Do this exercise not necessarily in the evening or when about to retire, but whenever you have an opportunity to sit down and relax for a while and give yourself a little physical rest as well as mental recreation. Three or four minutes spent this way several times a day will repay you in recreation and rest, as well as in the improve­ment of your faculties.

After relaxing for about a minute, and clearing out your mind or laying aside any problem that is occupying your attention at the time, turn your mind back in a re­view of the events of the last twenty-four hours or less, lingering for a moment or two on each important act or decision or problem, and then turn your mind inward, as though you were attempting to find out from an inner voice or an inner consciousness what answer or decision would be given you from that source.

Your first attempts will probably result in mixed emotions and perplexities. You will probably find uppermost in your mind your previous objective decision or understanding of the problem, and it will appear to you as though there were but one answer to your question, and this is the one which you previously gave when the matter was first occupying your attention.

But if you linger long enough over each problem and cast aside your previous decision or action in the matter and think of the problem or matter as though it were just arising and had not already been done or decided, you will find that there are two decisions possible, two methods of procedure, two opposite views of the thing you are considering. And you will find that one of the views is your objective mind and that the other seems to be in the background or coming from a secondary personality or different consciousness than your own objective one.

Of course, in some cases you will find the answer that comes from within agrees with the answer that is in your objective mind, and in such cases, you will know that your decision was in accord with the intuitive one. It is only when you find disagreement between the two expressions of consciousness that you must weigh and judge carefully so that you will know whether you are deciding with the objective decision or the intuitive one.

Generally speaking, the intuitive impression or expression is conservative, rational, careful, and of course always kind, tolerant, just, and comprehensive. One little factor will enable you to determine at times whether your intuitive consciousness is talking to you or whether your outer objective consciousness is attempting to decide. The intuitive consciousness is always urging us to see everything from the viewpoint of its effect upon all people, all conditions, and unselfishly.

Its reasoning always pursues a course that is deductive, starting with the act as you would do it or perform it and presenting a logical sequence of events and results therefrom so that there is a moving picture of events rapidly passing before you, showing you just what will follow in the wake of your act or decision.

The objective consciousness, on the other hand, in trying to decide for you will fluctuate from deductive to inductive, syllogistical reasoning. By this I mean that your objective consciousness will picture the sequence of events following your decision to an even­tual conclusion that you would not want to have happen; then it will disregard that conclusion and, first by in­ductive reasoning, and then by syllogistical reasoning, will try to show you how you may avoid or evade or squirm out of your undesirable situation.

While we are on this point it might be interesting to note that modern education has greatly tended to en­courage us in our process of inductive and syllogistical reasoning, to a point where we can out-argue our conscience and practically browbeat the still voice within us by self-satisfying thoughts of how we can manage to escape the conviction, or at least accusation, of conscience when we do anything wrong.

The criminal very often suffers severely, when alone, by the accusing voice of his conscience, or intuitive faculty, but he has become so accustomed to permitting his objective mind to reason inductively and syllogistically, with complacent arguments, that he finally decides that he can beat the game and when caught in his own meshes he can squirm out of the situation and come through all right. Therefore, he continues in his criminal acts and decisions, feeling sure that he is pitting his brain and mental faculties against the higher laws and especially against the logical operations of the laws of Karma. The hardened criminal is known to criminologists as the one who has killed or stifled his conscience, and this simply means that he has so often stifled and ignored the intuitive voice within that he no longer pays any attention to it.

Therefore, if we would be true adepts in the manner of thinking, as well as our living, we will start in at once to spend a few minutes several times a day listening to the intuitive presentation of facts, and the forewarnings of the inner consciousness which will guide us aright in every case.

 

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