After completing his lecture on intuition and dreams, Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan began to answer questions on these subjects.

Question: Could you please tell us about the difference between impulse and intuition?

Answer: The impulse of an intuitive person is often guided by intuition; but the impulse of a person who lacks intuition may come from another direction; it may come from the surface. Impulse directed by intuition is desirable.

Impulse is just like a little straw floating on the surface of the water. This straw becomes an impulse when it is pushed by a wave that is coming from behind. For a right impulse, man gets credit; for a wrong impulse, he is blamed. Yet, if one saw what was behind the impulse, one would be slow to express an opinion on the subject.

Question: How do you explain symbolical dreams?

Answer: The symbolical dream is the working of a subtle mind and it is a most wonderful working. As subtle as is the mentality, so subtle is the symbol in which the intuition or the thought is expressed. Therefore, it has been very easy for the mystics to see the evolution of a person from his dreams. The subtler his dreams, the subtler the person is in his evolution. Nevertheless, the virtue is not only in subtlety; the virtue is in simplicity. Poets, musicians, thinkers, writers, people of imagination, have wonderful dreams, and the splendor of their dreams is in their marvelous symbology.

Question: Is it the study of symbols that develops intuition?

Answer: Not at all. It is intuition that develops insight into symbolism.

Question: Are conditions in dreams the same as the conditions after death?

Answer: Certainly.

Question: Are dreams of suffocation, drowning and inability to walk and speak a result of one’s health?

Answer: No, they are results of impressions that have been held in the mind. It is a kind of psychological disorder of the mind, a disease of the mind. The mind must be cured from it.

To be continued…