ON THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE

THINK DIFFERENT PART II
Can We Become Smarter?


There are twelve days to go in our 49-day journey between Passover and Shavuot, when we recreate the journey of the Jewish people 3319 year ago, as they left Egypt on their way to Sinai. At Sinai we were empowered with the ability to expand our limited channels of human consciousness and access higher states of consciousness, reaching into the collective unconscious and into the Divine Source of all reality.

As we get closer to recreating the Sinai experience during the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, we will now explore, in this second of a two-part article, the two ways that allow us to enter into the collective unconsciousness, as discussed in Samach-Vav. Click here for part I.

Last week we discussed the nature of human intellect: Like water dripping from a faucet, the unconscious mind releases, drop by drop, ideas into the conscious mind.

The question is whether we are simply passive recipients of the output of the dripping valve of insight? Can we facilitate the inspirational process? Can we expand the channels and open the valve wider to access more of the collective unconscious?

Based on the statement in the Ethics of the Fathers, “turn it and turn it for everything is in it,” Samach-Vav explains that there are two primary ways to twist and extract deeper levels of the unconscious and expand the channels of consciousness: The first “turn it” is through exertion. The second and even deeper “turn it” is through humility.

Let us now explore these two methods.

Every mind has a certain defined capacity to understand ideas, comprehend concepts and to process and assimilate information. Each mind has its own unique “personality” – shaped by many factors, including genes, education, social and cultural influences.

In psycho-spiritual terms: Every individual mind receives its own particular flow (unique both in quantity and quality) from the “source of wisdom,” the collective unconscious. For some, ideas flow easily; others are not innovators, but excel at developing pre-existing ideas. Some minds are analytical, others instinctive, some have quick minds, others may be slower by more thorough. We have minds that are, deep, broad, creative, visionary, abstract, theoretical and practical. The list goes on.

But all these distinctions are based on the mind’s natural (and nurtured) capacity. Animals, for instance, don’t have the ability to go beyond their natural, inherent instincts. How about humans?

We have the power to transcend our natural boundaries; to stretch our minds and intellectual horizons, not just quantitatively but qualitatively. We do so through two ways.

The first is exertion. Exertion is the difficult process of straining and pushing the mind beyond its natural limits. As Edison said, “invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

By exercising your muscles you not only loosen them up, you develop and expand their possibilities. The same with exercising the mind: Through deep concentration and mental strain, you force open and widen the channels that allow more of the unconscious to flow into your consciousness.

Think of the unconscious as a state of being encased inside an impenetrable, rock-like container. The only way in is to apply strong pressure, to break open the “box” and access what is within. Like pressing an olive or a grape, exertion is necessary to force out the juices locked within.

A good mind, with its own natural ability and no extra effort, can only access the stream of knowledge and inspiration which naturally flows from the unconscious source of wisdom, moderated by the “valve” that controls the flow. The best mind will not reach its ultimate potential without exertion. By pushing your mind, in the vigorous effort of struggling with a concept beyond you, studying it from different angles, challenging the idea with questions and counter questions, weighing all the arguments and counter-arguments – by experiencing the deep frustration and chaos in the process of researching a complex problem – all this hard effort stretches the boundaries and expands the channels, opening the valve wider to access the unconscious source of wisdom, allowing in new depths of understanding into your consciousness. The crystallization of a concept is in direct proportion to the amount of exertion applied to comprehend the thought.

We thus have two forms of comprehension: Wisdom that comes naturally without exertion, and wisdom that comes through exertion. Even though both types of understanding are rooted in the unconscious mind, nevertheless they express two different dimensions of the concealed unconscious. An example of the two is the difference between a white-hot coal and a flint stone. The fire in the coal is hidden, but it exists in the coal. All you need to do is fan the coal and the flame will emerge. In a flint stone no physical fire exists. However by striking it with force, you can release its spark. Because the fire in the coal has substance, it also is limited and finite: At some point the coal will burn out. By contrast the flint stone, not having a flame of substance, can be struck again and again and continuously release sparks.

The way to tap the unlimited reservoirs of intellectual energy within the “undefined unconscious” is through pressure and force (as one strikes the flint stone) – the intellectual exertion applied to comprehend the ideas. The deeper the questions and contradictions, all the more refined and clearer is the resulting comprehension. The more intense the challenge and force applied, the more profound are the ideas that come flowing out of the “hidden essence” (“helem ha’atzmi”).

However, as deep as mental exertion may reach, it ultimately has its limits.

A second, more powerful, method to enter into the unconscious and beyond is called humility.
Humility is the process of getting your ego-consciousness out of the way, thus allowing in the higher state of unconsciousness and reaching the ultimate truth.

