CHAPTER 15

The Awakening of Intelligence— Thinking Outside the Box

To be out of balance is my greatest help if I only realize it and see that “I” cannot balance myself. This egoistic wish to which I cling is just the continuation of what keeps me out of balance. It needs to be understood in a new way. “I” cannot make it myself, and as long as I stick to the wish to be balanced, the imbalance goes on. Again, only when I am overwhelmed, when I cannot face the situation, can something entirely new appear that helps me to understand what is really needed.

(Michel de Salzmann. Material for Thought 14, 12-13)

The awakening of intelligence occurs in a human being when I at long last come to realize that by myself I cannot change, it is impossible. I am trapped in a loop, a recurring cycle, a box. Help is needed and thinking my way out of the box is impossible. It is not possible to think outside the box. If I am thinking, I am always and only in the box. The mind itself is the box. The mind is a binary computer. That means it can only think in one way: by association, comparison-contrast, this-and not this, black-white, good-evil, like-dislike. It always and only thinks by comparison, by association; it is a computer, thus its only function is to store information from the past, from what is already known. What I call “thinking” is merely the mind’s memory function examining its contents, which is the past stored as memory. And the only aim of memory is to repeat its contents and maintain its patterns. It only has one function: to think. It cannot do anything else. So naturally it seeks to convince me that thinking is the most important thing I can do and that if I don’t think about everything all the time, I will die. Once it convinces me of the centrality of thought, now I am identified and it is in control. Our whole society and the education system which mirrors it is created around the centrality of the mind.

I cannot think my way out of the box. When I think about God, or infinity, anything, these are concepts and they are inside the box: God exists inside the box; infinity exists inside the box. In fact, every single thing you can name or think about is inside the box. See if you can internalize this intuitively without thinking about it. Everything you know is inside the box. If you know it and can name it, it is inside the box. What is outside the box is the category of things unknown, which is reality. This includes love which cannot be known, spoken about, or understood. We name it for convenience but it is not that which we have named. We name God for convenience but it is not that which we have named. The great master Jesus said, “God is love” but he knew very well that both of these terms were absurd and meaningless, only words, not the thing itself. However he was required to speak to idiots, little unconscious children like me, so he used simple, clear language to instruct us, which is what the Work teaches us to do. Break it down into simple terms so that our little infantile pea-brains can comprehend what it is we are meant to be doing here.

So in order to move outside the box, I must begin to comprehend the universe in a new way, not through the intellectual center’s activity. The intellectual center must become passive, alert, receptive; it must remain in the mode of “I don’t know,” organically ignorant. This is the awakening of intelligence. It sounds contradictory, paradoxical: in order for real intelligence to awaken in me, the intellect must become ignorant. See if you can intuitively understand what this might mean. Faithful self observation over a long period of time will bring me to the state of “I don’t know.” Only then can real intelligence operate. Before then, all that I know, all that is stored in memory as knowledge, blocks the operation of intelligence. Real intelligence comes from outside the body, from higher centers, and it comes in the form of intuition and inspiration, higher intellectual and higher emotional functions.

When the mind is quiet and receptive—it cannot be receptive as long as it believes it knows and chatters all the time— then the mode of apprehension of reality outside the box is direct experience; the mode of comprehension outside the box is intuition, and the mode of expression outside the box is inspiration. These are the modes of real intelligence. The right hemisphere is merely the receiver which, when tuned to higher frequencies, receives the input from higher centers. Quiet mind and peaceful heart together, acting as one in harmony, receive wisdom. To do so, what is required of me is “not doing.” That is, there must be a surrender of random, mechanical thought in the intellectual center and identification with emotions from the emotional center. Meditation is the most ancient, scientific, and reliable method of doing this. Self observation without judgment or interference is simply meditation in action. Thus, I make the crucial distinction between thinking, which is always and only inside the box, and the direct comprehension of reality, which is outside the box.

Real intelligence is the awakening of the clear channel between heart/mind and higher centers so that I can receive wisdom. It does not come from me, but is received by me. Wisdom is available to all, but at a price: the price is the surrender of all that I think I know and the leap into the abyss, into the unknown. This is not logical. Logic has taken me this far and it can go no further. Logic will argue that only it can lead me in the right direction, towards what is logical. This is logical, but not intelligent. If logic could solve the problems of humanity, it would have done so many thousands of years ago.

I have given two very useful definitions of insanity in this book that, when taken together, give a clear insight into my situation: 1) repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting different results; 2) a self divided. Now I add to this picture a third definition of insanity: 3) not trusting reality. It is obvious in the clinically insane that they do not trust reality, but it is not so obvious in my own behavior until I have observed myself with great patience, honesty, and sincerity. Intelligence is knowing what can be trusted and what cannot. Only patient and steady self observation will reveal what is trustworthy in me. I trust the mind’s perception of reality based on its programming, but it sees only that which validates its programs, a minute portion of incoming impressions, and the rest it rejects.

What drives me crazy, when I see the absurdity of the world as it is, is the effort to understand and make sense of an insane world, which means to think about it. Everything is lawful. That is all I need to understand. I don’t need to understand the “why” or the “what if” of things. This thinking about it drives me crazy. Instead of thinking about it, intelligence faces reality with no preconceptions, expectations, or judgments about it, and it accepts what is, as it is. Then it responds appropriately to it as it is guided by intuition and inspiration. It does what is needed and wanted. Otherwise, it does not interfere.

Thinking can’t solve the problem of my life because thinking is the problem. But it does expose the problem. The mind is active because it has been asked to do the impossible: be the master and be in control. Impossible task. Thus it sits behind the curtains of Oz and operates a smoke screen of continuous thought which creates the illusion that I am in control of my life and of reality. I can go about my life as an habitual, mechanical, unconscious, sleeping walking-around robot, a proper mammal who fits into the herd, some herd, somewhere. I can continue to do the same things in the same way and not have to think for myself.

When I use the word “think” I don’t use it in the ordinary way. It is a “higher order” of thought which does not depend upon straight-line logic or reason for its understanding. The mind cannot understand. All it can do is name and store information by means of association for use when it is called upon to do so. Thus, the question: does the mind have any practical use at all? Absolutely: 1) to observe; 2) to solve technical problems in the present; 3) to communicate with others; 4) to serve attention and intelligence; 5) to align with the heart. This is its place and in its place it is an incredibly effective tool. The intellectual-emotional-complex is not meant to rule. When it is asked to rule, its rule is tyranny and violence of all kinds, on all levels. It is meant to be a faithful servant of higher centers, a receiver, as any computer. The fact that computers have taken over our world tells you something about us and about the mind which created them in its image.

 

I Keep A Different List

My neighbor counts his losses and his gains,

but i keep track of raindrops when it rains;

he makes note of coins and dollar bills

while i am watching ants upon their hills;

while he is in the office making money,

i go out among the bees to gather honey,

and when he comes home tired and goes online,

i am in the back yard drinking wine.

My wife and i sit in the gathering dark

and watch the lightning bugs and bright stars spark

until we disappear, are covered up with night,

while my neighbor plots his life by computer light.

(Red Hawk)