The Intuitive Nature
Observe the intellect as it is manifested in the world around you. You can see its limits. You can also see when it becomes a tool for the intuitive mind. When you discover great truths in the books you read, when creative ideas come to you, observe, with affectionate detachment, the people around you, the situations in life through which you pass. As you have learned, observations give birth to understanding, and understanding comes from your superconscious mind. Thus, the intellect must be developed to a certain extent and then controlled through the control of thought. Thought forms are manifestations of astral matter, or odic force, and travel through astral space, or odic force fields, from one destination to another. They can build, preserve and destroy. Thought forms can also protect, and they can create. Thought forms can also be seen, just as auras can be seen.
The intellect is the external ego, but it is only the external ego when it is in control and has cut itself off sufficiently from superconsciousness by becoming opinionated. When the intellect represents the ego, we say a person is unable to change his mind, no matter how much you try to convince or talk with him. He is stubborn, unyielding, even unfriendly if he becomes agitated or disturbed in his effort to hold the intellect together.
Should the intellectual nature become disturbed, the astral body then takes over and the instinctive mind or the instinctive qualities are prevalent at that time. This is quite apparent in undisciplined people, because the intellectual nature is undisciplined. When the astral body and the intellect work hand in hand, they create an instinctive-intellectual individual filled with opinionated knowledge, undisciplined instinctive drives, and emotions of hate and fear that have not been transmuted into the realms of reason and controlled through allowing a gridwork of positive memory patterns to build.
Within man, and functioning at a different rate of vibration than the intellect, is found the power or the motivating force of the mind, the chakras, or force centers. There are seven of these basic force centers, which are stimulated into action and unfoldment by the iḍā, piṅgalā and sushumṇā currents. The iḍā and piṅgalā are odic psychic currents (the Chinese yin and yang) interwoven around the spinal cord. Directly through the spinal cord runs the sushumṇā current, which is actinodic. The iḍā current is passive odic force; the piṅgalā current is aggressive odic force. The sushumṇā is an actinodic current. These currents govern the sixth aspect of man, the chakras. These currents are like the reins which will guide a horse as we ride in one direction or another.
The intuitive nature, man’s seventh aspect, is composed of a greater amount of actinic energy than odic. It is formed by the sushumṇā current that runs between the iḍā and piṅgalā currents up through the spinal cord. However, it is the state of mind that a yoga student must learn to identify as his own, so to speak. Until this time he usually identifies with the intuitive mind of his guru. This identification serves as a constant reminder of the existence of his own intuitive nature. Many students seem to know when the guru is in a higher state of intuitive awareness, but they may fail to realize that the knowing or recognition of that state is their own higher state of intuitive awareness, occurring simultaneously with that of the guru. This is one of the great benefits awarded a yoga student working in the guru system: his opportunity to identify with the intuitive mind of the guru.
When the yoga student learns to control his own odic force field to the point where he no longer identifies with his physical body, his astral body or his intellect, he can then identify his external ego with his intuitive nature, or subsuperconscious mind. This new and humble identity is a sporadic sense in the initial stages on the yoga path, for only when the student is really actinic does he utilize the intuitive mind consciously, perceiving it through the faculties of cognizantability. One does not entertain thoughts when in this state of full awareness. In this consciousness, one views and perceives through the anāhata chakra of direct cognition. The intuitive nature is the most refined aspect of the astral body. Although the intuitive aspect is made primarily of actinic force, there is enough odic force within it to enable man to enter into the realm of creation in the material world. This seventh aspect of man is a plateau, a leveling off of one cycle of evolution and the beginning, at the same time, of another.