The potential for spiritual rewiring
Saturday, 31 December 2011
At a recent event, marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible --- the very same that accompanied Christian missionaries and colonialists on their forays into the lives of 'other' people across the world --- the British Prime Minister reportedly declared that his is a Christian country. Although he confessed to being only a 'vaguely practising' member of the Church of England, and 'full of doubts' about big theological issues, he went on to claim that 'responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility, self-sacrifice, love, pride in working for the common good and honouring the social obligations (etc etc) .................. are Christian values.'
There is no bar to what even vaguely practising politicians may claim, although they hardly hesitate to violate every commandment in the book. The most glaring examples have been when coveting and grabbing resources that rightfully belong to others. Consider the 'West's' adventures in the remote and recent past as well as the on-going exploits. However, David Cameron seemed to catch himself getting carried away, for he was quick to add, 'But they are also values that speak to us all --- to people of every faith and none.'
This smacks of plain politicking, but there's no doubt profound truth in it. For these values indeed speak to all human beings who are inclined towards the spiritual ----- regardless of whether they belong to any established faith or not. Naive though it may sound, the mystic mind does believe that humankind can begin to resolve the conflicts and confrontations among peoples of different creeds, colours and cultures, simply by honing their inherent spiritual intelligence.
Rapacious politicians everywhere unfortunately are busy propagating everything anti-spiritual, such as mouthing lofty rhetoric they seldom mean, while sowing seeds of discontent that keep tribes, creeds and castes at one another's throats. Nonetheless, believers never lose hope that the innate spiritual intelligence, or the Spiritual Quotient (SQ), can ultimately triumph.
It may be mentioned here that the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) used to be the only yardstick to measure people's intelligence (the rational, mathematical kind) for a long time. It only came to be questioned towards the end of the 20th century. By the mid 1990s IQ was found wanting as neuroscientists and psychologists had established enough evidence by then in support of the fact that emotional intelligence or EQ is just as important as IQ.
An emotionally stunted person was found to perform poorly in matters that required empathy and sympathy, even though the subject had a high enough IQ. Daniel Goleman, author of 'Emotional intelligence', points out that we think less effectively if the brain areas with which we feel do not work properly. But if these areas are healthy, the EQ score is found to be high, enabling people to be sensitive enough to reach the depths of their own as well as other people's feelings. In other words, such people respond positively to all the different pains and pleasures of the human condition.
Later the science of human intelligence made still more astounding strides when spiritual intelligence, or SQ was discovered. It came to be recognised, not very long ago, that SQ was the 'necessary foundation for the effective functioning of both IQ and EQ. Without it 'the full complexity of human intelligence ................the vast richness of the human soul and imagination,' cannot be fathomed, according to Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, who together wrote the 2000 bestseller, 'SQ - the Ultimate Intelligence'.
Scientists claim SQ has a neurological basis, operating literally out of the brain's centre, unifying and integrating all our intelligences 'to make us the fully intellectual, emotional and spiritual creatures that we are.' Such well-endowed people are obviously not in the majority. However, each of these capabilities can develop and function separately. So, ' We are'nt necessarily high or low in all three simultaneously. One needn't be high in IQ or SQ to be high in EQ. One could be high in IQ but low in both EQ and SQ, and so on.'
Over half a century ago,psychologist Gordon Allport found that more people underwent 'religious experiences' outside the confines of formal religion than within them. So, even though SQ may be present in believers in conventional religion, all avowedly religious persons may not necessarily have high SQ ! According to Zohar and Marshall, many humanists and atheists may have very high SQ while many actively and vociferously religious people may have very low SQ! But there is no doubt that SQ makes religion possible (perhaps even necessary), though this special intelligence does not depend upon any religion !
So, what is it that makes the difference between a spiritually enlightened and a spiritually dumb individual? The fact is, conventional religion is a top-down, 'externally imposed' and inherited value-system, say the authors, while SQ is 'an internal, innate ability of the human brain and psyche, drawing its deepest resources from the heart of the universe itself. ' They liken it to the God-consciousness of the 13th century Persian poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, revered as a mystic of the highest order.
The neuro-psychologist Michael Persinger in the early 1990s and the neurologist V S Ramachandran in 1997 researched and established the existence of a 'God spot' in the human brain, located among neural connections in the temporal lobes. PET (positron emission topography ) scans done on research subjects who have been exposed to spiritual or religious discussions, revealed that this spot responded to the symbols according to each person's religious culture. The Buddhist responded to the image of the Buddha, the Christian to Jesus, and so on and so forth.
But this 'God-spot,' has nothing to do with the proof of the existence of God or otherwise, though it does provide the scientific evidence that the human brain is endowed with the mystic ability to ask 'ultimate questions' in response to the longing for the deepest meaning and value in life. Harvard neurologist and biological anthropologist Terrance Deacon in his 'The Symbolic Species' (1997) touches on this aspect when he explains how language originated. It is described as a 'uniquely human and essentially symbolic, meaning-centred activity that co-evolved with rapid development in the brain's frontal lobes.'
