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INTUITION

Awakening Your Inner Guide

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

CHAPTER 1

What Is Intuition?

Intuition is a mysterious, powerful, and subtle ability that every human being possesses and can develop. It is an ability we are born with—an innate capacity that exists within us. By our own choice, we can ignore it or follow it, neglect it or nourish it.

The function of the intuition is not imperative to our survival but it does hold a place of tremendous importance in relation to our physical and spiritual well-being, our creative self-expression, and our ability to understand ourselves, others, and the experience of life itself.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines intuition as "the quick perception of truth without conscious attention or reasoning; knowledge from within; instinctive knowledge or feeling...." Intuition, by its very nature, is not a function of the conscious mind. It is "quick," "without reasoning," "without conscious attention." Intuition is a function that springs from a deeper source than the linear, rational mind. With our intuition, we can perceive the truth; we can perceive the real nature, the true state, of a person, a situation, or ourselves. This perception, this understanding, is something that comes from within us; it is something akin to instinct and feeling.

INTUITION IS CONSCIOUSNESS

Intuition is linked to the function of the subconscious mind—the imaginative hemisphere of the mind—which operates from a global, unified perspective. Intuition is not, however, actually a function of the subconscious mind. Intuitive perception is a function of the consciousness of the being, acting through the mind, through the subconscious and conscious levels of mental awareness. The intuition springs from a deeper source than the mind, even though its transmissions are received and integrated by the subconscious mind and translated through the conscious mind.

INTUITION IS AWARENESS

We can better understand the intuition by relating it to the capacities of instinct and intelligence. If we imagine that instinct is a function of the awareness of the body, and intelligence is a function of the awareness of the mind, then we can understand intuition as a function of the awareness of the soul and spirit.

Intuition is the expression of the awareness of the soul, the consciousness of the soul. In the soul, we find the aspect of the human being that is immortal and wise, the being who has its origins in light and has never lost the capacity to enter into contact with a larger vision, a higher truth.

INTUITION, SOUL, AND SPIRIT

Beyond our identity as a personality, beyond our human dimension of the body/mind, we exist above all as a being composed of a soul and a spirit. It is the presence (soul) and awareness (spirit) of this being which animates our body/mind.

The soul manifests the feminine nature of our being, searching for relation, meaning, feeling, and fusion. Incarnation into a human body and an earthly life provide the soul with a diversity of experiences which generate the gradual accumulation of wisdom. Evolution occurs over time through the interactions of the soul with other living beings. During many successive incarnations, challenges are faced, lessons are learned, and qualities are developed, bringing to the soul the diversity of experiences needed to become a realized being.

Feminine by nature, the soul receives, absorbs, and integrates the experience of her existence through a predominant framework of sensation and feeling. Receptive and passive, discovering her nature through the reflection of the other, the soul drinks life, nourishing her thirst for evolution and realization by embracing the lessons life brings to her. In the certainty of her immortality, the soul can go far in her search for diversity of experience. Wisdom is the goal of the soul; interrelationships are her means. The worlds of feeling and emotion are the domains of the soul. It is through our own inner world of feeling that we can reconnect with the deepness of our soul-self.

The spirit is the manifestation of the masculine aspect of our being. The spirit is pure consciousness, awareness incarnate. By nature detached, the spirit observes, perceives, and witnesses. While present and available to the unfolding process of life, the spirit nonetheless maintains a certain position of distance in relation to the events experienced. The spirit perceives life with a large perspective, with the global vision of a being aware of his origins, of his original nature, and of his relationship to the source of all life. The spirit is aware of his divine nature, and also of his immortality.

Masculine in essence, the spirit is expressive, dynamic, and active. The spirit generates and creates, penetrating the world of matter with the charismatic vitality of his presence. The spirit perceives reality with depth and lucidity, and acts in the world with certainty and true power. The qualities of the spirit find their expression through the consciousness of the mind and the action of thought through physical matter.

It is the presence of soul and spirit incarnate in the human form which gives birth to our intuitive function. Intuition is the means by which our being perceives reality—the means through which our being can act on and interact with that same reality.

