Intuitional Science
A small group of us were sitting around the dining area at a meditation retreat. My acharya (meditation teacher) was telling us a story. As he was speaking, I thought, “Perhaps I should get another glass of milk.” Without looking at me, or interrupting the flow of his story, he reached out, took the untouched glass of milk from his tray, and placed it in front of me. Momentarily taken aback, I overcame my surprise and drank it.
At the time I presumed he had been “reading my mind.” In retrospect, it is more likely that, as he was speaking, the thought entered his mind, “Jyotisha should drink some more milk,” and he acted on that thought.
This experience reflects a certain level of intuition. As one learns to meditate deeply, access to subtler layers of the mind becomes increasingly common. Most of the time we are only aware of the mundane layers of the mind, the layers in which we think and interact with the world. The subtler layers of the mind, however, are associated with universal knowledge.
When flashes of insight from these deeper layers of the mind enter the conscious mind, they often take the form of a thought or image that is indistinguishable from the many random thoughts and images that enter our minds daily. It is often only in retrospect that we realize certain thoughts were actually intuitional insights. Over time one becomes more trusting of this process and relaxes while many problems and aspects of life just seem to take care of themselves.
“Intuition” is a mental process that is not intellectual; it is beyond the intellect, a more subtle form of cognition. One name for yogic meditation is “intuitional science.” The goal of this intuitional science, however, is not access to knowledge of the physical or mental worlds. It is called “intuitional science” because realization of the spiritual goal is not an intellectual process; it is not something you can learn from a book or be taught in the usual sense.
Meditation is intuitional in that it is a psycho-spiritual process in which the totality of one’s psychic identity is associated intuitionally with infinite consciousness.