Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic - Softcover

Osho is one of the most provocative and inspiring spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. Known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, the influence of his teachings continues to grow, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world. He is the author of many books, including Love, Freedom, Aloneness; The Book of Secrets, and Innocence, Knowledge, and Wonder.

Intuition
MAPS When the body functions spontaneously, that is called instinct. When the soul functions spontaneously, that is called intuition. They are alike and yet far away from each other. Instinct is of the body--the gross; and intuition is of the soul--the subtle. And between the two is the mind, the expert, which never functions spontaneously. Mind means knowledge. Knowledge can never be spontaneous. Instinct is deeper than intellect and intuition is higher than intellect. Both are beyond the intellect, and both are good. HEAD, HEART, AND BEING Your individuality can be divided--just for the purpose of understanding it; otherwise there is no division. It is one single unity, whole: the head, the heart, and the being. Intellect is the functioning of the head, instinct is the functioning of your body, and intuition is the functioning of your heart. And behind these three is your being, whose only quality is witnessing. The head only thinks; hence it never comes to any conclusion. It is verbal, linguistic, logical, but because it has no roots in reality, thousands of years of philosophical thinking have not given us a single conclusion. Philosophy has been the greatest exercise in futility Intellect is very clever in creating questions and then creating answers, and then out of those answers, more questions and more answers. It can make palaces of words, systems of theories, but they are all just hot air. The body cannot rely on your intellect, because the body has to live. That's why all essential functions of the body are in the hands of instinct--for example, breathing, heartbeat, digestion of your food, circulation of the blood. A thousand and one processes are going on inside your body in which you have no part at all. And it is good that nature has given body its own wisdom. Otherwise, if your intellect were to take care of the body, life would have been impossible! Because sometimes you may forget to breathe--at least in the night, how will you breathe while you are asleep? You are already so confused just with thoughts; in this confusion, who will take care about the blood circulation, whether the right amount of oxygen is reaching your cells or not? Whether the food that you are eating is being analyzed into its basic constituents, and those basic constituents are sent where they are needed? And this whole, tremendous amount of work is done by instinct. You are not needed. You can remain in a coma; still the body will continue to work. Nature has given all essential functions of your body to instinct, and it has left all that makes your life meaningful ... because just to exist, just to survive, has no meaning. To give meaning to your life, existence has given intuition to your heart. Out of your intuition arises the possibility of art, of aesthetics, of love, of friendship--all kinds of creativity are intuitive. Intellect has its use, but by some misfortune it has become the master of your whole being. That has created immense troubles in the world. But the marketplace does not need your intuition. It does not deal in love, in your sensibilities; it deals with solid and mundane things. For that, your intellect--which is the most superficial part--functions. Intellect is for the mundane life with others in the marketplace, in the world, to make you capable of functioning. It is mathematics, it is geography, it is history, it is chemistry--all science and all technology are created by your intellect. Your logic and your geometry are useful--but the intellect is blind. It simply goes on creating things, but it does not know whether they are being used for destruction or for creation. A nuclear war will be a war created by intellect. Intellect has its use, but by some misfortune it has become the master of your whole being. That has created immense troubles in the world. The master is hidden behind these three: the body, the mind, the heart. The master is hidden behind all these three--that is your being. But you never go inward; all your roads go outward,all your senses go outward. All your achievements are out there in the world. Intellect is useful in the world, and all your educational systems are techniques to avoid the heart and take your energy directly to your head. The heart can create troubles for the head--the heart knows nothing of logic. The heart has a totally different center of functioning, and that is intuition. It knows love, but love is not a commodity of any use in the world. It knows beauty, but what are you going to do with beauty in the marketplace? Nobody wants his or her children to become musicians or painters or dancers. Everybody wants them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, because those professions pay. The people of the heart--the painters, the poets, the musicians, the dancers, the actors--are all irrational. They create great beauty, they are great lovers, but