Looking around the planet, whether traveling through different countries, watching the news or any other way I have witnessed my environment, it’s impossible for me to say that humans are intelligent. Not by the way we treat Mother Earth and all the life forms that exist on her, including each other.
I understand our capacity for intelligence supersedes our fellow creatures, yet that intelligence has not been used intelligently, therefore negating our intelligence. While our fellow earthly inhabitants support Earth’s balance and health, humans often disrupt it, increasing misery and suffering beyond nature’s intent. In other words, we make things worse not better, and that’s not intelligent!
I understand humans are part of nature; therefore, we are sickening and destroying all things perfectly, yet notwithstanding that, humans not only have the ability to be less destructive, they also have the ability to make choices according to hindsight and insight. If our intelligence were used properly we could actually strengthen and reinforce planetary balance and harmony. Wouldn’t that be intelligent?
If we were really intelligent wouldn’t we be using our intelligence intelligently? Wouldn’t we be able to see that cell phones and space travel and pretty much all modern technological advancements are not facilitating a greater degree of health and happiness? Couldn’t we actually see that those things are deteriorating our health and happiness? Wouldn’t we be able to see what’s preventing us from using our intelligence intelligently? Wouldn’t we be able to see that it’s our emotions that dominate our intelligence when it should be the other way around? Is this why our planetary cohabitants are not contributing to our planetary dis-ease and imbalance, because they are not dominated by their emotions, they are dominated by instinct, which is a form of intelligence?
If we were intelligent couldn’t we see that emotions need to be guided by intelligence, same as a child needs to be guided by its parent or the tongue needs to be guided by the brain? If we were intelligent wouldn’t we know that intelligence guided by emotion can be very destructive, same as a child making the decisions for the parent or the tongue speaking unfiltered without the approval of a balanced mind? If we were intelligent wouldn’t we be able to see that the emotional desire for “More” is poisoning us?
If we were intelligent wouldn’t we be able to see that anything in the physical world that’s good for us is only good for us in the proper quantity? In other words, everything that’s helpful and fulfilling becomes harmful and damaging in excess. If we are intelligent couldn’t we see that ease and convenience have a dark side, not only in pollution and destruction but also in weakness, intolerance and ineptitude?
If we were intelligent wouldn’t our common view and definition of success be “the abundance of ethics and morality, generosity, compassion and gratitude” as opposed to money, status and power over others?
Maybe this is all just semantics. Maybe we are intelligent beings and the issue here is not intelligence, the issue is wisdom or a lack of it. For wisdom one needs to pay attention to one’s environment and there needs to be time for reflection. And in our present world culture of technology, where everybody is obsessed with their cell phone, computer and TV shows, their brains so completely occupied with technological distractions that reflection, downtime and meditation are dying human experiences that are certainly not desired. So call it the lack of intelligence or call it the lack of wisdom. One thing is for sure, there is something definitely lacking, and although there’s a lot of complaining about the state of things there is no desire to make a personal shift and no strategy being developed to make a societal shift.
Yet this is the emphasis of Power Yoga! Will you join me?
aloha bk
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