Intelligence

What is real intelligence? At the risk of seeming facetious, it can be stated that there are two kinds of intelligence: stupid intelligence and intelligent intelligence. The first variety is material, the second spiritual. Sometimes we say that a person is an intelligent driver. This means he knows how to drive a car well. Or a man like Henry Ford takes a few scraps of metal, assembles them and makes a machine that can run down the road. This may be an example of technology and may take some intelligence, but according to the Gita, this is mundane or material intelligence.

So what is real intelligence? Real intelligence is to know and understand that Krishna is the Supreme and I am part and parcel. It is the ability to analyze things in their proper perspective, to understand the finer activities of nature and how things work in nature. A child may be interested simply in the anatomical or the automatic in watching a train run down a track or in watching a baseball player hit a ball, but one who is actually intelligent tries to understand the active principle behind the train and the body. A child thinks that a motor car in the street is running of its own accord, or if he sees a record player he wonders what a fine discovery it is because there is music coming out of it. In the same way the scientists observe nature and wonder how so much is happening, and most often they spend their time observing and describing an infinitude of natural functionings. They may be keen observers like the hawk, but what conclusions do they draw from hundreds and hundreds of years of research? They already admit that despite all their research they have not even scratched the surface in their investigation of natural phenomena. And they will simply go on observing for millions and millions of years. In this way they will compile volumes and volumes of books of observations, but there will be no cohesive vision to unify them. There is a proverb that says, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Mundane scientists, educators and professional men, like the fox, may have billions of scraps of information at their fingertips, but they have no unifying vision like the hedgehog. The hedgehog knows that its quills will protect him against a million foxes, and similarly a man of vision knows that he can withstand countless mundane wranglers. For instance, Lord Jesus Christ was more certain of one thing than anyone in the world. He knew that God the Father was the Supreme and that He was His son and servant. He was not so much interested in the workings of nature, for He knew the principle behind nature and His relationship to it. And because He knew this and could express this and because He sacrificed His life for this, He has influenced the lives of countless millions.

So the gross observation of nature is not intelligence. Simply watching the machine run is not enough. We must try to find out who is working the machine. Philosophers and scientists are not working of their own accord but under the spell of material energy. They are subject to birth, old age, disease and death. They are subject to the functionings of their bodies and are dependent on the resources in nature for their very existence. Everything is being carried on completely independent of them. No man can keep his heart beating after that organ is exhausted. No man can give air to the earth and no man can make the sunrise in the morning or stop it from setting in the evening. All of the workings of nature are conducted by a Force beyond nature, by a Super natural. In the Gita, Krishna asserts this Super natural to be Himself. "This material nature is working under My direction, O son of Kunti producing all the moving and unmoving beings; and by its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again." (Gita, 9.10) Nature, then, is simply the agent. The real worker is Krishna. Therefore one who has real intelligence, real buddhi, knows that he is just an instrument in the hands of Krishna.