January 12, 2007

Seeker After Truth

Admin

Intuitive Training in a Sufi Tradition

(Click Heart to Resonate) (2) Just because one knows “that” does not
mean they know “how”.

 Loading ... Actually, these two points are two sides of the same
coin.

by Charles Daniel Philosophers have built careers on the subtle argu-

Today, anyone wishing to de-
velop his or her intuition has
an interesting problem. The
problem is not lack of mate-
rials, but rather the nature
of the information available.
Much of this material seems
to follow the same pattern.
That is, do this exercise, take
that class and presto you’re
intuitive. Unfortunately,
what generally happens is
that someone takes the class,
reads the books, or listens to
the tapes and then promptly forgets or can’t find
a way to apply what has been learned. This may
explain why individuals often seem to be on a ne-
ver ending program of learning how to be intuitive
without ever arriving at the point where they are
intuitive. Looking at this situation can bring some
interesting insights. To see these, we need to back
up a little and look at the situation as a whole.
To begin with, most people interested in learning
intuitive skills fail to make two very important dis-
joliprint
ments of knowing that something is the case. While
the delicate logic of proving that humans basically
don’t know anything can get you a tenured job, it’s
not much real use outside the ivory towers. Still,
the basic division between “that” and “how” is im-
portant. The point is simply this: my being able to
tell you that you need training is not the same as
my knowing how to train you. Put in the simple
language of rustic Sufism, “Telling you your pipes
are leaking is not the same as knowing how to fix
them.” In the case of pipes and leaks, the distinction
is clear; in intuitive training, that is not always so.
There seems to be a general opinion that if someone
can do something, then they should be able to teach
whatever that something is. Thus, if someone per-
forms an intuitive feat (such as solving a criminal
case) or performs well under lab conditions, it is
generally assumed that he can explain how he did
it. Thus the ever popular, “How did you know that?”
Intuitives hear this all the time. The underlying as-
sumption is that the intuitive can
(1) Tell you how they knew and
(2) You will understand the answer.

tinctions. These are : Number (1) has led to some often humorous results.
Number (2) often gets used against the questioner.
(1) Knowing “that” and knowing “how” are Both deserve separate treatment.
two different things and
Printed with

http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/intuitive-training-in-a-sufi-tradition/

Page 1

Seeker After Truth
Intuitive Training in a Sufi Tradition
To listen to some intuitives explain how they know
whatever their intuition tells them can be amusing.
Answers can range from “My spirit guide told me.”
to “My sixth chakra is spinning.” Problem is, do
these answers tell us anything? Well, they tell us that
some intuitives believe in spirit guides and chakras.
However, they probably don’t tell us about what’s
really going on. That is, the intuitives know “that”
certain things they do give results. However, the
actual operations of “how” it works escapes them.
Thus, a never ending stream of books, tapes and
seminars that promise to make you intuitive while
doing little more than spreading confusing. If confu-
sion were all this situation created, then it probably
would not be worth writing about. After all, there
are entire industries (like the popular press) that
live to create confusion. However, the second point
about “How did you know” has a darker side.
This darker side has to do with power. The power
play is simply this. I come up with a piece of infor-
mation through intuitive means. Surprised, you ask
how I could have known. Now, obviously, I have to
know how what I did works, so I give you whatever
explanation suits me for today. Then (and here’s the
rub) you have the audacity to say you don’t unders-
tand. Now, what am I going to do? Come up with
another story? What if that story doesn’t work? No,
it’s far easier to simply declare that, “You, little one,
are not ‘evolved enough’,or ‘advanced enough’ to
understand.” Then I can be secure in the knowledge
that at least I understand what is so obvious.
If this scene sounds familiar, then let’s see it for what
it really is. First, let’s grant that I have intuitive skills
that I can occasionally call upon. Second, every now
and then the skills let me show off. Third, although I
can sometimes get the skills to work, they are not at
joliprint
all reliable. Conclusion: I know that doing something
makes my intuition work but I have no idea how
it works. In the sense of my individual use of my
intuition, this distinction is important only in the
Printed with
sense that if I don’t know how the process works,
http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/intuitive-training-in-a-sufi-tradition/
January 12, 2007
I’ll continue to occasionally impress my friends and
never really gain control over the process. In terms
of my efforts to teach, the distinction is of critical
importance.
To this, let’s look at a teaching situation where in-
complete learning has taken place. For this story,
let’s assume that the teacher knows both the “that”
and “how” of the subject. The student enters into his
training and along the way, the teacher says things
like “This is how you do it.”, “This is how it’s done.”,
and “This is a very old technique.” The student, being
a good student, notes all this down. Then comes a
day when the teacher and the student part company
and unfortunately, the teacher has not had time to
teach the student how to teach. So, what happens?
The student goes out, collects some students and
begins saying things like, “This is how you do it.”,
etc.etc. Problem is, what he says is exactly what his
teacher said to him. In today’s intellectual climate,
it is often hard to see how this would be a problem
but it is. In fact it is such a problem that if this is the
way a subject like intuitive skills are taught, there’s
a case that NO teaching is taking place. This is a
strong claim and requires some defense.
To understand this claim, the meaning history of the
word teach has to be taken into account. According
to modern usage, teaching implies conveying infor-
mation. However, earlier usage implied teaching
or showing someone how to do something. While
you can go to the Oxford Dictionary and look it up,
a simple reflection on history should be enough.
A few hundred years ago, books were rare, hand
written, expensive, and most people couldn’t read
anyway. Besides, the struggle to stay alive consumed
most people’s energy. Back then, the focus was not
on passing or your MBA exams. Passing the tests of
those times meant staying alive and staying alive is a
“How To” skill. Thus, teaching a skill was originally
a question of showing someone how they could do
something. This has to be done on an individual basis
with the skills matched carefully to the individual.
Page 2

Seeker After Truth
Intuitive Training in a Sufi Tradition
After all, knowing that the wild pigs in the forest
are dangerous tells you nothing about what to do
when ‘porkey with an attitude’ crosses your path.
This simple misunderstanding has led to some sad
results. By mistaking a real teachers statement of
“This is how you do it.” (Meaning you; Mr. individual
student in front of me right now), for “This is how
everyone for the remaining history of the universe
is to do this.”, is to miss the original teacher’s skill
at matching the task to the student. To think that
just because a technique is very old means that
everyone needs it, or can even use it, is to overlook
the critical element of the teacher’s insight into the
student’s needs and his abilities. This type of faulty
reasoning leads to people teaching the exact same
things to everyone who crosses their path regardless
of the student’s natural talents and abilities. That
is, they spend all their time conveying information
(generally of a form of “this is what I learned”) ins-
tead of showing how something is done. Frankly,
there are not many situations in which such ‘how
to’ teachers still operate. They are still out there and
I would like to give an illustrative outline of how
they might approach the difficult task of teaching
one form of intuition. For my example I will use a
Sufi tradition from Afghanistan. Since the men of
that country lean towards action and away from
idle speculation, their methods are still consistent
with the earlier meaning of the word teach.
Before going into this explanation, a short statement
about Sufism should be given. There are as many in-
terpretations of Sufism as there are people claiming
to follow its teachings. For the most part, activities
that pass for Sufism are really activities that were
intended for a different time and place. However
a few things can be said about the less hide-bound
Sufis. First, they are concerned with developing their
joliprint
perceptions. Second, there are various ways this can
be done. Third, expanded awareness and intuition
would include but not be totally be described by the
following illustration. That is, the approach given
Printed with
http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/intuitive-training-in-a-sufi-tradition/
January 12, 2007
is only one set of methods used and as such would
be different from individual to individual.
If I were to try to reduce this approach to a simple
equation (once again, only as an illustration), I
would try something like, “Hold an image of your
target steady while shutting off all internal noise
and strike up an attitude of neutral expectation.”
Sounds simple enough until you realize each part is
the result of a specifically directed training process.
I’ll break each down somewhat with the qualifica-
tion that what I’m trying to put across is a living
method that changes from individual to individual.
In order to make a method ‘live’ the order and type
of experience can be mixed according to the needs of
the learner. Thus, instead of starting with something
as obvious as a meditation technique, the teaching
may start out with a trip to another city or ano-
ther country. Learning to hold one’s expectations
in check can be difficult at best. This is even more
the case if you don’t know what those expectations
are. Traveling is a time worn and tested way to find
these out. Of course, just any traveling won’t do.
After all, if someone has spent his entire life being
hyper-private, then sending him to (for example)
Japan or Germany probably won’t do him much
good. However, sending this same person to Spain
or South America might work. The key ingredient
here is the teacher’s experience with other cultures
and his understanding of the student.
I should add that there is often more than these two
basic elements involved. A few years ago I was out of
the country and met people who had gone through
the same training as I. One of them told me his story
of approaching his teacher with the idea of traveling
overseas. He was asked where he wanted to go. His
answer was Turkey, Israel and Afghanistan. There
was a long pause while the old teacher stared out
into space. Finally, he recommended Turkey and
Israel, but strongly advised against Afghanistan.
Our soon to be traveler gave his thanks, took his
Page 3

Seeker After Truth
Intuitive Training in a Sufi Tradition
leave and planned his trip along its original lines in
spite of the warning. A little before his departure,
it came time to go to the doctor’s office to receive
the required shots for travel. Although he did not
realize it ahead of time, the shots required for a trip
to Afghanistan were different from those for Turkey
and Israel. Still, being determined, he took the extra
shots…and in a matter of hours was seriously ill
from a reaction to the injections. Needless to say,
once he got out of the hospital, he changed his plans.
As I mentioned earlier, learning about one’s expec-
tations (and thus one’s conditioning) is a critical
element in this type of training. Having a student
read selected text, perform tasks, and take trips all
can be used to unmask conditioning. There is one
other method but it is prone to abuse. This technique
involves the teacher doing something intentionally
designed to shock the student out of their old pat-
terns. Practitioners of Zen often use this tactic. The
problem is, it’s easy for a teacher to ‘slightly fudge’
on this tactic and use it to exert power over their
students. Teachers have been known to fake eve-
rything form personal illness, to direct callings ‘from
God’ in order to extort money from their followers.
Although this may look like a technique for exposing
conditioning generally it is not.
For the record, using shock to rattle a student is
neither new or Eastern. Aristotle is reported to have
occasionally slapped a student right after making his
point. Such ‘markers’ were used by him to embed
the memory deep in the student’s consciousness. I
doubt anyone today would get away with slapping
his students around (no matter how tempting it may
sometimes be). Still, Aristotle’s timing may prove an
important hint into this technique (i.e. right after
the point is delivered and before the student gets
joliprint
a chance to mix it with his already pre-established
expectations and patterns).
From these examples, you may see that one of the
Printed with
elements in teaching working intuition is not always
letting the student in on exactly what the point of a
lesson is. At first this may sound slightly dishonest.
http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/intuitive-training-in-a-sufi-tradition/
January 12, 2007
After all, we are used to being given a summary of a
course before signing up. However, misdirecting a
student’s attention away from the real lesson has a
straight forward purpose. It sidesteps the student’s
efforts to ‘figure out’ exactly what’s going on (and
therefore sabotaging the entire project). Thus, while
it appears one set of lessons is taking place, an en-
tirely different and unsuspected agenda is being
carried out.
This second agenda has everything to do with how
practical the learned skills will become. Generally
when we think of training in intuition, most of
us think that means conscious intuition. In fact,
conscious intuition would seem to be the only
kind there is. That is a reasonable assumption …
reasonable but wrong. In fact, most of what we call
perception takes place long before we are aware
of it. This is also true of intuition which could be
thought about as a type of perception. Now, if we
will allow that perception is a process and some of
that process takes place unconsciously, then the idea
of training forms of unconscious intuition does not
sound so strange. The idea only sounds strange when
someone tries to develop it on his own. After all,
since this type of training requires special settings
and tasks, it only stands to reason that a group set-
ting makes it easier. Earlier, I mentioned that there
were three parts to this training. We have looked at
pattern disruption, which is a part of preparing for
intuitive information to get through more accurately.
Now, I would like to say a word about meditations
as used in this training system.
By itself, meditation will probably not cause a major
shift in one’s overall ability to access their intuition.
Generally, it has to be used in conjunction with other
techniques. Still, mental exercises can be useful if
handled in the proper fashion. In this example most
of the longer meditative techniques used are visual
in nature. Techniques using verbal formulas are
generally used as a preparation for visualization.
The operating assumption being that being able to
clearly visualize a person, place, or event automa-
tically sets up a channel for information to flow
Page 4

