Albert Einstein has been widely quoted as saying, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” In the same sense, the authors of the Big Book talked about the intuitive mind as one of the Promises of AA. But the Big Book never went on to explain why our path of sobriety helps produce this gift.
First, it might be helpful to examine what intuition is and how it differs from our rational mind. As the dictionary defines it: intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. In Eastern religions, this is not a new phenomenon. For instance, in Zen Buddhism, intuition is deemed a mental state between the Universal mind and one’s discriminating mind. But in the West, intuition does not appear as a separate field of study. Malcolm Gladwell in “Blink” launched interest in the subject, although he never mentions “intuition” by name. Some of the academic interest generated by the book was critical of his idea of a small slice of thought, sometimes only 15 seconds, which jettisoned lots of unessential data allowing our conscious mind to focus solely on what’s important. They thought it substantially underplayed the power of intuition to handle complex or messy data that does not necessarily reduce itself to an underlying pattern. That includes situations requiring subtle discrimination.
That formal criticism showed that intuition aided our conscious mind because of its processing limitation. That we can deal with only 4-7 ideas in our mind at one time is well documented in the literature. So as the complexity of problems [often including fears] increases, our conscious reasoning can’t handle it. In AA, through the steps of the program, we eliminate much of that complexity-which gives rise to the slogan that “AA is a simple program for complicated people”. Perhaps a modern analogy might bring a little insight into how intuition can work for us. One of the things that gave computers such a leap forward is parallel processing or working on various aspects of a problem simultaneously. Likewise, during an intuitive process, our billions of neurons can access each other independently, often creating “bank shots” where one neuron’s impulse causes many other neurons to fire. So particularly in quiet periods, our intuitive brain is humming right along oblivious to our oversight or direction.
As it turns out, intuition works best during periods where paradoxically, we are not trying to be intuitive. It also is particularly useful in areas of human interaction. I didn’t do a spreadsheet on my wife’s attributes, nor did she with me; we both “knew” the other was the one. So as we see our lives improve and some of our self-created problems recede, we calm down a bit. The process of turning our will and lives over to the care of God is one of trust where we depend on our Higher Power to supply us answers. What if those answers came in part from our intuitive mind? And what if we started handling more situations that use to baffle us? Wouldn’t we want more of the same?
So what might we do to increase our intuitive powers? Every time you use and trust them, they become stronger. Try acting on the first thought you have and see how often it is the answer you have been seeking. Think about your brain as a database in an IBM mainframe capable of storing information in it’s 100 billion neurons. What can we do to add to that database with experiences, knowledge, and by absorbing tons of quality writing and conversation? The more our intuition has to work with, the better its input into our conscious mind, and the more others are likely to trust our intuitive powers as well. Next, it is becoming more intentional about quiet times, including a daily dedicated prayer and meditation and reflection time. Being current with our amends helps immensely. Also, does meeting our social needs by maintaining connections with friends and sponsors, including unloading upon them when appropriate. And of course, all-important is maintaining our spiritual connection, which keeps opening our lifeline to our Higher Power and also to the scaffolding provided by our intuition that helps support our reasoning process.
More will be revealed 