Our intuitive self is our most evolved self, our highest self, a being both aware and conscious. The intuitive self perceives the actions of the personality (body/mind) in the world and observes the unfolding of life's experiences with lucidity and attention.

If we wish to understand the dynamics of ourselves, of another, or of an event with intuitive depth and insight, we must enter into contact with this being in order to receive the insights of its perceptions.

INTUITION IS INNER GUIDANCE

Our intuition helps us to know and understand ourselves and our purpose in life. It functions as a guide, helping us develop our highest creative potential. It "points" us in directions which encourage us to develop further and to explore deeper, to discover and know ourselves more fully.

It is healthy and natural to be able to delve deeply into the true nature of the reality that surrounds us. It is natural to be able to understand how people, situations, and events exist in relation to each other. It is our birthright to be able to perceive our appropriate place in the world and to understand the personal, creative contribution we can make in our life.

Before we can benefit fully from our intuition, we must enter into contact with it—we must recognize its manner of functioning and learn to communicate with it. We must develop a relationship with it and nourish this relationship with our attention. With time and attention, we can learn how our intuition transmits insights and truths, and more clearly understand how we can receive and translate them.

CHAPTER 2

The Four Pathways of Intuitive Function

Even though the function of the intuition is experienced in a unique fashion for each person, there are essentially four pathways through which its guidance can be transmitted: clairsentience (clear feeling), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairvoyance (clear seeing), and knowingness (direct perception).

CLAIRSENTIENCE

Clairsentience, or clear feeling, is the experience of receiving intuitive information as sensation and/or emotional feelings in your physical body. This information can take the form of an instinctive reaction or response that creates a notable physical change and movement in the body, or it may be received in a more subtle manner, acting on your inner physical world of sensation. Your intuitive self can communicate with you by creating sensations (warmth, cold, tingling, twitching, tightening, relaxing) within your physical body. These physical sensations will indicate something significant to you if you bring your attention and awareness to their existence.

Clear feeling is the most frequent pathway through which the function of the intuition is recognized and understood. It is with your clairsentience that you "feel" the emotional state of someone else, that you "understand" their pain, their joy, their suffering. Because of your clairsentience, you may feel depressed after being in the presence of a depressed friend, or your spirits may improve if you spend some time with a friend who is full of enthusiasm and projects for the future.

Your clairsentience gives you the ability to "feel" a situation and to understand an atmosphere. This ability alerts you when you are in a potentially dangerous situation, so that you can remove yourself or change your behavior in an appropriate way to avoid the danger.

It is with your clairsentience that you monitor your emotional relationships with others and modify your responses to maintain a state of balance and harmony. With the help of clairsentience, you feel the mood of another person and modify your behavior to maintain your rapport. If someone close to you is angry, you may feel their anger as a tightness or a pain in your solar plexus, or as a tension in the forehead and jaws. Regardless of whether other people express or deny their anger, your body is relaying relevant information to you about the truth of their current state of being.

Likewise, if you are stressed and nervous, other people may become drained, nervous, or perhaps develop a headache by being in your presence. Even if you do not recognize the symptoms of stress or nervous fatigue in your own body, other people can experience them when, clairsentiently, they enter into intuitive contact and rapport with you.

The less you are in contact with yourself—with your inner emotional state and your physical body—the less you can be in contact with your clairsentience. The more you are emotionally repressed and physically blocked, the more your capacity for clairsentience is repressed and blocked. The more you are in touch with your physical body and your own emotional state, the more your clairsentience can function for you in your life.

Once your capacity for clear feeling on an intuitive level is developed, it becomes an invaluable tool that can assist you in all of life's situations. However, when you initially bring your awareness to this capacity, you may discover that it causes you confusion and moments of self-doubt as you realize the difficulties you have in discerning the difference between your proper feelings and the feelings of others. If you experience this confusion of differentiation, pay particular attention to the exercises of inner preparation which focus on grounding, centering, and creating a personal boundary.

