There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
Notes
From the translations of Rumi by Coleman Barks
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The knowledge of the heart sets all men as equal and doesn't pertain to competition, perhaps that's why its so elusive?
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Both
I wish I could have both the kinds, well, trying to improve the first kind as the second has nothing to do with efforts, simply God gifted, as was gifted to Rumi. -
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I love how this poet shares those two kinds of intelligence and knowledge. The second one he speaks of must equate itself to "common sense". A sense of knowing without ever having studied, "the gift". Brilliant work by this poet of age. His words transcend time.
Renee -
I have long felt that within our minds we have knowledge of a great many things and it just needs quiet reflection to unlock it. All that we know today has been unlocked by others at some time or the other and written down so today we have books on a great many subjects. Quiet thought, reflection observation analysis opens much within our owm minds, hidden knowledge that most of us carry unawares and soemtimes something might just trip it though often people go to theri graves carrying an undiscovered treasure within their own minds.
But what this poem says is to look within and not without for true knowledge... To unlock the oceans that flow beneath our consciousness. To let them flow out.
Another thought that comes as I read this is how often when we read something we had never before even been aware of we think "Oh I thought that"! That makes me feel that the locked up knowledge that flows within us is similar though we might exist in different times and in different places.
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