Intuition: Both Divine + Mundane

For a long time I have struggled with what I felt was a bifurcation of me. The mystical and the practical, West Coast and East Coast, mainstream and fringe, present and future…I could go on and on. It has come to a head many times in my life. In deliberating graduate school options post-university, would it be Harvard or Naropa? That decision sums up my inner tug of war. I chose the Harvard path: mainstream, credible, external nods of approval.

Twenty plus years later, I’m in a different moment of my life, seeking a certain wholeness. The alignment I feel in exploring intuition feels like a gathering of those disparate pieces: simultaneously mundane and divine, quotidian and transcendent, analytical and numinous.

Reductive camps

So let’s bring those pieces together by looking at perhaps the most reductive graphic I could make of the spectrum of two disciplines engaging intuition.

On one end, we have the mainstream business camp, often defining intuition as ‘gut’ judgments or decisions based on experience. On the other end, we have fringe spiritual camps, defining intuition as a spiritual or metaphysical faculty that allows individuals to tap into some sort of divine or collective unconscious.

[It’s hard for me to really be reductive, so I will spell this out to say that there are clearly a diversity of folks out there in each of these categories, so bear with me.]

The heart of the question

So which one is it? Divine or mundane? Business or spiritual/religious?

Is ‘intuition as organ/capability’ (see here for definitional use case) a spiritual vehicle? Is it akin to the ability of biblical prophets to divine the future, or Hindu sadhus to perform mind-bending feats? Or something much more ‘of this world,’ a rational aggregator of experience that produces flashes of insight?

This bifurcation – spiritual vs. non-spiritual – is just not my jam.

Divinely mundane / Mundanely divine

We are precarious holders of both/ands. Intuition is very much a metaphor for the larger human condition. It cannot be constricted into a box of science or religion, human or divine, rational or mystical. Its reduction weakens its potency. I believe that holding both - however clumsily we do it - allows us to tap into our deeper potential.

It’s a skill you can grow. That said, there is nothing extraordinary about intuition. It is simply a type – or many types – of knowing. In the same way that there is a history of privileging math or art in certain cultures, the same goes for intuitive abilities. They can be cultivated over time. Some people have greater natural abilities, but everyone has the potential to grow them.

You can hold it with awe. This ‘ordinariness’ does not disconnect intuition from its connection to something more profound, just like an astronomer’s use of mathematical equations does not necessarily diminish their wonder and reverence for the cosmos. Indeed, they are often intertwined; my first spiritual teacher was a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, driven by a love of quantum physics. These disciplines can all be conduits to a spiritual life, windows or winks to transcendence. All things connected in a wonderfully unknowable magic soup.

Be humble with both/and. The cultivation of intuitive abilities, like any ‘power,’ can be recklessly equated with the divine or Truth with a capital “T.”  We need to watch hubris as we cultivate intuition, mindful of the danger of false equivalency and how it can embolden us in ways that can do harm.

So what does this mean for me…and maybe for you?

As I dive into this exploration of intuition, I hope to hold onto this both/and, blend the rigor of academia with openness to experience, and dance that fine line between intellectual adventure and peace in mystery.

We’ll see how I do.