Intelligence: A Gate to Self

All that intelligence is an openness of being, it is the ability to observe without bias, to listen without interruption, and to be with things without preconceived notions about them. Being open-minded is a sign of intelligence. It differs so completely from intellectuality because of this. Simply said, intellectuality is the antithesis of intelligence. An intellectual is someone who is always carrying information, knowledge, and preconceived notions. He can't listen; he's already made up his mind before you say anything.

Anything you say has to make its way through so many different ideas in his head that by the time it gets to him, it has changed completely. He experiences extreme distortion, becoming very walled off and nearly deaf and blind. Everyone who is knowledgeable and an expert is blind.

 Are you familiar with the traditional tale of the five blind people who saw an elephant?

This old tale was being told to the young boys and girls by their instructor. "Can you tell me who the people were who went to see the elephant and then started quarrelling?" the mother questioned a small kid after telling him the entire story. When she was telling the story to the boy, she wanted to know if he had paid attention. "Yeah, I know," the child answered as he got to his feet. They were the knowledgeable ones." She assumed he would say something like, "They were five blind people." However, the young child remarked, "Those were the experts." Yes, they were experts; he couldn't be more correct.

Experts are all blind. When you become an expert, you lose sight of everything else. You eventually reach the aim of knowing everything about nothing by learning more and more about ever decreasing amounts of subjects. You have become windowless at that point, when every single one of your windows is closed and entirely closed.

This lacks intelligence.

Being open to the sun, wind, and rain is what it means to be intelligent. Intelligence is the ability to let go of the past, to die to the past every moment, and to stay young and naïve.

However, no one is prepared to hear what the other has to say. Ever paid attention to what the other person was saying? You conclude before you even say another word. You are no longer fluid; your conclusions have solidified. 

To stay liquid is to be intelligent; to become frozen is to become stupid. The flow of intelligence is constant, like a river. An unintelligent person is like an ice cube. Since intelligibility is frozen, it is constant. It is unquestionable and certain. Though it flows, intelligence is not constant.

It has no definition; it just moves in response to circumstances. Though inconsistent, it is responsible. People who are consistent are only the foolish ones. You will be more erratic the smarter you are since you never know what the future holds. There will be new adventures tomorrow. What can you do to maintain consistency with yesterdays? You'll be perfectly consistent if you're dead. 

You must be inconsistent to be alive because you have evolved, the environment has changed, and the river is now flowing into new areas. The river is flowing through a forest now, whereas it was flowing through a desert yesterday. You shouldn't live by the experiences of yesterday; else, you would have passed away yesterday. With time, one ought to be able to continue moving. One should never turn into a thing; one should always be a process. That's intelligence.

Picture Courtesy: Photographs used in this blog are paintings by Rudradev Sen.

Breathing in Third Sheath and Beyond

 

We can know the third body if we become conscious of and a witness to the second body, which is breathing as the liking and disliking. The astral body is the third. The astral body has "magnetic forces”, just like the etheric body's "influences".  Its breath is its magnetism. We can be strong for a while and then helpless; optimistic for a while and then pessimistic; confident for a while and then completely lose confidence. It is a magnetism that is drawn to us and drawn away from us. In certain situations, we can overcome even the Supreme, while in other situations, we fear even a small shadow.

We are great when the magnetic force is within us or is entering us; when it leaves us, we are just insignificant. And like day and night, this is alternating back and forth; the wheel revolves, the circle revolves. Thus, even the most coward individual has moments of bravery and even the strongest warrior has his moments of impotence.

Following this phenomenon in our third body, there is a way in Judo to recognize when someone is helpless, that is the right time to hit him. When he is strong, one will inevitably lose, therefore one must sense when his magnetic energy is waning and strike him then. The opponent should also be provoked to attack when one’s own magnetic energy is rising. This can be easily understood by simply watching the movements of breath. The technique is not a magic but just a minute observation of one’s breath.

The third body resides in a magnetic sphere. We are breathing in and out of magnetic forces, which are present everywhere. However, we are neither strong nor weak if we realize this incoming and outgoing magnetic force. We go beyond them. Then there is the fourth body, the mental body, which consists of thought drawing in and thought pulling out. However, there are also similarities between "thought going out" and "thought coming in". Original thought can only arise when it occurs to us while we are inhaling. Exhaling is a sign of impotence because it prevents us from thinking of anything creative. Birth of an original thought can even cease breath for a while, it’s a natural consequence.

