THE INTUITIVE PERSONALITY

Source: Discoveries Unlimited

In a psychological study published in 1968, Malcolm Westcott, outlined his findings on intuitive qualities in his book, “Toward a Contemporary Psychology of Intuition,”

Qualities associated with an intuitive personality
1. Creativity
2. Originality
3. Flexibility
4. Independent of judgment
5. Self assured
6. Highly motivated non-conformists, who tolerate ambiguity, change and uncertainty
7. Willing to risk looking foolish or being wrong

Intuitive personality also tend to be;
1. Unconventional and comfortable in their unconventionality
2. Confident
3. Self-sufficient (they didn’t base their identities on membership in a social group)
4. Emotionally involved in abstract issues, either in intellectual, academic terms or in human values
5. Willing to explore uncertainties and entertain doubts, and able to do so without fear
6. Willing to expose themselves to criticism and challenge
7. Willing to change in ways they deemed appropriate
8. Resistant to outside control and direction
9. Independent
10. Foresighted
11. Spontaneous

RITE OF PASSAGE

“Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.” ― Alexei Panshin

All living organisms have an inner guide, more commonly known as “instinct”, which seems to be in harmony with their natural environment… however humans have a higher level of “instinct” referred to as intuition…it includes extraordinary qualities such as imagination, creativity, and spiritual feelings…but most importantly it offers us guidance in finding our own natural path.

Unfortunately, modern society believes each person is separate with the individual ability to control our own destiny… As a result, we tend to ignore our special gifts of intuition and its ability to point in a direction most natural for us…we learn to identify instead with a socially conditioned self with its role-playing and stressful goals.

We often feel a lack of authenticity including a sense of alienation… Many search for a deeper meaning in life and there are some who rediscover the natural experience of following their own intuitive feelings …. It can bring about a radical change in their personality with a whole new set of values and an openness to more meaningful experiences.

Often it takes a deep failure of our socially conditioned self before we can give it up…It will not happen through some intellectual understanding but requires an emotional experience which persuades us to “let go”…Over our lifetime we have digested many social beliefs and they are deeply embedded within our mind …Thus the intellectual mind by itself cannot bring about an experience of transcending the socially conditioned self.

Transcendence occurs when we are no longer dependent on an outer social guide but instead begins to follow our intuitive inner  guide…it is a rite of passage bringing about a maturity  in which many falsehoods and foolishness simply disappear.

THE LIBERATED PERSONALITY

‘The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.’ — Albert Einstein …

The liberated personality are those who follow their own intuitive feelings in activities which are enjoyable to them without having any other purpose or goal beyond the enjoyment… It is activities which consume their attention in the “here and now” allowing them to often forget themselves and lose track of time.

They are relatively free from the expectations and goals of the social environment… If possible, they also seek work which is enjoyable to them while making financial factors secondary… They have come to realize that the meaning of life is through enjoying their own special interests… And also know this can only occur when they are free from the expectations and competition so important to be successful in society… Although their behavior is different, they do strive to live in harmony with others in the social environment.

An important part of the liberated mind is its creative imagination… Since the liberated personality does not conform to expected standards in society they are able to allow their imagination to flow beyond those who have identified with social goals… The freedom of imagination is perhaps the most enjoyable of all for it allows them to frequently become aware of new perceptions and life exoeriences.

Boredom is not a problem to the liberted personality even when they are alone for they realize their most creative time is often when in a state of solitude and free from all the distractions of the social environment… However their creative imagination is free to participate in many social activities including family life, entertainments and being with others.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” ~ Steve Jobs

LIBERATING IMAGINATION

“If you want your children to be smart read them fairy tales…and if you want your children to be more smart, read them more fairy tales.”~ Albert Einstein

Scientist now believe our brain imagines what we perceive in the environment, and they conclude we do not really know what exist beyond our own body…they also believe our perception of space and time are only more creations of our imagination.

It is easier to understand the quote “reality is an illusion” when it is stated “reality is imagination”… Buddhist believe life is a dream and awakening is the spiritual experience…Hinduism describes the material world as Maya illusion.

It is rather easy to understand that our “self image” is only an extension of our imagination…. but interestingly we accept our self image as our primary identity along with its imaginative personal story including past memories and future goals.

Shocking as it may seem, we could really be nothing more than imagination or a dream pretending to be a person…and there may be no one nor anything but imagination…

We tend to accept the social dream (American Dream) as reality…and many live their whole life within this dream box fearing if we move outside it, we will experience a disaster…and if we fail within our social dream box, we can experience life as a nightmare….the intuitive personality can see through the illusion of our imagined and socially conditioned boxes.

