Buddha — The most intelligent man

It's Buddha Poornima. And I also got an impulse to write about Buddha. Gautam the Buddha has been a beacon of light to the whole world. The man who attained enlightenment and showed the world a new way to live — a life of compassion and mindfulness.

In today’s world, mindfulness has become quite the savvy word. So in the past few years, there has been a rising interest in meditation. Although eastern mysticism has been popular in the West since the 60s, now there is a far more systematic approach. Yoga and meditation are not considered just some hippy activity but attract people from all walks of life, right from the corporate suits to the homemakers. And why not? The benefits of meditation are such that it has a positive impact on all areas of your life. There are hundreds of people teaching it and millions of people pursuing it. A lot of them are motivated towards it because mindfulness has been shown to increase productivity in work and lessen stress levels. But some perhaps can be said to pursue it as a means to more happiness in life. And this pursuit of happiness, according to me, is the first sign of intelligence.

Today I feel inspired to talk about Gautam the Buddha — the most intelligent and rational man I know of. I feel it requires great intelligence to know compassion, and only the most rational of human beings will understand that violence is not good. We, as a society, often make the mistake of defining intelligence as the ability to solve complex equations or wittiness. But I would like to invite you to think just a little differently. Would you call it intelligence if someone keeps tormenting themselves mentally? Would it be intelligent to become angry and resentful time and time again and never try to find a way out of it? Especially now that there is scientific evidence to prove that anger harms oneself. Yet people, even with good IQ, continue to repeat similar patterns that bring them misery.

If a person is hurt and doesn’t get themselves treated, then how can they be called intelligent? I have nothing against people with a high IQ, and in fact, they are more likely to understand reasons of good sense. My point is simply to state that intelligence is more than just an IQ score or an EQ score. It is observable from the fact that even those who are adjudged to be intelligent by society live a miserable life, plagued by insecurities. Similarly, there is no substance in the relevance of phrases like — highly intelligent people tend to be finicky. Because the very definition of intelligence is questionable. Everyone is finicky about something. And to some extent, almost all of us are affected by the miseries of life. It has nothing to do with the amount of money or the number of friends you have.

The moment something undesirable happens, the mind becomes anxious. When we are anxious, we make people around us anxious as well. Yet most people never try to find out the reasons behind their misery or how to be free from it. A society that spends a bulk of its money on waging wars can hardly be called intelligent. The wars of recent times are a classic example, and the pandemic a few years back was another example of self-created misery. A virus created by humans, for humans. Such a society, where people invest more time in creating division amongst each other and are driven by competition, is not very different from animals operating in the jungles. Except that we are worse because an animal doesn't indulge in torture; a human being may wear clothes but has a tendency to be cruel.

So that brings up an important question — are we even intelligent enough to truly comprehend intelligence? Perhaps a few sections here and there might have the ability to recognise intelligence, but to understand is a different ball game altogether. Understanding is not the same as the accumulation of knowledge.

An intelligent person will first and foremost find a solution to their unhappiness. Isn’t that what we all are after? Money, luxuries, sex, and power are all pursued as a means to be happy. But we get so involved in the means that we forget the end goal of happiness. If this were not the case, then the rich, the powerful, the famous would be enlightened beings.

Considering all these things in mind, I say that Gautam the Buddha is the most intelligent man I know of. (There is no doubt there have been others like him — before, during, and after his time, but the number is a minuscule percentage of people.)

Here is an example of a person who was the crowned prince of the state, and yet he left it all in pursuit of happiness. As a highly sensitive person, Siddhartha Gautam realized that there is Dukha in Samsara (misery in the world). It is this high level of intelligence I speak of, which told him that all the material things in the world cannot bring happiness. It is this high level of intelligence that made him pursue lasting happiness relentlessly. It is this high level of intelligence that helped him conclude life to be causal. Sidharta understood — every effect is a result of a cause created, and with awareness, you can know the cause. He rediscovered — Vipassana (literally meaning — looking carefully), a technique of observing body sensations, and employed it to become free from aversion and craving. It’s through Vipassana that he discovered all the causes and effects he was involved in and became Buddha, the enlightened one.

It wouldn’t have been true intelligence had he stopped there. Once Siddhartha Gautama found a way to be happy, he did what seemed like the most rational thing to do. He went on to teaching others how to be happy. Only an intelligent life form can recognize that to live with compassion is the most rational thing to do.

A lot of people call Buddhism a religion where there is no God and associate it with words like agnostic or even atheist. I feel that these people miss out on the essence of Buddha’s teachings. He wanted to share a way to be happy. The Noble Eight-Fold Path doesn’t mention God, but it does talk about misery and joys. It talks about what actions will bring joy and what actions will bring misery. Perhaps because an unhappy person is not in a position to understand God.

Gautam didn’t want to start a religion. He was neither interested in creating a fandom. His interest lay in making people self-sufficient so that they become a light unto themselves (which were also his final words). Only a life form of the highest intelligence can act in such a manner.

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