Intellect and its Limitations

“Pride goeth on horseback and cometh back on foot” – Anonymous What is the capacity of intelligence? Intelligence has been defined in more than one way; it is the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, reasoning, creativity and problem-solving. Yet our intelligence has several limitations and that includes the inability to process large amounts of information simultaneously as we have limited memory and self-control and have the vulnerability to make mistakes when processing complicated tasks. Each restriction suppresses the amount of data processed in a given situation and time. Social regulations often act as hindrances in being honest in life. We have to go along with the world, a world which is honoured for its reason and intellect. Anything that is connected with feeling is deemed as persona non-grata. It is not welcome. We are caught up in a network of social rituals and make-believes that hit upon us hard and bind us down like prisoners in a cage of ignorance and sub-conscious habits, whether they have any relevance to fact or not. Intellect, like any machine, has its limitations. If understanding a concept was like a recipe, we would require several ingredients such as memory, information and practice; they are all interlinked. The bad news is that our brain makes us all very limited in our access to these. To get information, we have to focus our concentration on what we want to learn. We are not very successful at multi-tasking. With limited attention comes limited input. There is a lot out there that we could study as there is no dearth of information but our capacity to grasp new information is definitely capped. Many spiritualists would come forward and say that intellectual exercise of a religious practice is honoured and appreciated among seekers such as kundalini yoga and hatha yoga. These practices are all good enough in their own way and nothing is wrong with them but they are not sufficient to attain superiority of the intellect. There are secrets within men which even angels cannot know easily. God only knows what is inside us; even we cannot know wholly what is within us. So, it is a part of our wisdom to be a little cautious in assessing the various components of our nature and the building bricks of our personality. It is not easy to see what stuff we are really made of. The occupations in our lives prevent us from being leisurely in our thoughts and we are often drifting because of our vocations. The office work, the business and shopping keep us busy, so that there is not enough leisure to ponder deeply into the substance of what we are made of. We seem to be made out of our social relations in the sense of the atmosphere in which we are living, at every given moment of time. When we are in USA, we think like the Americans; when we are in England, we think like the British; when we are in the midst of orthodoxy, our thinking is orthodox, so that we do not know what exactly the true environment of ours is. Yet, there is an environment of our own which we seldom encounter by reason of the storm of social air that blows over us. Even if we have a small social circle like a four-member family, we cannot be entirely true to ourselves. We are controlled by our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters and many other relations of this type. We simply cannot be ourselves even when living in a small family, because we are afraid of what others think; and it is much worse if we are in a larger community where every eye is looking at us. Memory depends on the formation of fresh neural connections and we have a restricted number of these connections. When we grow old, it becomes harder for our brains to create new connections and existing connections get overloaded with various memories. It becomes harder to learn and also harder to remember, as we tend to start confusing facts and events. In a comfortable society and a safe atmosphere, submerged feelings are not likely to get manifested. If we promise our creditor that he would be paid after two months, he goes with satisfaction because the promise is given; but if he knows that we are not going to pay, that will become a different matter. He will shout and stand at our door. This defensive attitude of our feelings will be known to us either when we are opposed by our atmosphere in every way or when we are totally alone, left to ourselves on a mountain top with no chance of satisfaction of any kind for a defined period. We will be dreaming of the pleasures of the world. If we go far away from human settlements, the desires become more serious and restless because they know they cannot get anything they want; but, if we live in a city, there is a promise that our desires may get fulfilled and our emotions stay in control. The feeling of security that we feel is very important. An insecure person is always dwelling in a state of turmoil and hot water. So, the human intellect or capacity to understand is the capability of a mind to generalise experiences, to work with abstract conditions and to make conclusions from assumptions. The deterioration of the human intellect could be attributed to depression, stress or disease and to vandalism, terrorism or militancy in societies that tend to threaten humanity with extinction. For effectively using information to form a deep understanding, you need to practice. Besides extremely important events, an effective way to form long-term memories is only through practice. It has to be remembered that we don’t have unlimited time to practice everything that we want to learn and there is a practical limit to our understanding of things that are happening in the world. We are always used to seeing beauty and pleasure in this world, but we cannot see it in God. Intellect will expand if we understand this concept. Ironically, the moment we speak the name of God, there is a sense of fear within us. We are frightened because of the judgment and punishment of the soul out of earthly misdeeds and intentions. People do not project love for God as they do for their parents, their husbands or wives and children. What people are failing to understand is that God is not just a police commissioner or an army general, but a source of beauty and glory. Those who have an understanding of the beauty and power of the spirit and its relationship with the Creator realise that beauty is a subtle secret that creeps silently into us in a private manner and does not operate publicly like the mathematical calculations of a scientist.