CLAIRAUDIENCE

Clairaudience, or clear hearing, describes the function of your intuition through auditory channels, in the sense that you hear information. In this pathway of expression, your intuitive self speaks to you and you receive messages as words. You may hear an inner voice with a particular tone or accent, or it may be a voice resembling your own. It may change; it may be several different voices. Clairaudience is also known as telepathy, or communication through the mind. Sometimes, you may have a thought about someone and, that very day, you receive a telephone call or a letter from the person. Or the telephone rings and, before you pick it up, you hear the name of the person who is calling inside your head. On answering the telephone, you discover you are correct. Perhaps you have a problem or a question and are in the process of reflecting on this problem when you open a book and there, in front of your eyes, is the answer to your question—a written response that acts as a useful guidance for you. All information and guidance that you receive in an auditory (verbal) fashion is an expression of the function of your intuitive clairaudience.

The indications of a clairaudient talent are most often perceived in someone who is a gifted communicator. If you are confident in your ability to express yourself and you have trust in the truth you communicate, if you are at ease within yourself as you share what you perceive with others, then your intuition very likely functions through the framework of clairaudience.

If you have a tendency to doubt your communicative ability, if you have difficulty listening to and hearing others and in understanding the expression of others, then this function may be blocked. Chronic throat problems, neck tension, teeth and jaw problems, and upper-back pain are also indications of a repressed capacity for clairaudience. Exercises which encourage you to speak and express your inner feelings and impressions will certainly aide you to develop your intuitive capacity for transmitting truth through words.

CLAIRVOYANCE

Clairvoyance, or clear seeing, is the intuitive ability to perceive truth in a visual framework. When intuition operates in this mode, we see visions, symbolic images, metaphorical pictures, and dreamlike sequences which have significant meaning when translated and interpreted.

Clairvoyance allows us to perceive subtle energies that exist beyond the perception of our physical eyes. This gift of inner vision allows us to see beyond the limits of physical matter, to perceive the subtle energetic structure of the physical universe, as well as the energies which exist between particles of physical matter. With our clairvoyance we can perceive the invisible and the visible, as well as that which connects structure and the void. Through clairvoyance, we can also see the patterns and rhythms existing in situations, people, relationships, and events. Looking into other people, we can see the path of their past experience and we can see their present state of being. We can perceive their behavioral patterns, emotional habits, and systems of beliefs.

Clairvoyance gives us the gift of artistic grace and the appreciation of form, flow, and color. The inner world of the imagination (initiation of images) is related to clairvoyant function, as are dreams, fantasy, and wishful thinking. If you possess a rich and flexible imagination and express artistic talent in a visual form, if you can perceive the deep underlying patterns of behavior in yourself and in others, and can see "behind" the actions of others, perceiving their needs and essential motivation, you are experiencing your capacity for clairvoyance.

If you find visualization techniques difficult, have problems remembering your dreams and using your imagination, and have a tendency to "not see things coming in your life," then this capacity is probably blocked in you. Difficulties with the eyes and tension headaches can also indicate suppression of your potential for inner vision.

Techniques which aid grounding, centering, and trusting will help you establish a basis within yourself from which you can begin to rediscover your capacity to see, both inwardly and in the external world. Exercises of visualization and those that insist on the capacities of detachment and witnessing will help you to find your true center and place more trust in your inner, intuitive perceptions.

KNOWINGNESS

This aspect of the intuition functions in a totally unique manner of direct perception. With our intuitive awareness, we suddenly know something to be true, to be as it is, and yet we may not perceive how we know that we know this truth. Knowingness functions beyond the other three pathways of intuitive expression in that we are faced with the challenge of simply trusting the information we receive as a truth, even though we do not receive other sensory, auditory, or visual evidence to support the information we are receiving. For this ability to function within us, we are required to take an internal "quantum leap" of both consciousness and self-trust. We must be willing to act on the guidance we receive in complete trust that the information is correct and in accordance with the truth of the situation we are investigating with our intuitive perception.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from INTUITION by Judee Gee. Copyright © 1999 Judee Gee. Excerpted by permission of Samuel Weiser, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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