Use Your Intellect to the Fullest
Acharya Prashant: Only a very sharp intellect can rise above itself. You look at the prophets, saints. You look at Kabir or Nanak. See how adept they were even in worldly matters. Didn't Prophet Muhammad fight and win wars? What do you think, winning wars is a child's play? And he was winning wars with very scant resources. He surely must have been an excellent leader and a manager. He knew the world. He was a master of worldly affairs as well. He was not just chanting the name of Allah, hiding in some secluded place.
He knew the affairs of the world. He knew how to manage men. He knew how to assemble resources. He knew how to organize an army. He knew how to run a small government. He had intellect.
Only when you have intellect can you rise above the intellect.
In ancient India, in the great universities — Taxila, Nalanda — where religion was taught, logic and philosophy and mathematics were taught before religion was taught. Do you understand this? If you do not know logic, how will you understand Ashtavakra? What do you think, you can understand Sankhya Yoga if you cannot comprehend logic? You will fail. Are you getting it?
Use your intellect to the fullest, and know, using your intellect, when the time has come to put the intellect aside. If you don't have intellect, you won't know when not to use the intellect. And do not put the intellect aside when it comes to the regular, mundane affairs of the world. When you go to a market to buy, to sell, to negotiate, use the intellect.
In Arabia they say, have faith in Allah but tie your camel. Use the intellect. If you are so foolish that you cannot take care of your belongings, then Allah is not going to help you.
Sharp intellect and innocence are one. This would surprise you, but they are actually one. If you have a sharp intellect, then the intellect would tell you its own limitations. The intellect would tell you it is failing. When the intellect tells you its own limitations, that is called wonderment. You look at something and you know that you cannot deceive yourself. You cannot tell yourself that you know that thing. That is called intellectual honesty.
You look at something and you find that you are compelled to admit that you do not know what that thing is. That is wonderment. What is that? My intellect is failing in front of it. And that is called innocence. And that is the level at which you approach the scriptures. That is the point at which the unknown reveals itself to you. Wonderment. "I do not know what this is." For that, you need to have some grey matter. For that, you need to exercise the brain.
Are you getting it?
Learn some mathematics. Don't be a duffer at science. Otherwise, religion would mean just superstition to you. That is why I put so much emphasis on observing yourself and the world. Know the ways of the world. Know the movements of the world. Know the tricks of the world. Know the tricks of your own mind. Only when you fully know the world will you be able to know that which is beyond the world.
The only way to know God is to know the world. There is no other option available to you. If you do not understand this world, you will never know God.
You must know what life is. You must know what the stars are. You must observe the trees. You must observe the whole game of life — anger, sadness, despair, hope. You must see what it means to be a man, a woman, what it means to be a society. You must know what all these great inventions are. You must travel a lot. You must meet different kinds of people. You must have as much exposure and experience as possible. You must read greatly. You must listen to stories. You must get a good education in the field that calls to you. And only then can you be truly spiritual.
Of course, there have been exceptions. Of course, grace has descended on those as well who never travelled or who were not educated. But they were great exceptions.
You must know life in all its colors. You must know science. You must understand technology. You must know relationships. You must know attraction, love, betrayal, detachment. You must have passed through all of this, and then you will know what God is.
