"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has
forgotten the gift."

– Albert Einstein

I love this quote because it so succinctly and clearly delineates the value and roles of our intuition and our rational mind in helping us create the life we want. Further, the fact that this quote is from Albert Einstein speaks even louder to this hierarchy because we are unlikely to write off such a statement as "airy fairy" or "psychobabble." Take, for example, the first phrase in the quote: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift." Notice that Dr. Einstein isn't just saying that there is value in following our intuition. He speaks of this part of our mind as a "sacred gift." This implies not only importance, but a connection with our spiritual nature. Just imagine how one might react to being given a sacred gift as a guide for making decisions in one's life. Would it be fair to say that we would likely treasure this gift and value its insight versus writing it off as just a "hunch" or a "feeling"?

Dr. Einstein goes on to characterize the rational mind as "a faithful servant." For me, this characterization describes a part of our mind that is designed to follow, or carry out our instructions. Once we have determined what we want, or what is important, the rational mind does an excellent job of helping us bring this vision to reality. The problem, as Dr. Einstein so eloquently states, is that "We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." On a personal level, this means we may be creating our life by looking to the servant (or our rational mind) to decide what is important or set our priorities. This could be problematic because, according to Dr. Einstein, this aspect of our being (the rational mind) isn't designed for this task. In other words, we may be asking the servant for wisdom and guidance and ignoring our intuition, or our "sacred gift."

For many of us, this happens when we ignore a hunch or a feeling and go ahead with what seems to be the most logical thing to do. Often, when something goes wrong, we look back to the time when we made the decision and remember that we had a "feeling" or sense that something was off. However, because we couldn't "make sense" of the feeling or explain it logically, we chose to ignore it, and this resulted in our going further down a path that was incongruent with our highest purpose.

The challenge as I see it is to begin by acknowledging the value of our intuition. In other words, as we recognize our intuitive mind as a sacred gift, we can begin to consult this resource when we are looking for wisdom and guidance, and listen to it when its input comes in the form of a sense or feeling. We can then stop, or pause, and give this aspect of our being an opportunity to inform us on a deeper level of what is really important, and help us create a vision of what we want that is congruent with our highest purpose. We can then call upon our "faithful servant," the rational mind to define the process of making this vision a reality. This way we can honor both the gift and the servant and allow each to play their respective role in the process of creation.

Take care and God bless, Dr. Bill