16. What is intuition?

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Have you ever just known something without being able to explain how you knew it? A person walks into a room and you immediately sense something is off. You have a feeling about a decision before you've consciously worked it out. An answer suddenly appears when you've stopped trying to find it. We call this intuition. But what actually is it? And perhaps even more importantly: How do we know whether something is intuition — or simply fear, desire, conditioning, projection or a thought we've made up? In this episode, Nicky explores intuition through the philosophical frameworks of Yoga, Sāṃkhya, Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism, while keeping the question grounded in ordinary human experience. We look at: -What we actually mean by "intuition" -The Latin origins of the word intuition -Buddhi and its relationship to discernment and intuitive knowing -Why intuition isn't necessarily the same thing as a strong feeling -How fear, desire and projection can masquerade as intuition -The distinction between noticing and interpreting -Viveka, or discriminative discernment -How meditation and prāṇāyāma may refine our capacity to perceive -Why ethical living and reducing internal contradiction matter -Patañjali's fascinating concept of prātibha -The relationship between prātibha and the extraordinary forms of knowledge described in the Yoga Sūtras -Why Patañjali also warns that siddhis can become obstacles to samādhi -How Advaita Vedānta reframes intuition as something occurring within the mind rather than something produced by Ātman And ultimately, the deeper question: who is aware of intuition itself? One of the key ideas in the episode is that intuition may not need to be created so much as uncovered. The quieter and clearer the mind becomes, the less we may interfere with what we're actually perceiving. But that doesn't mean blindly trusting every feeling. A mature relationship with intuition requires practice, discrimination and humility. A simple practice from the episode: Notice → Pause → Discriminate → Verify Notice what arises. Pause before creating a story around it. Discriminate between what you actually know and what you're adding. Then, where possible, let reality test your perception. Perhaps intuition isn't primarily about knowing the future. Perhaps it is about becoming sufficiently present to recognise what is happening now. References: Patañjali — Yoga Sūtras 3.33 — prātibhād vā sarvam Often translated in terms of intuitive or spontaneous knowledge: "or, through prātibha, all \[knowledge]." 3.37 — te samādhāv upasargā vyutthāne siddhayaḥ The extraordinary capacities associated with this process are described as obstacles to samādhi, while functioning as powers in the ordinary outward state. On the word "intuition" From Latin intueri — "to look at, consider" — with intuition originally carrying senses of direct or immediate cognition and spiritual perception. Further exploration: Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras, especially the Samādhi Pāda, Sādhana Pāda and Vibhūti Pāda, alongside the commentarial traditions of Vyāsa and later Yoga commentators. For Advaita Vedānta, useful concepts to explore alongside this episode are buddhi, antaḥkaraṇa, vṛtti, viveka, sākṣin and Ātman.