There
are extensive studies in several fields of expertise indicating that love
makes people more intelligent, and this is happening because our brains have a "love neural network" and
a particular biochemistry that activates and increases a series of cognitive
functions. On the other hand, most elders of the world (from ancient times up to our days),
claim in one voice that love makes better human beings.
Well, without any doubt, there is a lot to debate about these two vast subjects
(love, respectively intelligence), but
for the purpose of this brief assertion, mostly from a philosophical perspective,
below I’m sharing with you several fragments of general interest…may you enjoy
this reading!
ARTICLE:
~ Few excerpts ~
Intelligence is not separate from love ...
(by Jiddu Krishnamurti)
"Modern education, in developing the intellect,
offers more and more theories and facts, without bringing about the
understanding of the total process of human existence. We are highly
intellectual; we have developed cunning minds, and are caught up in explanations.
The intellect is satisfied with theories and explanations, but intelligence is
not; and for the understanding of the total process of existence, there must be
an integration of the mind and heart in action. Intelligence is not separate
from love.
For most of us, to accomplish this inward
revolution is extremely arduous. We know how to mediate, how to play the piano,
how to write, but we have no knowledge of the mediator, the player, the writer.
We are not creators, for we have filled our hearts & minds with knowledge,
information & arrogance; we are full of quotations from what others have
thought or said. But experiencing comes 1st, not the way of experiencing.
There must be love before there can be the expression of it.
...
Information, the knowledge of facts, though ever
increasing, is by its very nature limited. Wisdom is infinite, it includes
knowledge and the way of action; but we take hold of a branch and think it is
the whole tree. Through the knowledge of the part, we can never realize the joy
of the whole. Intellect can never lead to the whole, for it is only a segment,
a part.
We have separated intellect from feeling, and have
developed intellect at the expanse of feeling.
We are like a three-legged
object with one leg much longer than the others, and we have no balance. We are
trained to be intellectual; our education cultivates the intellect to be sharp,
cunning, acquisitive, and so it plays the most important role in our life.
Intelligence is much greater than intellect, for it is the integration of
reason and love; but there can be intelligence only when there is
self-knowledge, the deep understanding of the total process of oneself.
What is essential for man, whether young or old, is
to live fully, integrally, and that is why our major problem is the cultivation
of that intelligence which brings integration. Undue emphasis on any part of
our total make-up gives a partial and therefore distorted view of life, and it
is this distortion which is causing most of our difficulties. Any partial
development of our whole temperament is bound to be disastrous both for
ourselves and for society, and so it is really very important that we approach
our human problems with an integrated point of view.
To be an integrated human being is to understand
the entire process of one's own consciousness, both the hidden and the open.
This is not possible if we give due emphasis to the intellect. We attach great
importance to the cultivation of the mind, but inwardly we are insufficient,
poor and confused. This living in the intellect is the way of disintegration;
for ideas, like beliefs, can never bring people together except in conflicting
groups.
As long as we depend on thought as a means of
integration, there must be disintegration; and to understand the disintegrating
action of thought is to be aware of the ways of the self, the ways of one's own
desire. We must be aware of our conditioning and its responses, both collective
and personal. It is only when one is fully aware of the activities of the self
with its contradictory desires and pursuits, its hopes and fears, that there is
a possibility of going beyond the self.
Only love and right thinking will bring about true
revolution, the revolution within ourselves. But how are we to have love? Not
through the pursuit of the ideal of love, but only when there is no hatred,
when there is no greed, when the sense of self, which is the cause of
antagonism, comes to an end. A man who is caught up in the pursuits of
exploitation, of greed, of envy, can never love.
Without love and right thinking, oppression and
cruelty will ever be on the increase. The problem of man's antagonism to man
can be solved, not by pursuing the ideal of peace, but by understanding the
causes of war which lie in our attitude towards life, towards our
fellow-beings; and this understanding can come about only through the right
kind of education. Without a change of heart, without goodwill, without the
inward transformation which is born of self-awareness, there can be no peace,
no happiness for men. "
"Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love." (J. Ratzinger)
