Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher say,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.This second knowing is a fountainhead
from with you, moving out.
-Jellaludin Rumi
So often we think about degrees and knowledge as indicators of success. Degrees and knowledge do not bring happiness, contentment or the ability to create lasting relationships. It is when we are able to access the fountainhead of wisdom that each of us carries inside that we can find peace, personal power and passion.
When was the last time you sat quietly and allowed yourself to tap into your fountainhead of wisdom and peace?
Dear Deb,
This entry reminds me of a film I haven’t seen in its entireity in many years: “Wings of Desire,” by Wim Wenders. It’s a marvelously philosophical film about angels who attend humans in their everyday life. One angel encounters a unique woman, an aerialist, who is perhaps, a lost soul, in that, she does not really know where she is going. She is alone.
He “eavesdrops” on her thoughts as she contemplates her life: “I’m someone with no roots, no story, no country and I like it that way. I’m here, I’m free, I can imagine anything. It’s all possible. I only have to raise my eyes and once again I become the world.”
I think that’s the moment the angel falls in love with the mortal; he decides to give up his wings and become human in order to woo her. Her statement, which I quoted, is Rumi-like. And her final monologue, when she meets her newly incarnated angel, is a masterpiece of romance.
This post of yours is a call to commence a romance with the Self, an epic undertaking in which the whole world watches in spirit. The choice to draw from the fountainhead of wisdom and peace cannot fail; our love, the love, one love calls heaven to earth.
xoxox
Toni
Wow Toni, your description of the movie is fabulous! You’ve given me a whole new way to interpret the poem.
Love,
Deb