Sambodhi 1989 Vol 16

Author(s): Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 44

35
Intuition is related to intellect as a whole is to a part. It comprehends sense and intellectual knowledge. Intuition is knowledge by identity. It is the final and supreme knowledge, whereas the intellect grows and develops from error to truth. Both intuition and intellect belong to the self. Intuition carries with it its own guarantee; it has the character of revelation. Genius and creative work depend on it.
Intellect and intuition are not disconnected; in intuition, one thinks more profoundly, feels more deeply and sees more truly. While intellect involves a specialised fact, intuition employs the whole life. In intuition, we become one with the truth, one with the object of knowledge. "The object known is seen not as an object outside the self, but as a part of the self."15 Intellectual cognition also is not quite infallible. It is not free from doubt. Logical arguments are challengeable and can be rejected on the strength of equally strong arguments. Its main tool is analysis' and so it fails to grasp the 'whole' nature of objects. But this does not suggest that intellect and intuition are quite opposed to each other. In fact, intuition needs intellect for the expression, elaboration and justification of its results. Intuition in itself is dumb. Its results in order to be communicated to others have to be put in understandable and intelligible form; and for this, intellect is needed. Intellect, on the other hand presupposes intuition, without which its deliberations can not start. The function of intellect is analysis' but there must be something to be analysed, and that something must be a 'whole'. The whole as a whole can be grasped by intuition alone. That gives to intuition its primacy. Intuition depends, on the intellect and also transcends it. Dr. Radhakrishnan says, "Intuition is not independent but emphatically dependent on thought, and is immanent in the very nature of our thinking. It is dynamically continuous with thought and pierces through the conceptual context of knowledge to the living reality under it. It is the result of a long and arduous process of study and analysis and is therefore higher than the discursive process from which it issues and on which it supervenes."16 Intuition should not be confused with anti-intellectualism. It is not antagonistic to the intellect. "Intuition which ignores intellect is useless. The two are not only incompatible but vitally united. Intuition is beyond reason, though not against reason. As it is the response of the whole man to reality, it involves the activity of reason also," "Intuition is not used as an apology for doctrines which either could not or would not be justified on intellectual grounds. It is not a shadowy sentiment or pathological fancy fit for cranks and dancing dervishes."