A fascinating Talmud captures the power of humility in the intellectual pursuit: Three years the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel disputed… Finally a heavenly voice was heard to the effect that both schools expressed the words of the living G-d, but Halacha (the final ruling) prevails according to the school of Hillel. Now if it be true that both schools expressed the words of the living G-d, why should the school of Hillel be thus favored? Because the members of the school of Hillel were modest and patient, and would always repeat the words of the school of Shammai. Moreover, they also always gave the school of Shammai precedence when citing their teachings… From this we learn, that everyone who makes himself humble is raised up by G-d, and one who is arrogant is humbled by G-d. He who pursues greatness, the greatness eludes him, and he who avoids greatness is sought by greatness (Eruvin 13b).

Modesty is a very powerful virtue. But why is it the factor that determines the law? It would seem that the final ruling should follow the scholar with the better arguments and sharper mind, not necessarily the humbler one?

To answer this important question, we must return to the definition of wisdom. What is ultimate wisdom? If true wisdom is only mind based – defined by knowledge and understanding, than of course we would follow the conclusions of the person with the greatest brain power. The true definition of wisdom, however, is something far greater than the mind alone; it is the search for truth. And in the search for truth we need more than a good brain.

How does one find truth? Truth can only be found through objectivity. The greatest mind, biased and subjective, will not find truth. “Bias blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts the tongue of the righteous.” On the contrary: the better the mind, the more biased it can become, and the better it hides its tracks, creatively finding every argument to justify its biased position.

Humility is the key ingredient to reach an objective result. The school of Shammai may have been brighter, sharper, presenting better arguments. But the school of Hillel was humbler, “modest and patient,” and therefore could be trusted more to arrive at an objective conclusion.

Both schools taught the “words of the living G-d,” as in the name Elokim, both expressed Divine truths and revelations. But only the humbler one was able to reach the Divine Essence.

But didn’t the school of Shammai also exert themselves in their academic pursuits, thus reaching beyond their natural intellectual abilities? Indeed they did. However,
exertion produced by human effort, driven by the pleasure of the intellectual pursuit for clarity, will only go as far as the pleasure desires, not more. The revealed wisdom will be in direct proportion to the exertion applied. As a product, after all, of human effort, the exertion can only be a strong as the person himself.

But when the exertion is driven by humility – the profound awe of the Divine that motivates the student to discover the ultimate truth – it is not limited by human effort alone; it actually transforms the student into a channel for a higher wisdom, allowing him to become an extension of higher truth, drawing down a entire new dimensions of creativity and wisdom.

Mental exertion alone expands the horizons of wisdom, but it still remains an extension of human effort: It is you, the person, who understands a truth outside of yourself. Exertion out of humility essentially sublimates the student into nothing more than a channel for higher wisdom.

In other words, exertion alone expands our channels of consciousness, and allows us to reach into the unconscious mind – the essential source of wisdom (the hidden “ayin” of chochma). It only has the power to actualize the potential hidden unconscious wisdom, but it cannot create new creative paradigms of revelation. Exertion out of humility reaches into the unconscious essence itself (the essential “ayin” of keter), beyond the “reservoir” of the unconscious mind, allowing you to generate entirely new paradigms of thought.

Humility, and the sensitivity it brings, gets your ego-consciousness out of the way, and allows you to access the most profound truths. It allows you to recognize that
Wisdom is not about you; it’s about the idea. It’s not your truth, but global truth.

True wisdom – the pursuit of truth – is also universal. If it’s true only under certain conditions and not others, then it is not true at all. Wisdom alone, without humility, can be compartmentalized, and thus limiting its ultimate truth. When you get out of the way and access truth, that truth will permeate you entire being – it will not just be preached but also practiced.

When asked how he, as a professor of ethics, could behave unethically, Bertrand Russell once said, “I am also a teacher of mathematics and I am not a triangle.” Academics often take pride in their detachment: “I can be completely knowledgeable of a given topic and it does not affect my behavior.” Contrast this attitude with Maimonides’ words, that a true scholar is recognized in his actions: how he talks, walks, sleeps and does business. A seamless flow between knowledge and behavior.
To have knowledge affect you this way requires bittul - total immersion in the pure waters of knowledge. True knowledge is not about you, it’s not about being smart, it’s about the Divine truth of the knowledge and your humble recognition that you are a transparent channel for this knowledge.

Without humility this level of wisdom – channeling a seamless truth – is impossible to reach. Because the mind, the best mind, is still only a mind, which does not encompass all of existence. Every entity can never free itself from its own boundaries, as Einstein said, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” However, through exertion (pushing yourself beyond your conventional boundaries), and even more so through humility, you step outside of yourself, your mind, your ego, your whole being – and once we step out of the problem we can solve it. Or better put, once we get our own egos out of the way through humility, the higher truth will emerge through our beings.

