Intuition: our closest link to God

   All humans share something in common: an ability to discern truth from falsity. If someone says to you that one plus one equals three, you can perceive that it is false. If someone says that one plus one equals two, you can see that it is true. Just because people can memorize things, does not diminish the fact that humans have the ability to see basic truths or principles for themselves. This seeing is wordless and nonverbal. It is a knowing. This wordless knowing is a higher form of knowing than intellectualization.

   We can call this knowing “intuition.” I just know, for example, that it is wrong to be cruel to a child. I know wordlessly that it is wrong; and no one can convince me otherwise. I can see that it is foolish to waste money; no one has to teach me that fact. I just see it. We tend to dismiss or doubt this form of knowing.

   Little children have this ability to see things. A little child knows when someone is being unfair—such as treating one child nicer than another. No one has to teach the little child about injustice. She knows it when she sees it.

   I maintain that in the same way that we can know that one plus one equals two, we can also realize much more profound principles. We can realize religion, and we can realize the Presence of God and the process by which He makes His Truth known to the seeking soul. You should not need a middleman to spoon feed you truth or to come between you and your Creator.

   Mostly what we need from the outside is the rebuke of words of truth to awaken us to realize Truth for ourselves. About the best others can do for us is remind us of what we forgot or point out error in a timely way to restore us to a right relationship with our inner ground of being.

    When someone gets a joke, they laugh and say “Oh, I get it.” When someone realizes the solution to a math problem, they exclaim, “Now I see.”  Learning should be a discovery process, resulting in the “aha experience” and leading us to stand in awe and wonder of the Creator of all truth, beauty and science.  

   When we are young we were given good advice by parents. But we dismissed what they said because we resented being told and we wanted to do things on our own. Years later, suffering awakens us to see our error. Then we say: Now I see what my parents were trying to tell me.”

We must see what it is we are doing wrong

    Really recovering from addictions and emotional problems often involves seeing-- really seeing--our error. When the person cannot duck or sidestep the truth, they have at that moment an opportunity to admit the truth and be sorry.  The reason we erred in the first place is because we didn’t pay attention to our intuition.

   Intuition is also foresight, where we are wordlessly warned or restrained from some error.  When it comes to our everyday existence, this seeing is at first not so much perceiving deep truths as it is noticing something not quite right about something. The intuition of which I speak is like a light that shines on error, exposing the error. Once the error is exposed, there is little more that is needed.

   An analogy would be this: if someone is walking down the sidewalk and they see a deep hole in the sidewalk, no elaborate decision making process is needed. To avoid falling into the hole, all the person needs to do is walk around the hole.  

   When we are aware (not lost in emotion or thinking), we are close to this inner light. We do not even notice that it is there as we go about our business. But from time to time, the light highlights something that is said or done that just doesn’t sit right with us. We may not at first know what is not quite right about what is being said or done, but we sense something odd or improper about it. Therefore we avoid it, don’t go along, don’t buy it, or don’t get involved. Therefore we are safe.

   Do you see that the Truth of which I speak is not a particular fact or a particular doctrine? This Truth is a Light by which the soul perceives. Mostly, this light highlights error. We avoid the error. By not going the wrong way, we are going the right way.  

   This Light is also a protection from danger. Most of us have had an experience where we felt an inner check or restraint, holding us back from something. We may not have fully realized at the time that we were being warned, but by obeying this wordless, intuitive, gut level sense, we avoided danger. There are countless stories, for example, about people who had a strong sense not to get on a certain airline flight. Later they heard that it crashed. Sometimes we sense that someone is not a nice person. This intuition is a protection. By not getting involved with the person, we are safe.

By intuition, we realize the correcting Presence of God

   I maintain that when we learn to pay attention to our intuition, instead of dismissing it, we will become closer and closer to the Creator, Who is our Parent Spirit. Spiritual truths of the most beautiful and profound kind are made known to us through this faculty of intuition.  But before God will share deep truths with us, we must first learn to pay attention to basic commonsense intuition about being careful with our money, eating properly, protecting our family, and so on. Even more importantly, we must heed and obey what our intuition wordlessly tells us about resenting others and judging others.  

   Most people want to know truth—the kind of truth that tells them what they want to hear. But the first really spiritual Truth we are likely to become aware of is  a sense of guilt or anxiety when we play God by puffing up and speaking about things we don’t really understand or when we judge others for their faults and imperfections. Often we first become aware of God by the conflict we feel with Him when we play God. 

   If you are willing to obey Him by heeding the delicate intuitive restraint when you are about to resent or judge another, that is good. And when you are willing to be sorry when you realize, for example, that you hated someone (such as your mother), then that sorrow reconciles you to the Inner Light from God.     

   Truths were meant to be realized, not studied. I maintain that just as we get a joke, just as we  “get” a math solution, just as a scientist discovers and inventor invents, so we were meant to realize Truth.   When I hear someone say something, I do not accept just because they say it is true. I look to my intuition first. If I do not know, I wait until I do know. If someone does say something that is true, I accept it not because he said so but because I see that it is true. I trust my intuition, in other words. God gave us intuition, just as He gives animals instinct. 

   One time, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Who do you say that I am.” Simon Peter responded “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Blessed art thou, Simon Peter, said the Lord, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in Heaven.”

