(Transcript by Tob Hawk)
I think perhaps it would be important, or at least useful, to try to understand a little better some of the mysterious workings that occur within ourselves. And perhaps one of the most important of these is generally referred to as intuition. What it is, how it originates, how it functions, has not yet been standardized or classified. Perhaps one of the most important and direct means of estimating this faculty is by reference to Buddhism, because this great Eastern philosophy explored so many of the subjective aspects of human consciousness.
According to Buddhism, man has what is called the six sensory, or six sensatory, machines. These consist of the five senses, with which we are familiar, and the sixth factor, which is called “the mental coordinator”. The purpose of the mental coordinator is to compute the testimonies of the sensory perceptions. It further has to bring to bear upon all new evidence, all that is already available within the consciousness of the individual himself.
Every moment testimonies of one kind or another are entering into our mental lives through the sensory faculties. Of course, the most important of these faculties are the faculties of sight and hearing, but even those less highly specialized also contribute a variety of supporting evidences of our conduct and our attitudes toward life. The coordinator has as its primary function to digest and assimilate all new evidence and incorporate it into the permanent structure of human insight.
This means, in substance and essence, that constantly the individual is adding to his store of knowledge but is not aware of the process. He pays little conscious attention to the things that occur around him, but subconsciously he is aware of all of them. We know through hypnotic research and through regression that there is scarcely a detail in the life of the individual which is not permanently recorded. To the Buddhist this record is due to the constant, precise functioning of the mental coordinator.
This faculty takes control of all types of phenomena. It gives us a constant insight into everything that makes up our daily living. It also exercises a censorship, for when something occurs to us which is contrary to the basic structures of our nature, this difference, this inconsistency is also listed. Today especially, the environment is constantly bombarding us with material which is not essential, not useful, and even is dangerous or detrimental. This is also filtered out by the coordinator, and as a result of this the individual learns not only what to do but what not to do. There is a relationship between this problem and that of conscience, but conscience is essentially a moral issue arising in the internal psychic integration.
The actual record of experience is brought in through the coordinator. The reason this is possible is because nature is a systematic structure. Nature does not feed into the sensory perceptions uncensored material, it brings to the sensory perceptions a great deal of rather well clarified information. It brings in also new ideas. It reminds us of things long past. It brings the wisdom of our childhood to bear upon the thoughtfulness of our mature years. From the cradle to the grave the record is unbroken, and into this structure there is brought such a mass of information that were it not for the incredible skill of the sensory computer, most of the value of living would be lost.
After the information has been brought in, classified, organized, and censored by previous information, has been variously cleansed of errors and supported by previous evidence that has been assembled, it then becomes available to us for the re-expression or the externalizing of our attitudes. Attitudes are largely based upon the testimonies of this computerization process.
As we study this a little more carefully we find some interesting points, namely that nearly all information regarding the material life of man originates in his environment. The individual is placed in a situation in which he is constantly taking in material, reorganizing it, and releasing it again into his environment. Therefore, in silence he gains the wisdom of the coordinator, and every time he opens his mouth he expresses some part of this coordinated knowledge.
Actually, we are not conscious of a large part of the basic factors of attitudes. We do not know really why we think the way we do. We do not know why we have certain reactions to occasions and occurrences. We do not know why we suddenly blurt out something we did not intend to mention, nor do we know why at another moment we hold secret that which might be beneficial to general knowledge. We have a dispositional factor and this dispositional factor represents to a very great degree the workings of the conscious mind. The coordinator, however, goes behind the conscious mind. It goes back to the very root of intellection within ourselves.
Therefore, it is quite possible for the individual living only upon the surface of his perceptions to be easily deluded, to misunderstand, and have poor judgments on a variety of matters. He is then, so to say, speaking off of the front of his mind, or thinking from that front. This thinking is also supported by the faculty perceptions. They not only testify to value but in an undigested state they bear witness to occurrences as they appear to be. It is only after the evidence has passed through the coordinator that its basic value is clearly determined.
One of the reasons why we have so much trouble in our daily living is that we are unable to allow the coordinator to function properly. We are constantly interfering with it, or trying to. The interference is on the surface because we cannot get back into it. The interference arises from superficial thinking and undisciplined attitudes. The individual who is the hopeless victim of his own mental processes or is completely dominated by his emotional intensities is not aware of the availability of any higher form of thinking. He is simply limited to the immediate. That which comes in goes out instantly, but the record that passes through the coordinator still continues to exist but is not so quickly or easily accessible.
