- 4 days ago
Cultivating Your Contemplative Intelligence - Unveiling Your Contemplative Intelligence
In the ceaseless turning of the world, where the winds of urgency often whip us into a frenzy, we find ourselves adrift. Like a small boat tossed on vast, indifferent seas, we yearn for an anchor, a quiet wisdom to guide our journey. This longing, this deep human need for meaning beyond the clamour, is not a weakness but a beacon. It calls us to what I call Contemplative Intelligence (CQ) – the innate capacity within each of us to pause, to listen, to truly be with ourselves and the universe, nature and God.
In today’s fast-paced world, we’re constantly striving for higher IQ and EQ. But what about the intelligence that helps us truly understand ourselves, navigate complexity with calm, and find deeper meaning in our work and lives? I’m talking about Contemplative Intelligence (CQ).
In the ceaseless turning of the world, where the winds of urgency often whip us into a frenzy, we find ourselves adrift. Like a small boat tossed on vast, indifferent seas, we yearn for an anchor, a quiet wisdom to guide our journey. This longing, this deep human need for meaning beyond the clamour, is not a weakness but a beacon. It calls us to what I call Contemplative Intelligence (CQ) – the innate capacity within each of us to pause, to listen, to truly be with ourselves and the universe, nature and God.
In today’s fast-paced world, we’re constantly striving for higher IQ and EQ. But what about the intelligence that helps us truly understand ourselves, navigate complexity with calm, and find deeper meaning in our work and lives? I’m talking about Contemplative Intelligence (CQ).
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00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Transcription by CastingWords
01:00Transcription by CastingWords
01:30yearning that we develop like a sacred ache that many of us carry, some kind of longing
01:37to feel truly present, deeply connected and authentically ourselves amidst the beautiful,
01:45bewildering chaos of life.
01:46None of us are alone in this feeling.
01:51We all are, in our own ways, navigating the currents of existence, often feeling pulled
01:58further and further from the quiet harbour of our own heartbeats.
02:05At first in life, we identify with the ego, with the shadow, the false self or the frightened
02:13personality.
02:14And that is not somewhere where we should stay.
02:19It leaves us blind, not seeing reality as it is.
02:24We see life rather with perceptions created in fear.
02:29But contemplation is not a call to escape the world at all, but rather to rediscover the
02:36sanctuary, the sacred sanctuary within it.
02:39And the work of contemplative intelligence is an invitation, like a gentle hand extended to all of us to explore, cultivating our contemplative intelligence.
02:53It's the gift, the grace that we have been given to become gods amongst men, to become people who can see with the eyes behind the eyes and hear with the ears behind the ears, as they say, you know.
03:13Contemplation is not a rigid discipline at all.
03:15It's more of a homecoming.
03:17And if you practice it, you'll start to see it's based in the recognition of all ancient and inherent wisdom that resides within you.
03:28It's in all of us.
03:30It's like a quiet anchor waiting to be found so that we can raise it and set sail in life.
03:38Because life is a marvellous mystery.
03:40It's wonder beyond anything we can think in.
03:43Without contemplation, we make our lives so, so small.
03:48We go in the wrong direction, chasing money, chasing things that do not matter.
03:54I often say that 98% of people are spending 98% of their time on things that just don't matter.
04:01Contemplation is the wisdom that beckons us to pause, to get into the gap and breathe.
04:06And to remember that you're a sacred vessel.
04:12You're a creation of God, of the divine, brimming with untold depths of understanding and compassion and especially divine connection.
04:24That connection, often we don't even realize is there.
04:28So, you've got to embark on a journey, even a gentle journey, to reconnect, to discover that divine connection and learn all things new.
04:41We need to unlearn the distractions that have kept us from the profound truth already nestled within.
04:48And every sacred text tells us, points us in the direction of finding our higher, authentic selves, our sacred selves.
04:59At some point in life, in the ceaseless turning of the world, we find ourselves adrift.
05:05Not once, mind you.
