Albert Einstein and Spiritual Intelligence

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
~ Albert Einstien

So sayeth Corey@zaadz.com (hope you don't mind me referencing you)...thank you, Corey - again.

Then I thunk about good ol' Al old boy oh boy and thunk, as I tend to do, that the man had a sort of intelligence that exceeded many scientists and thinkers as he then connected his work to the larger issue of nature and our relationship to it, our intrinsic or extrinsic consciousness of ourselves as viewers of and containers of natural reality, raising the ultimate unity of all things (including people).  Then I thunk about Gardner (Howard, I believe?) and his illumination of the multiple intelligences and wondered whether he defined a Spiritual Intelligence amongst the verbal, kinesthetic, spacial and others.....(googling as we speak)....

I perused http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm a few seconds ago and found 8 intelligences. Only one of those mentioned seemed even close to a spiritual intelligence and I was making a semi-bold leap to do so.  On this site, Dr. Thomas Armstrong defines one of Gardner's theoretical intelligences as "intrapersonal" or "self smart"...but then as I looked down this list, information which I've read about before in grad school,

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	Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
	Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
	Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
	Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
	Musical intelligence ("music smart")
	Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
	Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
	Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

(copied from preceding Thomas Armstrong link)

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and realized that a Spiritual Intelligence would have to also encompass the Interpersonal Intelligence area.....hmmmmmm.....and most assuredly the Naturalist Intelligence.......hmmmmm again.....and the Bodily-Kinesthetic, too....and the Logical-Mathematical to boot.......I hmmmmm'ed on, making the now not so dangerous leap to assume that they were all purviews of a Spiritual Intelligence that Gardner had not yet defined.

Our discourse and consequent understandings and learnings are always defined by the informational agenda and valuation that is set forth by the strongest, most compelling and persistent voices in our culture, if not driven by our connection to our innate philosophical/ethical valuation system - spirit).  To not include or even look for or assume the presence of a Spiritual Intelligence is to relegate the Spiritual to the realm of cultural non-existence, even though most United Statian of Americans might call themselves Christians (Are Christians in the USAmerica truly, functionally, bravely giving voice and embodiment to a spiritual reality or simply a Logical/Linguistic configuration of textual reality that is actually pulled methodically away from its connection to the Naturalist and the Interpersonal...I'm SURE we can detail instances of these breaks quickly and easily....sadly).  If we are to even suggest that humans are spiritual beings, then that idea must show up in our academic and scientific arenas of discourse and cultural agenda-setting (including mass communications media). 

Albert Einstein is much more popularly known for his Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, but his quote begs us to enlarge our concept of him, his legacy, Gardner's ground-breaking work and then ourselves.  Al's context of unity of things is not merely (!?) a numerical reality, but one of pathos, ethos and fathomigorical depths that have yet to be plumbed by the daily toe-dipping that we (most of us?  a lot of us?) normally do in our own internal seas of human consciousness.  We can thank also the Institute for Noetic Sciences (Petaluma, CA) for its great work in connecting spirit and science AND their work must be supported by us and all other structures if we are to finally see Albert's viewpoints gain greater ground in the battle for human ontological, epistemological and intellectual/cognitive real estate.

Ultimately, it seems Gardner left something out....something fundamental and something equally as expansive and expanded.  It seems we (pop-culturally) have left something out of Einstein.  It seems, though, that that same thing....is firmly, squarely, maleably and circularly founded inside of us....all.....spirit....."part of a whole" - Spirit.

Peace and love,
Ukumbwa

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