Positive Thinking 16 – Understanding willpower 3 – Sharpen and strengthen the intelligence

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no matter how devastating, at the ephemeral level.
Thank you. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
Welcome back to our discussion on positive thinking. We are discussing about the factors that shape our willpower. Until now, we have discussed the five factors, our genes, our upbringing, our association, our free will, and God’s grace.
Now, we will discuss about how we can boost our free will by connecting it with God’s grace. So, when we use our free will consistently and purposefully, it is what we refer to as willpower. Now, the Upanishads use a very intriguing and comprehensive metaphor to depict our inner dynamics, which undergird our willpower.
So, in this metaphor, which is often called a chariot body metaphor, the body is compared to a chariot, the horses are compared to the senses, the reins are compared to the mind, the charioteer is compared to the intelligence, the passenger is the soul. So now, the ideal setup is that the passenger tells the charioteer where I want to go. And accordingly, the charioteer directs the horses using the reins.
But similarly, if we are spiritually aware, if we are spiritually purposeful, then we know what are the values and goals of our life. And accordingly, we direct our body-mind mechanism. But if the horses are wild, and if the passenger is bewildered, the passenger is drunk, or passenger is deluded, passenger is not even aware where I’m going, the horses may pull the chariot here and there as per their own wills.
So similarly, if we are not spiritually conscious, and if we are, if our senses are wild, then the senses will push us, will push and pull us here and there. So the intelligence is the charioteer. And intelligence as the charioteer is the one who has the responsibility to control the horses.
So similarly, our intelligence needs to be very strong, by which we can control the senses. And we can be purposeful in achieving whatever goals we want to achieve in our life. So now, what is it that determines our intelligence? Nowadays, for the last century or so, we have had IQ tests, which tell our IQ score.
And people with high IQ are considered to be people who are very intelligent. Yes, IQ is one parameter of intelligence. But it is not the full determiner of intelligence.
It’s all time and time again, it has been seen that people with high IQs fail in life, they don’t develop proper relationships, they may be organized in their thinking, but they’re not very organized in their living. And in that way, they because they can’t develop relationships because they can’t organize, manage themselves properly, manage the others properly, despite their capacity for information processing, which is essentially what is measured by IQ, they don’t succeed in life. So now, researchers have talked about EQ, which is the capacity to be emotionally sensitive, emotional quotient, and to understand group dynamics, people sensitive, people’s emotional sensitivities, and to shape one’s behavior accordingly.
And then some researchers also talk about SQ, spiritual quotient, which talks about how we need to have an overall sense of purpose in our life. And we need to make decisions in harmony with the overall purpose of our life. So IQ, EQ are fine, but unless there is a high SQ, by which we can integrate the various aspects of our life under overall purposeful rubric, without that, we will not get life satisfaction.
So the Bhagavad Gita offers us a vision of intelligence, which is quite comprehensive. Intelligence is not just the information processing capacity, it comprises of discrimination and determination. Nowadays, the word discrimination has a negative connotation to it, because of say, caste discrimination or race discrimination or gender discrimination.
But the word discrimination originally does not have to have any discriminatory basis to it implicitly, it just means the capacity to understand, to differentiate between the two. So differentiation and determination. So the capacity to differentiate between the temporary and the eternal, between the material and the spiritual, between the long term and the short term, between the impulsive and the reflective.
So sometimes things which seem to be pleasant initially, may be malevolent eventually. So for example, chocolates may taste good, they seem pleasant, but they may spoil the teeth, they may spoil the stomach, they may spoil the finger, they may have so many negative effects in the long run. So this is the capacity, this can be understood by the capacity to differentiate.
This is short term pleasurable, but this is long term troublesome. So intelligence is not just the capacity to process information, but it is also the capacity to differentiate between the beneficial and the titillating. So between the titillating and the uplifting.
When you understand this differentiation, then we can choose wisely. And scripture, God offers us his message through scriptures. So when we start to swadhyaya, so we are talking about just as the intelligence, the charioteer needs to be strong to control the horses and direct them purposefully.
Similarly, our intelligence needs to be strong by which we can make healthy choices, by which we can direct our life towards purposeful goals. And that is foundational for our willpower. So the willpower is based on our intelligence and our intelligence is sustained.
One aspect, the capacity for differentiation is sustained by scriptural study. So scriptural study, it sharpens our discerning capacity and we can understand what should be done, what should be avoided. Pratim chanivitim cha karyakarye bhayave vandham moksham chayaviti buddhi sa patha sadhvi.
Krishna says the right intelligence is that which differentiates what is to be done, what is not to be done, what will be freeing, what will be binding, what will be beneficial, what will be harmful. This kind of capacity to differentiate is the capacity of the intelligence and that can be strengthened by svadhyaya. And then there is sadhana and then there is not just differentiation, there is also determination.
Determination is the capacity to translate our vision into action. Okay, I understand that this is not good for me. Although it seems, it feels good, it’s not good.
So after understanding this, we need to be able to stay away from this and that is determination. This is the horses. When the horses start seeing some fruit or something like that off the road and the horses start going away from the road, at that time the charioteer should also not get carried away.
Oh, that looks nice, let us go there. No, that’s off the road, there’s a ditch in between, the whole chariot will overturn. I cannot go there.
So that differentiating capacity, this is the path and this is off the path, that capacity of charioteer also has to. And after that, when the horse starts moving in the wrong direction, the charioteer has to have the strength and the skill to pull back the horses and bring them on track. So keep them on track.
Similarly, determination is the capacity to transform our vision into action. So scriptural studies will give us the vision and sadhana. Sadhana is practice such as meditation, which we will discuss more in our future talks later, that this connects our power with the power of God.
God becomes accessible through spiritual practices and his omnipotence enables us to control ourselves and transform our vision into action. If the charioteer is weak and someone stronger comes and do the helping hand of charioteer, charioteer can control the horses. When the charioteer himself practices bodybuilding and develops muscles, then charioteer can control the horses.
Similarly, our determination can be strengthened and when our determination is strengthened by sadhana, then we can actually act positively. So our willpower can be boosted by sharpening our differentiation and strengthening our determination. How this can be done? That is through swadhya and sadhana.
We will discuss more about the underlying principles of connecting the human will with the divine will in our future