If, therefore, we study people carefully, we realize that intuition is of many degrees and occurs variously in different age groups. It is much more commonly found in the feminine than in the masculine temperament, and is perhaps very powerful in small children. This is due largely to the fact that the conscious mind has not interfered with the intuitional process which has brought into play not only the evidence of the present existence but, to a large degree, the balance of previous life patterns. This coordinator extends back to and into previous embodiments because it is the reservoir of the complete accessible knowledge that the person has accumulated in his evolutionary process. This knowledge is not carried forth as simple incidents, but in the form of general value, final conclusions, ultimate decisions as they arise in the processes of living.
The intuitive person is most likely to be a person who is essentially mentally and emotionally honest. Intuition functions in spite of mental interference, to some degree, but more clearly and completely where this mental interference is eliminated. How do we eliminate the mental interferences that arise every day, how do we escape from false, superficial testimonies? The interval between the coordinator’s function and that of the objective mind is greater than most people realize. The objective mind is simply arriving at a series of superficial conclusions on all subjects, whereas the coordinator brings out only a seasoned account.
The sensory perceptions have much more in the form of information than we first realize, but if we are constantly betraying the testimonies, if we fail to allow this coordinating process to function smoothly and directly, we are less intuitive. We are intuitive largely to the degree that we get out of the way of the computerizing process. If we constantly interfere with it, if we constantly go against its testimonies, if we constantly press our own personal attitudes against that which is best, we will have trouble.
Intuition is most obviously available where there is less interference in the processes of learning. False learning betrays the coordinator but does not attain a victory because the coordinator sorts it out, but it can betray the conscious mind, it can lead the conscious mind into a variety of difficulties. One of the laws in nature which we cannot resist is the law of cause and effect. Really, the computer works upon this basic fact all the time. Every cause has an effect. When we use the frontal thinking of the mind only, causes and effects are hopelessly confused, but they are never confused in the coordinator. Everything that we do has results and consequences. If we perform an action without any particular intellectual support, the results will be heterogeneous. Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be worthless. But other ways of approaching the problem indicate that within ourselves the coordinator already knows from its accumulated statistics almost exactly what the consequences will be of any action which we indulge in.
The coordinator is prophetic, not because it has some mysterious faculty beyond comprehension, but because it is basically, essentially, and eternally honest, and honesty inevitably results in a kind of prophetic power. We see this around us in society. We are today faced with numerous examples of it. Thoughtful persons realize that the present dilemmas are largely due to our own making, that we are responsible for the conditions which affect us adversely. A few, twenty or twenty-five years ago, proclaimed exactly what is happening now. They knew it was going to happen, that it had to happen under a world governed by immutable laws and facts. Those persons who saw more clearly are the ones who took advantage of the testimonies of the coordinator.
The majority, using the frontal mind only, refused to accept the operation of cause and effect. They preferred to think in terms of luck, providence, or of some strange intercession which would take care of everything. Rather than to trust to the internal faculty which would have given them intuitive insight, they chose to continue in their way, deny the obvious, and finally fall into the dilemma.
Intuition, in one sense of the word, is simply a clear recognition of values. It is possible in almost every instance to determine the outcome of any course of action by considering the motives which impelled it, the methods by which this action was carried out, and most of all its final relationship to universal law. Is it acceptable to the law? If it is not, it is doomed to fail.
Actually, however, these large concerns are not always so obvious to us, for there are all kinds of experiences and circumstances which can affect the intuitional process. We know, for example, that there are laws governing the structure of the human body. Lavater, the great physiologist and physiognomist, pointed out that everyone’s fortune is written on him, but we do not know this and we do not notice it with the superficial faculties that we possess, but the coordinator does. The coordinator does notice it because in the subconscious of ourselves we have already passed through similar experiences. We have already been deceived in the same way many times ago. We have made false pretenses — not just once but hundreds of times, and the outcome of every attitude that we take is obviously to be determined by reference to our own internal reference frame which, however, we usually ignore.
There is no doubt in the world, for example, that the coordinator, looking at the face of a person, can tell almost certainly whether that person is honest or dishonest, whether they are happy or miserable, whether they are trustworthy, whether they are sincere in their relationships, whether they can be depended upon in emergencies. And also, all of the befitting and bewildering inconsistencies will be stamped upon the face. It also follows, as Lavater points out, that the body is constantly testifying to the motives of the person, for long ago in ages past these motives shaped the body, and gradually in each embodiment the internal person gradually transforms the outer person into the semblance of itself symbolically. The way we walk, the way we use our hands — all these things tell what we are.
An interesting story which might bear repeating illustrates this. A bank teller was given a check to cash by an unknown person. The bank teller was suspicious. He did not know why he was suspicious, but he held back the check and asked an official of the bank to verify its authenticity. The check was a forgery. The teller was never able to say just how he knew it was a forgery, but he said when he looked at the man who was cashing the check, he instantly knew that the man was dishonest. That could be called clairvoyance almost, certainly an extrasensory decision, but it was simply a plain state of the coordinator taking over.
