The Pioneer, Relationships
Monday, 17th May, 2004
Swami Chaitanya Keerti
Life is a process of learning. We stop growing when we stop learning. What we learn from outside sources is tuition. And there’s another source within us, that of intuition. The two are distinct dimensions of learning – one from outside to inside and vice versa.
Between tuition and intuition is the difference of “in”. This is the dimension of meditation. In Hindi, we talk of antardrishti, translated as “inner eye” or “insight”. This belongs to the dimension of intuition.
Osho explains this beautifully in the following words. He says: “Intellect lives on tuition. Others have to teach you. Intuition comes from within, it grows out of you and is a flowering of being. This is the quality of consciousness without a centre. Timelessness; or you can call it the now, the present. But remember, it is not present between past and future; it is the present in which past and future have dissolved.”
Talking of intuition, Osho says: “The word is significant. We are given tuition everywhere. That is to repress intuition. In schools, colleges, universities, you are given tuition. It means something from outside being forced on you, and intuition means something from your core. If unconscious, it will remain instinct.
“If you are conscious, instinct plus awareness equals intuition. Then for the first time you have found your Master within you. Intuition is your Master, your real university. And now you don’t need a scripture, you don’t need any guide. Your inner light is enough to lead you to the ultimate goal of enlightenment.”
Normally, a human being functions on three levels – instinct, intellect and intuition. Instinct is of the physical level. Animals possess it. Intellect is functioning of the head, one needs to be human to have intellect. Intuition is deeper – one needs to have his heart functioning properly. Behind these is our being, whose only quality is witnessing.
Osho says: “The head only thinks; hence it never comes to a conclusion. It is verbal, linguistic, logical but because it has no roots in reality, thousands of years of philosophical thinking have not given us a single conclusion. Philosophy has been the greatest exercise in futility.
“Beyond intellect is feeling. Another name for this is intuition, a more scientific name. But few reach intuition, because for that you have to go beyond intellect. Meditation is the only way. Unfortunately, meditation is not part of our education. It stops at intellect, creating a quarrel between instinct and intellect, creating a schizophrenia.”
If you meditate, something beyond intellect starts functioning. You can call it the heart, intuition. It has no arguments but tremendous experiences. But it is not the end of your nature. Like instinct, on the other polarity of your being, beyond the mind – which is the world of intellect – is a world of intuition.
“This opens doors through meditation: Which is simply knocking on doors of intuition; intuition is also completely ready; it does not grow; you have inherited that from existence.”
That’s what meditation is about: Dropping the mind and moving to the heart. A leap from thinking to feeling, intellect to intuition. Head to heart. Extremes existing with unbridgeable distance between them.
