wardly as well as outwardly. Touch is not only delicate, but intimate
also. Do we not say about a moving experience, a book, a symphony,
a film, or a meeting with someone special, "It touched me"? Air and
touch go deep. And just as air surrounds and penetrates every aspect
of our being and our life, so does and must intelligence. Let us see how
it does so.
Examining IntelligenceWe have our own individual intelligence (buddhi). This is the self
reflexive awareness, capable of making meaningful and freedom
enhancing choices that we met in the past chapter. It is not to be con
fused with vidya or knowledge that is acquired from external sources
and remains undecided, whereas the intelligence based on our own
subjective experience is an internal one and always decisive.
In this chapter, we must begin to understand that our individual
intelligence, though an essential rudder to guide us, is merely a puny
offshoot of cosmic intelligence (mahat), which is the organizing sys
tem of the universe. This intelligence is everywhere, and, like air, we
constantly bathe in it and imbibe it. Of course we put barriers up
against it, because we are so proud of our own individual and neces
sary intelligence. Thus we deprive ourselves of the full benefit of this
infinite, universal, nourishing resource, just as we deprive ourselves
of pranic energy from poor breathing. We saw how breath and con
sciousness go hand in hand. Similarly, individual intelligence and
cosmic intelligence go hand in hand. Intelligence is the operating sys
tem of cosmic awareness.
When we eat a head of lettuce, every leaf expresses the beauty and
complexity of the cosmic intelligence that formed it, and so we are par
taking of cosmic intelligence by ingesting it directly. The same for each
perfect grain of rice, each generous fruit. At the biological level, we are
W I S I It I M T II 1'. I N I' 1'. I. I. Fl' I' II A I. II II ll V I I' 1/ N .1 N :1 I