Follow your Intuition

Article in the Deccan Herald dated 11th August, 2006.
Panorama; Oasis.

Follow your intuition


To develop intuition, we need to dig inside us rather than look outside for rationalisation. If the driving force of intelligence in the 20th century has been the head, in the dawning of the 21st century it will be the heart. The emphasis on the intellect for defining success of an individual by the modern world is out of touch with the heart-level engine or intuition today.

Following your intuition would mean following your heart, listening to your gut feeling. There might have been several times in our lives when we have felt a certain way about a certain event, but have not expressed it, and later found out that what we felt actually happened. We simply did not have the courage to express what we felt when we felt it.

Following the heart also means following the divinity within, it is listening to the divine voice within; it is listening to your feelings. When we listen to the voice within we recognise the same voice in others.


The rational thinking in us, the intellect has taken us far away from the magical world of our gut ‘feel’ and dismissed it as coincidental thoughts. The most common example being when we think of a person whom we have not met in a while and at that very moment that person either calls or arrives at our doorstep, we say “what a coincidence"! There is a thin line which separates our thoughts from intuition.

Intuition has, other than thoughts a bodily response, we experience a tingling sensation when such thoughts arise. We need to observe our bodily response when a thought arises to distinguish it as thought from intuition. Thus, to develop the intuitive faculty in us we need to go within rather than look for rationalisation from the outside. Once we develop our intuitive abilities, we also are able to recognise the inner feelings in most others – this way we understand their feelings and emotions. We often say “I understand” without actually doing so. All this requires a process of un-learning and learning again. A student asked the master, “Lead me to change master, I want to become like you”. The master looked at the pupil, and took a jar containing water lying next to him and started to pour the water into a glass which was three fourths full. The glass filled up and water started flowing out, but the master continued pouring.

The pupil said, "What are you up to master? The water is spilling out! To which the master replied, "Son, for you to accept something new, you first need to pour out all that is old!