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Chapter 26 - Life's aim is life itself
TO BE AWAKENED? CAN WE RAISE OUR CONSCIOUSNESS WITH INTELLIGENCE?
Benoit, the question you have asked is of great significance: "What is intelligence? Is it a state far beyond the mind and its limits?" Yes. Intelligence is not of the mind; intelligence is one of the qualities of your being. But mind is being used as a vehicle for it; hence the confusion. People think intelligence is of the mind -- it comes through the mind. Mind is the instrument for its expression.
Mind itself is only a bio-computer. It has a memory system just as any computer has: you feed the memory system and the mind keeps the memory. But memory is not intelligence.
Intelligence is the clear insight into things about which you don't have any information.
Memory can function only about those things which are known to you -- but life consists of the known, of the unknown, and of the unknowable. As far as the known is concerned, memory is enough.
That's what all your universities and all your educational systems are doing: they are simply feeding your memory with more and more information, and whatever is known to your memory system, you will answer immediately. That answer does not prove that you are intelligent.
Intelligence is known only when you encounter the unknown, about which you don't have any memory, any knowledge, any information beforehand. When you encounter the unknown, that is the point which is decisive. How do you respond? You can respond intelligently or you can respond stupidly.
For example, Germany is one of the countries where the population is decreasing. And the government is worried, because for every three thousand people who leave or die, thirty thousand people are coming from other countries as immigrants into Germany. The government is afraid that just within a decade Germany will not be the land of the Germans.
Their population is decreasing and immigrants are entering into the country.
And here in India in 1947, when India became independent, the population of the country was four hundred million -- now the population of the country is nine hundred million -- five hundred million people is the increase. Even in 1947 the country was poor, and Britain was in a hurry to give freedom to this country because soon Britain would be blamed for the poverty.
The prime minister of England, Atlee, had sent Mountbatten to India with an urgent message:
"Whatever happens, before 1948 -- the deadline is 1948 -- you have to give India freedom.
Because we can see what is going to happen, and the whole blame will be on our heads -- so be quick!"
And Mountbatten did really a quick job. Even before 1948 he gave India freedom -- in 1947, one year earlier. Atlee was very happy. And none of the Indian leaders even thought about what was the hurry. In 1942 Britain was not ready to give freedom to India; when India was ready to fight for freedom, Britain was not willing Britain crushed India's revolution in 1942 within nine days. And not a single Indian leader, including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, could see the point why Britain suddenly became so much interested to give them freedom. There was no revolution; after 1942 Indian leaders had lost hope, because their revolution had been crushed in nine days. This was the smallest revolution in the whole history of mankind! And then suddenly out of the blue, Britain itself decides... If they had Osho - The Hidden Splendor
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