Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence

(6-minute read) – We limit intelligence to rational and emotional abilities, but there are seven aspects of spiritual intelligence as well.

Spiritual intelligence (SQ) is the ability to know beyond the programmes and habits that shape our thinking and feeling. Mystical union results as a sense of connection.

So, spiritual intelligence is:

“the power of understanding and knowing reality through mystical union with it.”

The ego shapes our thinking and feeling. We start building up our ego from the moment we are born . Our set of genes, influences and circumstances limit our ego.

New perspectives emerge when we switch our ego programming off. We see that everything is united and open. Answers are open to new possibilities. There is no black and white.

The perspective of union is an experience of love and light. So love is the cornerstone of spiritual intelligence. The seven aspects of spiritual intelligence are seven aspects of love.

But why seven aspects?

The spiritual traditions of the world experience love and spirit as visions of light. Compassion comes with enlightenment. God appears as various white lights. Prophets and messiahs dress in blinding white clothes.

Symeon, the New Theologian experienced the beauty of light as follows:

One evening, when he was praying, a divine light suddenly shone on him from above and filled the room. The young man no longer knew whether he was in the house or under a roof, for on all sides he saw nothing but light: he was not even aware of being on earth . . . He was one with this divine light and it seemed to him that he himself had become light and left the world altogether. He was filled with tears and unspeakable joy.

Seven colours emerge when white light refracts.

Seven is a significant number in the wisdom traditions. There are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Bible. There are seven heavens of mythological cosmology and Islam. Buddha walks seven steps at his birth with a white canopy over his head. The seven steps were a sign that he would reach the seven factors of enlightenment.

Intuitive truth

The Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence were created over many years of study and meditation on the relationship between love and light and the significance of the number seven in the wisdom traditions.

Seven is not a fact. Nothing about love is a fact. Rather, it’s a mystical intuition that dawns upon the mind over time as a mysterious and coherent truth.

The longer one considers these seven basic aspects of love and sees their benefits, the more beautiful the truth of love and light becomes.

Over years of contemplation I have become certain that love has seven aspects like its visible and measurable manifestation as light.

Consciousness is to love what a prism is to white light. The aspects hidden in the unity of love release through consciousness to have their effect on the world. But always they are one.

The consciousness of spiritually intelligent people ‘refract’ love and the seven aspects characterise their lives.

Love is not to be reduced to a list

It is important to note that the Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence have been derived to help measure and develop SQ. They are not a rational or logical list to which love has been reduced.

Love remains a mysterious and mystical phenomenon. It is not definable or knowable in a rational sense. Love is beyond what the mind can discern. We experience love through the spirit beyond mind and emotion. As such it is the greatest human knowledge.

Love is the object of our meditations and the content of mindfulness. The path is a letting go of concepts and aspects and lists as well as all the other possessions of our minds.

The Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence

The Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence are for our thinking times and for our analysing times. Love informs the thinking times. The Seven Aspects are to help us apply love to our thinking and our emotions.

Great surprises await us as we travel on this path. The Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence start to emerge from our souls with unexpected rewards in our lives.

Old insecurities, fears and hang-ups may start to lose their grip. We may come to see intellectual or career challenges in a new light. We may suddenly doubt habits that we were certain of. Or we may identify that emotions were clouding our judgement. People or ideas that were a vexation may console and enlighten. And those we thought were important may fade.

Many perspectives change completely on this path.

In surprising ways, we are indeed reborn.

Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence:

Red Aspect            –        Commitment

Orange Aspect     –        Enthusiasm

Yellow Aspect      –        Openness

Green Aspect       –        Generosity

Blue Aspect          –        Self-control

Indigo Aspect      –        Trust

Violet Aspect       –        Modesty

We find these seven aspects in spiritually intelligent people. Life is a pleasure for them. Everything has a reason and a place. They live and celebrate fully in the present moment.

Life makes sense. Surely that is the ultimate intelligence.

Some of them are wealthy and some are poor. But regardless of these things, they are all rich in the seven aspects of spiritual intelligence.

Read my novel about a man who punches his wife in an extreme fit of anger and spends the rest of his lifetime discovering spiritual intelligence “On the Fifth Night”.

Sign-up below for news on my upcoming courses and seminars on The Seven Aspects of Spiritual Intelligence.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelHowardZA for regular updates and join the conversation on Facebook about my articles.