Insight of the individual, the background of his experiences, the people he had known, the lives he had lived — all of the incidents of life combined to make his decision possible. He was aware because in the coordinator a series of facts were assembled. He also was aware because of the distinguishing marks upon the face of the man. He did not know what those marks meant, but the coordinator did. It could read character because it was built upon the testimony of thousands of years of experience by that entity in its evolution through the universe.
All these different factors add to the development of an internal recognition, estimation or analysis.
We know that doctors who are really well versed in their profession are able to diagnose a patient before he sits down for a diagnosis. The doctor knows what is wrong with the person when he enters the room. The doctor himself probably would not be able to entirely explain the reason that he knows. But if we went into the coordinator, it would be the result of working with hundreds of persons, working with their problems, classifying their ailments and symptoms, and storing this all away in the inner consciousness. When the need arises this information would be instantly available. One doctor told me that he was very reluctant to ask people to have laboratory tests and laboratory work. He said, “I know what is the matter with them almost instantly, but I have to tell them to go and have these tests because, if I do not, I could be sued for malpractice.” If anything went wrong, even if it was the patient’s fault, the doctor would be held responsible because he had not had the laboratory work done.
Another very interesting field is in the ministry of priesthood. The average priest or minister in many instances can tell immediately the problem of the person who comes to him for assistance. It is some way written on that person. It is not a transference of thought, but a recognition of symptoms and a proper process of association of ideas. All these symbols add together to a directive, to an indication of that which is correct and that which is incorrect.
Another thing that forms in the assisting factor is that where we are long associated with people. We have a tendency to let down the barriers of our own judgment. We have a friend who has been a friend for years. We know that friend has shortcomings and that they are not always just what they ought to be, but in the term of friendship we overlook hundreds of little testimonies which should have told us something. When the friend in turn becomes an enemy we are amazed because we did not believe that this could happen. But it was happening all the time, only we did not know it.
If we had the coordinator operating correctly for us, we would have stored up all this back information. We would have discovered whether this person was lying long ago because of little fibs that didn’t mean anything. We would know their attitude toward life by their relationships with their families, their position in business, their culture, their philosophy, their religious instincts and attitudes — all this would have told us something. But with the blanket of friendship thrown over all the evidence, when the break comes we are amazed and perturbed. We have not allowed the coordinator to have its proper function.
In order to have the best results from this intuitive structure within ourselves it is necessary for the individual to relax away from false testimonies as they first arise through his perceptions. The individual must be without prejudice, he must not distort the impulses and instincts that arise within himself. If he is able to quiet the testimony of the frontal mind, he will then allow the intuitive faculty to move into domination of the circumstance, but while he is constantly interfering he is not able to gain the assistance he needs.
All persons can be more intuitive than they are, but to be this they must take their ground firmly upon the operation of universal law and be ever observant and mindful of the various conduct patterns of those around them and the conduct patterns which are arising within themselves. Otherwise, they block the intuitional process.
One of the more common things that happens in connection with intuition is that it is likely to be most vibrant and vital while the body is at rest. This is why a large part of what we might call archetypal dreaming, dreams that have meaning, come to us from the coordinator. They come when the conscious functions of the mind are temporarily set aside. They come to us usually not as words, not as the appearance of some person, for the coordinator is not a person. They come through symbols, various forms and patterns, hunches, and sudden realizations of things which we do not normally comprehend.
We even can find this in the world of science. Where a scientist has built into the coordinator a mass of evidence, the coordinator will sort it out when his own conscious mind cannot, and as a result of this the scientist may wake some morning with the answer to the problem he has been working with for years simply because in a moment of complete repose the coordinator came through.
We have all of this type of phenomena constantly and we pay very little conscious attention to it, but it can be very, very important. The problem of the intuitional recognition of circumstances and conditions can include, for example, an individual recognizing certain problems of his own health but not able to diagnose them. He has a feeling that something is wrong, that his health is impaired, but he cannot put his finger on what is actually wrong. Here again the coordinator is moving in to try to assist the individual.
Behind all this there might be a kind of moral issue involved. Perhaps this individual who does not feel good has for many years been violating the principles of law and health. He has been thinking badly and eating badly, and has failed to take proper care of the body. This fact is listed in the coordinator, and the coordinator can tell him at any moment just about how long he can get away with the mistakes he is making. If the man pays no attention to this warning, it becomes a prophecy, and he gradually succumbs because he has failed to remedy a situation in himself.
