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Cultivating and listening to your intuition will not only protect you from mishaps but also ensure that you succeed in your endeavours, says Suma Varughese

For anyone on the spiritual path, there is no bigger ally than the power of intuition. Developing intuition teaches you to see rightly and to act unerringly. It takes you where your senses can never take you—deep into a person’s soul or indeed, into the Universe’s plans for you.

How, for instance, do you identify the right path, the right guru, or the next step? There is no Google map for the inner journey. Only your intuition can guide you here. Without it, you are lost. I once participated in a psychology programme where each participant was supposed to take therapy from one of the two principal teachers. I recoiled from one instinctively because his soul seemed dark, and chose the other. At the end of six months, the programme exploded into smithereens because the one with the dark soul had been discovered to be sexually abusing the women under his tutelage.

What is Intution? 

Intution is an inner knowing, a gut feeling, a hunch, that may militate against all logic and reason, but which will lead you faultlessly. It is looking at someone and knowing if you can trust them or not, or if you should marry them or not. Intuition also tells you what your next step should be. Should you end that relationship or not? Should you leave the city and take up farming? Mostly, we take these decisions based on feelings or logic, but neither of these is reliable. Feelings are notoriously subjective, while logic will not shine light on the really important things—like whether the time is right, or whether the decision is right for you.

I, personally, only take major decisions guided by my intuition. My decisions to quit Society magazine, to join Life Positive, to become its editor, to start my writer’s workshops, to quit Life Positive, were all prompted by intuition, and therefore they have worked for me.

So how do you cultivate intuition? Start by paying attention to it. How many times have you noted ruefully that something had told you not to have gone out for a date with X? Next time, pay attention to those hints from within. The more you listen, the sharper they get. 

Secondly, learn to distinguish intuition from feelings. Feelings are compelling—they move us in the direction of what we crave or what we resist. Intuition, on the other hand, is more objective. It may sometimes make you take decisions you don’t really want to—like end that relationship or quit the job. Moreover, developing intuition feels different. It seems to come from a deeper place and there is a certainty about it you won’t find in feelings. Intuition can also show up in different ways. For me, when I get really excited about something or see a stream of possibilities, I know that I need to head in that direction. Intuition is sourced in the vast intelligence of the Universe and arises from the subconscious mind. Not using it is tantamount to having a Mercedes purring in your garage and rattling around on a scooter instead. Upgrade yourself, please!