Surrender to Intuition and Imagination to Accelerate Creativity
The creative act requires courage and skill… But, more importantly, it requires the ability to listen to that inner voice and create the unknown!
Intuition reminds me of the first time I did the yoga pose chakrasana… I just knew I was capable of lifting my torso and taking the shape of the inverted U or bridge that it’s meant to be.
I had never done it before, but I simply trusted my back and abs to do it.
Likewise, intuition is the ability to trust your inner knowing about something that you’ve never imagined, or experienced before.
You simply have a vague picture of it in your mind’s eye, and from thereon the journey begins…
Intuition stems from a very personal understanding of life, events and people.
It comes from somewhere deep within you…
It often has no leanings on any prior knowledge or experience.
Intuition may also come from something outside of you, from being receptive to the messages that your third eye unfolds…
But all this is very esoteric, and doesn’t do justice to the idea of intuition.
Though, however insufficiently we try to describe intuition, it still — without doubt — plays an important role when we make decisions, especially the creative ones…
As a writer, I’ve always been open to listening to my intuition.
Because, when I don’t, I get into trouble… I write from a place that is all mind, or senses and feelings, with little access to the true message that my writing is meant to evoke.
Intuition taps into something beyond the obvious…
You’re not scratching the surface, you’re tearing apart every layer of what you wish to create, to get to the core.
When you write intuitively, artifice moves to the periphery, and the message takes centre-stage.
It’s the core message that then forms the connection with your audience or reader.
Every creative act first connects you to yourself, and then to your audience... To ensure this connection is to first listen to your intuition.
Note, intuition is not the idea you begin with, or a source of inspiration, it is a deep understanding of the message that the inspiration brings.
Intuition ensures smooth progression — the flow that every creative is looking for…
It is the ability to fall freely into the unknown, knowing that the universe has your back.
And, once you have desired to take that journey into the unknown, you then bank on your imagination — the ability to create a reality, or manifest a form that you visualise.
Imagination banks on everything you know, and everything you don’t know.
It’s a heady mix of your ability to create the new, as you let go of the old…
Because, you will only create the new, when you have the courage to let of what’s holding you back — read, preconceived ideas, notions, beliefs.
Imagination unfolds the unknown, but it depends on your current strengths — your risk-taking ability, skill set and perseverance to build the new.
As you imagine a world of limitless possibilities, and embark on creating them, you have to dip into every resource you have — mental, physical, emotional and creative.
If intuition brings you into a state of flow, imagination keeps you there.
It gives you the strength to build on an idea, and take it to a place it’s never been.
Imagination is complete in itself — just the power to imagine gives you the faith to continue to create what you set out to do.
Without imagination, the human soul is like an empty vessel, which has the capacity to hold nectar, but chooses instead to deprive itself of that joy.
While a vessel has use even when it’s empty, it’s true potential is experienced only when it’s full.
Similarly, all our creative acts — and life acts — are devoid of their true essence, if they are devoid of imagination.
The ability to find new patterns of thinking, living and doing, is just one benefit of imagination…
The other, and biggest benefit of imagination, is to be able to step out of all patterns completely and exist unsupported, with a willingness to experience what’s new.
When I set out to write, I only have a vague sense of what I’m going to write about, the process that unfolds is one I leave to my imagination…
I may draw on metaphors that I already know, but how I incorporate them into the text is something only the craft unfolds.
For this I have to surrender to my imagination, and let it take me where it does… I have to let it open up vistas I’ve never seen.
But to surrender to imagination, I have to first surrender to intuition — with an innate knowing that the seed of an idea, that originated from somewhere in ether, is actually an idea I need to pursue…
In creativity, intuition and imagination work for each other, and with each other…
Our jobs as creatives is to simply surrender to them, and continue at our crafts, allowing it to take its rightful shape and form.
Sometimes it may dazzle you, and those around you, while at others it may not… Either way, stay at it, and be the creative soul that you are meant to be!
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