The human being is the only creature on earth who does not live supremely intelligent within his own world. At times and in places he has done so. But today, virtually everywhere, he no longer knows how.
The human of today seems to think that his intelligence is the measure for all others. Human-devised tests for non-human intelligence can tell us certain things about horses, chimpanzees, dolphins and bees, even trees, but they don't ever give us a true gauge of intelligence with all of its intricacy, subtlety and power.
Imagine yourself captive in a bee hive, having to prove to the bees that yo
u are quite smart. You cannot fly, you cannot collect pollen, create honey, build a hive or even buzz. You know nothing of bee language and culture, though you could probably learn a few rudiments with time and observation. You have no sense of the cycles of flowers and wind currents or hive territory. You don't have the capacity to sting, nor do you understand much about bee predators. You can't protect the hive. If the bees judged your intelligence by your capacity to do the things they do, you would be considered the hive's most interesting, possibly cutest, fool. The bees would have to look after you because you couldn't survive in their world.
Place yourself in the Congo within a culture of chimpanzees and you would be in considerable trouble for your survival. You would quickly come to understand just how perfectly intelligent a chimpanzee is in his own world, and how well he is fitted to his existence. You would come to regard each and every one a genius. And they might regard you as a bit of an idiot !
If you'd never seen a horse and you had to live among them you would have to permit
them to be your teachers, if they agreed. In a dolphin's world you might become a much loved, not very smart, pet... in their eyes probably a rather retarded and time-consuming pet.
Our clumsy interest in assessing an animal's, or a tree's, intelligence is among the height of human vanity and arrogance, and a crucial signing of our disconnectedness from who we are. Today's scientists are still trying to decide whether animals, trees and other "things" have feelings, emotions, memories... and whether there is love and hate in the non-human world. More amazing, still, is that we go along with them, and their findings... like children without eyes, ears and hearts.
There were
times, and human cultures, where people lived in the world variously integrated with everything appearing in their field of awareness. People of such cultures could appreciate, evaluate and respect the intelligence of bees and trees, monkeys, clouds and horny toads. They didn't stand apart and analyze the world. They entered into it, gave themselves to it, and came to understand it deeply. Their intelligence expanded through their integration with all other things. They comprehended all forms of intelligence in a unity.
The world, in its wholeness, not through any of its separated parts, expressed a regnant intelligence. If any part, or thing, was undervalued intelligent participation in the world -- LIFE -- was impeded.
Few cultures expressed this high a level of sensitivity and strength throughout. Some did. In every region of the world some did; and many others enjoyed varying degrees of such participatory intelligence. Today, however, such understanding is all but gone and humanity now appears to itself as an insulated, armored and separated entity... and we have become afraid, angry, lost and increasingly despairing.
We seldom walk now except to go out and look at something, arrive somewhere, get some exercise or distract ourselves. I think the Earth must miss the communion with people she once enjoyed when our feet walked for sacred reasons as well as practical ones.
A Tibetan Llama once spoke of western hikers in the Himalayas... "Many people come, looking, looking, looking -- see nothing."
For tens of t
housands of years the Australian Aborigines sacredly followed the paths of the rainbow snake. Cultures in other areas walked the meridians and ley lines for sacred reasons. North American Aboriginals walked their vision quests. Much of this was about integrating the human being into the world so he or she could become wise, true, fearless and one who could surrender to, and commune with, the great spirit. Such a human could live harmoniously, and intelligently, in the world of many beings, challenges and changes.
Stuart
