A student recently asked if spiritual practice is more about “following my intuition” than about process. By “process,” she meant the specifics of technique, or of a tradition.

My first teacher, and the first Tantrik teaching I encountered back in my twenties, was about intuition. Now, when most of us consider intuition, we think it has something to do with what we feel is right or wrong, or desirable or undesirable. Or we simply believe that whatever we want the most is our intuition pointing us in the right direction.

This is not intuition from a Tantrik perspective. And when feeling is mediated mostly at the level of the second chakra, we are in danger of mistaking compulsive self-pleasuring for the wisdom of intuition.

From a Tantrik View, intuition is direct knowledge, or direct realization. One doesn’t cultivate intuition by focusing on “my” feelings, but by relaxing all of the senses into a 360 degree attitude of listening.

In order to exercise intuition, you must reach out and develop the capacity to instantaneously take in a total situation. You must reorient yourself toward the world, not just inward, and begin to relate to the world as living wisdom, “readable” by your skin, your eyes, your breath, your ears, your nose, your motion, and unconditioned mind.

Feelings are only one aspect of being alive. We also have sensation, sound, smell, sight, mobility and the apprehension of time and timing. And the gross senses are only one level; all of the senses have more subtle capacities that develop as we practice.

This sounds complicated, but only if we try to imagine we have to somehow put all of these pieces together, one-by-one.

Luckily for us, all we have to do is follow the processes or practices given to us by our teachers.

The ritual, yogic, and meditative techniques of Tantra were discovered, explored, refined and disseminated by Rishis, Mahasiddhas, Sat Gurus and other accomplished beings.

The practices of the tradition already have the intuition of these highly evolved beings built in. When we practice faithfully, we eventually receive the transmission of the full wisdom that is inherent in these practices. No assembly required.

Sri Ma Anandamayi called the highest level of intuition “kheyāla.” Kheyāla is about being a consummate player of the world game. We are in an open, communicative situation, and we directly realize how to dance with the totality. At this level, we can directly perceive the play of the primordial, unconditioned intelligence as it enters into “worldliness” as the five elements.

When we mature as practitioners, we do not need so much close supervision from our teachers. We have opened to a greater capacity to directly understand what is appropriate and what is not. But this is not because we know how we feel and are able to make decisions based on our feelings. It is because we are better able to listen and follow the kheyāla of the world.

In Matriseva,
Shambhavi

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