Gary Douglas, best-selling author and founder of Access Consciousness^®, is nothing if not controversial.

One of his more interesting observations is how the value of intelligence is vastly over-rated. “You have got to get that you are dumber than dirt,” he tells participants in his classes.

As usual, there is a method to his madness and a definite emphasis on the pragmatic in his approach. His awareness that intelligence alone might not be his best friend stemmed from an experience years ago, when he was disabled in a car accident and undergoing testing by state employment officials. They informed him he was in the top 1% of intelligence.

“If I’m so smart, then why is my life so messed up?” Douglas asked.

One of the things he’s discovered and shared with his classes is the difference between awareness and intelligence. Awareness is similar to consciousness, which Douglas defines as perceiving, knowing, being and receiving everything without judgment.

In our world with its emphasis on the verbal and intellectual, many people can confuse consciousness with what’s cognitive, which is actually Douglas’s point. Cognitive is what we think about, put into words, and can define. Because those of us who survived school used our cognition in spades, we tend to think our cognition is what we are conscious of. If we don’t know the logical reason why we did or chose something, we tend to say we “didn’t do it consciously.” Not true, says Douglas.

From the beginning core classes in Access Consciousness^®, he describes his view point of view that “if you’re thinking, you’re stinking.” He goes on to explain that, “The function of your mind is to define the limitations of what you already know.” Facilitators of Access Consciousness^® trained by Douglas often point out to those in classes that if they could have solved whatever problem is bothering them by thinking about it and figuring it out, they would probably not be in class looking for something different.

Consciousness, on the other hand, is a form of knowing without and beyond thinking. If you’ve ever taken a different route home from work just because you could, only to find out that you avoided a massive traffic jam you would have been stuck in on your regular route, you have functioned from consciousness and knowing. You may have told yourself you didn’t do it consciously. On the contrary, you did it consciously, but not cognitively.

You may not have been able to put into words the “facts” that the truck full of port-a-potties tipped over closing the freeway that jammed up at the regular rush hour, but somewhere in your being, you “just knew” that taking a different route home was in your best interest that day. What else have you known that you denied you knew?

Do you find those conscious moments too few and far between? One way you can increase them is to acknowledge them every time they show up. When you deny them by calling them synchronicity or coincidence, you deny your own knowing. You are insulting yourself as the infinite being you truly are. When you acknowledge your knowing, more of what you’re conscious of can bleed through to where you can put it into those words we love so much.

You can get clear about awareness you had that was conscious rather than cognitive by asking questions about the past as well. Still unclear how you created a particular mess in your life? Try these questions: “What did I know that I denied that I knew?” or “What did I know that I pretended not to know?”

Like all questions used in Access Consciousness^®, the purpose is not to find yet another answer, but to create awareness. The awareness might take a little time to show up—but it could well be worth the wait. You could just amaze yourself with what you have known that you’ve denied you knew.