In discussion of religious theories and philosophies a degree of complexity is usually introduced that can only be solidly grasped by a small minority of the human race.
In some cases advancement in spiritual matters is linked directly to one’s ability to process and file away in the brain large amounts of spiritual texts, longs lists of “good” and/or “bad” behavior, or analysis of holy texts by those who have lived before us. Even in traditions where enlightenment is not directly linked to a holy text, there are usually a wide variety of books on the subject that require mental gymnastics to understand.
So, my question is, to what extent is intelligence associated with spiritual progress? If a simple person cannot grasp a spiritual concept does that mean that they are excluded from the benefit associated with “understanding”? And do those among us with large craniums have a head start in the pursuit of truth? Or maybe the opposite is true. Does natural intellegence somehow cloud true enlightenment so that it has to be discarded to make progress.
And is this fair of God? Does study and understanding draw us closer to God? And if not, then why would we bother to learn anything at all?
Or maybe we might think that spiritial progress in direct proportion to our natural abilities is what God desires of us rather than some absolute standard of achievement. I don’t know which is correct.
So what do folks think about intellect and spirituality. Is it important, not important, or somewhere in between.
Actually this is a fascinating question but I’m too beat right now to get into it. Between this, Omar, and a comparison of esoteric and evangelic Christianity, I’ll need additional brain food.
Anyhow I like to post this link to Howard Gardner’s model of multiple intelligence. If we have several qualities each defined as intelligence, which ones correlate with spirituality? I’m not necessarily supporting details but introduce it to indicate that defining intelligence is not so easy.
I bring this up to suggest that the word “intelligence” usually means only the working of the literal mind, memory, and associative thought. I believe though that the question of the relationship between intelligence and spirituality is not so clear cut which is worth exploring.
The associative mind can be useful in recognizing obvious deception yet there are many very intelligent people by academic standards that join cults that destroy their critical thinking… They can speak very intelligently but may become a willing slave to a cult leader.
So for me intelligence is a necessity for spiritual growth primarily in how it relates to the holy faculty of Attention; but to begin with, the first problem begins because the definitions of intelligence and spirituality are unclear. The same word “spiritual” can be used for anything from la la land, secular morals, and sacred truths. The same word “intelligence” as suggested by Gardner’s model can also include many modes of intelligence. This is why it is hard to find anything written truly sensible on this question. To make matters worse, animosity has become habitual that unfortunately arose due to this IMO foolish divide between faith and reason.
Hi Ned. I would say if one is starting from the position of a clean slate, then it seems some intellectualizing might be in order. Probably be a good idea to pick up a philosophy book or two or maybe read a theological text.
As we draw closer to God, however (and I am speaking only from my own personal experience), we begin to experience God on a different level than intellectually. With the heart really, not so much the brain. It’s the difference, I would say, between reading about love and being in love.
Count me in , i don’t have the values of a Majority kind of person anyways.
lists are not required for this thread , and judgment would be both rude and kind (depending upon the person judging).the brain is but a source for information , emotional contact towards others is not a needed concept and a reason to stay out of public shools but still acquiring an education of a fairly well level.
did the Celts produce such a tradition , how about those who lived upon easter island? they have no books to exercise their mind only self-satisfaction they are animals of habit instead of control , mental gymnastics is but a decay too such people , they would fail to understand knowledge and judge because of their selfish ways much like the american way you could say.
1.social structure is when intelligence meets itself with spiritual progress , your question is like your answer , they both are one in the same but still opposites.
2,understanding and misunderstanding is depended upon the receiver (the one judged by those who have already experienced a spiritual concept).
3.those who have “large” craniums can have a pursuit toward a form of truth , but they spend too much time gathering stuff for themselves and loosing others as well that they have no truth too think with only information and instinct.
4.the opposite can be true but then everyone would have to agree upon the “stupidity” that actually holds within itself common sense and the terraformation of one self a “weird” person is more of what i’m saying a good definition of myself that others use constantly.
