“Inner knowing is intuition. What we usually call intuition really comes from the lower mind and not from the intuitional level. The soul in each of us is the receptor for three spiritual levels that stem from that highest part of our being known as Spirit, which is known in some quarters as Monad. Human beings are really threefold: Personality, Soul and Monad (Spirit). This reality must never be forgotten. At this point in our collective evolutionary development, we would do well to see ourselves as the soul.
The difference between inner knowing and imagination is a question of focus of consciousness. Most people are focussed on the astral plane (that part of our being we call the emotions). They function through the solar plexus and their knowing is emotional or astral, as it is called in certain groups. It is founded in imagination. In esoteric terminology, there is a state called glamour. We have an inkling of it when we say ‘the glamour of Hollywood.” The glamour of Hollywood suggests it is all marvellous, yet it is also called Tinsel Town. We know it is unreal, however interesting or emotionally appealing. That which stems from the astral plane (the emotions) is unreal. Our emotional reactions are the result of the energy of the astral plane flowing through our solar plexus centre and it is powerful and convincing. Glamour is illusion on the astral plane. The evolutionary aim of humanity is to work from the mental planes. Our evolutionary goal at this point is to become mentally focussed to control the emotions that erupt in the astral plane.
The astral plane is meant to be a mirror, a still lake, on which the inner knowing, the spiritual intuition of the buddhic plane can reflect itself. (The buddhic sheath is a higher body in the human being, situated above the soul and from which Love and Wisdom pour). When the astral body is still and purified, it no longer reacts to the movements of astral energy through it. While the astral body remains unpurified, it causes chaos: we are tossed in a storm of astral energy, and it makes us behave in all sorts of totally irrelevant, irresponsible, and unreal ways, because the astral plane is, literally, unreal.
For the Masters, this plane of astral energy does not exist. They have transcended this plane entirely, knowing it be an illusion. For Them, the buddhi, the spiritual intuition, is the source of inner knowing. When truly creative people in any field say “by the use of the imagination,” they really mean by the use of the intuition. This capacity to truly know is a very different thing from what we call imagination, which stems from the astral. It is not really imagination but fantasy.
So what exactly is Intuition? It is straight knowledge. It is knowing because we know. It comes from a higher plane of being, the buddhic level, and is always right. It can never be wrong because it comes from above the level of the soul—but through the soul. It becomes available to humanity when the emotional body is purified and controlled. As soon as that happens, the energy which would otherwise play through the emotional body is transmuted. It is lifted up to the heart centre. Of course, it is a long and gradual process. Heart reaction is always correct. We can always trust the reaction of the heart under every circumstance.
The trouble is that most people’s reactions, even if only in part, come also from the solar plexus, which creates glamour. So although we have the intention of doing our best, the activity of the solar plexus renders it, at least to some extent, as glamour. Intuition is absolutely direct. We know instantaneously, and it never fails. It functions through the heart centre without any admixture of emotional energy. The difference between pity and compassion is the difference between glamour and a true intuitive heart, a buddhic reaction. We can feel it in our centres if we are aware of them. Wherever the activity of the solar plexus centre is informing our experience, it will be glamour. If it is purely and simply from the heart centre, then we can trust it.”
(A Wise One)
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