Spiritual intelligence helps you rise above what the material world has to offer. It allows you to access and enjoy the energy that isn’t visible to other people.
You feel like you’re a part of something so much bigger than yourself. It’s an achievement everyone should aim for.
Many people do harm to others for their own good. They think that this is good for them, and in the short term and in the small picture, it might be. But in the long-term and in the big picture, it’s not.
When you produce harm to others, two things happen.
Since they’re now less likely to do good things, and more likely to do bad things, they too will do bad things to others; who will in turn be more primed to do bad things. And this keeps going. Somewhere along the line, it’s gonna come back to the person who started it.
But you understand this. You understand that energy spreads. You understand that we’re all one. And you understand that it all comes back, sooner or later.
That is why you do good things. Not just selflessly, but logically as well. Since you understand that in the bigger picture, you too are gonna reap the benefits.
I see life in two very discreet pockets.
Do you hate it? Reject it? Deny it? Nietzche says that you should learn to love it. That’s what Amor Fati is. Not just an acceptance of fate — but a love of it.
This makes sense because any event has several different consequences — some good and some bad. When you learn to love fate, you bias yourself to look at the good consequences, not the bad. And that leads to happiness.
I’ve genuinely never felt the need to practice gratitude. And it’s not because I’ve not had my share of suffering. It’s because a lack of gratitude seems really stupid to me.
Even though I too have suffered a lot in life, I’ve also been blessed by some truly wonderful things. In essence, gratitude overwhelms me. And hence, I never had to actually take time out to practice gratitude.
I don’t know you. But I know you’re life is tough as well. However, I also know that you have more blessings than you can count.
All you need to do to develop high spiritual intelligence is to realize and let the gratitude for those blessings overwhelm you.
The last type of person has high spiritual intelligence. They realize that all humans are one, and hence, they truly wish to stop other people’s suffering.
On the surface, yes, people might seem evil. They might do truly horrendous things that certify their evilness. However, spiritually intelligent people understand that no one is inherently evil, they’re just hurt deep down and their hurt is taking ugly outlets.
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
And it makes sense because a truly happy person can never want someone else to be unhappy.
Some humans have egos so big that they tend to place themselves at the center of the universe. But not you. You’re in awe of the universe.
You look at the night sky and realize that you’re nothing but a speck of dust on the galactic scale. You still feel small when you stand in front of the ocean. You realize that the universe is billions of years old and millions of light-years big. And your few decades of 5 feet 8-inch life is nothing in front of it.
In essence, this awe keeps you from being arrogant.
This is one of the biggest signs of high spiritual intelligence because it’s truly very hard to achieve.
This achievement is only possible when you’re so spiritually enlightened that your suffering in life starts to vanish into oblivion. Of course, all of it is never going to away.
But you keep getting closer to the minimum amount. And at the same time, you feel so at peace in life, and you realize how good it can get, that you wish it for everyone. And when you realize that other people don’t have the peace you do, your empathy shoots up — way more than your own residual sadness.
Here’s how you can achieve it theoretically:
Here’s a recap of seven signs that show you have high spiritual intelligence:
Akshad Singi, M.D. has been published in Better Humans, Mind Cafe, and more.
This article was originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the author.
