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Eastern Mind
11 March 2010, 11:11 AM
Vannakkam all:

I am watching casually the debate going on elsewhere and am wondering, "What's the point?" "Of what practical value is this? How does this make anyone a better kinder person?

Will a rational mind ever understand intuition, the superconscious mind?

IMO, No. Why? Intuition is on a different level. It comes directly from the mind of the soul.

Does intellect cloud intuition?

Aum Namasivaya

sanjaya
11 March 2010, 11:36 AM
Interesting questions, EM. I don't know what the practical value of all these debates are. However, I tend to view knowledge as having an intrinsic value, so discussing various issues and seeing all points of a dialog is often very helpful to me. It also helps that people on HDF tend to be quite civil.

As to whether intellect clouds intuition, I agree that it often interferes with intuition. But is this clouding, or correction? Our gut reactions are often wrong. Intuition can often cause people to form stereotypes about others that aren't based on fact. Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that intellect informs and changes our intuition.

As always, I'm of course open to other points of view on this.

Eastern Mind
11 March 2010, 12:01 PM
Sanjaya:

I agree that gut reactions can often be wrong. But from my view then it wouldn't be true intuition. That gut reaction would be something coming from the subconscious mind misinterpreted as intuition. The statement, "I'm comfortable with this" could either be from experiential knowledge and the subconcious doing its job, which is fine, or it can also be from 'direct cognition' which would be the superconscious, or my version of intuition.

So the feeling that "I know" isn't easy to attain at that level. I do believe intellect clouds this. So does ego and emotion. I think you have to get a clearing of all the subconscious stuff like attachment, desire, the sense of 'I' before direct cognition has a chance of working.

This direct knowledge is beyond words so its even hard to write about. I can truly say I believe (know) God exists. But any good rationalist can take that apart with ease. So be it.

If the Self is beyond the mind, then how can the mind realise it?

Aum Namasivaya

Eastern Mind
14 March 2010, 01:15 PM
Vannakkam all:

Let's suppose we take away all the books. Maybe not the books, just the reading of them. What would we then think? I read somewhere that only less than 1% of thought is original. The rest is regurgitation of other ideas or combining of other's ideas. Where would these discussions be if people were all asked "What do you actually think?"

In Bill Clinton's biography (Which I haven't read, just heard this somewhere or saw it in an interview) he suggested that politicians are so busy saying what they think the listeners want to hear (to get vote) that they forget what they think.

Our prime minister here in Canada who is an evangelical Christian was at the opening of the BAPS temple in Toronto and spoke so highly of our multiculturalism etc. But surely in enemy territory politically, he could hardly say anything else. If he said what he actually thought, it would probably mean he doesn't get elected, so he has to stand there and be politically correct.

So who here can say with any confidence that their world view comes from their own mind, and not another's?

Aum Namasivaya