Intuition, Sensation, and What Knows
Intuición, sensación y lo que conoce
A wide-ranging conversation about the nature of intuition, the role of sensation in self-inquiry, and the relationship between the knower and the known.
Intuition, Sensation, and What Knows
A wide-ranging conversation about the nature of intuition, the role of sensation in self-inquiry, and the relationship between the knower and the known.
Can you speak about intuition, what it really is, and how we can be more connected to it in daily life?
The biggest challenge with intuition is thinking we are listening to it when we are not, calling something intuition when it isn't. A great deal of the confusion we live in is due to misunderstanding what is happening in our thinking. Much of what happens in thought is rationalizing, which means having something appear as truth when it is not.
This is often described as something the mind does to us: "My mind does this and I get fooled." But it is actually something we are more deeply and intentionally doing. The mind is a tool. We use the mind to remain in confusion, to remain in illusion.
The way that really works is that you have to believe you are doing the right thing. Whatever motive you have, even if you know you are doing something wrong, there is always going to be a sense of "this is the way." Even if it is known to be self-sabotage or something self-damaging.
Intuition as justification
Now, the word "intuition" and the understanding behind it are often used as a way to justify certain ways of thinking. It comes across as honorable: "I'm doing the right thing, I'm putting everything I have into doing the right thing." So it requires a bit of internal honesty to see what the true motives are, what is really happening. If there is a sense of something being avoided, that needs to be looked at or felt more deeply, because usually what we are avoiding is a feeling or a sensation, some experience of an energetic, emotional, or felt quality in the body.
We rarely are avoiding what we think we are avoiding. We think we are avoiding a situation in the future. We are trying to control our thinking to create something and avoid something. But really what we are trying to control is the experience of sensation. What is it going to feel like if this goes one way? What is it going to feel like if it goes the other way? And it often has to do with the thoughts we will have that create the emotions we want to avoid or recreate.
What true intuition is
True intuition, which is a real thing, is when you know something without evidence, without any reason. The knowing often feels very strong, very clear, but you cannot have any rational backing for it. Now, once you hear that description, it is very easy for the mind to grasp it and use thought to tell yourself, "This is intuition, because I don't know why I feel this way, and it fits the label."
So it becomes an excuse for action or inaction.
Exactly. An action that is impulsive or actually has a different motive. It really requires deep internal honesty, because we can fool ourselves until the end of time. It is never-ending.
I was thinking at first that the obstacle would be fear. But then I thought, what if I had an addiction? I might believe, "Oh, I had this intuition that if I have lots of wine today, I'll only drink today and not again tomorrow." Would that be an example?
That is an example not of intuition but of rationalizing. Intuition really is a strong sense of knowing that, in your intellect and cognitive process, you cannot understand or grasp where it is coming from or justify. Often you need to explore it, and only later will you know if it was intuition, because if it is true intuition, it will work out. There is always an element of risk. You could think of it as an instinct, but it is not coming from the body-mind or from genetics. It is coming from something deeper. Call it a soul level.
I remember this happened to me as a teenager. There were certain days when I would think, "I know I'm going to see this person today," not because I chose to, but I would cross paths with them or something would happen. My feeling is that it was not intuition in some magical, mysterious sense, but more that I was not consciously aware of the many small reasons that led me to realize it was going to happen: I knew this person's habits, or the weather was a certain way, or we hadn't seen each other in a long time.
It could be that. But it could also be a deeper knowing, because things are not as they seem. Time does not work as it seems, and dimensions do not work as they seem. You might be knowing something from a more mysterious place.
Don't make intuition a strategy
The one thing I would say about all of this is: do not think that you need more intuition in order to be at peace or to get what you want. Do not turn intuition into a strategy or an objective to develop in order to get somewhere. That does not work. You could try, but just know it is not going to work.
It made me more curious about being more conscious of this throughout my days.
The more you understand what and who you are not, and understand more how you use and misuse your mind, then intuition will happen more and more naturally. You will be operating with more intuition.
I have one last question about this. I have the feeling that intuition is here; it is just that there is a bunch of stuff on top of it and I am not paying attention. Do you feel it is more that when I know myself better, that stuff clears?
The bunch of stuff you are describing that is in the way is the thoughts. It is not necessarily always here, but yes, that is the direction.
During the meditation, I really felt it when you said something like "let everything move through you." That was piercing. I think part of the experience has to do with the meditation but also with recognizing that thoughts are not the primary way of knowing or being. It feels like a really big shift of paradigm, as an experience. Even now I am sensing in a very different way. I know there is something real and profound about it, but it is not how I have lived for a long time. It feels very different. In moments I feel spacious and alive and big, but not focused or clear. At moments it feels really good, and at other moments less so. I was very curious about the invitation in the meditation around awakening and "what is noticing." What is noticing?
The loop of identification
In terms of awakening, the process simply is this: we believe we have thoughts, and then we believe that what we are is what appears in the world of thoughts. It is very addictive, very tight. Awakening is to see that not just the thoughts you are seeing (so you cannot be made of thoughts), but the sense of loop, the sense of "you," the sense of "I," is also thoughts.