The same type of thing happens in family life. Family relationships become brittle and warnings come from the coordinator that unless the attitudes and relationships are changed, the family will be destroyed, it will be broken up. Some are wise enough to try to do something about it. They are harmonizing with the coordinator which is merely telling them the law relating to the subject, a law based on experience — dramatized and vitalized by ages of human testimony. If this is not heard, however, if the individual continues in his way, then whatever was the disaster that might have been, it becomes the disaster that really occurred. Also, the problem of the coordinator plays quite a part in the latter part of life where very often the coordinator first informs the individual that his physical existence is going to terminate in the near future. This may not be supported by any medical evidence, but the coordinator has available a thousand times as much information as any clinical laboratory could find or could gather. The individual’s inner life is aware of the happenings.
Also, through the five sensory perceptions we get what might be termed the historical context. We find out what has happened to others. We find out what has happened to empires, to kingdoms, to rulers, to various professions, to peoples, to class and social subjects. There is a very deep and long historical background which is called tradition. The coordinator receives from us every day some evidences of this tradition. It also is aware because of its own integrating process that tradition, like every other part of activity, is governed by laws. These laws operate, and where a new situation becomes identical with an earlier traditional situation, then similar if not identical consequences will follow.
Therefore, it is perfectly possible for the individual quietly in his own thinking and in his own reflection to realize almost prophetically the outcome of almost any situation in which he finds himself. He can also apply this to the fate of nations, to the fate of collective structures, to the rise and fall of industrial systems. All these things are basically set in patterns of infinite and immutable law. The coordinator helps the individual to adjust his own mind to these laws and gives him the final evidence, the final proof of the reality of the situation that is gradually developing.
There are times when people get hunches that do not work out. The individual, therefore, has to watch constantly to find out how much of his conclusions arise from the coordinator and how much comes from traditional habit patterns within himself. Most persons so live that their relationship to universal law is obscured. They live in a pattern in which they pay little or no attention to the great principles upon which life is built. These principles are invisible in most cases, but their consequences are painfully visible. We have to work with them every day.
At the present moment we are plunging through a mass of what the Oriental would call karma. It is a condition in which for ages we have been building contrary to the rules of the game of life. The coordinator knows this, but the individual does not pause to consider. The individual, building largely upon the satisfaction of personal selfishness and ambition, chooses to ignore those truths which might give him a better relationship with life.
We find this quite frequently in such simple and imminent circumstances as alcoholism. The average alcoholic knows that he is an alcoholic, or finds out in due time. He knows that he is playing a losing game. He knows that it will destroy all that is best in his life. Yet he will not or cannot change and, fully aware of the inevitable tragedy, he moves relentlessly toward it until finally it catches up with him. If he survives, perhaps he is a little wiser.
This type of decision to do what one pleases at the expense of doing what one should is one of the factors that blocks the intuitive faculty in the individual. We all have it because we all have behind us not only ages of personal growth but a vast universe of complex factors which subconsciously we accept, even though we may ignore them consciously.
How, then, should we start in to try to develop this intuitive faculty better than it is, so that it can serve us more efficiently when need arises? One thing we need to do is gain some form of mental honesty. This is really the beginning of the whole mystery. It is not the end, for there is more to it than honesty, but honesty is probably the most important single ingredient.
Honesty means that we must stop fooling or deceiving ourselves, especially doing this knowingly. We must gradually reduce this error factor. We must stop thinking or feeling or acting dishonestly.
This is a very large order for most people. Many do not even realize that they are dishonest. They do not believe for a moment that they have various prejudices or anything wrong with them. They have no realization that every day they are compromising principles in order to advance some personal desire. The individual wishes his own happiness first, but does most of his life working against this happiness by his conduct and his attitudes.
Intuitive people are not always merely spiritual people, but many great mystics have been also extraordinarily wise in their internal visions. Very often the prophetic power is prominent in the lives of mystics. One of the reasons is that mysticism is a doctrine of humility, it is a doctrine in which the individual steps aside and allows the truth to live through him. Mysticism is a person in a very gentle, humble, kindly, unselfish relationship with life. The mystic expects to be a servant. He is a servant of truth, a servant of God, and a servant of his fellow men regardless of his estates or dignities.
It is then natural that the mystic, by having fewer false pressures upon his life, is able to release more of the internal computerization because he is not primarily concerned with personal advantage. He is not trying to gain something for himself. He is not trying to twist facts to support his own preferences. We have, for example, in problems such as we face right now in national elections, we have all kinds of issues being pressed, advanced, sustained, and denied by the various candidates for public offices. We find also that too many of the voters are listening for that particular statement which would be of the greatest personal advantage to them. They are not thinking of the common good, but they are thinking of protecting what they have, even if it is at the expense of what they are. This common practice affects both public and private life.
Most individuals regard it as proper to live this span of life to personal advantage as far as they can. Personal advantage is very often contrary to common good and also contrary to the testimony of the computerizing factor. To escape this or at least outwit it in part, the individual must gradually release himself from attitudes which are not morally right. It’s a matter of dishonesty in many instances. It is a matter of self gratification in some; in others, advancement of career, accumulation of wealth, the desire to shine in society. These become the false reasons for life. While they dominate and their voice is heard louder than the voice of the computer, nothing much of advantage will be gained. The individual will live and pass on in a little pattern that he has created for himself. He will pass on, still striving for that which could never be his in this world or anywhere else.
