How To Develop Profound Intuition (4): Intuition vs Judgment

Marcus T. Anthony Notes:

This is the fourth part of a series of posts I am writing here on CLN about how to develop powerful intuitive skills (integrated intelligence). Integrated intelligence is closely related to the classical idea of intuition, connecting us with a stream of consciousness which transcends the limits of immediate space and time. Each of these posts is an extract from my upcoming book “How to Develop Profound Intuition.” So stay tuned over the next few Saturdays for further insights.

Here are my first three articles in this series:

• How You Can Develop Profound Intuition (1)
• How You Can Develop Profound Intuition (2)
• How You Can Develop Profound Intuition (3)

Excuse me for the slight sexism of the term “master of intuition.” “Mistress of intuition” doesn't have quite the same ring! I use the masculine pronoun “he” merely to be consistent.

Allow me to present an important distinction that you must become aware of if you wish to develop your intuition to profound levels.

Appearances can be deceiving. A true master of intuition knows how to suspend judgment and see behind the surfaces of people, places and circumstances. He can sense the true nature of things, that which is their essence.

The problem for all of us is that the mind tends to be highly judgmental. It likes to make immediate and definite discriminations regarding what it sees. Yet those judgments are often informed by past experience, one's knowledge base, beliefs, and the way things look up front.

You should be aware of this tendency of the mind. You should learn to notice when the mind creates judgments. You need to be able to discern the difference between a judgment and a genuine intuition.

Let's use an obvious example. When Steve Jobs first went to work for Atari as a young man, his personal hygiene was so bad they put him on the night shift because he smelled so bad. What is more, he was obnoxious and arrogant, seemingly lacking in basic people skills. Nobody liked him, and they were glad to put him out of sight.

Who could possibly have seen that this young man, the in his early twenties and an Arts school drop out, would become one of the most successful IT entrepreneurs of all time and launch one of the biggest companies the world has ever seen? Not many, I suspect.

Nonetheless, a genuine intuitive might well have sensed Job's potential. Such an intuition would most likely have formed as a general feeling of expansive energy or greatness. The knowing might also have come via a dream or visionary experience.

An individual who is dissociated from his intuitive intelligence tends to ignore such feelings and images, and typically they do not know how to interpret them.

It is easy to be deceived by surfaces. And it is easy to respond to people, circumstances and ideas based upon preconceived conceptions. Many would have dismissed the young Steve Jobs as a “hippie”, as an ungainly individual who might end up collecting cardboard on the street while nursing a bottle of cheap wine. Such is the nature of judgment.

The master of intuition is able to observe his mind's biases, preconceptions and stereotypes. He is then able to assume responsibility for these and the feelings that emanate from them. He is then able to relax and activate genuine intuition.

Let me relate the key distinction here.

Ideas have feelings.

If you have a judgment about a person, place or idea, it creates a feeling in the mind. Whether the feeling is positive, negative, or neutral does not matter. The important thing to recognize is that such feelings are not intuitions. They are mental projections. They emerge not from the nature of the thing being perceived, but from your own mind.

This is a very, very important distinction to recognize. Most people confuse intuition with projections, and they do this because they are slaves of the mind, not masters of it. They simply do not know themselves; nor are they familiar with the machinations of their mental apparatus.

Therefore, if you want to be a master of the intuitive mind you need to get to know yourself better; and in particular to know when your feelings arise from genuine intuitions, and when they arise from judgments and projections.

This is not necessarily easy. It takes time and a little practice. But it is actually very simple. All you are really doing is becoming more honest about your own mind. You becoming a master of intuition.

Don't allow circumstances to fool you. Sometimes things can look great on the surface, but contain a dirty, filthy rotten core. Sometimes things look rough or uninviting on the surface, but under the unpolished surface of stone lies a diamond in the rough.

I will conclude with a simple anecdote which will explain this most readily. Some time ago I was offered a job in a foreign country. I applied for this job based purely on an intuition.

I was meditating one day, asking the universe for insight into making my next career move. Suddenly the name of a city came into my head, and I recalled that I had sent my CV to an employer in that city some time before, but had received no response. Two days later that employer contacted me, arranged and interview and I was subsequently offered a position there.

This position contained a lot of unknowns, but I accepted it based on intuition. Still, the employer was very young and inexperienced, and it quickly became obvious he was basically clueless. Almost every step of the process of moving to that country and beginning the job was a mess. When I got there the apartment they offered me was so filthy it was unlivable. The company messed up my visa and I had to work illegally. And they showed little interest in my well-being. My partner at the time – who did not travel with me – was aghast. She – and everybody else I talked to about the job – advised me to quit immediately. “Why do you let people treat you like shit!?” my partner scolded.

On the surface, my new job had all the appeal of living in a nuclear fall-out zone. However, I had looked at the energy of it, and knew it was right. I felt intuitively that this lump of dirty, stinky coal would ultimately reveal a diamond – or at least something of genuine value.

And I was right. Within a month everything had settled down. The apartment was clean. The job turned out to be a dream – very low hours and little pressure for a very good income. When I spoke to other foreigners in the region about how little actual work I did and how much I earned, their jaws dropped. So much for being “treated like shit.”

Beyond the satisfaction of having trusted my intuition when all superficial indicators suggested I was deluded, that job allowed me to spend most of my time researching, writing, and learning the local language – which was what I really wanted to do. The actual job was merely what supported me financially.

In this instance, I could have allowed the opinions of others and the superficial surface of things to really distract me. In truth, they almost did. But I felt things would pan out, and because my intuition had been strong at the start, I decided to stick with it.

It was as if the universe had dropped a huge gift into my arms. But I had to be able to read the genuine energy and potential of the situation to receive the gift.

Marcus T Anthony, PhD is the author of ten books about human awakening, including Discover Your Soul Template. He is also a life coach and teacher of profound intuition. His web site is www.mind-futures.com.

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