Freedom of our imagination is open to the spontaneous joys of flowing images and ideas as we well remembered during our childhood…it is the essence of playfulness and creativity…as Albert Einstein said, “Our imagination can take us everywhere”…. it is important to realize imagination does not move in a meaningless direction but instead our intuitive compass guides it along a very intelligent path.

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” ~ Albert Einstein

OUR INTUITIVE GUIDE

“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great, pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature, and is manifest in each of us through intuitive knowledge.”~Deepak Chopra

All living organisms have an inner guide, more commonly known as “instinct”, which seems to be in harmony with our natural environment… however humans have a higher level of “instinct” referred to as intuition…it includes extraordinary qualities such as imagination, creativity, and spiritual feelings…but most importantly it offers us a sense of guidance on leading our life.

Unfortunately, modern society believes each person is separate with an individual ability to control their destiny… As a result, we tend to ignore our special gifts of intuition and its ability to point in a direction most natural for us… Instead, we learn to identify with a socially conditioned self with its role-playing and stressful expectations.

We often feel a lack of authenticity along with a sense of alienation… And many search for a deeper meaning in life and there are some who rediscover the natural meaning of following their intuitive feelings …. It can bring about a radical change in our personality with a whole new set of values and openness to many enjoyable activities.

Often it takes a deep failure of our socially conditioned self before we can give it up… It usually doesn’t happen through some intellectual understanding but requires an emotional experience which persuades us to “let go”… Over our lifetime we havee digested many of our social beliefs and they are embedded deeply within our mind … Thus the intellectual mind by itself cannot bring about an experience of transformation… When a transformation occurs it does bring about a change of experiencing our self as dependent on a social guide to the freedom of following our inner intuitive guide.

OUR IMAGINARY GHOSTS

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old child, you do not understand it well enough” ~ Albert Einstein

Young children naturally believe in ghosts but this belief gradually fades out as they get older… However when children enter school they are taught about socially conditioned types of ghosts… they are beliefs in ghosts who haunt us when we fail to meet social expectations… And these ghosts often remain with us during our lifetime.

A ghost is a member of a larger community of ghosts sharing similar beliefs… There is the ghost of failure, the ghost of rejection, the ghost of isolation and many, many other related ghosts acting together to control our life.

We make every effort to satisfy their goals hoping to avoid their haunting us with anxiety and guilt feelings… We generally do not realize that the ghosts within us are imaginary but instead factually believe we have realistically created these goals within our self .

At some point in our life we may be unable to fulfill our planned goals and give up out of exhaustion… We then simply may accept failure, accept rejection, and accept isolation as just an unfortunate experience … When this happens our ghosts are unable to haunt us with their painful feelings… With no function to play, the ghosts simply disappear and we are then able to gain the freedom to be truly ourselves without the tyranny of ghosts.

WORDS AND COLORS

“Words signify man’s refusal to accept the world as it is.” ~Walter Kaufmann

Learning the name of a color changes the part of the brain that handles color perception.

Infants perceive color in the right hemisphere of the brain, while adults do the job in the brain’s left hemisphere by seeing the word instead of a clear perception of the color.

Researchers Testing toddlers showed that the change occurred when the youngsters learned the names to attach to particular colors.

It appears that somehow the brain, when it has categories such as color, it actually consults those categories rather than looking directly at a particular color.

Researchers did a similar experiment with silhouettes of dogs and cats with the same result — once a child learns the name for the animal, perception moves from the right to the left side of the brain.

This is important to know because it’s part of a debate that’s gone on as long as there has been philosophy or science, about how the language we speak affects the way we look at the world… scholars continue to discuss the comparative importance of “nature versus nurture” or the right brain versus the left brain.

Researchers studied the time it took toddlers to begin eye movement toward a colored target in either their left or right field of vision to determine which half of the brain was processing the information.

Notice how the continuous changing colors in the image below frustrate our ability to label it with words,instead our eyes becomes open to its fascinating colors.

REALITY IS IMAGINATION

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control…we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” ~ Albert Einstein

It is rather easy to understand that our “self image” is only an extension of our imagination…. but interestingly we accept our self image as our primary identity…along with our “make believe” personal story which includes past memories and future goals.

Science now believes our brain imagines what we perceive in the environment, and they conclude we do not really know what exist beyond our own body…and also that our perception of space and time are only more inventions of our imagination.

