961 thoughts on “Intelligence Alone is Not Enough”

1. How many of us take better care of our car, our house, our garden, our dog, our children, the environment than we do of our bodies? And does our education include self care, do our parents model self care to us and to what degree? Surely the love and respect that we show to ourselves lays the foundation for all other aspects of life for our body goes wherever we go that’s for sure.

2. Our world is so caught up in intelligence that comes from university. But our world is showing this is not enough.
   There is a natural intelligence that we all have. Watch a young child as it grows, it does very well without being told what to do.
   This kind of intelligence needs to be honoured for what it can offer. There are many people with no formal education that have a level of wisdom that is needed.

3. The only intelligence is love, and inside a body that lives that energetic resonance.

4. We are dominated by images regarding what is intelligent and even what is applied intelligence. Yet, how intelligent is to exclude what we judge does not belong into the image? What we call intelligence operates on the basis of separation while true intelligence is part of a movement that is always unifying.

5. Many so-called intelligent people do things thst are less than intelligent when it comes to caring for the body and self- care. Society’s push to achieve and ‘do’, exists in families too, so we aren’t taught to nurture or care deeply for ourselves. Yet we treat babies with such reverence, acknowledging their preciousness and vulnerability. We most of us lose the plot along the way as we grow up, and then we allow ourselves to become consumed by society’s ideals and beliefs. Universal Medicine shows us there is a a way out of this mess.

6. ‘When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, ‘ – so true, yet, as you say, when we get better we revert to our old habits and ways that contributed to our illness in the first place. I especially notice this with serious illness like cancer. Once the ‘treatments’ are over and done with people seek with relief the fact they can eat whatever they like again and can stay up all hours, pushing their body hard once again, rather than treating themselves as the previous being they are.

7. Our body deals with the present, our mind loves to be in either the past or the future.

8. ‘It is possible that what drives these seemingly incongruent choices is a choice for protection/relief’ This is a great point. We keep ourselves in protection and seek relief – at least it looks like relief is being offered to us and we accept- alcohol or recreational drugs being a possible example here. Looking at how and why we protect ourselves and/or seek relief and continuing to deepen this exploration allows us insights into our behaviours that, when we shine a light on them are completely understandable, yet far from the truth we know inside. When we have the willingness to follow the truth that we know (but choose to ignore) then things start to turn around.

9. When we reconnect with our body, and actually feel the wisdom that radiates out from that connection, the trust comes naturally.

10. We are not intelligent when we deny our body’s truth. It is fascinating how we have hidden in our mind at great expense to our evolution as a humanity.

11. The body can teach the mind of more honesty, it is truly eye-opening to not just rely on the mind to make a call, but using the whole body to live life. It is also very new, but once felt and tried, it is impossible to rely only on the mind again.

12. ‘When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place. The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart.’ Joel this is a great point and if we were truly intelligent we would realise that the body is communicating to us all the time, and maybe true intelligence comes from the body and not the mind.

13. I think it’s really important that we do collectively as a society genuinely reflect on what we call intelligent and consider if it really is intelligent…

14. We really need to come back and consider the fact that if we try and understand life from just the physical it makes no sense. Smart people do stupid things regularly without intending to! So if we consider that before that physical there is an energy, a quality or intention and then see the out-play, it does give us a broader idea and greater clarity on what is truly going on.

15. Why is it that we trust the mind above trusting our bodies, and value our minds over our bodies? It’s only possible to completely disregard our bodies and what we can feel, when we’re invested in something being a certain way to the point where we don’t care what we’re overriding (only to have to deal with the consequences later), or, when we’re completely disconnected from our bodies and numb to what we can feel.

16. There are sayings like ‘love can overcome or heal everything’ and that is true as long as the love lived is true love and not an interpretation and hence deviation away from the one and only Love there is. When we get to understand that Love we also get to know true intelligence.

17. “…. ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.” This is so true Joel. In a world that is so technically advanced that has access to so much at any one time, it does seem that something is not working when it comes to peoples health and general state of care and well being.

18. It is true that more people than ever have access to education and are able to study the sciences of life. But when we take a moment to stop and look at the state of the world today, can we then say we have truly advanced?

19. In reading this blog today I got the understanding that we can use intelligence and ‘smart choices’ and in that intelligence is not from the mind but from our body, nothing we have learned on school or university and that apears to be much more supportive to all of us then the ‘smart choices’ from the mind, we sometimes confuse with being intelligent too.

20. I love any conversation that reviews what we currently call intelligence. Working in health care and seeing the ‘professionalisation’ of care, I see another branch of the madness that has academia as the holy grail, sidelining so many essential qualities that make up true nurture and care.

    1. Yes Matilda, we do see this everywhere, that systems and procedures that are prepared in the board room are being introduced on the work floor, disregarding and with that, indeed sidelining the innate knowledge that is already there and is so much more nurturing and caring than the man made systems and procedures ever can be.

