Buzan - The Power of Spiritual Intelligence

We are not human beings

having a spiritual experience;

we are spiritual beings

having a human experience.

(Teilhard de Chardin)

Are you a spiritual person? Many people confuse being spiritual with being religious, but they are very different things. When you are Spiritually Intelligent you become more aware of the big picture for yourself and the universe, and your place and purpose in it.

Spiritual Intelligence is considered by many to be the most important of our many intelligences, and has the power to transform your life, civilization, the planet and the course of history. In The Power of Spiritual Intelligence I will explore the nature of spirituality, and show you how you can develop this wonderful intelligence. You will be able to develop your personal values concepts like truth and honesty and become involved first in understanding and knowing more of yourself, and then reaching out to participate in and help the community at large.

Happily, developing your Spiritual Intelligence will allow you to see the lighter and more humorous side of things, and to regain those qualities such as enthusiasm, cheerfulness, energy and persistence that characterize children. Not only that I will show you how you can increase your inner peace and strength, and so become better able to control and reduce the stresses that often blight our modern, busy lives.

First, I would like to tell you about my own spiritual career, and how I came to realize that there was such a thing as Spiritual Intelligence.

Two stories tell the tale:

Story 1:
Chocolate Bars, Purity of Soul and Bribery!

When I was a young teenager, I began to ask the big questions such as what is the meaning of life? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Do animals have emotions? Why do we die? Whats the point of being honest or good? Are there other planets with life on them? How big is the universe and where does it end? And so on. My friends and I thought we might get some answers by going to the church Sunday School, so this we dutifully did.

Our Sunday School teacher was a bullying, arrogant man, with a domineering and authoritarian style. One Sunday he said to us that if we brought in new recruits to the Sunday School the following week, he would give us a chocolate bar for every new person brought in.

My hand immediately shot up! I pointed out to the teacher that he had, in a previous lesson, talked about purity of soul and the evils of bribery. Should we not, if we were truly spiritual, bring people to the Sunday School because we wanted to help them on their paths? Should we not, therefore, do it purely for the love of the other person? Should we not do it with pleasure, enthusiasm and generosity, expecting no reward whatsoever? By offering us all chocolate bars, was he not, in fact, bribing us?!

I was told never to ask such questions again, and to leave the class for rudeness and insubordination!

I never returned, and decided from that point on that anything to do with spirituality was either a con, irrelevant or wimpish, and that logic and argument were a far more true path.

Story 2:
Logic versus Spirituality

By the time I was 20 and at university, I had hardened my views on the supremacy of logic and the weakness of spirituality and emotion, while becoming a confirmed atheist. I had honed my verbal and logical reasoning skills and relished a good intellectual argument! Imagine my delight when my doorbell rang one day, and a frail, middle-aged lady announced that she had come to try to save my soul!

Like a spider preparing to ensnare a fly, I invited her in to let her explain her views on the need for me to be more spiritually aware. By this time I had become well-versed in the history of philosophy and the great debates on morality, God, and the meaning of life. In less than 15 minutes I had this gentle lady floundering but, to my surprise, still upbeat and unbowed.

She explained that helping other people was a relatively new direction in her life, a life which had known a lot of pain and suffering, and which was now much more beautiful and calm. She cheerfully asked if she could come back next week with someone more experienced in the field, and I agreed, anticipating another logic battle, with a more worthy opponent.

A week later she duly returned, proudly introducing me to a young man who had just graduated from university and who was extremely knowledgeable in the field. We immediately locked horns, and a great intellectual tussle took place. Finally, after an hour, he made one fatal logical mistake, and I pounced. The victory was mine!

Still unbowed, the lady asked if she could return the following week with one of the most senior members of her organization. Once again I said yes.

On the day of the next meeting, a snowstorm had blown up, and it was bitterly cold. Nevertheless, my Angel of Mercy was there. She introduced me, with pride and respect, to her companion: a middle-aged man who looked like a character out of a cheap gangster movie, who was a very senior person in her organization. He appeared to be the opposite of everything that spirituality stood for, knew little about ethical or moral arguments, and seemed intent only on raising money from me and parading his status. I accused him of ignorance, greed and dishonesty and had him red-faced and speechless within five minutes.

Another great victory!

This, however, was soon to turn to dust. When the pair left, the lady looked up at me with a fractured face, her expression one of failure, disillusionment, loss, pleading and an almost unbearable pain. As I closed the door on her forever, those same feelings surged through me.

What had I done?

This gentle lady had spent several weeks of her life preparing for and meeting me, with the sole purpose of helping to save my soul. And what had I done to express my thanks and gratitude for this totally unselfish gesture on my behalf? Beaten her with the truncheons of logic and words; humiliated and demeaned those she loved and respected in front of her; attempted to destroy the foundations of a newly structured, innocent and loving life; and after gloating at my triumphs, had turned her out into the snow. I sat down, stunned at the horror of what I had just done. Logic and words suddenly seemed irrelevant, and my whole being was overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse.

Without knowing it, my Angel of Mercy had more than accomplished her task and, in the final analysis, had won her argument hands down and spirit up! Wherever you are, dear lady, I eternally thank you for your wonderful and successful rescue mission!

In one flash of heart-rending realization, my life had been changed. I came to see that there was more to intelligence than simply words, numbers and logic. (In fact, I was soon to discover that there were multiple intelligences Creative, Personal, Social, Sensual, Physical, Sexual, Spatial and Spiritual, as well as Verbal and Numerical, which I explore in my book Head First .)

Spiritual Intelligence A Definition

We often hear of:

the spirit of the age