they are absolutely unfit in a society that is arranged by the head. Your artists are thought by your society to be almost outcast, a little bit crazy, an insane type of people. Nobody wants his or her children to become musicians or painters or dancers. Everybody wants them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, because those professions pay. Painting, poetry, dance, are dangerous, risky--you may end up just a beggar on the street, playing on your flute. The heart has been denied--and by the way, it will be useful to remember that the denial of the heart has been the denial of the woman. And unless the heart is accepted, the woman cannotbe accepted. Unless the heart has the same opportunity to grow as the head, the woman cannot have liberation. The woman is heart and the man is head. The distinction is clear. Instinct, nature has taken in its own hands. And whenever you interfere with instinct, you create perversions. All the religions have been doing that; every religion has been interfering with the body--and the body is absolutely innocent, it has never done anything wrong. If you accept the body in its absolute naturalness, it will help you tremendously. It will help your heart, nourish your heart. It will help your intelligence to become sharper, because the nourishment for the intellect comes from the body, nourishment to the heart comes from the body. And if your head, your heart, and your body are all in a symphony, then to find your being is the easiest thing in the world. But because they are in conflict, your whole life goes on being wasted in that conflict, conflict between instinct and intellect and intuition. I am not against anything. I am only against disharmony, and because your head is creating the most inharmonious situation, I want your head to be put in its right place. It is a servant, not a master. A wise person creates a harmony between the head, the heart, and the body. In this harmony comes the revelation of the source of one's life, the very center, the soul. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible--not only to human beings but in this whole universe, nothing more is possible. I am not against anything. I am only against disharmony, and because your head is creating the most inharmonious situation, I want your head to be put in its right place. It is a servant, not a master. As a servant it is great, helpful. A Dublin milkman has just finished his delivery, so he parks his horse and cart outside the pub and goes in for a drink. Refreshed after an hour, he comes out to find his horse painted bright green. Angry, he strides back into the pub and demands, "Which of you just painted my horse green?" A seven-foot Irish giant stands up and, towering over him, says, "I did. Want to do something about it?" The milkman gives a sickly grin and says, "I just came in to tell you, the first coat is dry!" Intellect is helpful! In some situations you will be in need of intellect--but only as a servant, not as a master. PAST PRESENT, AND FUTURE You have a past and you have a present and you have a future. Instinct is what belongs to your animal past. It is very old, solid; it is the inheritance of millions of years. And when I say it is animal-like, I am not condemning it. With the word animal the priests of all religions have associated some condemnation--but I am simply stating a fact, with no condemnation at all. Our past was an animal past. We have passed through all kinds of animals; our evolutionhas been from fish up to man, passing through all the species of animals. It has been a long, long journey to arrive at mankind. Intellect is human. It is our present. That's how we function, through intellect. All our sciences, all our businesses, all our professions, whatever is going on in the world--our politics, our religion, our philosophy--they are all based on intellect. Intellect is human. Instinct is almost infallible because it is so old, so ripe, so mature. Your eyes are blinking--are you doing it? They go on doing it by themselves--this is instinct. Your heart is beating, your breathing is going in and out; it is not up to your intellect to look after all these essential things of life. They are in the hands of instinct because instinct is absolutely infallible. It never forgets to breathe, it never forgets anything. Your heart is beating, your breathing is going in and out--all these essential things of life are in the hands of instinct because instinct is absolutely infallible. It never forgets anything. The intellect is fallible because it is new, a recent arrival. It is just groping in the dark, still trying to find out what it is and where it belongs. And because it does not have roots in experience, it substitutes experience with beliefs, philosophies, ideologies. They become the focus of intellect. But they are all fallible because they are all man-made, manufactured by some clever guy. And they are not applicable in every situation. They may be right in one situation, and in another situation they may not be right. But intellect is blind, it knows not how to deal with the new. It always brings the old answer to the new question. Intellect is blind, it knows not how to deal with the new. It always brings the old answer to the new question. Paddy and Sean are sitting opposite the local whorehouse in Dublin, discussing the