Just in the recent past, people tend only to measure how intelligent or smart someone is and it was only IQ that was believed to be the only valid form of intelligence.
A person with a lower IQ, or lower intellectual intelligence, therefore, is often denounced as being illiterate or uneducated. In the early 20th C IQ was tested by using Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, which referred to our rational, logical, rule-bound, problem-solving intelligence.
It was likewise a style of goal-oriented thinking. Intellectual/cognitive /Rational Intelligence IQ is the material Capital and functions as ‘What I Think’ with the left brain’s serial processing.
Then in the mid-1990s, people developed a propensity to know how well one can regulate social communiqué, sentiments, and empathy not only of oneself but of others.
That was the time we were familiarized with the concept of emotional intelligence and social intelligence and were told that how we manage our emotions could be even more vital than our IQ. Emotional Intelligence is the kind of intelligence that our heart, or emotions, have.
EQ is displayed in self-awareness, self-control, and in the ability to respond appropriately to the emotions of others. It’s a sense of where people are coming from. Emotional Intelligence EQ is the Social Capital and functions as ‘What I Feel’ with the right brain’s Parallel processing.
How we access the energies that originated from something beyond the ego, beyond just individual us and our day-to-day concerns and what guided men and women like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Churchill, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa. The secret of their leadership was their ability to inspire people, to give them a sense of something worth struggling for. These conceptions of the facets of intelligence were supplementarily widened with the advent of the idea of spiritual intelligence in the new millennia.
Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall describe SQ in their pioneering book, SQ: Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence as ‘our most fundamental intelligence. our spiritual intelligence quotient (SQ), reinforces and fortifies our IQ and EQ. Spiritual intelligence is the capability to access enduring determinations, values, developed meanings, and unconscious aspects of the self and to entrench these connotations, values, and purposes in living a nurtured and more inspired life.
Cyphers of high SQ contain an ability to think out of the box, and display humility. Spiritual intelligence is the aptitude to perform with selfless love through insight and compassion while upholding inner and outer peace irrespective of the situation.
SQ is the ultimate intelligence of the visionary leader. Spiritual intelligence SQ is the Spiritual Capital and functions as ‘What I am’ with the whole brain’s synchronous processing.According to studies in neuroscience, Spiritual intelligence is linked to hemisphere synchronization and entire brain activation,
Spirituality is an individual experience, searching for the meaning of life, finding meaning and purpose, maintaining emotional balance, sustaining mental health, feeling the connection to the community, performing at our best, attaining full potential, finding enduring fulfilment, a quest for existential understanding, looking for personal truths, and we use SQ to attain all that.
But SQ is not religious, because religion is categorized by a doctrine and Spirituality has no class system or doctrine. Spiritual intelligence depends not on belief but on direct personal experience beyond the ego.
Spiritual intelligence has a scientific basis instituted on a general theory of intelligence based on the human operating system, combining findings from four independent fields of scientific research: cognitive psychology, transpersonal psychology, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience.
Like any computer or phone, we all have an operating system, and that’s our own awareness. Attention represents the basic operating system of human awareness that is soul and Ego(body-mind). The ego is the false self And The soul is one’s true self. The soul exercises IQ and EQ with SQ.
Being the ego means recognizing one’s thoughts and emotions and undergoing oneself as being your body and mind. The ego feels discontented and inadequate, and continuously pursues gratification somewhere else, in the next experience, using this instant as a means to the next, and reacting to each moment from a state of deficiency.
Being the soul means feeling oneself as being consciousness itself. The innate potentials of consciousness itself are experienced in moments of presence, in the form of wisdom, compassion, integrity, joy, love, creativity, and peace. Therefore, the soul does not pursue satisfaction elsewhere because the soul is already happy, and therefore does not use this moment as a means to the next. Instead of reacting from a state of deficiency, the soul responds in each moment from a state of preceding accomplishment.
The ego and the soul use IQ and EQ for different purposes. The ego uses IQ and EQ for individual benefits. But the intelligence of the soul has a different purpose. SQ uses IQ and EQ for the benefit of all.
Spiritual Intelligence permits us to bang into a superior source of endless wisdom and unconditional love. As we accept the fact that everything and everyone is connected; that we have the inborn capability to access higher sources of wisdom, we will start to connect to our intuition.
We’ll be more present in the now. we will be more resilient and will feel happier, more at peace, and confident that everyone conspires to help us win. Knowing that love overcomes all problems, that we are at no time lonely, and that we came into this planet for a very significant purpose. We will know exactly how to help others thrive.
When we develop Spiritual Intelligence, we will be holistically in agreement with the all-God’s creatures, and we will no longer be constricted by man-made limitations.
Spirituality talks about the fact that there is an alternative facet to an existence apart from the physical/material realm, and we need to develop certain capacities to access it. Firstly, we need to Practice Stillness. As our Spirit exists in a subtle realm of reality.
We must give ourselves space to quiet our minds, so we can connect to our Spirit. Stillness is a place to just be. No judgment, no rush, no guilt. Just a moment in time for you to be aware of who you are.
Then we need to Develop our Self-Awareness This is about connecting to our true self, discovering our inner world, and living our life aligned with our soul’s purpose. The moments of stillness will allow us to know ourselves at deeper levels, but being self-aware is a practice that we should focus on.
We also have to Live Your Purpose with Intention. The intention is the why behind everything we do. It’s our internal GPS. Purpose is the long-term mission of our soul. Our intention helps us align with this purpose daily.
We must realize that everything is connected and everything that we think, do and say has a consequence on our environs. Everything is made up of energy. High-vibrational energies, like love, empathy, compassion, and joy, help increase the energy vibration of everything around us.
While low-vibrational energies, like fear, guilt, anger, or shame, do the opposite. The outside world will always be a replication of what is going on inside us. So, to alter the world, we have to modify ourselves. Considering that all are linked also surges our responsibility and accountability.
Lastly, we need to be open. Open our minds to accept new info. Open our hearts to give and receive unconditional love. Open our senses to absorb the world in different ways.
Being open means our readiness to perceive everything as it comes, not the way we think it should, but the way it is, without judgment.
It’s the concept of allowing your intuition to guide the way, without our intellect trying to label what comes. When we are open, we will also learn to see life from different perspectives. we will take every challenge from another perspective and give different solutions.
Stephen Covey condenses Spiritual Intelligence as Integrity – Being true to one’s highest values and conscience, meaning – A sense of contribution to people and causes, Voice – Aligning work with one’s unique calling and gifts. In yet another way, he spins it as –Meaning, integrity and contribution. Covey also offers simple ways to develop SQ; Read and meditate, Immersion in great literature or great music, and find it in the way you communicate with nature.
Today’s era is bursting with abhorrence, hatred and insensitivity, possibly a slight amount of empathetic comprehension about our own spiritual dimension would all do us some good. young people need access to the full spectrum of their intelligence: not just their intellectual and emotional intelligence, their IQ and EQ, but also their meaning-making intelligence, their SQ.
The more we contemplate with love, and work upon ourselves with compassion, the more our personal impurities, both conscious and unconscious, will gradually leave us and be replaced by the growing energies of real love and empathy.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.