Realizing this, the intuitive person is very likely to be religious. He is very likely to be a person of prayer, of meditation, a person trying desperately if necessary to live according to his high code of personal relationships with life. He is trying to overcome the tendency to animosities. He is trying to transmute old hatreds and antagonisms. He is trying to reduce as far as he can the vanities in his own life. He is entitled to anything and everything that is proper for him, but if he wishes to become a better person he must take advantage only of the better opportunities that arise. Otherwise, he will ultimately short-circuit his own life.
If he can begin to reduce these artificial decisions that he makes simply on the basis of the sensory perceptions without coordination, if he will gradually learn to discriminate the laws behind action, he will begin to develop a stronger intuitional faculty.
The Buddhist holds strongly to a meditative concept. Buddhism was originally a moral and ethical system and it was gradually expanded to become what has been called in Asia “the heart doctrine.” It is the doctrine that the final solution to all things is compassion. The individual must base his foundations upon a gentle release from the tendencies to cruelty of any kind. The Bodhisattva doctrine is the doctrine of infinite self-sacrifice for the common good. It is the doctrine of the individual forgetting his own advancements in the service of humanity. It is completely noncompetitive.
Competition becomes the basis of delusion, for competition itself is a delusion. Nothing will ever be solved by it because it is constantly destroying the basic friendships, the basic kinships which should exist in human society.
Intuition, therefore, comes mostly to those who by nature have chosen to follow a faith or a spiritual path of growth. These people do develop a strong sense of faith. Faith is dependency upon truth. It may be also called a dependency upon God because, in the highest analysis, God is truth. It is the individual aligning himself with Divine Purpose, striving sincerely to keep those spiritual realities which are set forth in THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT and in the many wonderful teachings of the Christian religion.
Here we have something that is contrary to human attitudes but, unfortunately for man, is in perfect accord with the laws of existence. We are told in the words of the masters that “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” God’s meek are those who quietly and gently accept the Universal Plan. They are the ones who strive definitively every day to keep the rules, fully aware that the rules will keep them. Quieting down, taking the humble spot, waiting quietly for the good that is deserved — these people quickly ripen their intuition. They become very wise in the inner life of things.
In olden days there was in every family an honored elder. Very often it was grandmother, sometimes grandfather or an aged maiden aunt, but there was always someone in the family who was the counselor. When problems became difficult or situations were hard to bear, the elder was called upon to advise, to tell, to explain, to speak from the experience of long years that which was best in the present emergency. In man’s compound constitution, this elder is the coordinator. It is that which speaks with the wisdom of ages against the foolishness of the moment and points out those great strengths upon which survival depends.
In our present generation we have lost contact with most of the securities of the past. We have lost our ability to simply listen to the wisdom of the elders. The American Indian listened to the words of the “olds” and the “truths”. We listen mostly to superficial remarks made by those seldom qualified to speak at all. In other words, we have lost the counselor — the old teacher. We have lost Gurnemanz in the story of Parsifal. We have lost the guide that would take us through the underworld of uncertainty as in the story of Dante being led by Virgil through the underworld. We have lost the leadership and guidance of counsel. We are dependent entirely now upon the contemporary pressure of events and we regard anything that is not immediate as out of focus. We are not able to benefit even by the lessons of our own country. We are not able to benefit by the unhappiness in the lives of our own parents. We go on the same way. We cannot recognize that the parent in us, the old aunt and the grandmother in us speaking with the wisdom of years, is the coordinator.
It is that which, out of the facts of living distills the pattern which each individual must follow. From this coordinator the person can learn how he must change himself. He learns how he can expand and develop the potentials that he possesses, how he can be more useful and serviceable to the causes of others around him. He learns better habits of living. He finds the mistake of decadent morality. He learns many, many things, not from old grandmother or grandfather but from this ancient one within himself, the teacher, the wise one, the oracle, that mysterious power which, if it can be brought into our objective attention, has the answers to everything that we need to know.
This is true on every level — social, individual, collective, for in this computerizing process the individual is stripped of all of his superficial embellishments and various attitudes. He is forced in himself to see himself, to know himself, and to act in accordance with the needs of himself. There is no concealment or evasion possible; the facts are all there, but there are not too many who are able to face these facts and not too many who even want to know that they exist. We want to go on our own way.