As we prepare to recreate Sinai during the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, we are struck by the fact that their preparation to receive the Torah was not through diligent study. It was through personal refinement.

Why would personal behavior be the ultimate way to prepare to receive the wisdom of Torah? Because ultimate wisdom is about discovering – and experiencing – ultimate truth, and ultimate truth is not about being smart; it’s about being refined – about a truth that encompasses your entire being and transforms your entire person.

Compartmentalized truth can hardly be called truth. Truth in the mind is not a complete truth. Truth is a full experience.

By humbly refining yourself you become a container that can experience Sinai. Indeed, the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai – the lowest of all the surrounding mountains – to teach us that humility is the key to wisdom.

These two elements – exertion and humility – are also hinted to in this week’s Torah portion, always read right before Shavuot: “If you follow [walk in] My statutes and observe My commandments, and do them, I will provide you with rain at the right time, so that the land will bear its crops and the trees of the field will provide fruit.”

Rashi explains that “follow My statutes” means to toil in the study of Torah, to exert yourself and vigorously “walk” into the inner recesses of wisdom.

“Observe My commandments” refers to the humility in study which brings one to apply the teachings in action, “and do them.”

As we approach Sinai we learn the secret of intelligence from Sinai (“Moses received the Torah from Sinai”): “Turn it and turn it” we are told. We must always “comb” wisdom, never suffice with our natural faculties, but always go beyond ourselves.

The key to intelligence is: “Turn it” – through mental exertion, and “turn it” again through humility.

IN COOL PURSUIT

“You shall flee with no-one in pursuit” (Lev.26.17)


This is one of the curses listed in our Parsha.

Is it really a bad thing that no-one is chasing after us?
We may be running away from our own selves, from the harm of a lack of harmony within ourselves.

We are told to be of the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace. It is the norm that we should love to be at peace with ourselves - it may be attained if we pursue it.

Running is a good exercise provided that it is not from but to.

THINK DIFFERENT

THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE



We are now in a special 49-day period, recreating the journey of the Jewish people 3319 year ago, as they left Egypt on their way to Sinai. At Sinai – the greatest event in history – we received the Torah: A blueprint for life, which manifests the Divine wisdom and will, teaching us how to broaden our horizons and unite our lives with the immortal.

Accordingly, the Samach-Vav discourses delivered a century ago, address how the in depth study of Torah expands our minds and connects us with the deepest levels of the Divine.

In the coming weeks, as we prepare to relive Sinai on the holiday of Shavuot (three weeks from now), this column will focus on the nature of intelligence, the nature of the human experience as a whole, and how we can expand its boundaries. This week’s column is the first of a two-part series.

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What is the secret to intelligence? Is it smart genes, hard work, experience, literacy, maturity or something else?

Wisdom is obviously shaped by many factors. It’s not enough, for instance, to be born with a good mind if the mind is not used. Laziness can undermine the benefits of brain power. A weaker mind that exerts itself can surpass a languid brilliant mind.

A mind must also be cultivated and nourished through education and scholarship; sharpened through challenges. Finally, experience is the ultimate teacher.

But what is the true nature of intelligence? How much is hereditary and how much is acquired? How exactly does education and experience affect the mind? And above all: Is there a way to become more intelligent? Can wisdom be nurtured? Study and scholarship broaden your knowledge base quantitatively. But is there a way to qualitatively enhance brain power, to sharpen your mind and think differently, to open the minds creative channels?

In discussing the nature of intelligence we also must define what “smart” means. “Book smart” is not the same thing as “street smart.” We find geniuses with the highest IQ’s but no common sense. Conversely, some people are very intuitive and have, what author Daniel Goleman has coined, “emotional intelligence,” though they may be academically challenged. Intelligence, some argue, is also related to language. A great mind will be compromised without adequate tools to express itself. Some people may be highly intelligent, yet due to shyness or even a handicap their abilities can be severely limited.

Our discussion today concerns balanced intelligence. Not extreme in one way or another, but a synthesis of knowledge, methodology and common sense. The overall wise man or woman, who has a good mix of all the features of intelligence: Information, intuition, brainpower and practicality.

Is there anything we can do to become more intelligent? Not more knowledgeable, which comes from reading and scholarship, but the intelligence how to use your knowledge in productive ways?

To answer the question requires a review of how the mind works. Where do ideas come from? You’re standing in the shower or strolling down the street, and suddenly ideas pop into your mind. Where do they originate from?

Try to trace an idea to its source. You’ll come to a dead end. Before the split second, moment, that the idea fell into your consciousness, you can never remember the moment before you became conscious of the idea. Why? Because memory can only recall conscious thoughts, not the unconscious state that precedes it.

