Welcome to Day 18 of our 40-Day Retreat.
Yesterday we spoke about the pursuit of knowledge and using the intellect in the pursuit of knowledge.
Intuition – guidance from inside
In the pursuit of knowledge we not only use the faculty of the intellect, or the tool of the intellect, but we use another “tool,” if I may call it that. It is also the use of the intellect, but the intellect gives way to another process called “Intuition”. Today, I’ll deal with Intuition.
We try to use the intellect in our daily lives to process thoughts, to set our goals and to go after them. The intellect is the immediate tool we have for reasoning and mental processing. There comes a time, however, when the intellect itself seems powerless in acquiring information. It is especially so when the information seems to be outside of the known, and no matter how much the intellect probes, it seems unable to access the information it is seeking. In a practical sense, you may wrestle with a problem in your mind and when no answer seems to come, you then have to look for the answer from outside of the conscious information you have. That you are able to acquire with the intellect.
I am sure you must have experienced giving the intellect a rest, saying, “I’m tired of thinking, of reasoning. Let me just let it go for awhile. This is too worrisome, too burdensome.” After a while of letting go, you are amazed to find new information coming that relates to your question, or your search. This seems to be an extraordinary quality, the way of gaining insight from another field. Since this insight arises within us in our own consciousness, we say it is intuition; it is guidance coming from inside.
Let us examine what really happens here. If we understand the process, perhaps we can use this intuition in a manageable way, and as a tool for gaining information outside of the known.
Accessing an infinite universal mind
If we examine our multi-dimensional being: our physical body with a brain is in this material world, but we are mental beings, and mental beings belong or have access to an open mental field. Here I am bringing the subject of an infinite or universal mind - that our mind, although localized within a physical body, is connected to an open field of mental being. Although we have physical barriers due to our physical individuality, our minds are open to access anyone who can become attuned to our mental field.
In the Universe, therefore, there is a source of information that is in the mental field of the Universe. And we think of the mental field of the Universe as being the sum of all our individual mental fields, or the collective mental field of all our individual mental fields.
This field is accessible to all those who can probe into this field or who can become attuned to it. I’m sure that you would have experienced being in a group, thinking about something and then someone voices it. I’m also sure that you have experienced thinking about someone who may be a thousand miles away. And they may ring you in the moment, or they were thinking about you. There might also be someone in distress whom you know and you pick up the vibes; the feelings. Here you are accessing information from another field but it arises within you, so although it is intuition it is coming from the field in and around you.
Individual and universal causal field
In every human being there is what we may call a “causal field” containing information from the past: the recent and distant past. That information is stored in the consciousness of every individual. In terms of the Universe, the sum total of all the causal memories there is in the Universe, we can access that if we know how to. So the intellect and ego need to probe. You need to ask the right question and release it to the Universe. Let the question go to a deeper sub-conscious level, and let the intellect learn how to be in waiting.
Let the intellect learn how to keep the mind quiet and allow the sub-conscious to process, the causal level to process. It’s amazing what can be attracted, what can come up inside of you. Sometimes you’re thinking of what might be called a new idea, then you read it in a book a day later - when you thought it was your novel or unique idea. There it is in a book, just as you were thinking, so the idea is in the Universe. You can also see sometimes how various people are thinking of the same concept at the same time across the world. They are all accessing information from the causal field.
Accessing information from this field by being more silent
Intuition is the ability to access information from this field. This field is within our own causal being and in the collective of the Universe. In an immediate sense, if you were having a conversation with someone, and become quieter when you begin to question or converse, you may pick up information at the subtle level in the other person.
If you were constantly thinking of what you were going to say, you don’t pick this up. If you are so full of yourself that all you want to do is express, then you don’t pick this up. If you begin to converse, however, in a way that you are asking questions and you really want to access information, and you become quiet inside as you listen, you may pick up information from the other person beyond what they are physically saying. That makes a conversation really very beautiful because you can anticipate what the person is going to say. You can clearly see the information because you are seeing more than what they are saying. You are seeing behind. Sometimes you may fulfill the needs of the other, or the other may fulfill a hidden need that you have which you are not conscious of. It’s being fulfilled on both sides intuitively because you are picking up beyond the conscious.
There is a group of people called “medical intuitive.” They’ll come to you, and as you begin to talk with them they’ll begin to feel or perceive your energy field and all that is in it. They can pick up the imbalances there. They can pick up the disturbances, and they will tell you about your health, based on what they are picking up. Those who are involved in clairvoyance and psychic phenomena are also able to pick up information from the Universe by attuning themselves to people or situations, and this becomes very interesting. If you are in a group, for example, and you think there’s a lot of information at the deeper level with this group, say, “Let me become more silent, and as I speak and I probe, let me also become silent to see if I can pick up what is unsaid.” When we begin to develop this, it is wonderful how we can begin to gravitate or move towards needs that are not even known to people.
Accessing information through intuitive insight
We begin to pick it up through insight - intuitive insight. In my way of working with my Universe, being silent and picking up information, and looking for more information, it is a joy for me. When I’m speaking with you I’m asking questions, but a lot of me is in silence trying to pick up as much as I can from within you. Then the fact that I can pick up even your hidden information makes for richer conversation. When I say, “hidden,” I don’t mean that you are trying to hide it, but you don’t know how to express it. When I pick that up it gives me more information about what you are trying to tell me. It allows me to communicate with you in a deeper way. In my own experience when I speak to you, if I become quieter I feel more information coming from within me to offer to you.
Become a channel for sharing information
I am allowing information to flow from the greater source inside of me towards the need wherever it is. It’s wonderful when you can become that kind of channel for giving information, by allowing the information to be drawn out of you, or to flow out of you in response to the environment.
This is a way of learning how to use the intellect and intuition at the same time. Whether it’s with an individual you are relating to or a group you’re working with, or the open Universe that you are relating to, the ability to go beyond the intellect in terms of accessing information can be a very powerful tool.
I leave you with that today: intuitive insight and how to access the universal mind – the collective mind where all information is stored. So though we live in the limitation of a physical body with a physical brain, the information of the Universe is accessible by probing the mental field using our powerful intellect. This is another dimension of the intellect in its pursuit of knowledge.