It is easier to understand “reality is an illusion” when instead it is stated reality is imagination…many persons have described the personal self or ego as an illusion… Buddhist believe life is a dream and awakening is the spiritual experience…Hinduism describes the world as Maya illusion.

The importance of these spiritual insights can bring about the awakening from our dream like state with the realization we are only dreaming…although the dream continues, it is seen as only a dream and no more real than our night time dreams.

Shocking as it may seem, we could really be nothing more than imagination or a dream pretending to be a person…and there is no one nor anything but imagination..

Intuitive feelings have the important role of giving directions to our imagination…although it all originate on a subconscious level, our conscious mind naively believes it is totally in control of the situation.

Intuitive imagination is an important experience in childhood and we all nostalgically can remember this golden stage of life….but we tend to believe the child and adult are separate stages of life….however the special qualities and gifts of intuitive imagination can continue throughout life when having the importance it deserves..

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” ~ Albert Einstein

THE EGO DICTATOR

“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.” ― Albert Einstein

“The rational mind, home of the ego, learns and accepts the beliefs and expectations of the social environment… it becomes our basic identity and its failure can result in painful symptoms including anxiety, guilt, and depression.

It is common to feel something is wrong in our perception of life and we want to seek answers to this problem… Most spiritual teachings point toward liberation from the ego but not clear how this happens or what replaces the ego and its rational mind… It is commonly understood that we cannot intellectually find a solution but it must be an emotionally experienced… One accepted belief is the need for the ego to experience a total feeling of exhaustion and failure… Joseph Campbell writes, “the black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light ”

But the experience is not complete until we discover the” sacred gift of the intuitive mind”and its powers of imagination…Albert Einstein said, “The only real valuable thing is intuition . .. it is expressed through feelings and images rather than rational thoughts and concepts… the rational mind relates to the social environment while the intuitive mind relates to universal intelligence.

It was our primary awareness in early childhood and buried now in our ” inner child ” … If we listen very quietly we may hear our inner child trying to express itself .

Our intuitive mind has its own inner compass separate from the rational mind and uniquely moves us in a direction true to our own nature . ..It also wants to grow through creative challenges and explorations of nature . ..The intuitive mind can develop a wisdom beyond any potential of the rational mind .

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe. ~Joseph Campbell

“LIGHT UP THE TORCH”

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” ~Albert Einstein

Who could “light up the torch” of children more than Dr.Seuss. He would say that his stories and art were based on a logical insanity, a phrase that sounds like a paradox but really isn’t. As he explained “I start with a two-headed animal I must never waver from that concept. There must be two hats in the closet, two toothbrushes in the bathroom and two sets of spectacles on the night table.” When his stories introduce a logical aspect,it tends to satisfy the rational brain and permits the reader to enter into the fascinating imagination of his story .

But imaginative literature and art adds a beneficial twist: it encourages children to think and see the natural world not as it is to the rational mind, but as it could be. Rather, imagination teaches children the salutary mental habit of not-ruling-things-out. Once you’ve accepted, even for half an hour, the premise of a talking cat in a tall red and white hat, you’ve taken a tiny step towards expanding the mind.

Obviously, Seuss’ tales and art prompt their own ideas. Could a race of beings live on a speck of dust? How small would they have to be? Would they ever fall off? Could their voices be heard if they shouted? What language would they speak? Such questions are natural for children, but the ability to think about imgination can transform the way that all of us understand the world.

When Today, science presents us with a whole collection of counter-rational and apparently impossible propositions: that time runs slower when you move very fast, that atomic particles can be in two places at once, that the shortest distance between two points is really a curve. What irrationality. But true, nonetheless.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ~Albert Einstein

MYSTERIOUS FLOW

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it” ~ Albert Einstein

Strange as it may seem, our awareness flows spontaneously through us and not from us as commonly believed… This means our thoughts, feelings and imagination also flows through us through some unknown source.

The conventional belief is that everyone is a separate person capable of generating our own thoughts and feelings… But the idea of a separate person is no longer considered valid as explained by recent advances in the field of science.

Instead we all flow together with an interrelated, interdependent and unified intelligence which creates an infinite variety of unique personalities similar to that of each snowflake being different …if we can flow with the personality we have received and remove judgements and need to control, we will find the ability to move freely without any self consciousness…it will become clear there never was a separate self but instead a relatedness to an intelligence beyond our understanding…it is the discovery of our true roots and the feeling of being in complete harmony with life.