05:07Often.
05:07And it's like being a small boat tossed backwards and forwards on a vast, indifferent sea.
05:16And we yearn for an anchor.
05:19It's inbuilt, inbred, by design, that we want to call to God, to acquire wisdom, to guide us on this incredible journey.
05:31This endless, boundless, ceaseless journey that is not meaningless at all, although it can appear so.
05:45Especially in the beginning, in the first half of life.
05:49But there's a longing, like a compass, deep human need for meaning beyond the noise and the clamor.
05:57And it's stronger than ever today.
05:59So it's not a weakness, but a beacon to reach out and call it quits with hustle and bustle, with being a rat on the wheel.
06:11Life calls us all eventually to what I call contemplative intelligence.
06:15To the space in between the zeros and ones, that binary system that drives everything around us.
06:23The math of the universe.
06:25There's so much more.
06:26So our innate capacity is to eventually come to realize that we must just stop, pause.
06:37And we must do so to listen, to truly be ourselves and connect with the universe, with nature, with God.
06:47Contemplation is definitely not a new skill to acquire, but an ancient art to remember.
06:56Taught by the mystics, monks, and masters.
06:58Thomas, Thomas Merton, Moses, Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, Mohammed, the list goes on.
07:05The contemplatives that lived between us.
07:08Einstein was one of them.
07:11They changed the world.
07:13And they're teaching us how to change the world at a time when the world needs change the most.
07:19So it's all coming together.
07:20A great paradigm shift from fear towards love.
07:28I'd say that contemplation is the deep breath before the leap.
07:31The quiet observation before the understanding, before the awakening, if you will.
07:39In a world clamoring for our attention, this contemplation, the CQ is the gentle but persistent invitation to reclaim our presence.
07:50God toll reminds us of that all the time.
07:52We're not even present when we're lost in the anxiety of the future or the depression of the past.
08:00How often today do most of us live lives dictated by external expectations?
08:08It's ridiculous.
08:09I mean, where do we think it's going to get us?
08:11We're driven by the noisy demands of others.
08:16A kind of people-pleasing that leaves us depressed, alone, addicted, full of shame.
08:26So we all run around hurried by this checklist of what we should be, what we should be doing.
08:34Contemplative intelligence, on the other hand, offers us a sacred mirror.
08:38When we engage in deep contemplation, we step out of the current of external influences and into the quiet chamber of our being,
08:48where we can at least be undistracted and so begin to really see ourselves, discover ourselves,
08:57not as others perceive us or as we thought we should be when we were young, innocent and naive,
09:04but we start to see ourselves as we truly are.
09:08And who we truly are is beings who are becoming.
09:13We start off creating a container, a persona, a set of masks, and we list 10 of these masks out.
09:25We're codependent, anxious, people-pleasing, perfectionists, and controlling judges, etc.
09:33And that keeps us in the race when we need to be as young children, learning how to participate.
09:42But that's not who we really are.
09:46So that inner yearning comes calling and beckoning for us and it starts to say, well, who am I really?
09:53And when we can't answer that, oftentimes we begin a spiritual journey of some kind and awakening a deeper look into answering that question,
10:05question that we're so afraid of, we can't bear to look at it until we're about halfway through life.
10:12Life is a journey of self-discovery, self-actualization, and then God-realization.
10:21It doesn't matter if you're an atheist or closed-minded or convinced of this or that in your 20s and 30s.
10:29I mean, come on, the universe is billions and billions of years old and you're convinced, you know, because you needed to be convinced.
10:38And so the re-looking at reality as it is, is contemplation.
10:42And to contemplate, you need to go beyond all that you can think, all that you have put into boxes and become a mystic, really.
10:56Become somebody who is able to lean into the uncertainty of life.
11:05And for most of us, that's not possible until we've transcended the ego.
11:12Through this journey of life, we get to differentiate between the superficial layers we accumulate and the core essence of our being, which is God-like, divine.
11:25Love, it's not that hard out of shell.