Nothing is born in the outgoing thought. It's just dead. However, we can recognize the fifth body if we learn to recognize the thoughts that enter and leave our mind. Things are not too difficult to understand up to the fourth body because we have some experience that can serve as a foundation for understanding them. After the fourth, things get weird, but even then, something makes sense. We will gain a deeper understanding of it once we transcend the fourth body.

Just as thought, breath, magnetic force, love, and hatred are the atmospheres for the lower bodies, life is the atmosphere for the fifth body.

The atmosphere is life itself for the fifth body. Thus, the fifth represents a moment of life entering and leaving, respectively. We can realize that life is something outside of ourselves with the fifth. It enters our body and exits it. Life itself enters and exits our body like breath; it is not in us always. Because of the fifth body, breath and prana have come to be synonymous. In the fifth body, prana has an important meaning. Here prana comes in and go out. Our fear of dying actually comes from our fifth layer. We know the event is waiting for us in some corner of life. But if we realize the fifth layer breathing, we understand that death is a process that happens every moment, it is not an event to happen in future. It is happening right now to us. Knowing this, the fear evaporates.

Life and death are only breaths to the fifth body, coming in and passing out, as we realize this when we reach the fifth body. And once we realize this, we realize that we cannot pass away because neither life nor death are natural occurrences. We experience both life and death as external realities. We are beyond both the living and the dead, yet we have never existed permanently either way.

In sixth body, realization of breathing becomes much more subtle. The very existence of our ego disappears after the fifth. Ego vanishes, and we unite with everything in this cosmos. Now, since the ego is not, it is not ours that enters and exits, the cosmic breathing is realized in this stage. Everything turns cosmic, and as a result, the polarity manifests as creation (Srishti) and destruction (Pralaya). The atmosphere is "the creative force and the destructive force" in the sixth layer.

Picture Courtesy: Photographs used in this blog are paintings by Rudradev Sen.

Witness is beyond Life and Death

If one simply observes inhalation and exhalation, it leads to a famous meditation technique, “Anapanasati”, taught by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.

Buddha is not a person, rather it is the formless pure existence of highest human evaluation realized by Gautama, and many more.

Simply observe, starting with the physical body. Since the other six bodies will eventually show up on their own, they are not discussed in Anapanasati.  We will become increasingly conscious of the second body the more we get to know this polarity—this simultaneous birth and death, this simultaneous dying and living. Thus, the Buddha advises, have indifference (upeksha) toward hatred. Show no emotion at all. Be unaffected by feelings of love or hatred. Additionally, avoid being attached to somebody because doing so will affect the other pole. We'll then be experiencing a "dis-ease." There will be illness, and we won't feel comfortable. 

Buddha states: "The coming of the beloved one is welcomed, but the going of the beloved one is wept over. It is a terrible thing to meet someone disgusting, and it is a happy thing to see someone repulsive go. However, if you continue to split yourself into these opposites, you will end up living in hell."

Simply observing these polarities leads one to conclude that one is a product of nature. It is inherent to the physically seen "body", which is one of the seven bodies.

This is the reason the body exists; without it, it could not." And you transcend the body the instant you realize it. We become conscious of the second body when we transcend our first one. We become conscious of the third body when we can transcend the second one.

Witnessing is never limited to life or death. It is beyond. The inhalation and exhalation are two distinct entities, and if we identify as a witness, we cease to be either of them. After that, a third force emerged. We are no longer the bodily embodiments of prana; rather, we are prana, the observer. We can now understand that life is a physical manifestation of this polarity, and that life cannot exist if this polarity ceases to exist. It requires tension to exist—the ongoing tension of arrival and departure, the ongoing tension of birth and death. This is the reason it exists. It exists because it constantly shifts between the two poles. 

"Love and hate" are the fundamental polarities in the second body. It takes many different forms. This like and disliking is the fundamental polarity, and it changes every time we are liking something or dislike something. However, we never witness it. We are only deceiving ourselves twice if we ignore our dislike when it turns into something we don't like and keep telling ourselves that we will always like the same things. When we don't like something, we keep disliking it and never let ourselves recognize the times have have enjoyed it.

We repress our hatred of our friends and our love for our adversaries.

In the second body, the vital force takes the form of like and dislike. However, it is the same as breath: nothing changes. Here, influence serves as the medium, just as air does in the physical body. The second body is immersed in a complex environment. It's not as easy as meeting someone and instantly become fond of them. It won't matter; the likes and dislikes will keep alternating all the time. The etheric body's breath is this polarity, which gives it existence. We can merely laugh if we happen to witness it. Then neither an enemy nor a friend exist. After that, we realize it's just a natural occurrence.

Picture Courtesy: Photographs used in this blog are paintings by Rudradev Sen.