Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Rather, intelligence comes when one acts in perfect harmony,both intellectually and emotionally. There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is merely thought functioning independently of emotion. When intellect, irrespective of emotion is trained in any particular direction, one may have great intellect, but not intelligence, because in intelligence there is the inherent capacity to feel as well as to reason; in intelligence both capacities are equally present, intensely and harmoniously.
Now modern education is developing intellect, offering explanations and theories for life, without harmonious quality of affection. We have developed cunning minds to escape conflict; hence we are satisfied with explanations that scientists and philosophers give us. The mind, the intellect, is satisfied with these explanations, but intelligence is not, because, to understand, there must be unity of mind and heart in action. till you approach all of life with your intelligence, instead of merely with your intellect, no system in the world will save man from the ceaseless toil for bread.
The very first thing to do, if I may suggest, is to find out why you are thinking in a certain way, and why you are feeling in a certain manner. Don’t try to alter it, don’t try to analyze your thoughts and your emotions; but become conscious of why you are thinking in a particular groove and from what motive you act. Although you can discover the motive through analysis, it will not be real; it will be real only when you are intensely aware at the moment of the functioning of your thought and emotion; then you will see their extraordinary subtlety, their fine delicacy.
So long as you have a “must” and a “must not,” in this compulsion you will never discover that swift wandering of thought and emotion. Sorrow is the result of a shock, it is the temporary shaking up of a mind that has settled down, that has accepted the routine of life. Something happens in the event of death, the loss of a job, the questioning of a cherished belief- and the mind is disturbed. But what does a disturbed mind do? It finds a way to be undisturbed again; it takes refuge in another belief, in a more secure job, in a new relationship. Again the wave of life comes along and shatters its safeguards, but the mind soon finds further defenses; and so it goes on. This is not the way of intelligence, is it?