Intelligence, Faith & Management of Duty
Intelligence is one among the many things that is distributed unequally amongst creatures of this world (and interestingly, for which no rights activists have ever fought for!!) Others may be ignorance, stupidity, wisdom, etc. All these are activities of brain. We do not really know whether intelligence is trainable like that of any other physical activity of physiology. That is to say, we could train for physical fitness, but not really with intelligence. Some day, perhaps that method might also be discovered.
Therefore, inorder to contain ill effects of a debilitated intelligence, intelligent people all over the world have devised a temporary solution which we call as 'Faith'.
Because, the amount of intelligence varies in different people (or even animals, birds etc.), communication often becomes a problem. This is because each one tends to understand things in the perspective of vision limited by one's own intelligence. To resolve this differential communication, some or a group of intellectuals have many times in history sat together to scribble such areas of concern in communication and those scripts were later compiled and called as scriptures. The idea of writing those scriptures were to ask the lesser intelligent to keep away their reasoning and follow the scriptures whenever in doubt. Such an activity is termed as faith. But the problem faced by them was, as to how to inject faith? They found that faith could be injected by stories and that the stories influenced the mind. The mind is a mystery and a good psychiatrist could direct it to everyone's benefit. Hence, we find that most scriptures are backed by stories to add faith.
When a small group of people nowadays assemble to attempt to create such scriptures, they are called cult leaders or godmen. While they essentially derive from the extant scriptures only, they try to adapt and interpret in line with modern terms, as they think they communicate that way better.
To improve the quality of faith, they add extra 'nutrients' with 'salt' and 'pepper' too and create the effect of calling themselves as avatars.
(All these contribute to enhancing the faith. However, being human, they may err on certain other moral values and occasionally end up in captivity by law enforcing agencies!!)
Let us also broadly understand the miseries of humans & the Hierarchy of Human control system.
Taapa-trayam ताप त्रयं are Tri-dukham त्रिदु:खं which are of three types:-
Aadhi-aatmikam (caused by oneself - birth, death etc),
Aadhi-Bhautikam (those caused by external materials - animals, metals, chemicals etc.),
Aadhi-Daivikam (those caused by the gods - air, wind, storm, water, fire, electricity, lightning, earthquake, etc.)
Is there any means to control these difficulties (dukham दु:खं) ?
Perhaps knowing the organizational hierarchy of our self & body organs might help. Let us ponder a bit about them.
Karma-indriya (5 Nos. Organs of Action) are controlled by Jnana-Indriya (5 Nos.).
Jnana-Indriyas (Organs of Sense/Perception) are controlled by Praana (Praanic Energy).
Praana (life energy) is controlled by Manas (mind).
Manas is controlled by Buddhi (intellect).
Buddhi is controlled by Aatma (soul).
Aatma is controlled by Aham (Self).
Aham is none but Brahma.
In other words, the Chairman of our body is Brahma / Parabrahma.
The lowest in the hierarchy are the Karmendriyas.
Therefore, we could say, that all our actions are actually performed by para-Brahma only. (who might have of course down-delegated to others in the hierarchy - but essentially, the doer is HIM/THAT only).
Therefore inorder to contribute to the requirement of the Isha (controller), faith is necessary and absolutely necessary where individual intelligence tend to fail. Intelligence is necessary to understand the hierarchy and once the hierarchy is properly understood, faith and trust is one of the primary guiding principles of successful living.
For example, a new employee to an organization needs to seek and understand the objectives, mission and vision of the Chairman of that organization. Once understood, there can be unlimited faith in that Chairman. Otherwise, the limbs of action would lead the organization to hell and not heaven.
This may be the concept of Brahma-jnaanam - that of Jnaana-yoga, Bhakti-yoga as well as Karma/Raaja-Yoga.
The understanding of the hierarchy is Jnaana-yoga, the unconditional faith in the supreme personality is Bhakti-yoga, and the resulting work/karma or duty that is performed in accordance and in synergy with the Jnaana & Bhakti is the Karma/Raaja Yoga. Karma/Raaja yoga may lead one to prosperity (heaven) or otherwise delusion (hell) - based on the balance sheet prepared by none other than Chitra-Gupta (the secret cinematographer)!!.
0 - x - 0 - x - 0