Everything you know and experience as yourself is known. You could write a million books, a thousand per day, about everything you have experienced, everything you know about yourself, every thought you have had, everything you have felt. There is what knows, and then what is known. What is known is all the content, all of the loop. It is known by what knows.
The more you recognize that, there comes a point (this is not a progressive thing) where all of what the loop is can be seen, and therefore you cannot be that, because the loop can completely disappear and the knowing can remain. You might have had those perceptions or glimpses.
The observer as a halfway point
That is a first step. Through that recognition, you can start to notice what is observing. That which knows is not what is known. What is known comes and goes, changes, moves. Your thoughts change, your emotions change, your sensations change. All of it comes and goes.
But that which knows can also, at some point, become an abstraction, a very subtle, separated observing. It is almost as if you are sitting back watching a movie. That is still the sense of "I," the sense of "I" that knows the loop. At that point, what can be seen is that that which knows and that which is known are the same. There is not truly a separate observing. I am talking about the knowing because it is important for it to be recognized, but it is, in a sense, a halfway point. The knowing and the known are not two.
I think that is where your contemplation should go, because I think you are familiar with the observing and with the loop, with that which you are observing coming and going at times.
Can you speak about sensations? It is very broad, but I am curious. Even bodily sensation is an experience; it is physical, there is sound, there is sense. Is there a pathway through sensations to inquire further?
Sensation as what we avoid
Two things come up. One is what I was saying earlier: sensation is what we avoid. That is very important, because there is a process in this disidentification where we can really pull something in a wrong direction by avoiding sensation.
In the process of self-inquiry, observing the mind, disidentification, a lot of people meditate and look at thoughts and they pull towards numbness, because they have disconnected from sensation. First they were identified with thought. Thought was troubling, so now they want to pull away from thought. But the pulling away from thought goes further and further into what might be called dissociation.
That can happen very deeply. The cure for it is sensation. If you notice yourself dissociating, the path is not through sensation; it is to sensation. That is not going to go all the way, but it will go far enough that you can start grounding yourself in the direct relationship with whatever is happening at the level of sensation.
"Grounding" is not necessarily the right word, because when you are able to be with sensation, there is no need to ground. You are simply connected to sensation, to direct experience. Then you will notice that thoughts calm down. There might be breakthroughs where the thoughts get intense, and then emotion or feeling or sensation moves, and then the mind calms. The mind will always calm after you are able to be with whatever has been avoided. And what has been avoided might also be spaciousness itself. Sometimes the contraction is a way of avoiding the spaciousness.
Identification with sensation
On the other hand, what can happen is identification with sensation. There is identification with yourself as an image, a timeline, a place in life, with troubles and challenges. And then there is the felt sense of yourself.
In a sense, there is a stepwise progression where disidentification from thought moves to identification with sensation. What happens first is that we identify with the body. It is very intense, and so we create a mental "I" to pull away from the body. The way back is into and through the body.
Once you return to this disidentification from thought and find yourself identified with sensation, notice that what you would call "body" is not body. Body is a concept. Sensation is sensation. It is a cloud of tingling, contractions, and experience in all different flavors. There can also be emotions and feelings within it, but that is also sensation. It is all an energetic. The mind is very connected to this because the mind can create the illusion of body through emotion, or through the imagined body as image.
Not this, not this
The key there is to see sensation clearly. You have heard of "neti neti": not this, not this, not this, not this. What is that? It is the answer to the question "What am I?" It is "Who am I? What am I? Where am I?" Not this, not this. Whatever answer comes: not this.
In sensation, it can feel like "I." The sensation is "I am here." But there is something noticing the sensation. How could you be noticing something that is appearing? You could say sensation is appearing over there, and then you say, "I am this." You cannot have both. Either you are not the body (and therefore not sensation), or you are as much sensation as you are what you hear, what you see, what you perceive, because it is all appearing in the same way.
There is no way to draw a rational line in your experience where sensation is exclusively "you." Only through thought can you create that boundary. If you go purely into sensation and you see "I am the sensation," but you are also observing and knowing sensation, you cannot be both. You cannot be the knowing and the known, unless they are not two.
But if they are not two, then it applies to everything you experience, because sensation is appearing in the same place as sight, sound, and all perception. Therefore you cannot be limited to this body.
I am having a bit of a freak-out moment. I am going to go deeper into that.
Devices for seeing
These ways of pointing are devices. Neti neti, "What am I?", the observer: all of it is a device to get you to a point where you are disidentified enough from what is experienced so that you can allow experience to happen. You can feel all the sensation you have been avoiding, all your feelings and emotions. Then comes the seeing that even that subjectivity which is observing is also a thought construct.
What can happen then is that sensation is simply appearing. There is only sensation, there is only sight. What you are seeing now is appearing as it is seen. There is not something separate seeing what you are seeing. There is a thought that appears, and you can say, "I am seeing." There is a sensation that you can say, "I am there, seeing what is over there." But all of that is a mind construct.
And there, you can let everything move through you. The whole universe is moving. Nothing is remaining still. It is a river.