Book1

Inspiration 3


The Operation of Intelligence



Summary

The argument then proceeds in the direction of the different forms the intelligence of the Person assumes. There are different perspectives in society that according to the three basic qualities of material nature can be divided in the three departments of tackling systematically with passion, slowness and goodness the problems we have with facts, principles and persons. Dealing with the facts of the dynamic universe we are philosophical and theoretical as also eager for manifestations of proof by scientific verification and reproducability. According to the principles dealing with material slowness we are, to be on top of that and have a grip on it, interested in education and arts for getting the message across by analysis at the one hand and in transcendence for spiritual enlightenment in self-knowledge at the other hand. Then, in the personal department, we have religious interests of exercising respect for the saintly person to achieve social stability and regulate the need for making sacrifices as also have political strategies of fighting problems by representing in commentaries adapted to time and circumstance the diverse personal and material interests of the common people. By those commentaries we arrive at cultural and subcultural stability. Thus we have six perspectives that together form the comprehension of the person. These perspectives constitute six different forms of intelligence operating with many types of logic depending the purposes and points of departure in  each of these six positions. Since the Supreme Person is the comprehension of all intelligence, we thus arrive at a form of gnosis to deal with that integrity of intelligence. This is what in Western terms may be called filognosy, the love for the knowledge of self-realization that in Sanskrit is called atmātattva. This is how we know the intelligence of the Ideal Person. The personal forms assumed by these types of intelligence are discussed in 2.7.

Discussing the integrity of the Person in the sense of the personal, impersonal and local aspect, one may wonder how a normal person of limited abilities has to live with this. The person in the animal kingdom makes a difference as a human being by means of his reason. With the use of reason the person exercises his intelligence and develops vantage points and purposes. That is how he finds meaning in his life. But with evolving these start and end points of his logic he has to make choices. He can only reason or develop knowledge in one specific way by which he makes his life meaningful and earns himself a living. Next to that one way there are also other ways of reasoning of course he just as well could have exercised. He becomes the creator of his own life, but arrives at the shadow of the different views he did not follow. Thus many different kinds of people find their existence whom we in fact all need, in order to know in what kind of completeness of personal integrity we are involved. The completeness of integrity is, as we saw in 1.2, composed of natural qualities like goodness, ignorance and passion. On the basis of these primary qualities the integrity of the natural manifestation moves in evolution towards the integrity of the person, the way a stone is pulled by gravity. We gravitate towards, we are constantly on our way towards, that personal completeness which we then attain by the topography of the person in a material respect in the sense of having an ego, a spirit and a personal soul, the most subtle material self. From there we realize that we have not really attained because we, with the substantiality of the person, did not yet find the ultimate, sustainable immaterial quality of the person of which we know by now that it consists of truth, consciousness and bliss. The ego has to find the truth, the spirit must develop consciousness and the soul longs for its fulfillment in happiness.

Thus we know the person at different levels of realization as being motivated for different purposes and departing from different perspectives. This is the complex of intelligence by which we develop our love for the knowledge of self-realization. That long title of knowing we from now will address with the term 'filognosy'. A discussion like this we call an epistemological discussion. Thus we have arrived at the epistemology of filognosy. How do we develop knowledge, how does our discourse function, how does our intelligence operate in relation to the person? So as to make this complex and abstract subject of discussion simple and comprehensive, we divide matters in portions, in chunks. There is a creative portion dealing with facts, there is a spiritual portion dealing with principles to transcend the facts and there is a conservative portion dealing with the person seeking his stability in that transcendence. That is what we want and need. This is the comprehension of the person we are after, the person as constituted by facts, by principles and indeed by his own integrity and by other persons. Simply stated, we live by facts, principles and the person. To each of these three basic filognostic categories we then apply a basic duality, the duality we derive from our previous notion of integrity. This we do because of the question wether it is - or wether we are - something we see manifested or something we have in mind as that what has not manifested yet.
Thus we first have a consideration of facts and perspectives that has not yet manifested as a culture. This department of filognosy, this perspective of intelligence we call philosophy. Philosophy, the love for sophisticated mindfulness, means on the level of reason that we operate methodically. We doubt, divide, order and make complete. We work step by step. We study, conjecture, we do not jump to conclusions, we investigate, explore and reflect upon regularities and possible causalities. We question standards and values, the status quo and the revolution, what is good and what would be bad. That is vision number one, a type of intelligence, outlook or way of reasoning that comes first. Simply stated, we better think thoroughly before we act to the facts we think to know.
The second department concerns the facts we have ascertained as being objective. One may theorize a lot in philosophy, but sooner or later we have to check our suppositions as for their veracity. We wonder whether we are illusional, for we do not want to end up in a world of dreams losing touch with reality. Illusion is a kind of enemy we always fight. Thus we strive for sameness or oneness of consciousness, so that we at least are sure of the facts we are talking about. Inside and outside must be the same world, no endless arguing anymore in philosophical speculations, however methodically practiced. This process of making sure is called empirical verification. This is most essential for the integrity of the person, even though we with our factual interest seem to be running after impersonal facts now. Personal facts upon checking reality turn out to be very unsure, unstable and difficult to verify consistently after all. And people respond to your investigative mind too, so that one easily checks one's own influence. In order not to end up in self-reference, we tend to stick to ideals or simply to material matters. Just to be sure, just to begin with. Thus science is vision number two, an essential operation of our intelligence to make sure we are free from illusion.
The third perspective we now arrive at is more of an art. Being done with the factuality of life, we in our quest for the integrity of the person arrive at a central notion of finding - or building - a bridge to reach the other. In search of the person we look first of all for others. Our lonely self we know, in a way. That other person, a child we beget e.g., needs to be informed and educated, otherwise we cannot communicate. So we exhaust ourselves in explanations, teachings, lessons and schools of thought. The facts may be clear, but how to deal with the principles of education, especially when this child grows up. For once grown up we are hard to educate. Children one may tutor directly, but adults demand certainty and expertise if they ever would anyone allow to tell them anything at all. So when adults seek education they use a medium, usually books. These books offer stories like this one and make use of exactly this operation of arriving at divisions, of chunking that is a fundamental characteristic of all teachings. Matters are divided in portions that cover the complete so that we may arrive at comprehension. This department of filognosy is concerned with analysis. Also the arts responsible for making books, movies, paintings etc. are concerned, nay obsessed, with this analytic interest. How to catch everything in one picture, one story, one gesture, one word even….?

