Intuition is a faculty which all of us have. What most of us do not know is the difference between intuition and guessing. This is what we have to build up and practise. Intuition is a faculty. Any faculty that I have needs to be recognized, until we recognize it, it is not there. How are you going to recognize intuition? It is there within you and in every single person.
To nurture your intuition you need to enhance your presence:
In my daily life I live in my mind, everything that arises in my mind I start to interact with it and I take it for truth. I have to recognize that this is my mind and I do so by being present. As soon as I want something I am no longer present, I am in movement pursuing my desires and like this I get sucked in. Unless I am able to recognize the mind and to know that I am in its power, intuition is not present and I am in the hold of the mind.
You know the Bob Marley song with the lines ‘Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind’? He recognized it, we all do. We need to recognize when we are absent and thus practise yoga to bring us back to presence. It puts our mind on hold while we are concentrating on our feet, on our breath. What an amazing thing! I manage to reduce the power of my mind. The power that the mind has over me, I make it a little less. The moment I become unaware, I am again lost.
When I stay present and conscious automatically I understand what is ‘mind’ and what is ‘no-mind’. When intuition comes I start to withdraw and be within. Halasana is the perfect pose for shutting off the mind. It is a very powerful posture and facilitates the experience of no-mind and allows us to stay there for a long time.
When you are in your feet, working with your feet you are completely grounded. At that moment there is also no mind, although within it you are in a state of acting. There is no state of ‘nothingness’ because you are still acting so something is happening. Remaining grounded and present automatically opens the faculty of intuition .
Hanging Sirasana is another pose that opens the power to intuition provided you follow the rules which are that when you are hanging you are totally silent and peaceful. The mind’s nature is to take over so watch the breath; every time a thought comes, quicken the breath to ignore the thought. Do this as an exercise and remain silent.
You know the ‘third eye’, that is intuition. Between the eyebrows there is an invisible eye of intuition.
Someone with intuition knows they have the faculty within them and never goes wrong. It is important, very important. Because we spend our lives in mistakes and do not seem to learn. In case you have not seen it in your life, please have a look.
Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre
Yoga Master Teacher Sharat Arora
Article derived from Q & A session
at the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre
