Insight and Intuition
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| Intuition |
Instinct operates almost independently of our desires or our reasoning powers, while intuition is more "voluntary". You can develop it and build it into a very important tool for delving into the deepest of life's problems. Although- just as with instinct and intuition, there is an overlap between insight and intuition. There is also a distinction between them. "Insight" is the clear perception of the framework of situation-getting a handle on things. Although it, too, is innate- that is, it comes from within ourselves. It is fueled by factors outside of us: logic, reason, experience in similar or parallel situations. "Intuition" is entirely innate. It requires no reasoning, no logic, no rational thought of any kind. It is the immediate recognition from within of how, why, and the way thing come to pass.
With insight we perceive obvious signals and put them together in a way that is not obvious. Here's a simple example: A monkey wants his soft teddy bear, but someones cleaning his room has put the toy up on a shelf he can't reach. However, the cleaning person has left a broom behind. Picking up the broom, the monkey uses it to knock the bear off the shelf and onto the floor of his cage. That connection the monkey has made between the problem and the solution is insight. It can be as simple as monkey and teddy or as complicated as Archimedes' discovering the principle of specific gravity while sitting in his bath.
Insight - The Cognitive Leap
Insight-some mat call it genius, other may call it "a cognitive leap". But actually it is a combination of motivation, hard work, and perseverance. If necessity is the mother of invention, then surely insight must be the midwife. It is possible, of course, to have a series of small insights and yet miss the most important one.
Look more closely at "UNRELATED" things
Pay more careful attention to them than you usually do, and try to find something about them that is similar, ways in which they are alike. It is an experience designed to encourage you to discover aspects of things you hadn't noticed before and is an important part of the process of strengthening and building insight.
Look more closely at "RELATED" things
When you see closely related things in your environment, pay more attention to them you usually do and find pertinent ways in which they are not alike at all. This will also encourage you to notice significantly different properties of things that you may very well have been taking for granted. perhaps all your life. This is an even more important aspect of the process that produces insight.