Litlle children are very spiritual creatures. It’s when we begin to give up the astonishment, the wonder and the awe of the world we see around us that we become less spiritual.
None. I would say that one needs to develop one’s emotional intelligence. But even that is all just a construct. An awareness of one’s spiritual nature has nothing to do with intelligence. It has more to do with how well we are able to learn and integrate life’s lessons and that ability also has a cause.
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I don’t know angelic one.
Intellect is an inherent part of curiosity, which is what leads one towards the spiritual path as the first step. Also, I would say that intelligence is one of the last steps, where one is “smart” enough to realize it is time to let go of knowing, and just be.
You don’t see intelligence in these things? Or to you is that emotional intelligence, which I am not quite clear on your definition of such?
Nick, I don’t disagree. I used love as an example but the emotional experience of God is not all feel-good all the time. It is the entire spectrum of experience. My larger point is that although we are perhaps guided intellectually, we experience emotionally. I might call it a controlled experience perhaps, properly done, knowing what is happening to us as it is happening.
Hrmmmm.
Processural cognition.
Love? Nah. Antiquated emotional construct stemming from misalignment of wu li.
Don’t ever stop being you, Mas. 
I give you some of my best detached disillusionment rhetoric … and my good, good friend Mr. Jerry … can’t even dispense with some conciliatory wisdom? What the bloody hell?
I am shocked, stunned, amazed, and chagrined. Dismayed even, possibly even suicidal. 
Hi Jerry
This is an example of what I mean by the difficulty with definitions of either spirituality or intellect because they are relative terms. From what I’ve read and my own personal experiences I’ve come to appreciate how as relative, one faculty first leads the other and then the other in turn, leads the first in their respective development. Intellectually it begins with curiosity and when balanced, attracts the experience of emotional quality inspiring the mind to go beyond curiosity into conscious contemplation and pondering leading to the conscious experience of the quality of relative consciousness that the emotions “feel”
Ignorance of this is why so many people become infuriated at the final saying, #114, in the Gospel of Thomas:
Feminists and the like put this into a political and politically correct perspective and become outraged. I remember attending a talk on the GoT a while back given by a secularist. I was curious what he would say about #114. It was hysterical. He danced around it with a dexterity that would have made Rudolf Nureyev envious.
The psychology underneath it deals with the relationship between the essential yin and yang or how emotion relates to consciousness - the active or male principle in relation to it. Mary’s quality of emotional intelligence was necessary for the males in their group yet they were unable to see yet how these faculties are complimentary and should help each other. The deeper lesson gets overlooked because of being caught up in this naive PC thought.
So another way of looking at it is that we have to be guided by the emotion’s higher level need to feel “quality” which, when acquired, gives us the force to experience and accept consciousness impossible during the, what has become normal for us, dominance of inner lies. When the lie dominates as it normally does, consciousness is then degenerated into imagination and flights of fantasy.
But what of the person who cannot learn to read or can’t understand a simple philosophy book. Are they then left out of this journey?
But you seem to be implying that one cannot “start” with this experience? Is intellectual understanding a neccesary first step? And does intellect help at all AFTER this experience has begun?
I guess I’m thinking about my long dead grandmother who worked in a pickle factory 5 days a week doing manual labor. She had almost no understanding of even the most simple theological positions, but she was forever talking to God and getting down on her kness to pray for her family.
What do you make of this kind of “relationship” to God? It has almost no intellectual basis whatever. But does that make it any less valuable? Is it possible that someone like this could make “progress” in spiritual matters. If, not, why not? Or if so, then why do we bother discussing spiritual matters since discussion is almost irrelevant?
I think I would probably agree.
But then what to make of all our discussion of philosophy and religion? And what to make of the most complex of spiritual constructs? Are they therefore useless?
Are you saying that the more complex a religious construct becomes the less value it would have, since it focuses our efforts on our intellect rather than our will or “awareness”?
Hi Ned
What you are describing I know as salvation within the body. It comes from a humility impossible for the spiritual intelligentsia. It is one of the reason’s Simone Weil knew Christianity as the religion of slaves as opposed to the religion of power the church turned it into.
This paints a striking picture. The lives of those she saw in Portugal and the boatmen on the Volga can be seen as difficult. Yet these people had developed a contact with the above where humility replaced the role of the intellect in quieting the corrupt ego.
Your grandmother seems to have had this innate sense of humility. On my path it is said that these people, because they are genuinely good people, proceed along the evolutionary path quicker than the average yogi who themselves become caught up into egotistic trappings. Their teaching, from becoming perverted, ends up doing more harm than good. So I salute your grandmother. She seems to have been a fine person.
Intellect is a double edged sword. For those that are naturally intellectually inclined it can be a great help in keeping an eye on the emotional tendency towards escapism. It however also can produce the spiritual intelligentsia or the Atheist that becomes caught up in the joys of argument and superiority as opposed to valuing humility. But whatever the path, as you’ve seen here, this tendency towards spiritual intelligentsia forces one to speak from both sides of their mouth.for example speaking of tolerance and condemnation at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if it hasn’t become so habitual that they are genuinely unaware of it… Now that is a frightening thought.
I just wanted you to know how much I do value those like your grandmother who feel enough inside to retain their humility despite some bad circumstances. She is saved now in the body of Christ. This quality of emotion was worth saving.
it’s a shame mr.flanders doesn’t know how too answer after my posts , isn’t it?.
