INTUITION
By: Col. (Retd.) Dr. Karam Singh

 The word 'Intuition' is derived from a Latin word 'Intueri' which means 'Intuit' or inner instruction, i.e. immediate insight. Tuition means teaching or instruction received from outside or from others, especially if paid for. Tuition pertains to concepts, creeds and dogmas because it is related to intellect, i.e. mind which is centered in the head and Intuition pertains to the faculty of subtle feelings which arise from the spiritual heart-center.

 Mind or intellect is a gift of civilisation and pertains to the process of thinking, resulting in the state of tension. It is related to the past and the future, whereas Intuition functions more in the present and in the state of relaxation. Mind is a thought process which functions in the territory of logic, reasoning and analysis. When the analytical mind reaches its limit and the current trend of thoughts or inner chattering stops then starts the territory of Intuition. Faculty of Intuition functions in the state of innocence and alert awareness. Thinking is a kind of tuition one is taught by others. Something which blooms in a person without teaching from others is through Intuition. Something which has not been taught by parents, teachers, etc. grows from Intuition. It is just like an inner atomic explosion. One needs to turn awareness inside and feel it.

 When reason is transcended, conclusion to settle problems come through a different door. i.e. Intuition starts functioning and growing. At times, in the beginning it comes only in flashes. It gradually becomes available constantly. It is also known as Inner Guide (Guru), but it starts functioning only when many layers of conditioning are peeled off. This faculty becomes functional only in a few people but when functional, one always gets right advice and guidance. Intuition means to be in tune with oneself totally, and solutions to problems come through that tuning, no one knows from where.

Some of the mathematicians have solved problems without passing through any process. Intuition is a recognised fact in Mathematics. Where reason fails, there Intuition works. Most of the great scientists become aware of it and their great discoveries are made not by reason but by Intuition which functions when reason is exhausted. One glaring example is of a German organic chemistry scientist August Kekula. During 1865, he was searching for the structure of Benzine (a basic hydro carbon). Thinking and thinking he got exhausted, fell into a trance and had a vision of six snakes in hexagonal position, each catching tail of the adjacent snake by mouth. He opened his eyes after a while, drew the sketch of his vision on paper and put carbon and hydrogen atoms at the joints of snakes. That came out to be the universally accepted structure of Benzine. Similarly, Madam Curie, a French discoverer of Radium, worked very hard for three years to solve a problem of Radio activity from many different angles but failed. Then thoroughly exhausted by thinking and reasoning she slipped into sleep-like state, after telling herself that she was a failure, doing research in futility and wanted to drop it. During that trance-like state she had a vision, got up from the bed and wrote it on a paper, which she could not even remember when she got up finally from sleep. She received the answer through Intuition, not through reason. Dutch Painter Vincent Van Gogh, during 19th century, painted stars as 'Spirals'. Everybody laughed at his painting commenting that 'Stars are like Balls not Spirals' but he emphasised: �during dream as well as wakeful state, some voice inside tells me that they are Spirals.� Now after about a century, physicists have concluded that stars are 'Spirals' and appear round because of being very far off.

Intuition is very decisive even though sounding illogical. It is more prominent in women than in men. It is a common happening that some of the ladies at a particular time tell their near and dear one not to go to a particular place on a particular day. And, the following morning one reads in the newspaper that there was a lot of violence by a mob and many people were wounded and a few also killed. For preventing their near and dear ones from going to that area there was no logic. It is through Intuition that they get that subtle feeling that something dangerous is going to be happen.

Mind, Intellect, reasoning, logic have their own territories of functioning in the ordinary day- to-day life but things of real significance are revealed when Intuition starts functioning which happens only when the ever chattering mind gets exhausted and becomes silent. How to learn to stop this internal talk? Have contact with Nature by watching sunrise, sunset, moon, stars, trees, whereby one tends to be silent because nature is silent. Secondly, one should move from thinking towards feeling. Simran (remembrance of Nirankar or God Formless) and Satsang (congregation of saints) are best methods for silencing of inner talk and moving from thinking towards feeling and subsequently to open the door of Intuition. A glaring example of this is the verses recited by Baba Avtar Singh Ji in a holy congregation (Sangat) during sleep, as narrated by him in the preface to the Avtar Bani. Intuition is the origin not only of the Nirankari scripture (Avtar Vani) but of the scriptures of all the religions of the world.

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