Intuitive ways of knowing go beyond conscious thinking and guide us to truths that are difficult to prove or even explain.
My fifth-grade teacher once told me that if you can’t explain it, you don’t know it. I didn’t argue with her, but I had the feeling my teacher wasn’t exactly right. I’ve since given lots of thought to what it means “to know” and I’ve concluded that there are different ways of knowing.
My teacher may have been right about one kind of knowing, but my experience tells me there are other ways of knowing. My son seemed to understand this when he was just a preschooler. I was ironing a shirt when Michael reached up to touch the iron. I think he was about three years old. “Don’t touch the iron,” I said. “It’s hot.”
A few minutes later, as I walked across the room to remove some clothes from the dryer, Michael reached up and touched the iron. Of course, it burned, and he screamed and cried. As I was running cold water over his finger, Michael surprised me by saying, “It’s a good thing that I touched the iron. Now I know it’s hot.” Just telling him wasn’t enough; he had to experience it for himself. Michael's comment reminded me that there are times when coming to know something means reaching out to touch it. It also nudged me to the understanding that the process can be painful.
But tuning in to different ways of knowing can also be beautiful and joyful. It can add meaning and purpose to our lives. Most of us can recall learning or hearing about something but not really comprehending the meaning until we experienced it ourselves. I remember hearing about the mysterious Mount Shasta in California—how big and beautiful they landscape was; how people could stand next to a redwood tree and feel something shift in their consciousness about the meaning of trees and their relationship with trees. Until I stood in a redwood forest myself, I didn’t really comprehend the power of the trees to stir something within me. I can’t adequately explain the overpowering feeling of mystery and awe I experienced as I walked through the redwood forest, but I know from this experience that a redwood tree is more than an object to be studied or a resource to be used.
Since knowing, then, has different dimensions, how do we come “to know” something? There’s the analytical and scientific way of knowing, where our focus tends to be on observing and measuring the physical attributes of things around us. But there are also aesthetic and intuitive ways of knowing, where our focus is less on what we do (measuring, observing) than on what we receive (insights, intuitions, discernments). Some ways of knowing, such as aha moments or epiphanies, can’t be orchestrated. Yet we can be open to them by tuning into and honoring different ways of knowing.
Aesthetic and intuitive ways of knowing go beyond conscious thinking. They’re based on an inner sensing, enabling us to arrive at truths that are difficult to prove or even explain. Artists, poets, mystics, and prophets tend to be aware of such truths. At times, young children are as well, as they have the unique advantage of seeing the world through eyes that haven’t been clouded by theories, doctrines, or categories. Children’s way of knowing is often steeped in wonder.
For most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. Losing or shutting down a primal way of seeing limits our ability to intuit the essence of what is known. Life is sometimes defined as the ultimate purpose or end, the meaning beyond facts and information.
We can accumulate a lot of information and still lack wisdom. And we can have lots of experiences but miss the meaning of what it's all about. There are practices we can use to foster other ways of knowing and that help us become more attuned to the deeper meanings of our experiences and of life around us.
Adopting a Positive Perception of Life
A serious question for my readers. Have we learned anything from our mind? Really? I believe at certain times, the mind falls short. Most importantly, we know that it performs poorly under fear and duress.
What is it that we hold in our minds, our brains? A computer, a storage disk? No, I don't think so. Sentient beings, the brain does not operate on a chip or a bunch of neuropeptides.
It summons it's creative work from something far greater. A thing more greater purportedly, than the powers that currently may be. An occurrence much higher than these skin suits can currently imagine in their "waking state," ---- the 3D paradigm.
This is truth, however grainy.
These evil doers may have been able to bend and or break minds, but once a human being experiences a catalyst, our landscape changes, intricately in full color. There is a choice of succumbing to the ticky tacky dramas of a life experience, or a choice to set ourselves free.
Inspiration is vast when you are in that moment.
Bottom line, what do you do?
I can't stop. That's for sure. I am tired of running, up here, down there. As long as I am in this body, there is no way out...or maybe there is.
On another note --- when grappling with the pain some feel in their lives, why is it so hard to except help? Guidance?
I get it. There has been pain, extreme duress in lives but one of these days we must innerstand that the world didn't do this to you. You can blame your mother or your father, etc etc etc, but one day you must come to grasp the reality of the situation, which is innately, we are not your parents. We will not throw you to the wolves. However, you must discover life's meaning for yourselves. We can urge and or guide, but you are the only one that can set you free from the tyranny on earth. You still have all those old demons running around in your head. You are the only one that can release them. Believe me, I know. But we are powerful, loving beings...we can do anything when we believe.
I’m a writer and like to spend as much time as I can writing. Sometimes, I feel that time spent not writing is wasted. However, I’ve come to realize that the time spent not writing is often just as important to the writing process as the time I spend writing. Ideas and insights often need an incubation period. I find that downtime encourages a slow way of looking and thinking that helps me learn things I never knew before.
I love books and value scientific research; I’ve learned a lot from these rich sources of knowledge. I realize, however, that there are other ways to learn about ourselves and the world in which we live. Tapping into these other ways of knowing doesn’t diminish the value of science and empirical knowledge. What it can do, instead, is make available to us a whole new dimension of awareness and understanding.
In love, light, light, love. Namaste.
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