Hi Ned. Your grandmother wasn’t starting from the position of the blank slate. Not that any of us really do as we all have our presuppositions no matter how strongly we might deny them. But in my own, personal case, starting with nary an idea but intensely curious, it had to be an intellectual exercise to get me to a position of believing in God’s existence and an intellectual exercise to begin examining God’s nature. From there, the experiencing of God leaves little for pure intellectualism.
Your grandmother, you see, was way ahead of me from the start.
True, she was a devout Catholic, attending mass whenever she could. But I’m not sure she understood any theology at all. She was a very simple woman so I don’t see the intellect as being very important in her “journey”, if she had a “journey” at all.
I suppose that’s true in most cases. So do you think that from your enlightened position now, that gaining spiritual knowledge (reading books, studying texts etc…) is of any real value to you?
I doubt she would see it that way, she probably never even considered the term “spiritual progress”. And I’m not saying she was a saint, she had her selfish moments just like everyone else. But I think there is something valuable to be found in the simple faith of simple people. And we wont find it by intellectual discourse or study. So how do we find it?
The quote was interesting. But is working in a hard manual job the only way to find this faith?
The acts of study, contemplation, and so on are important for one’s own spiritual satisfaction and growth. This is not to say that they must make certain discoveries in order to achieve some level of spiritual achievement- but it is very important to satisfy one’s own intellectual demands. At least in the Christian tradition, salvation is for everyone- so, think to your ability to think, and to the extent that the convenience and free time in your life allows, and to the extent that you feel you’ve been called to be a thinker. No doubt, though, there will be plenty of children and retarded people in heaven.
Wisdom is a virtue, and the greatest religious figures will always be remembered, and their teachings will help people indefinitely. But it’s not the only virtue, and there’s many other ways to do great things.
My concern would be this term ‘spiritual growth’. Is there a good way to define it that doesn’t mean ‘understanding’. If we can’t get past that, then it’s sort of a loaded question.
Well first I’d say I’m far from enlightened. I have some general ideas is all. If I’m enlightened at all, I would say that I now can see how much I do not know.
Yes, I would say that pursuing spirituality intellectually still has a big place for me. Reading how others have experienced God can resonate greatly, for example. The examples from history, examples both of spiritual experience and living one’s life in a spiritual way, from Christ and Paul to philosophers and kings and warrior poets, move me. So for me it’s valuable. Kind of an enhancement. Is it necessary? Probably not and your grandmother provides a good example of a spiritual life with no need for intellectualism.
I would imagine in much the same way your grandmother found it.
Ned,
No small part of any such discussion is the dilemma of having to use words. Jerry has suggested intellect,but connects it closely to emotion, as does LA, and probably as your grandmother.
After all the signs and symbols, one may arrive at that which is God, or “oneness”, or whatever term you would choose. Facing the void really isn’t facing nothingness, but letting go all the knowing, and just being. Was your grandmother in ‘grace’? Very possible and even likely. It sounds very much as if she lived her faith, it was her life experience. That she may not have had any formal instruction in theology or philosophy was perhaps an advantage. In such a situation, she had less intellectual garbage to divest in order to use her native intelligence to guide her life.
I agree that too much of religious and philosophical discussion revolves around a futile attempt to know the unknowable. We can never deny or separate our spiritual nature from ourselves, but all the posturing of knowing is an intellectual (ego) exercise that in most cases, leads one away from understanding instead of toward it. I’d much rather take the inspiration of your grandmother than the grand theologian.
Hi Ned
You keep bringing up these tough questions. 
I don’t think it is the hard manual job itself but what its effect is. I think this effect eventually increases ones faith. This effect I call hitting bottom. It is a kind of grounding. Do you remember in John 13 where Jesus is washing feet:
In the esoteric language of the Bible the feet represent our contact with external life. Peter did not understand the ritual in which Jesus placed this truth so objected on respectful grounds. He was embarrassed. Jesus replied that he was clean on the “inside.” All that needed help was at this contact with external life in which our corrupted ego asserts itself. This is also experienced when a person hits bottom and the corrupt ego has no more influence.
But another profound point in this extraordinary passage reveals our normal tendency to discount the good of manual labor. In our society it is often considered low class. But any sort of work that stimulates our ego’s objection in the face of our connection with the higher is very healing. It increases our faith since our false pride is seen for what it is and how it dominates us. This same idea is in the parable of the wayward son
This is true experiential learning. We are like the wayward son having forgotten our origin. The wayward son hit bottom. Now do we need a manual job to learn? I believe yes unless an experience comes through an act of grace where we experience our nothingness such as release from alcohol or drug addiction. The person has touched bottom and experienced their nothingness. This can also provide authentic humility natural to sustain faith and come into contact with higher influences…
As you can see it is a complex question.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.”
There is ‘self’-consciousness, and there is ‘ego’-consciousness. I think the poor in spirit are immune to the error of ego-consciousness. Self-consciousness requires balance, which was lost to the cultures of western europe when alexander eclipsed the cynic. It can be regained, if the intelligent are humble and the poor in spirit are forgiving.
Intelligence is but one of the many beautiful mechanisms of justice; as i see it.