FOCUS ON A SOUL QUALITY – INTUITION
Can you remember a time when you made a decision and at the time you made it you just ‘knew’ that your choice was not the right one? Can you remember a time when you made a choice and then you absolutely ‘knew’ you had made the right one? How did you ‘know’? It was that small voice inside that we call intuition.

Intuition can be consciously developed. One way to think about intuition is to consider the following proposition: deep within each one of us is the Real Self. This Self is wise and loving, kind and thoughtful, compassionate and patient; this Self is connected to the Higher Self and beyond to the Soul. When we come into incarnation the Real Self becomes hidden beneath all the armour we create as our personality and our ego. To live as the Real Self is part of the challenge of any spiritual path. One technique for doing this is the ‘as if’ technique. Hold a vision of your Real Self and then live your life ‘as if’ you are that Real Self.

So how does the Real Self live? The Real Self looks out onto the world around without making any judgements, without wishing things were one way or another way. It is the Personality Self that is riddled with wants and desires, the Real Self just is. Many traditions talk about the ‘Monkey Mind’ – it seems to be a very apt term, this Mind just flits from one thing to another, it is wily, cunning and uncontrolled. It resists discipline, it has opinions, it makes judgements, it chatters on and on.

Because the Real Self is not involved in that internal conversation about how things should be or could be or might be, it is able to be in the moment, simply observing, simply being. In the absence of the internal dialogue a space is created into which a real knowingness can develop and grow. Imagine that the internal dialogue of the Personality Self is like a veil covering the radiant being underneath. When you stop the incessant chatter of the Personality you become your Real Self and you open the very real possibility of connecting with your Soul. When you do that you immediately develop that ability we call intuition, because intuition is the small voice within that comes from the Real Self. That Real Self is the part of you that could be described as the Divine Spark, the consciousness that is eternal, all-knowing and deeply loving; a true reflection of the Soul.

The ‘As If Technique’
If we are using the ‘as if’ technique then, we simply observe everything that happens around us during the course of a day, we pretend that we are the Real Self living this life and act accordingly. This does not mean that you have to be false in the way that you live when you do this, actually you are being more sincere because this Real Self is who you really are when the personality shuts up! When you do this you may notice that thoughts come thick and fast at the beginning, especially thoughts about how silly this is, how it won’t work. These are the thoughts that come from the Personality Self, just notice them and try very hard not to get involved. Perhaps visualise these ongoing thoughts as being like a river, endlessly flowing. The river flows past you but you are not carried away on it. This technique is a form of ongoing meditation, because if you just let the thoughts arise without actually pursuing them, after a while they slow down and disappear. This gives rise to a delightfully authentic state of being in the moment.