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Perspective    
Awaken the Giant Within – 2
by Rajgopal Nidamboor

Here goes — Day’s exercises on intuition. First, you should establish what is truly important to you, and then respond to your merits and shortcomings. Once you have done that, you ought to respond. You have to be brief and honest. You should act like a plumber — one who is plumbing your unconscious. Don’t just peek ahead. Be patient.

You could use a tape-recorder, or a notepad. To verbalize your own thoughts, or write them. But, be careful. Because, what you may wish for — you may get. Day offers a famous parable. A tale of an ambiguous question put to an intuitive in ancient Greece. A powerful ruler was about to invade the lands of an enemy kingdom. He asked the Oracle at Delphi whether a great battle would be won. The Oracle responded in the affirmative. The Oracle was correct: a great battle was won. Unfortunately, for the king, it was won by his rival!

To get into the ‘act,’ you should become better acquainted with yourself. Here’s Day’s step-by-step method: Take a long, deep breath. Allow your mind to relax and move back to the places within where you hold your memory. Have faith that your unconscious will generate memories that provide the information you need to answer your question. Allow yourself to get all the components of what is meaningful about the question... As you analyze, allow yourself a stop every time your perceptions want to travel — or, allow them to run until you hit another memory. Don’t worry about whether it’s a ‘real’ memory, or that you’re just making it up. Write down at least four memories in your intuition notepad.

However, remember one thing. Your questions should be good questions; they should be able to generate useful information, and satisfy a triad of requirements:

• First, each question must be specific and unambiguous so that a precise answer is possible.

• Second, each question should be simple rather than compound.

• Third, each question should be directly relevant to the issue you want to know about; also exact, or specific

Intuition is, quite simply, a capacity, something that is within us all, like the capacity for language, or thinking, or appreciating music. It’s not acquired power. Rather, it’s an integral part of every human — mental, emotional, and psychical — process. Each moment, all of us receive information intuitively. Only thing is we’re simply unaware of the process. Don’t we use our intuition in all those practical reasoned decisions we make every day: from choices as mundane as what we eat for lunch to what to pursue by way of a career, or whom to marry? The trick, says Day, is using your intuition more effectively to bringing the unconscious data it supplies to a place where your conscious mind can interpret it.

How do you do it? By knowing how to access, and apply it, effectively. By learning to understand the information you receive intuitively. This requires structure, yes, just as thinking is improved with the structure that logic provides. And, the inference is obvious. Whatever native intuitive skills you’ve retained from your childhood, you can develop them, like any other skill, with practice. Adds Day: “Learn to recognize your intuition, cultivate awareness, your memory... When your eyes encounter a word on the page, it is instantly compared with the tens of thousands of words stored in your memory bank. Along with that word, images and associates stored with it are retrieved by your memory and served to your conscious mind. Your intuition functions in much the same way. It’s simply a matter of learning how and where to shift your attention.”

Nothing, Day reckons, is random. Everything you notice is significant. There are no coincidences. The more you think about them, the more it boggles the mind. Everything, therefore, can be interpreted. Even unconsciously! Like meeting your friend, this evening!! So, intuition has to it something more than what meets the eye, or ear. It’s also child’s play! Because relying on intuition means operating without the safety net of logic, common sense, and sensory experience. It may not, therefore, be easy. But, its rewards are meaningful, and even empowering.

Think of yourself as a child. Play the make-believe game. Learn to suspend judgment. Dare to be the devil’s advocate. Deliberate. And, label your impressions as you articulate them, into three categories: ‘genuine’ intuitive impression: ‘imaged’ intuitive impression; and, ‘interference.’ Use feedback and you’ll discover which of these tend to be accurate ‘hits,’ and which were off-target. Because, gaining conscious control over your intuition is like learning to ride a bicycle — it takes practice to get the hang of things. But, once you have the ‘key,’ it’s not difficult at all.

Intuition is something that is not always easily understood. Think of a computer’s ‘intuitive’ interface! It is, indeed, your sixth sense — more than a synonym for being prophetic, subconscious or instructive. It is not telepathy. Not a dream, because dreams are not intuitive. Dreams present information in the form of a storyline. Unlike intuition, where the information is fragmentary.

Intuition is more than symbols. It is a question of putting it all together: of being objective, shaking it up, about the interconnectedness of things, and spirituality. You have to pretend that you are someone else. Here’s a model, which you can work on, and develop:

• Describe yourself in detail.
• What is the major focus of your life, right now?
• In what ways will your focus change over the next few months?
• How do you feel about the world around you?
• What do you need?
• Are you on the right track?

Answer the set of questions as a person you have chosen to be for this exercise. Trade places. Use the description as a metaphor.

The result would be startling. Because, we are all intuitive, and more capable of giving help to others, and ourselves, than we realize. And, yes, intuitively!        

February 12, 2006   

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Top | Perspective    

The Week of February 12, 2006  
Ides of March? Knives are Out for Budget Session by Rajinder Puri
United States - Iran Nuclear Standoff by Dr. Subhash Kapila 
Post Colonial India and its Architecture - II by Ashish Nangia
The Unconscious Foreigner by Aruni Mukherjee  
Fresh Retellings of The Mahabharata by Pradip Bhattacharya 
US History - Lesser Known Facts, Analogies & Surmises Part 1 by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
India centric hydraulic civilization of the old world by Dr. V. Sankaran Nair 
Sanatana Dharma and Hinduism by Dr. RK Lahiri, Ph.D
Awaken the Giant Within by Rajgopal Nidamboor  
True Happiness by Sugandha Indulkar 
The School Going by Soma Guru
Awareness of Oneself by Viraj R. Rai  
Priestly Brahmins by J. Ajithkumar 
Journeys, Dreams and Other Thoughts by Naiya Sivaraj
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To a Beloved Husband, From a Blessed Wife by Aparna Chatterjee
Fathers Have Feelings Too by Barbara Lewis  
How She Snagged Her Tiger by Neha Girotra
Between the Black and the Red Light by Savad Rahman   
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