Every civilization and culture of the world has brought forth its prophets. The prophets of the Old Testament, the patriarchs, the apostles, the world teachers, the great reformers, the great leaders — these persons were actually outstanding examples of the possibility of bringing the coordinator into objective manifestation. Wherever these prophets spoke in the Bible, we are told that they spoke upon the authority of God. The authority of God is the authority of truth, and the authority of truth arises from the individual’s achievement of a basic factual existence within himself.
Truth is for each person the truth of himself. The truth for every civilization is merely the statement of the laws governing that civilization, and the inevitable consequences of action — constructive and destructive. The prophets in the scriptures warned the kings and the princes of the fall of their empires. They warned individuals of the sorrows and miseries of their personal corruptions. And many times these prophets were heavily punished by those who did not want to know the truth. In ourselves when an unhappy or unpleasant truth presents itself we are apt to punish it rather than ourselves, we do not want to face these things but until we face them we cannot develop and perfect the instrument which we possess.
This body is a magnificent instrument. It is far greater than we even suspect with all our researches and studies. It is something that man will never be able to equal by mechanical means. No matter how far he advances computerization he can never achieve what is achieved within the person himself, for this computer in us is alive.
It is not merely machines and tapes and mathematical formulas but a living computerization of action. It is a living, constant expression of all of the needs and requirements of the person. It makes possible for him the complete reestablishment of his own life, but he has to call upon it.
Many mystics in their meditations — like Boehme or Eckhart — felt that God spoke to them, that in some mysterious way the Holy Spirit descended upon them. The Holy Spirit and this mysterious inner voice, this mysterious power which gave an accuracy to every thought and made every statement a revelation, was actually derived from this computerization process within human consciousness itself. This does not mean that God is not in the business; it means that actually this whole computerization process is a divine process. It is a process not based upon materialism but upon the exploration of the spiritual potential of the human being.
Another factor that may help the average person to be more intuitive is the Pythagorean discipline of retrospection. Here at the end of each day the person sits down and studies his own day. He analyzes and examines every single thing that had any meaning whatever in his procedures. He is especially mindful of his own reactions to the various challenges of the day.
Was he annoyed by the phone call? Was he disturbed by the visitor who dropped in? Was he unable to stand the prattle of the children? Did he have one or more problems that he had been wanting to take care of and he was interrupted?
In each case, what was his reaction? Did he accept these things or did he resent them? Did he resent them because they interfered with the common good or because they interfered with what he wanted to do? Were these objects of resentment worthy of resentment? Were they things he should have accepted and understood? Did they ruffle him to the expenditure of vital energy so that he wasted life as well as time? Was he able to quietly and peacefully move through confusions, through dissonances? Was he able to keep the truths of life very bright under the small irritations which are apt to disturb us?
If he finds himself to be brittle or sharp; if he finds himself to be inclined to nag or to escape and if caught in a mistake to try to deny it, or still further try to prove that the mistake was right — all these things represent attitudes of the mind, and these attitudes are detrimental to the achievement of an intuitive understanding of life. Unless the channels are kept open to that which is better than we are, we will remain as we are, and that is not good enough.
So we can watch these little details every day and begin quietly correcting the weaknesses in ourselves. Did we have a splurge of extravagance we should not have splurged? Did we buy things that were useless? Did we allow vanity to involve us in debt?
All of these things are recorded in the coordinator. There is not one single detail of attitude that is not the effect of a cause and the cause of an effect, and that which we do in a moment of indecision or indiscretion we must face in the future. Reduce, therefore, as far as possible, all attitudes which are inconsistent with peace of mind, inconsistent with integrities. If it is necessary to defend a principle, we will defend it to the end, but if we try merely to defend an opinion we may all be in trouble.
So we gradually move the foundation of life from the passing effects of the moment to the solid foundations of principles. Principles must operate. They must guide us and direct us.
As we gradually relax away from wasting energy and time in purposes and circumstances that are meaningless, we can quiet down some of this restless spirit that perturbs us all. We can be quiet, we can weigh all things, we can be like an honest judge upon the bench whose decision is to be based upon truth only — upon true evidence, and never upon gossip, hearsay, or unsupported claims. If we can sit in quiet judgment of our own lives — not that we wish to mete out a terrible punishment upon ourselves, but rather we want to know ourselves as we really are and upon that basis to improve ourselves in every way possible.
As we become more thoughtful, we know that true thoughtfulness gradually ties in with the mental coordinator. The more thoughtful we become, the more the coordinator works in our daily life. When we get rid of thoughtlessness, then the true type of thought can begin to operate and the mental coordinator will enable us to plan our lives to the very end at any moment that we wish to do so. It can also show us why we are, where we are, and what we are today. It can gradually move us from a career of accidents to a career of purposed endeavors, because as this coordinator operates a light shine inside of us. It is this light within which truly breaks through to become what we would term “intuition”. It is the light of the truth in ourselves, garnered from the experiences of ourselves, regenerated by the dedications of ourselves — these are the factors that make it possible for the individual to have the experience of truth, truth being the basic factor in the experience of intuition.
