Intuition - Azara Feroz Sayed

Came across the below article on the need for flexing our sixth sense

Rumi's words from earlier post
Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition

The dictionary definition of intution is "quick and ready insight;" and "the act or process of coming to direct knowledge without reasoning or inferring." It is derived from the Latin word "intueri" which means "to see within." It is a way of knowing, of sensing the truth without explanations

Listening to our intuition is the essence of art and creativity and soulful living. Intuition is what we use to find the purpose of our life and our place in the world. Even Einstein said that most of his innovation was actually just good guessing. A talent is something that some people are born with while others have to work at it. The greatest artists usually study and imitate the techniques of the ones who came before them. In fact a museum had exactly that as its original purpose. It was intended as a place to learn techniques, inspiration, and intuition.

The below article was the motivation for this post
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lifestyle/Spirituality/Mind_over_Matter/Mind_Set_Go_by_your_intuition/articleshow/3052636.cms

As we go through the decisions that we make in your daily life how much do we rely on our intuition? Do we feel focused and strong in the choices that we make? Or do we feel that we have to deliberate, analyse, weigh out pros and cons, get lots of opinions from friends or family and scare yourself into a decision?

We all have had our rounds of confusion and analysis paralysis. The one conclusion is that logic alone does not work. And the answer is to learn how to use a tool that we were actually born with. That tool is our intuition!

We hear the words ‘surrender’, ‘trust’ and ‘let go’ all the time. But what does that really mean? And what are we surrendering to? Our logic tells us this is dangerous. So our best attempts to let go last a few minutes and then we are back to trying to figure it all out!

Our intuition is comprised of the energetic senses that we were born with to assist us in staying connected to our higher or inner self. We can refer to that self as a number of names, Divine Guidance, God, The Universe, Spirit etc. We are always connected to that power greater than our physical selves and that connection is our intuition.

So here are five key points to consider that will hopefully help us get a better handle on the most powerful sense that we have.
1. Our intuition is our direct and absolute link to communication with our spirit.
2. Our intuitive senses lay over our physical senses. We get energetic or intuitive feelings through energetic sight (like deja vu), energetic hearing (we hear a small voice that gives us a warning or feels like a hunch to follow), energetic feeling (a gut feeling in your stomach that feels like butterflies or goose bumps) and energetic knowing (feeling like we just know how to do something or how a situation will turn out without learning or cause).
3. Everyone is born with intuition and has the ability to develop it to be strong and reliable.
4. Intuition is always the most efficient and accurate advice that we can get about any issue, concern or desire.
5. Our society encourages us to ignore our intuition and focus strictly on logic. We disengage from our energetic senses and end up feeling very confused, anxious and taking a very long slow road to happiness. Our intuition is always working whether we focus on it or not! When we harness the power of our intuition we are able to fully access our personal power. Not using our intuition is like having eyes and ears and ignoring or fighting their functions. Our eyes and ears are on our head and whether we are concentrating on using them or not they are always working. They become very powerful tools when we deliberately focus our sight or hearing! Think of how hard it would be to watch a wonderful movie or listen to a beautiful symphony without our ears or eyes! Unwavering trust begins with knowing our intuition and how to use it!

Real trust comes from having a direct communication with Spirit yourself through understanding, recognising and knowing how to use and rely on our intuition!

We need to take responsibility for ourselves and use our intuition in combination with creative problem solving tools like logic to decide what to do next. When we ignore our intuition we feel anxious, confused and uneasy. We may feel intellectually that it is the right decision but something still doesn't feel certain.

When we use our intuition it may seem illogical but our decision feels right. It feels like a sense of knowing or certainty that we may not be able to describe. And our actions feel inspired. We feel led as opposed to running after an outcome. We feel guided to take inspired action and our hunch feels like a knowing instead of a reckless risk. It’s time to empower ourself by harnessing our own intuition! When we take the time to learn about, understand and tap into our intuition, we will find that your decisions and actions are so much easier to make!

We will live so much more powerfully and efficiently. Our tasks will be done in a fraction of the time because we will be working from certainty instead of fear! We may consider the opinions of others for a perspective but we will know that our intuition has the final say! Too many bits of information can in fact confuse the mind and lead to wrong decisions. As Hamlet said, "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." The trick is to be able to zero in on the one bit of information that matters the most.

http://healing.about.com/cs/selfactualization/ht/How_intuition.htm
Maybe we feel listening to your intuition is easier said than done. But the truth is that most of us make listening to our inner guidance out to be harder than it actually is.

Here are some simples ways we can tune into our inner dialogs. Using our sixth sense is just like working a muscle. It will get stronger the more we use it.
1. Turn off that car radio. Giving our physical hearing a rest can expand your inner ear.
2. At home, turn off the computer, the television, and the stereo. Spend a half hour or so in quiet meditation or solace.
3. Spend some quiet time alone in nature.
4. Pay attention to energy shifts in your physical body. Pain is telling you something is wrong.
5. Keep a dream journal.
6. Take moments in each day to clear mind of distractions. Visualizing a chalkboard being erased often helps with this exercise.
7. On way home tune in to see if you can "guess" how many pieces of mail are waiting for you in your mailbox. Isn't it amazing how accurate we are at this over time.
8. Keep a synchronicity notebook to write down all so called "coincidences."
9. Follow hunches. Prepare to be amazed where they lead.
10.Notice scents around. What emotions or memories do they stir up?
11.Start noticing "markers" or "signs" that bring about particular sensations in the gut
By following through on our everyday hunches, we are actually taking test drives, virtually honing in on our listening skills. Learning to listen to our inner dialog tones and strengthens this muscle. The more we use our intuition the better we get at it. When we choose to ignore our gut instincts, we are only hurting ourselves.