Two Kinds of Intelligence — Rumi

There is a Rumi passage (translated by Coleman Barks) that I appreciate. As you will see, it speaks to two kinds of intelligence.

In working with groups, so often I’m seeking to cultivate that inner fountain of knowing and wisdom. I’m trying to cultivate fields in which people recognize their intuitions as important and powerful insight.

I like to think that so many of us are living a renaissance of source.

For inspiration.

There are two kinds of intelligence, one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbok. A freshness
in the cent of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.


This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

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