Intelligence

The word ‘intelligence’ is normally attributed to the logical capability of mind in general sense. The same word is also used in spiritual sense. In spiritual sense, the word Intelligence is having an entirely different meaning. It may not connect with the general meaning attributed to this word.

Any thing in this existence is having its own intelligence. The ‘thing’ may be at sub atomic level, at atomic level, at molecular level, at living being level, at planet level, at galaxy level or at any other higher unit available. Understanding intelligence in this context may be a tough task. Intelligence may be the ability to maintain integrity of object under question. The intelligence of an atom is to hold its building blocks at its correct position and hence maintain its integrity as an atom – proton, neutron, positron… and such particles at its nucleus and the electrons at their respective orbits. The atom as a unit uses its intelligence to keep the sub atomic particles at their location and letting/making them to do their function, for example, electrons to revolve around the nucleus at specified orbits, at specified directions. It is the intelligence of atom, maintains its integrity.

We know molecules are the combination of two or more atoms. Now molecules have additional intelligence – to keep the constituent atoms together and function with a different quality than that of its constituents. This additional intelligence must be the result of the integration of intelligence of constituent atoms. In other words, the intelligence of molecule is the result of combination of the intelligence of constituent atoms, which may be entirely different from that of the constituents.

What is a living being? How is it different from non-living being? How a living being-gains its intelligence? And what is the intelligence of a living being? Possibly, these might be the basic question we all might had at one or the other point of time in our life, but we might have buried them deep within our mind due to many reasons which may be unique to every one of us. If we choose to be turning inwards at any point of time in our life, for sure, these questions surface again on the peripheral of our mind. We must find an answer – the answer, for sure, depend on our knowledge at that point of time. Our knowledge is limited and hence the answer we get also will have its own limitation. We must be aware of this limitation, when we carry on further with this answer – if not, the turning inward may become turning towards illusions.

A living being is one, which forms itself from its constituting components, grow and sustain it self by consuming energy from outside, create conditions for procreation and finally disintegrate itself. The observable fact in general are that ‘it consumes energy and grows itself’, ‘it procreates’ and ‘it disintegrate itself’, which are seems to be the differentiators of living beings with non-living beings.

A living being is constituted of certain combination of molecules, so that the resultant intelligence is capable of consuming energy, use that energy for growing and procreation, and die out after that particular intelligence disappear. The level of intelligence may be more and more when the living entity goes up and up in the evolution ladder. We, human being are at the top of this evolution ladder (may be with in earth) and hence the top of intelligence. This intelligence may be the capability of being aware of our own intelligence. There are possibilities that the animals just below us in the evolution ladder may be having the capability of being aware of certain part of their own intelligence (just a possibility), but we have the ability to be aware of our complete intelligence. The awareness of our own intelligence may be termed as ‘Knowledge’ in spiritual context.
How this intelligence is built into our system? Our body is constituted by various combinations of cells. These cells are constituted by certain combination of molecules. Hence the cells must be having certain intelligence based on the intelligence of constituting molecules. Finally we get our intelligence from the resultant intelligence of the combination of individual intelligence of all the cells in our body. We never attribute our intelligence to the cells of our body, but we claim the resultant intelligence is ours.

If we move a step further, society is the next level of individual human beings. We, a group of human being together form a society. A society is an entity. Hence, the society must also have intelligence. The intelligence of society is nothing but the result of interaction happen with the intelligence of constituents of that society. That is, the result of integration of intelligence of us constitutes the intelligence of society. Coming back to the definition of intelligence, the society has the ability to maintain integrity of it based on the intelligence of us – we are constituent of society. It is like the intelligence of cells in our body together constitutes our intelligence. When our intelligence is not utilised/exposed/used at individual level, the intelligence of society is also not utilised/exposed/used to the level of possibility of intelligence. When we say the either society is in order or not in order, we ourselves are either in order or not in order. Probably we say we are in order, but others who constitute the society are not in order for a disorderly society. When our body is in chaos, the cells in our body probably perceive it and attribute the chaos to other cells – may be even the cells which are the reason for this chaos may also perceive the chaos as a result of disorder of other cells!

What is the purpose of being aware of our intelligence? Probably, we may be able to keep our integrity only when we use our intelligence to its maximum possibility. Only in such case, we may be considered as human being. An atom is an atom as long as it keeps its integrity by associating all its components with its intelligence. A molecule is called as molecule when it keeps it integrity with all its constituents for which uses all its intelligence. A cell is called as cell as long as it keeps its integrity with all its constituting molecules/atoms. So are we!