Part IV — Divine qualities

Question: In the conflict between intuition and common sense, which one should we listen to?

Sri Chinmoy: Intuition is the real truth. What people call common sense is not sense at all most of the time. Real common sense is something else. In real common sense, God comes first; the highest Reality comes first. Once a spiritual Master said by way of a joke, "When my disciples come to me, the first thing they do is to give up their common sense." When the disciples give up their ordinary common sense, then only can the Master give them his proper common sense. In the spiritual life, common sense means the higher reality. For spiritual people, the lower reality is not common.

Intuition is the higher reality. If you get an intuitive flash, that is absolutely the real reality. But if you feel that that particular intuition will not work on the physical plane, then the best thing is to discover the common sense which is utilised on the physical plane. You are eager to use common sense on the physical plane because it is applicable there. But again, if you really have an intuitive flash, then I wish to say that you should stick to your intuition even though the world may call you insane.

Sri Ramakrishna all the time stayed with his intuition. Just because he used his intuitive power he went to the Highest. People said many, many undivine things about him. When he went into trance or ecstasy, people in the ordinary life used to say it was a kind of insanity. But for him, common sense was to be totally absorbed in the Mother Kali, totally merged in the highest Consciousness. For him that was the real common sense, the only common sense. But for ordinary people, common sense will be to mix with people or to indulge in ordinary things. So common sense depends entirely on the achievement of the soul and how developed the soul is.

Some of your parents may think that the spiritual life is silly; that is their common sense. But you have a higher sense. You have accepted the spiritual life, so you are much more developed than your parents, both inwardly and outwardly. For you, it is quite common to pray and meditate and follow a spiritual Master. The standard of your common sense and the standard of their common sense need not and cannot be the same. Again, when you go still higher, infinitely higher, at that time your intuition will become your common sense. You will not use the so-called common sense that you get from the mind.

From:Sri Chinmoy,The soul's evolution, Agni Press, 1976
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