virtues of the Catholic faith. Suddenly, Gideon Greenberg, the local rabbi, approaches the whorehouse door, looks left and right, then hurries up the stairs. "Did you see that?" roars Paddy. "I'm glad I am a Catholic." Ten minutes later, the Anglican priest approaches the door, looks around quickly, then dashes up the stairs. "Another hypocrite," says Paddy, laughing. "Thank God I am a Catholic." A few minutes later Sean nudges Paddy and says, "Hey, man, look! There is Father O'Murphy coming this way." The two men watch in stunned silence as the Catholic priest disappears up the stairs into the whorehouse. Suddenly Paddy jumps to his feet, crosses himself, and shouts at Sean, "Where is your respect? Stand up and take off your hat! There must be a death in the house!" Intellect lives through prejudices; it is never fair. By its very nature it cannot be, because it has no experience. Instinct is alwaysfair and shows you exactly the natural way, the relaxed way, and the way that the universe follows. But strangely, instinct has been condemned by all religions, and intellect has been praised. Of course, if everybody follows instinct, there is no need of any religion, no need of any God, no need of any priest. Animals don't need God and they are perfectly happy--I don't see that they are missing God. Not a single animal, not a single bird, not a single tree, is missing God. They are all enjoying life in its utter beauty and simplicity with no fear of hell and no greed for heaven, no philosophical differences. There are no Catholic lions, there are no Protestant or Hindu lions. The whole existence must be laughing at man, at what has happened to human beings. If birds can live without religions and churches and mosques and temples, why can't man? The birds never fight religious wars; neither do the animals nor the trees. But you are a Mohammedan and I am a Hindu and we cannot coexist--either you have to become converted to my religion or be ready; I will send you to heaven immediately! If instinct is praised, these religions lose any rationale, any reason to exist, so they praise intellect. And the third thing, which is your future, is intuition. So these three words have to be understood. Instinct is physical--your past, based on the experience of millions of years, infallible, never commits any mistake and does miracles in you of which you are not even aware. How does your food become blood? How does your breathing go on functioning even when you are asleep? How does your body separate the oxygen from nitrogen? How does your instinctive world of nature go on giving to every part of your body what it needs? Howmuch oxygen is needed in your head for the mind to function? The exact amount is sent through blood running all around the body, distributing fresh oxygen, taking out the old, used, dead cells, replacing them with new ones and taking them back to places from where they can be disposed of. The scientists say that what instinct does for man, we are not yet capable of doing. And in a small body the instinct does so many miracles. If someday science wanted to do the work of a single human body, it would need at least one square mile of factory for a single human being. Tremendous machinery! And still it will not be infallible; machinery can break, can stop, the electricity can go off. But for seventy years continuously, or even one hundred years for a few people, the instinct goes on functioning perfectly well. The electricity never goes off. Not a single mistake is committed; everything goes according to plan, and the plan is in every cell of your body. The day we can read the code of the human cells, we will be able to predict everything about a child even before he is born, even before he is in the mother's womb. The cells of the parents have a program, and in that program your age, your health, what kind of diseases you will have, your genius, your intelligence, your talents, your whole destiny is contained. Like instinct, at the other polarity of your being--beyond the mind, which is the world of intellect--is the world of intuition. Intuition opens its doors through meditation. Meditation is simply a knocking on the doors of intuition. Intuition is also completely ready. It does not grow; you have inherited that too from existence. Intuition is your consciousness, your being. Intellect is your mind. Instinct is your body. And just as instinctfunctions perfectly on behalf of the body, intuition functions perfectly as far as your consciousness is concerned. Intellect is just between these two--a passage to be passed, a bridge to be crossed. But there are many people, many millions of people, who never cross the bridge. They simply sit on the bridge thinking they have arrived home. The home is on the farther shore, beyond the bridge. The bridge joins instinct and intuition. But it all depends on you. You may start making a house on the bridge--then you have gone astray. Intellect is not going to be your home. It is a small instrument, to be used only for passing from instinct to intuition. So only the person who uses his intellect to go beyond it can be called intelligent. Intuition is existential. Instinct is natural. Intellect is just groping in the dark. The faster you move beyond intellect, the better; intellect can be a barrier to those who think nothing is beyond it. Intell...