More simply put : ' We have used SQ literally to grow our human brains. SQ has 'wired' us to become the people we are and gives us the potential for further 'rewiring' ---- for growth and transformation, for further evolution of our human potential.' SQ is our conscience, the authors declare, and we can use it to become more spiritually intelligent about religion, to be in touch with the meaning and essential spirit behind all great religions, without narrowness, exclusiveness, bigotry or prejudice, to outgrow our immediate ego selves and to reach beyond ourselves to live life at a deeper level of meaning……...'
There is no bar to what even vaguely practising politicians may claim, although they hardly hesitate to violate every commandment in the book. The most glaring examples have been when coveting and grabbing resources that rightfully belong to others. Consider the 'West's' adventures in the remote and recent past as well as the on-going exploits. However, David Cameron seemed to catch himself getting carried away, for he was quick to add, 'But they are also values that speak to us all --- to people of every faith and none.'
This smacks of plain politicking, but there's no doubt profound truth in it. For these values indeed speak to all human beings who are inclined towards the spiritual ----- regardless of whether they belong to any established faith or not. Naive though it may sound, the mystic mind does believe that humankind can begin to resolve the conflicts and confrontations among peoples of different creeds, colours and cultures, simply by honing their inherent spiritual intelligence.
Rapacious politicians everywhere unfortunately are busy propagating everything anti-spiritual, such as mouthing lofty rhetoric they seldom mean, while sowing seeds of discontent that keep tribes, creeds and castes at one another's throats. Nonetheless, believers never lose hope that the innate spiritual intelligence, or the Spiritual Quotient (SQ), can ultimately triumph.
It may be mentioned here that the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) used to be the only yardstick to measure people's intelligence (the rational, mathematical kind) for a long time. It only came to be questioned towards the end of the 20th century. By the mid 1990s IQ was found wanting as neuroscientists and psychologists had established enough evidence by then in support of the fact that emotional intelligence or EQ is just as important as IQ.
An emotionally stunted person was found to perform poorly in matters that required empathy and sympathy, even though the subject had a high enough IQ. Daniel Goleman, author of 'Emotional intelligence', points out that we think less effectively if the brain areas with which we feel do not work properly. But if these areas are healthy, the EQ score is found to be high, enabling people to be sensitive enough to reach the depths of their own as well as other people's feelings. In other words, such people respond positively to all the different pains and pleasures of the human condition.
Later the science of human intelligence made still more astounding strides when spiritual intelligence, or SQ was discovered. It came to be recognised, not very long ago, that SQ was the 'necessary foundation for the effective functioning of both IQ and EQ. Without it 'the full complexity of human intelligence ................the vast richness of the human soul and imagination,' cannot be fathomed, according to Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, who together wrote the 2000 bestseller, 'SQ - the Ultimate Intelligence'.
Scientists claim SQ has a neurological basis, operating literally out of the brain's centre, unifying and integrating all our intelligences 'to make us the fully intellectual, emotional and spiritual creatures that we are.' Such well-endowed people are obviously not in the majority. However, each of these capabilities can develop and function separately. So, ' We are'nt necessarily high or low in all three simultaneously. One needn't be high in IQ or SQ to be high in EQ. One could be high in IQ but low in both EQ and SQ, and so on.'
Over half a century ago,psychologist Gordon Allport found that more people underwent 'religious experiences' outside the confines of formal religion than within them. So, even though SQ may be present in believers in conventional religion, all avowedly religious persons may not necessarily have high SQ ! According to Zohar and Marshall, many humanists and atheists may have very high SQ while many actively and vociferously religious people may have very low SQ! But there is no doubt that SQ makes religion possible (perhaps even necessary), though this special intelligence does not depend upon any religion !
So, what is it that makes the difference between a spiritually enlightened and a spiritually dumb individual? The fact is, conventional religion is a top-down, 'externally imposed' and inherited value-system, say the authors, while SQ is 'an internal, innate ability of the human brain and psyche, drawing its deepest resources from the heart of the universe itself. ' They liken it to the God-consciousness of the 13th century Persian poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, revered as a mystic of the highest order.
The neuro-psychologist Michael Persinger in the early 1990s and the neurologist V S Ramachandran in 1997 researched and established the existence of a 'God spot' in the human brain, located among neural connections in the temporal lobes. PET (positron emission topography ) scans done on research subjects who have been exposed to spiritual or religious discussions, revealed that this spot responded to the symbols according to each person's religious culture. The Buddhist responded to the image of the Buddha, the Christian to Jesus, and so on and so forth.
But this 'God-spot,' has nothing to do with the proof of the existence of God or otherwise, though it does provide the scientific evidence that the human brain is endowed with the mystic ability to ask 'ultimate questions' in response to the longing for the deepest meaning and value in life. Harvard neurologist and biological anthropologist Terrance Deacon in his 'The Symbolic Species' (1997) touches on this aspect when he explains how language originated. It is described as a 'uniquely human and essentially symbolic, meaning-centred activity that co-evolved with rapid development in the brain's frontal lobes.'
More simply put : ' We have used SQ literally to grow our human brains. SQ has 'wired' us to become the people we are and gives us the potential for further 'rewiring' ---- for growth and transformation, for further evolution of our human potential.' SQ is our conscience, the authors declare, and we can use it to become more spiritually intelligent about religion, to be in touch with the meaning and essential spirit behind all great religions, without narrowness, exclusiveness, bigotry or prejudice, to outgrow our immediate ego selves and to reach beyond ourselves to live life at a deeper level of meaning……...'