Deep Intelligence
Deep Intelligence may be understood as our ability to prosper through connectedness with the world. The conventional notion of intelligence is about being 'in' the world, but experiencing the self as separate from it. Deep Intelligence is about living by means of the world, intimately connected with it. In the common view of intelligence, we 'know' about the world, but only in an abstract, interpretive way, as something external and alien. We 'know' things and relate to them as abstractions, as objects of generalisations – by labels, categories and definitions. With Deep Intelligence, we live with the world. Deep Intelligence is our ability to prosper through conscious and intentional coordination of the inner and outer faculties of our being with the inner and outer qualities of the world through which we live.
From the book, Deep Intelligence...
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...we can provide educative experiences that help young people to engage all the faculties of their consciousness as they live 'with' the world. We can educate them so that their perception and experience of the world is not dominated by the constructions, limitations and distortions of the discriminative intellect, not dominated by rigid patterns of memory, definitions, expectations and judgements. They can know people, objects and phenomena freshly, by a delicate but profound relatedness or identity with them. We can help them to live with a kind of 'deep intelligence', intimately and dynamically connected with the world. What a world it will be, when we do! What a world it will be, when we take the lid off humanity. What tears of joy we will shed, when our education programs help us all to manage consciousness so we live with Deep Intelligence, having the universe in harmony with us.
As it is, the mass of humanity lives, in varying degrees, in an alienated mode of being, dominated by a sense of self-as-separate...
The basis of our suffering is our identification with the contents of our mind. The basis of our weakness, insecurity, worry, struggle, emptiness, fear of lack and loss, and destructive drives and motivations, is our attachment to learned control mechanisms, to our knowledge. But we have within us, all of what it takes to manifest now a very different kind of experience, a different way of being in the world. We can manage all the faculties of our consciousness so that we transcend the prejudice of learned knowledge, and dance in the wisdom of the moment.
As we begin to experience freedom from identification with mind, we are filled with an awareness of our true self as peace, joy and oneness with all life. People, things and events lose their power to trouble and manipulate us. We perceive everything in the world as it truly is, filled with beauty, love and a deeper truth than our intellect is able to fathom. Our uniquely individual expression of talents and abilities comes to reflect a creativity that taps the life force power of the universe. Our expression arises, not from mind, but from Being, so that it respects, nurtures and prospers ourselves, others and the world with which we live.
For civilisation to make a transition from the alienated mode of existence to one characterised, not by the idea, but by the experience of connectedness, prosperity and cooperation with the natural world, all we need do is begin to play the instrument of our whole human 'being'.
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Structure of the Book
Preface
CHAPTER 1: Introduction: Education Out of Control
The first chapter presents an overview of the inadequacies and negative impacts of the present approach to schooling, and briefly suggests what is possible.
CHAPTER 2: When All Else Fails, Read the Instructions: How Human Beings (Can) Work
Chapter 2 provides an outline of insights into human knowing and functioning. It highlights the complete inadequacy of the assumptions underlying conventional schooling. It provides a strong rationale for the kind of education we need in order to awaken all the resources of our consciousness, and open the way to solving humanity's pervasive economic, environmental, psychological and social problems.
CHAPTER 3: Education for Deep Intelligence: An Outline
This chapter presents an overview of the kind of education young people really need.
CHAPTER 4: Paradigm Change in a Department of Education: An Exercise in Futility
This chapter briefly outlines aspects of a government educational change agenda between 1999 and 2008, based on published comments and policies. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate, with a concrete example, that the very nature of governments and bureaucracies makes it impossible for them to deliver the kind of education we need.
CHAPTER 5: The Political Nature of Education and Life
The final chapter relates how the issue of governance is at the heart of the liberating paradigm of education and living that each of us now has the opportunity of embracing. It contains a brief invitation to readers who like what they have read.
Appendix A: Genre Guides
Contains 15 genre guides.
Appendix B: Real World Investigation Planning Proforma and Example
Appendix C: Real World Investigation Outlines
Contains 27 outlines.
References
Contains 18 pages of works referenced in footnotes throughout the book.
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