How to Develop and Utilize the Power of Intuition in Oneself

Those who wish to develop and utilize the power of intuition in their own lives have to address their active mental process, so as to open up the receptivity to the higher intuitive force, and allow it to modify the action of the mentality itself. There is a parable out of the teachings of Jesus that says essentially that one does not put new wine into old bottles. This is relevant here, as the intuition cannot be jumbled successfully into the normal mental process that is the standard known by most people. It is also disconcerting and frightening to people when they gain some silence of the mind, particularly early in the development, and they fear they are losing their ability to think, or becoming somehow less competent. This also corresponds to the continuation of the parable by Jesus when he points out that someone who has drunk the old wine does not immediately adopt the new wine, saying the old wine was better.

In his lectures on Raja Yoga, Swami Vivekananda provides detailed analysis for observing and monitoring the ‘mind stuff’ and bringing it to a state of silence, as a prelude to carrying out the subsequent steps to eventually enter into one-pointed concentration and the trance of Samadhi. These steps can be seen as methods to bring quiet to the mind to open up the receptivity for the influx of the intuition from the higher realms. To do this, the seeker has to orient himself towards these higher planes of awareness, open up his receptivity, quiet the mental process and chatter, and overcome the fear that arises when the mind falls silent and the seeker gets the sense that he is losing his ability to function!

Sri Aurobindo described his own experience in achieving silence of the mind through observation of and rejection of thoughts before they could enter and take hold of the mind-stuff. There are obviously several methods to achieve the needed state of quiescence of the mind. The seeker needs to adopt a method that works for him. He also needs to be fearless.

The Mother observes: “When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with the intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form — at the top of the head and a little further above if possible — a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can — perhaps not immediately — but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.”

“It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a ‘mirror’, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XXI Intuition, pp. 159-160