11:29You know, people are, in essence, their values and they're good, they're kind.
11:35But when they get frightened, afraid, they feel attacked.
11:38And then that persona comes and we're capable of the worst evil we could even think of.
11:46What we've done on this planet is far worse than what anybody can or dares to think.
11:53And those are some of the best minds that have ever lived.
11:56The gulags in Russia, thought up by the most intelligent people in the country.
12:03Racism.
12:05Separation.
12:07Sexism.
12:09Gender bias.
12:11Thinking black is better than white or white better than black.
12:14Nonsense.
12:15Garbage.
12:1798% of people spending 98% of history on things that didn't matter.
12:22You know, it's not Alexander the Great, it's Alexander the Fool, the Jester, the egomaniac.
12:33To explain it, maybe I can say that it's like peeling back the layers of an onion, really, this journey.
12:39Not with tears of sorrow, but with a quiet joy of discovery.
12:44Because life really is good.
12:46You know, those first few lines in Genesis, in the Old Testament, the Torah.
12:52Life is good.
12:55The trees are good.
12:56The bugs are good.
12:57The nature of humanity is good.
13:02Very good.
13:03And maybe that's all, as William Blake said, we need to know.
13:08Beauty, truth, and goodness.
13:09But we can't see it after a while.
13:12We start to believe that the world is a malevolent, violent, and hostile place.
13:20That's the rest of the universe that's buzzing with creation, with supernovas and black holes and all sorts.
13:28Here, it's a different story.
13:30But you need to look twice.
13:33You need to look with contemplative eyes at some point and see the beauty of the journey.
13:39The beauty of the metamorphosis from worm to butterfly that we're all taking.
13:47So we don't start off as heroes.
13:50We go on a hero's journey to discover the hero.
13:56At first, there's no courage.
14:00We're frightened, defensive, weak.
14:03We become victims.
14:07And victims, as we know from history, create violent, volatile people.
14:15And I deal with all of them in the Center for Healing and Life Transformation in South Africa.
14:22When people are afraid, they become victims.
14:26They become closed, dark, stressed.
14:30And in that space, they can create nothing new.
14:34And so life itself is almost paused for a while, while the innate nature of things wants us to take a pause for a reason,
14:47so that we can turn around, go in a new direction, you know, go within, not without, and think, do, believe what really matters.
14:57And fulfill our purpose and meaning, which is to move from fear to love.
15:02Every part of us, our body, hearts, and minds are designed that way.
15:10Our nervous systems are constantly on high alert in the world today, bombarded by information.
15:17You know, everything in form, far from spirituality.
15:21We're hit with deadlines.
15:23We have to pass tests and exams.
15:26And there's a persistent hum of digital connection everywhere.
15:29If the earth had corners, the digital connection would be there.
15:35So this chronic state of activation all the time, of no zeros but ones, depletes us.
15:43It's not the way it's meant to be.
15:44It's not balanced.
15:45So it leaves us frayed, anxious, and often disconnected from the very source of our vitality.
15:52The source of our vitality is God.
15:55It doesn't matter what you believe.
15:57It's something that you need to know.
16:02And all you need to do to know is look around and see reality as it is without the distortions and perceptions based in fear that cloud our vision.
16:15So contemplative intelligence serves as a powerful antidote for life.
16:20First the snake in the garden, then the bite, and that venom that has run through us for thousands of years.
16:29But contemplative intelligence is the antidote.
16:33Most people don't realize that there's an antidote for the snake bite.
16:37You know, I remember the story of Paul sitting around the fire, being bitten by a venomous snake, and he just shrugged it off.
16:47He wasn't going to be a victim.
16:49He was on purpose and operating spiritually.
16:54Where his body and the outside environment did not dictate what happened inside Paul.
17:05So in essence, he was completely managing himself properly.
17:09And this is the problem today.
17:12This is why people come to the center.
17:15They are unable to manage themselves.
17:17Never mind the world.