   If we have been given this marvelous Light in which our soul can perceive, be safe, and wordlessly know what it needs to know to become the person our Creator intended us to be—how is that people become so confused and make so many mistakes?

   The answer has to do with external authority and our own pridefulness. The powers that be do not want us intuitively self-led. If we were all intuitively wise, we would not need experts. If we lived commonsensical and wise lives, we would not make mistakes and need all the helpers that arise. There is much power and lots of money to be made in being an external authority to confused and problem-ridden people. There is big money and power in treating sick people. And there is big power and money in making and enforcing laws when people do not control themselves and obey their conscience. From the time we are little, we are taught to dismiss our innate intuition. We are taught to spend hours a day studying and looking to the outside for answers.

   The other reason why we become confused and wrong is because we inherit a nature that is inherently gullible and prideful. We look to outside authorities to tell us how to be great and successful. There is little excitement in following a quiet knowing to a problem free life. But there is lots of excitement in blindly and ambitiously pursuing knowledge in order to gain worldly offerings. Wrong is exciting. Living by chance is exciting and dangerous. Problems are distracting and challenging.

   Finally, we fall away from our intuition when we are shocked and traumatized by outside people. When mom is cruel, when dad deserts us, when other kids tease us, or when someone violates or robs us—we become resentful. And resentment (being hate) separates us from the inner font of love and wisdom. Resentment separates us from love, and when that love comes back as conscience (the hindsight of intuition), it makes us aware that we did something wrong. At this point we make the mistake of resenting the Light (conscience) because it makes us feel bad. We shy away from intuition and fall into the imagination. In the imagination we plan and scheme to make ourselves right.

Comfort keeps us from the good pain of conscience 

   We begin to look to outside comforters who help keep us apart from the pain of conscience. Friends, entertainment, music, drugs, alcohol and even work distract us from conscience and make us feel good about ourselves.

   The taking of drugs is a trauma. Being accepted by false shameless people is another trauma and a wrong, adding another guilt.    And so, until the soul is willing to come back to conscience and be sorry (for having avoided God and resented other people), it will avoid intuition. Sometimes we are lured, tricked or even forced into a trauma producing activity. Feeling wrong or dirty, we shy away from Truth. However, what we need to do is come back to the Truth. Our childhood traumas and cultural traumas are not our fault. They were laid upon us. Coming back to the Truth, we will see this fact and see that God does not judge us.

      But in our egotism, we tend to hide from Truth and seek to deal with things on our own. By avoiding Truth, we increase our guilt, which only makes phony friends, drugs, music and alcohol more enticing.

   In fact, our main guilt is not so much for what we did, but for avoiding Truth. As said, we could not help what happened to us when we were young. But we harm ourselves by not coming to Truth. Instead of identifying with Truth, we identify with what happened to us and we may even protect it instead of exposing it to the Light.

   As long as the inclination of our soul is toward self justification, self gratification, and self glorification, we will avoid the clear Light of Truth, and instead hide in imagination, emotions, and rationale. 

    What is the proper meditation for? When a person is ready to come back to conscience, that person may need a little help in refinding intuition and getting out of thinking. When we are lost in the images of fantasy and when we are lost in the machinery of thought, we are separated from the Light of Truth. The secret is to get a little closer to the Light in order to observe thought instead of being lost in thought. Most of us are lost in thinking, and there we are subject to those who know how to manipulate our thinking. There we are subjective--subject to doubts, fears, and clever appeals to our ego.

   But the person who practices the proper meditation learns how to stand back and be objective—observing things in the standard of the Light. God also gives the soul the power to observe its own error without resenting it or attempting to make itself right. In other words, the objective soul inherits faith, and from faith, patience, and from patience, a waiting without anxiety.

   The soul is also able to perceive how others are misguided and controlled. And when the person realizes this, how can he or she continue to be resentful toward others? From a basic insight comes the ability to patient with others (instead of judgmental and resentful).

When you don’t resent others, you will find patience with your own faults

   Profound realizations lead to understanding and patience. New problems are effortlessly avoided. Old problems surface for resolution in the Light. The soul is given the basic realization that its proper role is one of observer. It learns to trust the Light and lets the Light deal with troubling things. All of this by practicing the proper meditation and learning to wait upon God and be patient with people. Religion thus comes to life, and the truths are known because you see and experience them for yourself.  

   Most of us are lost in thinking and lost in emotion. Little do we realize that this is actually a state of profound doubt. True faith is simply seeing what is true and trusting in what one is wordlessly being shown. True faith is not emotional. When you see and simply know what you know, there is no need for emotion.

   When the soul gets out of thinking and being emotional, it inherits faith. And this faith is the invisible bond to the Creator. 

The soul’s journey

   Help is available in this very second for the soul who is willing to be corrected. The Presence of the Light is only painful because of the soul’s pridefulness. We are naturally reluctant to admit wrong and to see our own error. It is for this reason that most people avoid proper meditation. To the egotist, false meditations, study, and intellectualized truth are a refuge from Reality. Although the potential child of God is also prideful and spends years avoiding conscience by getting caught up in distractions, at a certain point this person begins to search in earnest. God answers with Truth and the gift of being able to properly meditate.  The soul mystically draws back into the bosom of God and the process of salvation begins.     

   May these words awaken you to the Inner Light of Truth Which now wordlessly testifies to their truth.