Intuition is the revelation of the thing as it is, not the thing as we wish it was, or hope it will be, or afraid it can possibly become. All this is part of illusion, but intuition is a light of certainty arising from the most perfect processes of computerization that the individual can imagine, and far beyond, but it is all in the substance of life itself. It is not made of steel, it is not worked by a current passed through it. It is a part of our own eternal, living organism.
The mind is still the greatest mystery that man must face because in all of his thinking he thinks away from himself and not towards the source of thinking in himself. He is unaware of how to build gradually mental competence. He has experiences, but he misjudges them. He goes through critical situations, but blames others for them. He faces general social disorders, but cannot mend his own defects. All these things block intuition, block clear vision of any kind, and under this benightedness it drifts with the current of things from one disaster to another.
If we can bring the coordinator into focus we will discover that we are better people than we have ever known ourselves to be. We are also wiser. Ignorance is on the surface of things; wisdom is innate. The illusions of matter annoy the five senses, but the sixth sensory coordinator cannot be deceived by them. The realities are always available within the individual. He cannot be finally taught entirely from the outside. He gains valuable evidence, but this evidence passing through consciousness makes itself available to him as a great code of conduct, a way of life which leads to life everlasting. The mental coordinator, giving us this testimony, ensures us of the final achievement of any constructive end which we hope to attain. This coordinator goes with us. This coordinator will direct us in the infinite future as it directed us in the past, and gradually the power of this coordinator is made manifest through its consequences.
We have people around us sometimes who, through a lifetime of association, we have really learned to trust. There are people whom we know to be good. There are people whose every action and every conviction is worthy of our respect. These types of people, to a certain degree, represent the powers or factors within ourselves. Our own inner imagination and inner emotions are essentially good. Our own natural thought processes are good and they are reasonable, but because of lack of discrimination and discipline we are not able to follow the dictates of true thinking.
We use the mind as an instrument of selfishness when it should be the instrument of enlightenment. But the good friend in ourselves, the coordinator, is never going to cease to be a good friend. It will be a better friend life after life as we learn more about the laws of living. It will be with us until its work is completed. It will be a kind of guardian angel over us throughout all our existences. It is that thing within ourselves which cannot be destroyed, perverted, nor indefinitely ignored.
Little by little the inner takes victory over the external. Gradually the sensory perceptions become the instruments to bear witness to the integrity of life, whereas now they principally reveal to us the inconsistencies of mortal activity. The coordinator goes on to be with us until finally we develop an internal life in which the intuition of reality becomes part of our nature. Instead of being a faculty submerged, it will become the guiding and dominating law of our existence, because the coordinator will finally take over and in so doing will make it virtually impossible for the individual to make any very serious mistake.
In the meantime, while he is struggling and torn between his own moral integrities and the amoral society in which he lives, each person has to work this out for himself. He has to find his own values and stay with them. The beginning of this is honesty because until he is honest he will not choose that which is honest. As long as he believes in compromise, he will compromise, but the coordinator is constantly bringing him evidence that compromise is fatal — that he cannot win by anything except integrity. The only way he can abide in the grace of God is by obeying the will of God and this will is represented through the laws of existence. If we keep these laws then we worship correctly. It is not what we name the Deity but how we live according to its principles that becomes the vital and important factor.
If, then, we want to really learn, if we want to try to develop this intuition, we should devote some time to good reading, to study those kinds of texts which inspire us to live better lives — not the type of text that has compromise built into it, not a text which will cause us to assume that we are independent of the absolute responsibility of life. It should never read evasion literature, how to get out of doing what is right, or how to allow self will to build a fortune for us, this is not the type; but serious and thoughtful things which inspire us strongly and meditatively to the expression of our integrities.
One of the principles of the ancient oracles of Greece was that the gods always spoke in verse. Prose was the language of mortals; poetry the language of the immortals, and many very great works in poetry have tremendous moral and spiritual qualities. In some mysterious way poets are more often given to intuition than those in other more intellectual or scientific fields of endeavor. Poetry is a very good source of inspirational insights.
In our daily conduct we can try as much as we can to keep all of those rules which we are taught to be indispensable. One of the great rules is that the individual should avoid luxury. He should avoid things which bind him to the earth. He should avoid the process of building up a standard of living when he should be trying to build a standard of life. He should be moderate in all things. He should be interested in the common good. He should be neighborly and friendly. He should try to hold the confidence of his children. He should do everything possible in his own way to help others to live according to a code of personal integrity. By setting an example of this and by sharing this wisdom with others, the individual also discovers that the more he gives of wisdom, the more he has. When giving good counsel, the individual in forgetting himself often releases intuition.
