Hareesh Wallis says humans have two motivations to action – our conditioning, and pratibhā. Here are quotes from three posts from the blog at hareesh.org‘s “near enemies” series, “I want to be my best self”, “Listen to your heart”, and “You can choose how to respond.”
… inspiration, which is one meaning of the word Pratibhā, naturally arises when you first abide in the sense that there’s nothing that needs to be done, nothing whatsoever. Then you discover that even if you feel that nothing needs to be done, nonetheless life likes doing stuff! Inspiration to move arises, inspiration to dance, inspiration to connect. It just naturally arises even in the state of ‘there’s nothing that needs to be done’ and ‘there’s no one I need to be or try to be’. If you really give yourself 100% permission then sooner or later inspiration arises and you allow it to unfold. That’s how to tell the difference between your conditioning and inspiration. Real inspiration arises from the state in which “nothing needs to be done” and “there’s no one I need to be”. It’s always an expression of love of the One for itself because you act when you act out of love, not out of a sense of lack. If it’s real love then it comes from the innate desire to contribute to well-being.[https://hareesh.org/blog/2018/1/31/near-enemy-7-i-want-to-be-my-best-self]
The intuitive wisdom that arises from the Heart is called pratibhā in Sanskrit. It’s a kind of deep inner knowing, a wordless sensing of which way the current of Life wants to take you. It’s very difficult to put into words, since it is inherently nonverbal, but I will try to point towards it.
Pratibhā simultaneously means intuitive insight, embodied instinct, and spontaneous inspiration. It is a subtle, nonverbal, non-emotional intuitive faculty that all of us have but few of us get quiet and still enough to sense. Only on rare occasions is it perceptible above the din of the compulsively thinking mind. Pratibhā, unlike the mind, never defends or explains or justifies itself, but simply offers itself as a gift.
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Following pratibhā consistently makes your whole life feel permeated by ‘flow’ (even though there may be challenges), because you are in harmony with the greater Pattern. Since pratibhā is a kind of compass to sense the natural flow of the deeper Pattern, it provides a far sounder basis for action than our narrow, provincial, ephemeral, mostly arbitrary cultural conditioning. Since the Pattern of the Whole—which pratibhā is intimately connected to—naturally moves toward harmony, following your deepest inner intuition is always the most beneficial course for all beings.
But let’s be clear about this: this inner wisdom inclines in one direction or another for the benefit of all beings, which is one key way it is different from the desires of the heart-mind, which usually only wants what is beneficial for you personally.
… when you have clear access to pratibhā, it’s natural and right to make it the final arbiter. This creates a life-experience of harmony because all internal disagreements are automatically resolved by the deep inner knowing, the sense of rightness that is neither a thought nor a feeling nor an impulse. All the faculties of the heart-mind orbit around the pratibhā, the wordless wisdom of your innermost being, and it leans towards the presented possibility that is most deeply aligned with the overarching Pattern.
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When Pratibha says there’s nothing you need to do, again it’s not in words, usually, but you feel it and then let that nothingness flow forth if it wants to. Sometimes your actionless action will be praiseworthy in the perception of others, sometimes it won’t be. They’re just expressing their conditioning and that’s all they can do.— pratibhā is a wordless undercurrent, what Barks’ Rumi calls “the strange silent pull of what you truly love”—where you means the real You, not the culturally-conditioned you that you only think you are.
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The fundamental issue, then, is this: that when people say, or hear, “listen to your heart”, they fail to make a strong and necessary distinction between the emotional side of the conditioned self and the quiet, wordless intuition of their deepest being (which is something beyond both emotions and thoughts).
[https://hareesh.org/blog/2017/8/15/near-enemy-3-listen-to-your-heart]
But reposing in your essence-nature as awareness has yet another impact: the development of your ability to access pratibhā (itself an aspect of icchā-śakti), the innate power of intuition that clearly senses the most beneficial option of all those available, without mental deliberation.…From the perspective of the spiritual path, until you truly know how to repose in Awareness-Presence, nothing else matters. You’re just endlessly running around putting out brush fires in your life, grasping after fleeting moments of happiness and making no actual progress in any meaningful sense, until this is in place. Then begins the work of integrating it with everything. In each moment, in each now, nothing could be other than as it is — and there is only the now. May you realize that and be free.
[https://hareesh.org/blog/2019/8/30/near-enemy-11-you-can-choose-how-to-respond]