Intuition And Insight

Albert Einstein discovered the law of relativity in a flash of intuitive insight; it was only years later that he was able to justify his discovery logically to other scientists. The same is true of most scientific hypotheses: First comes intuition, which conceives them. Only then comes the painstaking process of reasoning it out persuasively for others. Logic itself is a more intuitive process than most people realise. At every stage of the reasoning process one is faced with numerous alternative directions. When people think of pure consciousness, they usually visualise an abstract mental state like “the cosmic ground of being”. The state they contemplate, in other words, is one from which feeling is totally absent. To attempt to be unfeeling in one’s search is to dull one’s awareness. Feeling is as intrinsic to awareness as heat is to fire. Calm feeling is intuition. When that calm feeling is disturbed, it becomes emotion. Calm feeling is like a lake without ripples; emotion is like ripples appearing on the surface of the lake, that change the appearance of whatever is reflected there. Until clarity of feeling is achieved, the meditator will be forever vacillating in purpose. Wisdom, without devotion, is like knowing that there is a good restaurant next door, and even committing its entire menu to memory, but not being hungry enough to go there and eat. Feeling is what makes it possible to commit oneself to the spiritual search.

Source: Economic Times, 28/01/2019