By natural intelligence are you defining the concept of being taught the knowledge of war and pain and other such values?.
if that is what you mean by the true enlightenment would indeed be inside the clouded center , and it would be discarded by a negative reaction of the person with the natural intelligence cloud.
progress would only come if this person can control him/herself and take on frustration without reaction , a positive yet not religous enlightenment would arise as a late blooming at the adult age of this person.
well Ned i have had a grudge on you for quiet a while now , it seems to pay off with these questions.if God is a being of purity and fury then fairness is not a value that he would have to worry about because a good example of me saying this is , jesus spread the bread equally thus nobody is left out, he had a peice for himself it just wasn’t mentioned within the scriptures , it’s fair indeed.
study and undertsanding draws us close and far to and from God , it depends upon what path you take , for or against him (im not saying everyone should be a christian but an agnostic isn’t a bad choice either).
yes , why would one bother to not care for the everlasting God the one that was is and will remain.
if by my last question to what your concept of “natural” is then , God desiring war and pain and other such things would mean because he is
omniscience he and satan are one int he same if he is to accept this “natural” ability , and from the concept of Dan~ i would say him desiring such things would only destroy him.
salvation from knowledge of emotions and destruction is an absolute standard of achievement nobody talks about it although they do end up feeling it , it’s like an explanation of many religous veiws that atheists and theists look for, it is their achievement not the religous people.
what is correct? take my words or burry them in the ground of your ignorance , the soil of your happiness?the roots of your deppression?
folks use spirituality for intellect and vice versa , it’s a self-worship method used for the goal of having a life, instead of deciding too help others in the instinct of caring and taking the daily pains of others dealing with you that is village worship or family careother words you understand
that link to what i have said are probably already within your mind.
it is important if you want or need it to be,
it is not important if you dont want or need it to be,
what is between these two decisions , punishment for not answering?
enlightenment for answering correct?
Jerry, don’t think this is any form of attack because it surely isn’t. I’m only using it to show why I value Christianity. It doesn’t take this approach but demands the sacrifice of imagination through the Cross. I could be wrong but it is what I’ve come to believe.
I’m a firm believer that in the majority of cases the human heart has been so damaged that the acquired defensive needs to feel good and justified has in most cases totally dominated its natural calling for the qualitative experience of reality. If this is true then the need to love and be loved in the spiritual sense becomes perverted due to our own defenses. We need intellect (conscious knowledge) of a certain quality to protect the vulnerable heart as it seeks to understand as it can.
The following link contains a lot of what I will say to explain this further.
Direct knowledge in regards Christianity IMO is beyond the emotional experience in that the emotional experience is open to perversion Growing within the emotional experience must include consciousness; a property of higher intellect to nurture and protect it as our emotions become subservient to the higher experience of “feeling”.
The heart as it now exists for us, as a function of our egotism, could never prefer "real hell to an imaginary paradise. We want to bask in this imagination. it feels good. But as Simone suggests, if ones concern is for the truth of spirituality, it requires will, which is guided by intellect though its force is emotional. So it becomes a question of our personal definition of spirituality. For me it is the objective truth of man’s potential within objective truth. This of course means the necessity to die to my own inner lies. Being fairly new to this, I will admit to being unable to win this battle with myself.
It is obvious to me that help from above is necessary and here I can see the frightening good sense of Simone’s observation that the Cross of Christ is the only gateway to higher knowledge… What is the Cross? It is the symbolic death of ourselves that allows for the experience of what is called here “the void.”
One can imagine a void. One can imagine anything. But a person seriously has to ask what their spiritual interest is? Is it to be justified and build self esteem because God told you that you were just peachy keen? Is it for social relations? If so imagination can be adequate. But if one seriously feels the call to higher meaning, at some point they will have to endure the cross in themselves so as to surpass our acquired limitations and satisfactions with imagination. This, for me, is the great depth and potential of Christianity. Its appeal isn’t to our imaginary wonderfulness as is usual in modern teachings. It speaks of what we are, our nothingness, in the context of our potential.
“A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.”
– Gravity and Grace
And she lived this truth. As I’ve said before, she had more inner balls then I do. She somehow was unafraid to pick up her cross and valued it since her allegiance to truth was so powerful. This to me was a true Christian and was able to unite spirituality (love) and the intellect for the benefit of her own being. It is real love of a higher order most will never experience IMO simply because of being content with imagination unable to feel the value of picking up ones cross. Lacking consciousness, the intellect necessary to “know thyself” cannot come to the aid of the emotions through the establishment of “presence” so gradually become just a reflection of our corrupted egotism, the life of which is dependent on imagination. A person continues objectively on the wheel of samsara in Buddhism or “dust” in Christianity.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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”?
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.
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?