Seeker After Truth
Intuitive Training in a Sufi Tradition
through. In order to do this effectively, it helps if the
visualizations match the abilities and needs of the
student. Thus, a visualization may be very simple
and consist of little more than a two dimensional
shape visualized on a flat background. Examples
of this would be geometric shapes or letters. Ano-
ther type of meditation consists of adding a third
dimension and movement to the object visualized.
An example would be a spinning white ball on a
black background.
This process is known as the lataif. Lataif can also
be used as a noun to mean something like ‘organ
of subtle perception’. In any case, the techniques
associated with the lataif take on a bewildering va-
riety as long as one looks at the surface. However,
if you look at the actual operations being carried
out, common ideas appear. Regardless of the sys-
tem used, generally visualizations that are shifted
are involved. That is, one may carry out a series
of visualizations or one may use the same image
and carry out a series of changes on it. In the first
case, an example would be to visualize a shape or
number on one side of the body and the shift and
visualize different shape or number on the other
side. This could be interspersed with visualizations
of letters or colors depending on how complicated
the teacher wants to make it. In the second case,
an example would be visualizing a sphere clearly.
Then the sphere could be changed in size, motion,
color or even imagined to be outside (projected) out
into the field of vision. In either case, the idea is to
develop the ability to hold a visualization steady
while manipulating it. In this way the intuitive can
shift his focus of attention without losing the contact
created by concentrating on the original target.
The last section of the three parts listed had to do
joliprint
with holding an attitude of neutral expectation. In
some ways, this may be the most difficult skill of all.
After all, it is the nature of the human mind to fill
in blanks. The first time someone focuses intently
Printed with
on a target with he desire for information, the ima-
gination takes that as an open invitation to create
whatever data it sees fit— thus, the need to be able
http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/intuitive-training-in-a-sufi-tradition/
January 12, 2007
to shut down all the mental noise while holding
something at the center of attention. To a certain
extent, one pointed meditation as outlined earlier
will help, but by itself, it is not enough. There are,
of course, different exercises that can help. Wor-
king with dreams (and particularly lucid dreams)
is one example. The balance between detachment
and willing that one has to maintain in order to
stay in a lucid dream is very close to the neutral
expectation needed. There are many other methods
but a continued list would belabor the point. It is
enough to realize that methods need to be matched
to individuals.
There is one last point that needs to brought up in
this essay and that concerns the intention of the
program outlined herein. Intuition can take many
different forms. In the case of Sufism, the intuition
developed is often a side effect of a larger training
format. Thus, in addition to doing exercises like the
one above, an individual might be given the task of
building a successful business, working in a charity,
or taking up art or music. A Sufi that cannot make
his or her way in the world is almost a contradic-
tion in terms. This may sound like a contradiction
in a culture that equates poverty with spirituality.
But then again, is that not just one more piece of
conditioning?
Processing your request, Please wait....
Report as:
Write in Words: 
(Optional)

Page 5