Intuition is inner guidance or instinctive knowledge and often associated with psychic and prophetic properties. There is not too much of a scientific base to this quality of human mind process but yet, one cannot deny the existence of this extra sensory power of perception. Men call it gut feeling while women call it the intuition or the sixth sense. Intuition is like faith; it will only develop as far as you would let it develop. People are often afraid of basing their decisions on intuition. The rationale element as we know it, is missing from this source causing it to be viewed sceptically. Because of its illogical or so called irrational nature, it is often discarded as something worthless. Albert Einstein would say that “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Carl Jung believed that ‘intuition is perception through the unconscious.’ Ask any woman and she will tell you what intuition is.

Intuitive thinking - intuitive decision making

Most business hunches and decisions are guided by a certain level of intuition or gut feeling. Intuition by itself may not be the deciding factor in the decision making process but can contribute heavily to it. Intuition along with logistics can help you take calculated risks which are a part of any business decision making process. This is what most business men do, take calculated risk based on their gut feeling which is actually a unconscious processing of information available with what is seen and evaluated externally. Though people become astute business men basing their decisions on intuition and haunches yet when the word intuition is used it is dismissed as old wives tales. Here is what Bill gates has to say, ‘Often you have to rely on intuition.

Developing intuition or How to be intuitive

Intuition is a kind of extra sensory perception that tells you or guides you in the direction of a particular decision. Though you may not know why, but your mental processor has already processed the available information and is now giving you a decision. This is intuition defined in a very simplistic way. Carl Jung said, “I regard intuition as a basic psychological function that mediates perception in an unconscious way. Intuition enables us to divine the possibilities of a situation.”

It is almost like listening to your body or listening to your thoughts. This doesn’t happen overnight. It calls for a great amount of practice, quiet time and readiness to listen to what does not sound logical. You need to have faith to believe in yourself and what your mind is telling you. Intuition gets heightened as you allow your sense to pick up information from the world around you. You need to be really tuned to what is happening with the person or the circumstances around you to be able to draw from your intuition. It is almost like a bridge that connects reality to the surreal.

In order to develop intuition one has to take risks. You have to be ready to test out what your intuition tells you to find out if it works or not. You need to get in touch with your intuition on a regular basis to be able to draw from it. Listening to that small inner voice or inner guidance will be your first step but to get there you need to learn the art of silencing your mind. You need to tune in to your inner self and the thoughts and impressions that run though the mind constantly, is the only way to develop intuition. There is so much happening within our body we are nether aware of this nor do we concern ourselves with it. In similar manner we are unaware of the stream of thought that is constantly crashing on the shores of our mind. It takes a heightened awareness to get into that level of consciousness, not impossible but needs practice. Picking those stray thoughts and following them in quietness could lead us to a store house of information that is within us. You need to spend time developing it you would do with any other skill.

Understanding Intuition being in tune with yourself

Haven’t you ever been surprised at your own knowledge of things? Have you ever wondered where did all this come from? Have you thought any further on these things? It is the mind doing it own processing of which we are hardly conscious. It has been known that we do not like to focus on what we do not know; but pay attention to what we consciously know. Science tells us that we do not put to good use the full functioning of our brain, and such self imposed constraint on the power of the brain could be reason enough.

Sages and saints have discovered some of the deep working of the mind and it connectedness with the universe around just by cutting the world out and zooming in on their thoughts. Faith and many faith based actions are rooted in this kind of focus in one stream of thinking. Even to the discerned mind it would be foolish to dismiss as fallacy the things we do not understand. It may be worthwhile to be attuned to your mind and its deep thoughts.Intuition is ultimately your connection to the subconscious mind.

Intuition is well worth paying attention to

There have been times when your mind told you to do something and you found that when you just put away that urge you encountered some problem or the other. I have heard women say I knew this would happen - pure intuition. I have experiences of the same kind when I tell my husband something he asks me for the logic and I tell him well at the moment that I can only tell him that this would be the best course of action we have often found to our surprise that I was right more often than not. It is better to heed to the voice of intuition and trust that well spring of wisdom that rises up from within you.

I would like to conclude with this quote from Einstein ‘There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.’ If Albert Einstein depended on his intuition for his discoveries I am convinced that it might be worth while to spend time developing the same intuition myself.