The unseen part, the non-manifest part of this department is called transcendence. The self rising above the objective world in order to have an overview of the one picture presented in teachings by parents, school teachers, professors, priests, gurus and/or by artists, is the essence of the spiritual position. That is how one finds peace with the material world, at the same time being engaged and receptive. In analysis we managed to preserve our ability to learn - through media -, in transcendence we manage to achieve a position of peace that might open the door to attain the personal integrity of love and happiness we are after. This department leaning so heavily upon principles of education and transcendence constitutes the central position of filognosy in between the personal and impersonal position. This spirituality is the stepping stone for arriving at the personal integrity we discussed previously. Its method consists of meditation.
The next perspective to arrive at the completeness of our filognosy, the love for the knowledge of self-realization, is the manifest portion of the personal department. The organized respect for the person makes demands for that person. That person is supposed to reflect our ideals, he - or she - is supposed to be perfect, pure, holy, exemplary and effective. He cannot be a loser, he cannot be a dictator. He has to be a father of goodness, a brother and a lover at the same time. This type of objective person is the object of, the leader of, the holy example, icon and idol of religious ceremonies. Without mentioning names here we may remember that some analytical western perspective warns for ego. Focussing on one objective person one tends to be less intelligent missing the other person of importance who is just as sacred, divine, holy and exemplary. Some religions propose the unseen person in the beyond, others propose the many different manifestations of that one person and speak of many gods, devotees, or demigods and/or incarnations of a Supreme Personality. As said, it is difficult to be sure of the person and usually one is more fixed on a traditional notion of the Person than on that other person one is oneself in the first place. But with all its problems religion certainly constitutes an important perspective of human intelligence. That is how large communities unite and find peace and order with a certain set of principles of conduct and fundamental values of virtue. Despite of the risk of running into superego troubles, with cultural clashes and confusing and conflicting confrontations, far more dangerous and destructive than individual ego problems, we absolutely need this manifest concept of the person to motivate our intelligence for a better life and better culture of respect. The exercise of respect after all is the essence of this perspective.
Last but not least we have the person inside that is not so clearly manifested. That person inside also wants to be respected just like the holy and heroic examples. That person also wants to speak and explain, to express and enjoy, to take responsibility and arrive at a complete expression of his talents, intelligence, power, wealth, fame and riches. The person one is oneself seems to be the final purpose of realization. But one cannot and must not forget the previous perspectives. Impersonal clarity is a goal as good, as valuable and valid as personal fulfillment, not mentioning a perfect in-between of spirituality. The saintly personality of example of the religious department is just as well present inside oneself as outside oneself. The true spiritual leader is the one objectively the same inside and outside. Normal people suffer a difference. One is easily a fool outside, being a god inside. To manifest that god inside is next to impossible. One cannot perform miracles, know everything and be outside and inside at the same time everywhere. These kinds of demands we can never meet and thus we are doomed to be frustrated in this. One has to cooperate with the Person to become a person. And one has to do one's best to meet all the demands of intelligence, to be a full person in all the six perspectives of filognosy mentioned, however impossible that might seem. It is the challenge of filognosy. When things go wrong in this department we speak of politics, politicians and political parties, for the person outside must be appeased to live peacefully inside again, but when things go right we speak of self-realization and of unity in diversity.

The purpose of the full spectrum of this human intelligence is not to rule the world, acquire all wealth and be the most famous person. That is how one becomes desperate. The purpose on the contrary is to arrive at a full realization of one's original position of service in relating to the Supreme Person, the Ideal person inside and outside. It is not the purpose to deny science in favor of religion or the other way around. It is not the purpose to disappear in transcendence or become the absolute teacher or artist of the analytic expression. It is not the purpose to make one religion the ruling one over all the others - which means war generally - for religions are all chapters in the same book of history. It is not the purpose to found the ultimate political party that will rule the world for ever and ever in control of all opulence. It is the purpose to solve the problems of philosophy and science, of getting the message across and arise above matters of ego and material consequence. It is the purpose to be an associate of the manifest Person we can never fully be and it is the purpose to be a responsible representative in delivering comments, final statements that make peace and lead modern democracy away from opposing, warmongering political parties with double agendas in denial of human rights. The purpose of rule is a democracy moving towards a proper, more mature division of popular representations in the sense of professional duties and age groups that absolutely need each other and cannot repress each other. For that is our identity as human beings: we are different by the spiritual department of our experience and/or age group and by the inevitable differences in the type of our occupational service. To know this integrity and operation of human intelligence free from the fear and misery of ego, superego, class and caste, is the purpose of our filognosy. This is how we attain the Person of truth, consciousness and happiness in moving beyond ego, spirit and soul; and by all logic of our operating intelligence one may not find another one than the One Person Complete.

Source for this Inspiration:
S.B. Canto 1, Chapter 3






The Person

De Persoon

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