Intuitive Wisdom - Part 2

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Intuitive Wisdom - Part 2

 

[bede Griffiths]: (p.39) What then is intuition? Intuition is a knowledge which

derives not from observation and experiment or from concepts and reason but from

the mind's reflection on itself. What distinguishes the human mind above

everything else is not its powers of observation and experiment, which animals

also possess in some degree, nor its power of logical and mathematical

reasoning, which a computer can imitate quite successfully, but its power of

self-reflection. The human mind is so structured that it is always present to

itself. When I eat or even when I sleep, when I feel joy or sorrow, when I love

or hate, I do not merely undergo a certain physical or psychological process. I

am present to myself, and in a certain sense aware of myself, eating and

sleeping, experiencing joy or sorrow, loving or hating. When I know something I

know that I know, in other words, I know not only what I know, but also myself

as knowing. Every human action or suffering is accompanied by a self-awareness,

a reflection on the self. The difficulty is that this self-awareness, this

self-reflection, is not conscious in the ordinary sense. It is often referred to

as 'unconscious.' Jung has made us familiar with this concept of the knowledge

of the unconscious underlying all conscious knowledge. But this is an

unsatisfactory term, since there is a kind of consciousness in this state. It

can be called 'subconscious,' but this again suggests that it is not really a

state of consciousness. It may be called 'subliminal,' that is, beneath the

threshold (limen) of consciousness. Maritain in his 'Creative Intuition in Art

and Poetry' speaks of it as 'beneath the sunlit surface' of the mind. This comes

nearer to the truth. Intuition belongs not to the sunlit surface of the mind,

but to the night and the darkness, to the moonlit world of dreams and images,

before they emerge into rational consciousness.

 

Let us try to grasp this. When I am eating or sleeping, when I simply experience

my physical being, there is a dim, obscure awareness of myself eating and

sleeping. The baby who has just learned to suck its mother's breast or remains

blissfully asleep, has already an obscure awareness of itself, which will

ultimately grow into full self-consciousness. (p.40) Even before birth the child

in the womb is beginning to experience itself. The proof of this is that all

these experiences remain indelibly impressed on the mind, that is the memory.

Years afterwards a person may discover that the trauma of birth or the

experience of neglect in infancy have permanently affected the psyche and can be

brought back to mind. I have said that even in sleep there is an obscure

self-awareness. This is obvious in dreams, but even in deep sleep which Hindus

call 'sushupti', it is held that there is a self-awareness. The mind sinks back

into its source and the memory of it remains. One can understand the difficulty

of what we are attempting to do. We are trying to bring up into rational

consciousness and to express in rational concepts what is beyond rational

consciousness but which nevertheless leaves its mark on the rational mind.

 

Perhaps we could speak of the 'passive intellect.' There is an active intellect,

the 'intellectus agens', which abstracts rational concepts from our sense

experience and develops scientific theories. But there is also a passive

intellect. Before the intellect begins to act, it receives the impressions of

the experience of the body, the senses, the feelings, the imagination. This is

the source of intuition. All my experiences of my physical being, of my own body

and of the world around me, of my emotional reactions and the images which they

arouse in me, are impressed on the passive intellect. There is no such thing as

a mere sensation, a mere feeling, a mere thought. Every sensation, every

feeling, every imagination affects my mind, modifies my being. I live and act as

a whole. However obscure this self-awareness may be, it is there in every action

and in every sensation, in every thought and feeling. I am present to myself in

every moment of my being. This is the very structure of my mind, of my

consciousness. If I probe my consciousness sufficiently, I can become aware of

this subliminal consciousness. I can go beneath the surface of my mind and

explore its depths.

 

This is what has been taught in the West as a method of psychoanalysis, but the

western psychologist rarely goes beyond the level of the dream consciousness and

that of repressed emotions, whereas in the East, in Hindu and Buddhist and

Taoist yoga, they have penetrated to the depths of the psyche and discovered its

original ground. (p.41) This is what western man has to learn to do. He has to

find the path of self-realization which has been followed for centuries in the

East.

 

The self is not the little conscious ego, constructing its logical systems and

building its rational world. The self plunges deep into the past of humanity and

of the whole creation. I bear within my mind, my memory in the deep sense, the

whole world. The movement of atoms and molecules, which make up the cells of my

body, are all registered in the passive intellect. The formation of my body in

the womb of my mother in all its stages is all stored in my memory. Every

impulse of love or hate, of fear or anger, of pleasure or pain, has left its

mark on my mind. Nor am I limited to the experience of my own body and feelings.

I am physically and psychologically linked with all the world around me. My body

is the focus of electro-magnetic phenomena, of forces of gravitation and of all

kinds of chemical changes. My feelings are reactions to a whole world of

feelings both past and present in which I am involved. All this has left its

impression on my mind. Well did Hamlet remark: 'What a piece of work is man!' My

mind is an unfathomable mystery, reflecting the whole world, and making a me a

center of consciousness among innumerable other such centers, each reflecting

all.

 

Intuition, then, is the knowledge of the passive intellect, the self-awareness,

which accompanies all action and all conscious, deliberate reflection. It is

passive: it comes from the world around me, from the sensations of my body, from

my feelings and spontaneous reactions. That is why intuition cannot be produced.

It has to be allowed to happen. But that is just what the rational mind cannot

endure. It wants to control everything. It is not prepared to be silent, to be

still, to allow things to happen. Of course, there is a passivity of inertia,

but this is an 'active passivity'. It is what the Chinese call wu wei, action in

inaction. It is a state of receptivity. 'Let us open our leaves like a flower,'

said Keats, 'and be passive and receptive.' These words inspired me at the very

beginning of my journey, but it is only now that I realize their full

significance. (p.42) There is an activity of the mind which is grasping,

achieving, dominating, but there is also an activity which is receptive,

attentive, open to others. This is what we have to learn. The classical

expression of this intuitive wisdom is to be found in the Tao Te Ching, which

speaks of the Spirit of the Valley and the Mystic Female. 'The door of the

Mystic Female,' it says, 'is the root of heaven and earth.' 'In opening and

closing the Gates of Heaven can you play the part of the female? In

comprehending all knowledge can you renounce the mind?' 'Attain to the utmost

emptiness, hold firm the basis of Quietude.' 'To return to the root is

repose.'[8] These are the principles which underlie the wisdom of the East,

which the West has to discover and which China and the East have to recover if

the world is to find its balance.

 

The One Light - Bede Griffiths' Principal Writings

Chapter I, Mind, World and Spirit, p. 39-42

Edited and with Commentary by Bruno Barnhart

Templegate Publishers, Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-254-8

 

Notes:

 

[8] 'Tao Te Ching' 6, 10 and 16. From 'The Wisdom of China' by Lin Yutang

(Michael Joseph, London).