Intelligence
Intelligence is what we are, but each at a particular gradient of self-knowledge which determines our perception of reality. As an abstract formation in the mind, intelligence is unable to be defined but is able to be demonstrated as a universal truth in everyone’s experience. This is instinct, the sublime intelligence within the body. Touch a hot surface and, before the mind interprets the situation, the hand instantly pulls away. Instinct governs the survival of the organism and innumerable functions of the body normally imperceptible to the surface mind.
Despite the genius of instinctual intelligence, which is common to all the species, there’s another crucial factor unique to human beings. This is our self-conscious ability to reflect on the past and to know that I, the individual man or woman, exist as a separate body in a divisive world. This is affirmed continually in our daily lives as ‘I’, the index of the world. The I in each individual reaffirms its subjective position through perceiving any objective form. Wherever I arise there’s an object or, put the other way, wherever there’s an object, there I am. But when focused inwardly on nothing, the absence of any object negates the subjective I, and what remains is the purity of space through which God or the spiritual state is realised.
There’s a difference between intelligence and consciousness. This is rarely perceived since the distinction can only be induced through the direct experience of reality. Intelligence precedes consciousness as the reality point of existence which extends as a continuum of both inner and outer realms. Consciousness never enters existence but retains energetically within the psyche the totality of experience of life on earth. Such is the freedom of intelligence that it transcends the parameters of consciousness to a realm even beyond eternity into infinite mind. Intelligence is able to control matter at a distance, even at astronomical distances within the cosmos; but consciousness is powerless as an agency of higher mind without intelligence as its source.
The finest intelligence on earth is love, which influences every aspect of our living life and not just in our personal relationships. Love is a principle of unification which operates within the space of each frame of existence. The purpose of love is to restore the separation of forms of life to their original unity. This includes the formulation of thoughts and words to enable ideas to be expressed with an ever finer degree of clarity and precision. We all have the opportunity to demonstrate by our actions and relationships to those closest to us the virtue of love. Without this restorative energy intelligence wavers under the relentless emotional waves generated by unconscious living.
The earth and external universe mirrors the evolutionary journey of ‘I’ through space and time. The original error was the conceptualising of the pure idea that emerged in the form of human nature, which then became identified with the animal body over time. This created a division between inner and outer realms, and I could no longer perceive my formless reality whence I came. The impulse of intelligence at every level in existence is to realise the source of its inspiration.
The dilemma for anyone spiritually inspired to unite with the source of intelligence is the creative process itself. The relentless pressure to bring the earth idea into existence creates the compulsive drive to validate the objective world. The times are ripe for self-change and transformation – but only for the individual. The massed population, seduced by the technology and events of global magnitude, are too preoccupied with the momentum of change. In everyday life the repetition of experience rolls on as the world at large; but when an individual is gathering power for self-change they are compelled to examine events in the light of their own self-knowledge. The turning point is the reversal of intelligence from an exclusively external identification to an inner focus of perception.
All spiritual or mystical realisations occur when the intelligence reaches a particular pitch consonant with the time gradient reached within the psyche. Through the practice of being present in the senses, the build-up of past is unable to accrue and create emotional blockages in the personal space of the individual. At a certain threshold the speed of intelligence merges with the realm of the unconscious, which is absolutely still and unwavering. The mind stops due to the power of will, which neutralises extraneous effort normally dissipated by undisciplined thinking and outer distractions. The self-conscious element is now transcended leaving pure intelligence as the light of divine being.