I have noticed on many occasions that an individual comparatively uninformed, when asked to help to advise a person in deep trouble, a very humble person will give advice that the greatest philosopher could not equal. This is because in a state of very simple service and affection and friendship we release ourselves from the tyranny of personal attitudes. When we are trying to help another we probably help ourselves most of all, but we do not even know it. And we could not perhaps probably live what we have advised the other person to do, and this is one reason why we have to watch the coordinator because the moment we advise the individual to a certain cause of life we must ask ourselves whether or not we need the same advice, and if we do need it perhaps it is come to us through this intuitional flash when we try to help someone else. Watch the intuitional releases as they come along. Whenever you feel a very definite sense that something is wrong, try to find out why. Try to find out what testimonies bear upon this matter. Do not blame other people because we are all subject to law and when another person breaks the law that is his problem. When we break it it is ours. When we both break it it is war and this has been our problem for many ages.
Always in simple, quiet, meditational ways we try to visualize the integrities of life. We sense within our own depths this power that is forever building upon our experience. If that was not true, what good would the experience be? What value would life have unless it was a record of growing? In some mysterious way everything that happens has to happen to bring about the most necessary improvements of living creatures. If it was not for this, what value would we place upon anything? Why be born, why grow and suffer, why age and die, if it has no meaning except in terms of this little shadow in which we live?
That out in space and everywhere else there is nothing but some vast blind force moving and this blind force pushes us and pulls us from one inconsistency into another. Such a life is inconceivable. Such a plan could not be implied as arising in a divine being. If the Lord of it all is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-good, then the plan must be for the greater good. There is a reason for everything that happens, and that reason is to help us to grow. The moment something happens we must try to understand by quiet thoughtfulness how this is going to help us to grow, how it is going to bring us nearer to the full purpose for which we were created. If we can quietly contemplate this in peace and without any evasions or excuses, and try to understand prayerfully and in mystical contemplation the reason for that one little incident that happened today, we may find in that instance the flash of intuition. We will suddenly know why it happened. Then the sky will close again.
Plotinus, the great mystic, said that only on two occasions did he receive the direct impression of his God. This direct impression was a revelation of character. It was instruction as to what to do and how to do it, and it was in this sense of the word a clear expression of the intuitional power. When we need intuition we will have it. If we have it a little already, it will grow, but to make it grow we must listen to it, obey its counsel, and verify that it is really intuition and not simply self-interest masquerading under a spiritual appearance. We must test the spirits, we must try to find out and observe whether the things we intuit actually come to pass. If they do, and very often they will, then we must become more and more dependent upon that mood, that quality of life which opens the link between ourselves and the record of our greater selves.
In other words, we must go back into the stacks and find the records, we must go back into the mental coordinator and we'll finally discover through this what is next for us and how it is best that we can gain the desired end. Actually, intuition is only the availability of all that we have been through, all that we have experienced, all that we have thought, and every deed we have performed. All this together makes a pattern, and this pattern gives us the most valuable of all advice: what we must do next. All that has gone before is being culminated now, and every facility, faculty, and power that we possess is being focused upon the next problem that each of us must face.
If we are very careful in our daily conduct to cater to that type of intuition which invites us to be bigger than we are in spirit, quality, and conduct — if the intuition impels us to grow, it is good. If it attempts to tell us how to escape growth, then we must suspect that the mind has taken over and that the frontal thinking is obscuring the basic facts. The frontal thinking deals with things of today; the computer in ourselves deals in terms of forever. In that computer the incidents of the day are simply part of the great collective experience which we call life, and in this computerizing process all that we have been is available to help us to become better today. All that we achieve today will be available to us in the future as we go along the path of life.
Adversity very often strengthens intuition. Suffering and sorrow remind us that we have to find a reason for them, and after a while we can no longer blame them upon society, we can no longer blame them upon friends and enemies. We have to come face to face with the fact that our life is the result of the degree of inner insight that we are able to focus upon the issues of the present day. As we grow in that dimension of feeling, as we become more conscious of this process, our intuition will enlarge accordingly. We will find that intuition, the growth of it, is merely the revelation of it — that which is coming through, making available to us what we must know next in order to grow according to the archetypal pattern by which we were created.
Intuition is a very wonderful thing, but it is a reward, it is a fruit, it is a harvest of the individual’s dedications, achievements, longings, yearnings, and his desire to understand his true place in the Divine Plan of things. When he achieves to this he will find that this intuitive faculty, like the old teacher, will be more and more available and will assist him constantly in the fulfillment of himself. It is because this old teacher actually is also himself, the submerged part that he no longer remembers. Sometime everything that has been secret shall be made known, and everything that is hidden shall come to light. When we realize that and gain the understanding of it, then we realize that the intuitive power will ultimately reveal to us all that is our real selves.