21. We are intelligent enough to fix all the manmade problems, but not intelligent enough to stop creating them.

    1. I like what you shared Viktoria, but could it be possible that we are intelligent enough to stop creating manmade problems but we are just not utilising this intelligence because it means we will have to take responsibility for all that we have created?

22. Being honest to what we feel and being surrendered towards the choices/reactions of what we make of what we feel is a long process of rebuilding our foundation and steadiness. More surrender is more ease in the process of rediscovering the truth of hidden ourselves and it is an amazing process to be deeply appreciated.

23. We have a mind that at times is less than honest about it’s motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” a beautiful reminder of the trap of the mind and the reality of the beauty of our body in its connection to God and where true wisdom comes from.

24. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly…” This is the wrong way round.. Its like putting the cart in front of the horse!…

25. Our bodies hold so much wisdom, that it is foolish to ignore what they have to tell us.

26. It becomes very obvious upon consideration that knowledge is not enough… As you say we really just have to look at the world. The thing is, true wisdom is so rare that people have so little experience offered that they don’t recognise its resonance when they hear it.

    1. So true Cjames2012, I have seen people question truth and some even attack it. Could this reaction to truth be an arrogance of our spirit not wanting to admit we have been lied to and perhaps lived and accepted these lies for far too long?

27. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” This is how the majority of the world live… we have all bought into this way of living without questioning what is truly going on here. Great to nominate that as a society we are not as intelligent as we think we are!

28. As you have laid out, our misled concept of what constitutes true intelligence so clearly Joel, it seems obviously apparent that what we have deemed so called intelligence, seems to not be intelligent at all, but rather a form of protection of our comforts so as to bat away the true intelligence that would ask us to take more responsibility.

29. What made us to choose a way of living that is so detrimental to our bodies and to our being as a whole? To me it is because we give precedence over the mind and make life about gaining knowledge and power, about bettering life and in gaining more knowledge and a forever outlook for improvement to grow. Our mind brings us in a continuous motion that makes us to forget we also have a body but sooner or later will show to us the implications of this mind driven way of living life. We end up with all kinds of abusive behaviours because of the internal build up stress from this way of living we are looking relief for, or our bodies become ill and cancerous or any other disease. You only ave to look around and read the news and you know this is happening. We all know this and have told ourselves that this is normal, that this is life and who we are. We have made ourselves to believe this story from our deceiving mind, that we are that. And our body suffers and is screaming for attention, to return to it’s wisdom and all knowing and to live from there instead. One day we will understand this and will make the definite choice to live from the intelligence from the body again and will make an end to all the atrocities and illness and disease that are now so common in our lives.

30. Our whole education system is built around the developing of the mental intelligence and in no way about developing body awareness, in fact it is in total neglect of this. This made clear to me that there is a movement in society that wants us to become mental while it is NOT our normal, why else would we have to learn to become that? Body intelligence we are born with because as a baby we know perfectly how to be with ourselves and how to relate with the world around us. We are only limited in our body that has to develop from childhood to adulthood and actually we need education to support that process so we become in full power from the essence we are in a human body.

31. “maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” Our 6th sense of clairsentience is felt as truth in the body but do we listen?

32. Intelligence on its own can’t truly serve us, only when we understand it as part of the all-encompassing love we will have true intelligence as an expression of love and thus serving lovingly instead of separating us.

    1. Indeed Alexander, we have made our thinking separated from our body and being that both are from love. We only have to look around us to observe what this way of living results to. As you say, we have to return to our essence, the love we are, and understand that there is another intelligence that is so much grander and encompassing then the intelligence of the separated mind we are nowadays championing.

33. On the outside it may appear we have advanced as a humanity with the latest and apparently greatest technology we have available to us, but is it only superficial? Underneath it all, how are we faring as a civilisation, are we more unified, harmonious, loving and living free from war, turmoil, slavery, illness, abuse, oppression and segregation? If we are to answer honestly, we would agree that mostly all these violations are still rife today and that we only have more sophisticated ways of managing and avoiding feeling, seeing and being aware of how unsettling it is to exist in this way through what our deemed ‘intelligence’ has offered us. It begs to question then, where this apparent intelligence is coming from? and if there is in fact a greater intelligence available to us that honors the birthright of every being on this plant to together live the love that we innately are? As such an intelligence does exist, is accessible to all, through our connection to our bodies where we are guided by the love from our inner-heart.

    1. Further exposing our madness and ignorance as we insist on championing brain intelligence in spite of the writing about the consequences being very clearly written on the wall. Thank you, Carola.

34. It is easy to use words and talk about a topic or make whatever statement or claim about anything but that doesn´t mean that we know the true meaning of words, understand really what we are actually communicating or express truth by using these words. And so we first have to make sure what we actually define as intelligence before we apply ‘it’ to life.

