Sublime

This model sheds considerable light on the fact that, for example, some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal.

But what’s little discussed (at least in academic circles, where it’s less apparent) is that once you are at work among a pool of colleagues who are about as smart as you are, your cognitive abilities alone do not make you outstanding—particularly as a leader. There’s a floor effect for IQ when everyone in the group is at the same high level.

Want to know who will do best in school or who will actually have more knowledge? Don’t bet on IQ. Being an introvert is more predictive of good grades than intelligence. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain reports: At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability. One study tested 141 college students’

Excessive intellectualism is a chronic condition in our Western culture. Showing off what we know is made a virtue calculated by the number of obscure references, degrees, and learning institutions cited. Knowledge is power, but can be elusive and distracting if it is not grounded in wisdom and understanding.

There are many, psychiatrists among them, who stringently examine the world but not so stringently examine themselves. They may be competent individuals as the world judges competence, but they are never wise. The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action.

Intelligence is one among many ways of being in the world: it is an interface to it; it makes the world manifest.