17:19Never mind speak this universal language of love that needs to be accessed through emerging out of fear.
17:30So whenever we engage in practices like focused breathing, contemplative walks, or simply gazing or sitting in quiet reflection,
17:41any time we go to zero, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
17:46And that itself initiates the body's natural relaxation response.
17:52It gets to zero.
17:54You know, that's where God is.
17:56That's where meditation is.
17:57That's where no thing, no one, no time, no space is at this zero point, this omega point.
18:06So it's not just a momentary reprieve, being still and knowing God.
18:10It's a profound re-patterning of our physiological, psychological, and emotional responses to life's challenges.
18:19We think we can just keep going.
18:21No, no, we can't.
18:22Not without losing our minds, which is the mental health crisis today.
18:29But in some ways, losing your mind is absolutely necessary.
18:34I call it finding your eccentric self, a self that is off-center.
18:40Because if you're not off-center, you can't see, you can't understand people, places, and things.
18:51You're, in a sense, blind when you're operating with the calculating and analytical mind.
18:58So through practice, we cultivate eventually a deeper sense of presence.
19:06We learn to observe our thoughts, you know, witness them without being consumed by them.
19:12Our thoughts are not our being.
19:15We're not our thoughts.
19:16And when we identify with those thoughts, it's a case of mistaken identity.
19:22And we're lost.
19:25This detachment, not of indifference, but of gentle awareness, allows us to step back from the whirlpool of constant anxiety and finally gain some perspective.
19:37But that perspective is not gained through information.
19:43We have endless information today, all of us, with the internet and so on.
19:48But you cannot gain perspective with all the information in the world.
19:53You just have another question.
19:56In between stimulus and response, we become less reactive and more responsive.
20:01In other words, we go from powerless to powerful, which, you know, power means action.
20:08It's not as though the world becomes less challenging when you practice spirituality or contemplation,
20:16but our capacity to meet the challenges that face us grow immeasurably.
20:23We build inner radical resilience, finding pockets of calm even amidst the chaos.
20:30And our souls lead us forward rather than our frightened personalities.
20:38I think our deepest yearning is for God, but for meaning below that, that transcends the mundane, the meaningless,
20:48for a connection to something larger than ourselves, that's what we yearn for, all of us.
20:56And if we're not pursuing that connection, we become anxious, depressed, traumatized.
21:04Contemplative intelligence is at its heart a spiritual practice, meaning we go within rather than allow ourselves to be dictated to by the environment, the external world.
21:17So we take charge, we start to manage ourselves unknowingly at first, that's okay.
21:23So we can see the sacred in the ordinary.
21:27Nothing changes, but we experience the divine not as an abstract concept, but as a living presence woven into the very fabric of our existence.
21:37You get to see grace, beauty, truth before you might not have seen them, even in 40, 50, 60 years, as some people never see it.
21:47Contemplation really is a way of seeing reality without cognitive distortions, laced in fear.
21:56It's easy to get laced in fear if you cannot see God, see purpose, see meaning.
22:02So every one of us is welcome to experience it when we're ready.
22:09And when we do experience it, we say things like, I've got it, or I once was lost, but now I'm found.
22:17It really is the science of finding your spiritual self.
22:20Self and whether one defines God as a personal deity, a universal consciousness or energy, or the interconnectedness of knife even.
22:30Cultivating your contemplative intelligence opens that door to the profound experience of being able to conceive the mystery of the creator.
22:42You see, the world and the universe are not only stranger than we think, they're stranger than we can think.
22:49And through contemplative intelligence, we move beyond dogma, beyond the boundaries of intellectual calculating understanding, and we move shifting into direct experience.
23:04That's what we're here for.
23:06But we're not ready for it in the beginning.
23:08We have to practice.
23:10We have to open up to get there.
23:12So at first we force, race, and push, and bomb, and beat, but it comes to nothing, of course.
