Today I am going to talk about a topic that is not very mainstream but which has always intrigued me. I am referring to Intuition that deep sudden thought, feeling or vision which is referred to differently as psychic, ESP, sixth sense, gut feeling or a hunch. Even Einstein, the towering intellect of all time, said that scientific truth is revealed first through intuition and only later verified by logic.
So what really is Intuition? Intuition in Latin means “in to you”? It the knowing or sensing of truth without any rational or empirical explanation. Every one is born with a sixth sense- Each of us have experienced some form of ESP, some more than others.
My father was one in whom this ability was more pronounced. Let me share some anecdotes.
Many years ago my dad who was known as DP was sitting dejected in a park on a clear sunny day after taking a grueling exam. Even though he had studied for it round the clock, he had no hope of passing it. You see this was the British rule and this exam was designed to make it almost impossible for the Indian natives to compete against the British candidates who were from universities like Cambridge and Oxford. Passing this exam meant you were assigned to the top most echelons of the British bureaucracy. Suddenly, my dad heard a voice say “DP you are first”. Startled, he looked around to see if anyone was playing a cruel joke on him. No one around for miles. So he went back to his brooding. Then again, the same voice- “DP you are first.” At this point my dad not much of an athlete sprinted home for his life and told my grandparents who thought that my dad had finally had the nervous collapse that they had worried about all along. However, guess what? When the results were announced.
My dad was first!!! So what was the voice? While my scientist brothers roll their eyes and put it down to co-incidence, I think it was amazing power of the subconscious trying to tell my dad something while his guard was down. While this was a pretty dramatic episode there were other incidents also which made him learn to trust his instincts.
Once while driving on a pretty foggy night after work on a quiet deserted city street in Delhi, something just made him hit his brakes and get out of the car. What he saw made him thank the Almighty! He saw a toddler that had crawled out from nearby construction shanties right near his wheel.
He never talked much about it but I think, his inner voice helped in protecting him from harm on other occasions.
To me these anecdotes proved that we must trust our intuition. We are born with it. We use it as children, but as we grow older and our rational mind develops, we lose touch with the little voice inside us. Remember animals rely on their sixth sense for survival. The Tsunami is only one example.
Once you acknowledge this latent power within you, you don’t really need any special training though there are books which teach structured exercises like this one by Laura Day titled Practical Intuition.
However, intuition cannot be forced; we need to allow it. After loading up the mind with information about an issue, we have to give our intuition time to work and then become open to the answer. It is then that we can likely experience an “Aha” moment, a moment of instant awareness or Eureka, when the answer sprouts from “out of the blue.” Intuition can also help one be more sensitive to others moods and also protect one - IF one pays heed. At least,twice in my life (I am after all my father's daughter), I have experienced the most powerful sense of foreboding like a black cloud out of nowhere and both times like a skeptic, I ignored it only to suffer the most painful experiences in my life.
So
listen to that inner voice...