No wonder ideas are compared to flashing light bulbs. Seemingly out of nowhere a new idea flashes into your mind like a light bulb bursting on when you hit the switch.

So where do new ideas come from? What creates these flashes?

Kabbalah maps out the mind in the following fashion: The conscious mind, which consists of three stages: first an idea (chochma), then its development (binah), finally its conclusion (daat), originates from an unconscious state of hidden wisdom. This hidden state – the collective unconscious – is like a reservoir of water, a quantum-like state which contains the potential, and has the power to generate, an infinite amount of wisdom.

The cognitive process, thus, works likes this: The unconscious mind releases, drop by drop, ideas into the conscious mind. An idea therefore feels like a flash – a spark being released from a larger flame. Our conscious mind feels as if the idea came from nowhere – from “thin air.” In truth, it is being released from a body of unconscious wisdom that contains the potential for infinite ideas, which allows us mere drops from its wide ocean.

In between the unconscious “reservoir” and the “conscious” thoughts a “faucet-like” force – a type of filter – regulates the flow from the unlimited source to the limited containers. Should the “faucet” break down and stop controlling the flow of thoughts from the unconscious to the conscious, the conscious mind would become flooded to the point of causing madness. Which explains the thin line between madness and genius: Genius is a “faucet” open to capacity, allowing in a steady flow of imagination, bordering on the edge of being flooded. Should the flow intensify just a bit more, the mind would go mad, overwhelmed by the deluge of ideas as they come pouring into the conscious mind without a chance to be absorbed and compartmentalized.

According to this theory of consciousness, the entire concept of human awareness is turned on its head: Ostensibly one would argue that madness is being out of touch with reality, while sober consciousness is being in touch. The truth, however, is the other way around: Not only is sanity a limited state of awareness, it actually is a form of blindness. Should we be completely aware of the truths of the collective unconscious we would be unable to contain them. The only way for us to remain intact is through limiting and filtering the flow, allowing us to experience only a drop at a time, like raindrops that fall slowly so that they can be absorbed by the earth, instead of flooding it. Insanity, in a fascinating ironic twist, is actually closer to reality than sanity.

Yet, for us to survive and function “normally” in our defined and narrow world, the essential truth must be suppressed and filtered; our perception must be limited, our vision myopic, lest the pure awareness overload our circuits.

William Blake, who was deeply influenced by the Bible and mysticism, described it well: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”

However, our perception is not locked in an airtight chamber. We have many reminders that offer us a glimpse into a higher state of being. There are doors and channels that connect us with the hidden unconscious.

Intelligence – and for that matter, the entire human journey – is about recognizing our limited perception and reaching, yearning for transcendence, to expand our horizons, see beyond and experience the infinite.

Intelligence is not merely the ability to understand that which is obvious – that does not require any special level of wisdom. Rather, intelligence is defined by its capacity to recognize and perceive that which is invisible to the naked eye, to go beyond the doors of perception and access the inner states of reality, to expand and broaden the channels (“faucet”) that connect the unconscious and the conscious.

Someone born with natural intelligence has broad containers and an “open faucet,” that allows in an ample flow of ideas and creativity. (Obviously, there are many variations of intelligence; a wide array of “smarts”). But, even a great mind, deprived of effort and nourishment, will stagnate and atrophy. A mind must be fed – with knowledge, education and inspiration. A mind must be exercised – challenged, pushed and cajoled.

So how do we open or expand these channels? How can we reach deeper into the subterranean caverns of the unconscious and draw its power into our consciousness?

The most obvious way, most of us would reply, is through education and scholarship. By acquiring knowledge, through reading, listening, probing, we expand our minds and broaden our horizons.

But upon further thought is this really true? Acquiring new information, even profound and radical ideas, only expands our minds quantitatively. Our consciousness has not shifted to another dimension of understanding. We begin our lives with a very limited scope; as we integrate more information, our perspectives broaden. Qualitatively, however, nothing has necessarily really changed. Our perception may still be just as limited, albeit wider but not deeper.

What allows some people to actually “think out of the box” and discover a qualitative paradigm shift – new dimensions of experience? How do we become lateral thinkers instead of vertical ones? Solving a problem requires stepping outside of the problem, as Einstein said, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created” (or “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”). But how do we step outside of the problem, when we (and our existence) are so much part of it?

How do we access our imagination, which is “more important than knowledge” (as Einstein also said)?

Based on the statement in the Ethics of the Fathers, “turn it and turn it for everything is in it,” Samach-Vav explains that there are two primary ways to “turn it” (hence the double “turn it and turn it”) – to twist and extract deeper levels of the unconscious and expand the channels of consciousness:

The first “turn it” is through exertion. The second and even deeper “turn it” is through humility.