23:20Who would have thought that it's in the hush of a morning sunrise or the intricate pattern of a leaf, the Pacific Ocean, the shared silence with a loved one,
23:31or just the profound solitude of meditation, of being still, and knowing God that allows us to touch the eternal.
23:41Wow.
23:42We begin to sense the underlying unity of all things, the connectedness, the miraculous intelligence that orchestrates the cosmos.
23:51And we discover our own sacred place within it, you know, once lost, now found.
23:58This is where the meaning blossoms, where purpose finds itself, and we lay deep, deep roots, and then peace starts to take hold.
24:10And we cannot expect world peace if we cannot even be peaceful ourselves.
24:16How egoic of us.
24:18You want world peace, but you cannot be peaceful yourself.
24:23Ah, this makes no sense.
24:24No sense at all.
24:26And that is the analytical mind.
24:29Egoic by nature.
24:31Always dualistic, telling others that they are wrong.
24:35And in that way, you get a sense of feeling that you're right.
24:40Sooner or later, we discover that the divine is not somewhere out there, but intimately woven into the very breath we take.
24:48And our frightened personality, persona, or masks are not us.
24:55Our thoughts are not us.
24:57The body, not us.
24:59And to disidentify is to unlearn who you were.
25:05And if you can face the question of who am I again, the second time, you're going to get there.
25:13You're going to wake up and tread the road less traveled.
25:16And it's a road that is a lifelong unfolding, really.
25:20It's gentle, but very, very persistent.
25:23And, you know, God wins every time, I say, and we're going to return home to the quiet wisdom residing within us at some point.
25:33If it's on our deathbed, then so be it.
25:36Life will have it that way.
25:37But we can choose change, growth, transformation in a state of suffering and illness, or we can choose it in a state of love, joy, and grace.
25:48And we get to pick.
25:51That's what the biblical texts and the nature and the mystics teach.
25:57They teach us to dare to look within.
26:00Because the answers are in there for all of us.
26:02That's the game.
26:04You were looking for the answers you didn't find.
26:06You didn't look within.
26:08You didn't dare.
26:10And life insists.
26:12It's a daring adventure or nothing at all.
26:18In closing, remember that cultivating your contemplative intelligence is not a race to a finish line or some sort of performance that needs to be judged.
26:28It's a tender, lifelong process of becoming who you really are.
26:33A gentle unfolding of yourself to find the you you always meant to be.
26:38Think of it not as adding another task to your already full plate.
26:43We all have today, but rather as a subtracting noise, you know, giving you space, making space for the sacred silence where true wisdom blossoms.
26:55Got to get to Zerah.
26:56You got to be still to know God.
26:59This is the key.
27:01Every quiet breath, every moment of conscious presence, every step taken in mindful awareness is a profound act of self-love.
27:10And what's required is a compassionate embrace of your own humanity.
27:15It is these sacred pauses that help us heal.
27:21It is there that we remember our divine essence.
27:24And that's how we reconnect with the deep, unwavering love that animates all of life.
27:31You know, faith, hope, and love.
27:33But love, love, starting with self-love, is all that will remain.
27:39So carry this quiet strength within you and let your contemplative intelligence be your guiding light.
27:48Practice, seek, and then find the steadying hand and the loving heart that naturally illuminates your path forward.
27:57And you'll never be lost again because you'll always return to the serene and boundless truth of who you are, who you really are, beloved, chosen, connected, divine.
28:12The journey continues for us all through thick and thin.
28:25And what we need to know is that we're profoundly equipped to walk it with grace and deep wisdom.
28:34Not alone.
28:36Never alone.
28:37Always connected to source.
28:39Let's practice contemplation together.
28:49Repeat after me.
28:53Pause.
28:55Breathe and be.
28:58Be still and know that I am God.
29:00Be still and know that I am God.
29:09Be still.
29:32Be still.
29:35Be still.
29:39Be.
29:40Namaste.
30:05Jef, jef.
30:10I'm Optimus Opus.
30:18Jef, let me strain on me.
30:27Loose it.
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