    1. Yes Alexander, and so we have to make up and discern what the energy of the words spoken were. Then we can either call it a truth or a lie.

35. I have been in reaction to something I was feeling recently, and I can say I just felt even more tension, and feeling even more stuck and very heavy with it all. As soon as I accepted the situation, there was an instant shift, and I heard myself saying ‘Ok, what is my lesson here, I am ready to look at it’! Letting go of my reaction provided more space for clarity, and to how I could support myself – as the very next step I took was to sign up for a short course on this area.

36. There is no doubt in me that I am always given, what in truth, is true intelligence from my body first. Then I can choose to respond immediately, totally check out from knowing it or sense it and either override or dismiss it. My body knows what true intelligence is … my mind thinks it knows.

37. True intelligence from the body connects us to the universe and the wisdom of God. What else are we connecting to if it is not from divinity? and surely it must make sense to move in a way that allows this. The amazing reflection of Serge Benhayon and his lived way communicates to the world who we truly are and what true intelligence is and this changes everything and is our absolute inspiration.

38. A comfortable life, where we are sort of all right, cannot be ‘it’ with what is happening in the world. It is just like our body where everything works together and influences the rest, we are all impacted by what is happening in our world and have a responsibility to contribute to the whole. Shutting out what our body communicates is almost similar to ignoring to what the world needs.

39. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” This is indeed a conundrum Joel probably for the majority of people. However what Serge Benhayon has presented, and many now have experienced through the way they live as inspired by Serge, is that the body has it’s own innate intelligence which when listened to and acted on, cannot be denied.

40. Often educated intelligence drives us to consider life in a lineal line- it encourages a drive and pursuit of knowledge and because there is hard work in getting there, when we do get there, it is held as something above others. However, the intelligence of the body and all it knows is equally accessible to all and so there is no struggle to get to it and so there is no investment in the journey and hard work to ‘earn it’.

41. Why would we trust the head more with our well-being than listening to our bodies. It is almost like that is too simple and everybody can do this equally, you don’t have to go to university to feel what your body communicates. The body doesn’t create separation whereas the mind is all for being individual.

42. We turn to the mind for the solutions to our dilemmas, whilst in reality the body is a beholder of truth and the receiver of all our choices.

    1. Very true Jenny – our body knows precisely what is needed to position ourselves so that we are moved by truth in any given moment.

43. We consider ourselves intelligent but are unable to drink enough water to hydrate ourselves and instead prefer to take in liquids laced with additives, sugars and caffeine. Just by the simple act of hydrating our bodies can have such an effect on our overall wellbeing.

    1. Great points made Julie, we humans really are our own worst enemy, fighting ourselves all of the time, in truth fighting our divinity and thus not accepting that we are more than mere humans.

44. When I have uncomfortable situations and I don’t want to feel the lovelessness, I will protect myself by a thought that says how awful this world is and this reaction shuts me out from the world. When I feel from my body in this situation and just allow the hurt to be felt, I have no need to change myself to be upset, but can still keep going in whatever I am doing with a loveliness.

45. We as a society have put far too much emphasis on the ability to mentally recall things (which we call intelligence) and not enough emphasis on developing true wisdom which comes from our bodies.

    1. Great point Elizabeth, we as a society have fallen for a false version of intelligence and this is causing massive disharmony. If we all truly know what intelligence is and live this, our world would not be where it currently is, a mess. I am referring to the true intelligence of our body that is able to access a greater intelligence that is so powerful that it has the ability to change the world, and evolve humanity to higher vibration and support us to get out of the mess we are in.

46. When I was young I wanted to become a psychiatrist and my parents were really worried that if I did so, I would not be able to handle my personal life which would lead to a dysfunctional family. There is a stigma that psychiatrists are actually not so well off, some suffer from depression other from obsessions – how can we as patients go to these people for support if we know that they cannot be responsible for their own lives.

47. I have found that intelligence is often used to advance one’s point of view – even if that point of view itself is not intelligent at all. Intelligence without awareness can be quite forceful but is it as useful as we think it is?

48. It all comes back to the choices we are choosing daily – to remain in connection to our body and listen to the wisdom it brings or get stuck in the arrogance of the mind, that cares not for the quality of the body.
    “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly”.

    1. That last sentence stood out to me too. The crazy bind we have got ourselves in due to our reliance on what we see without feeling and a mind that relies on recall and opinion rather than aligning to the obvious intelligence that we are surrounded by aka nature.

49. You raise such an important point here that we often choose to ignore what we are feeling and aware of, in favour of a seemingly more important goal that the mind focuses on.

50. Our mind lives and operates in the world of lies whereas our body is obedient to the universal laws. Our mind can never outsmart our body as it can never win as the body is not afraid to die.

51. We call ourselves intelligent when we can recall knowledge, yet there is a wealth of wisdom that we each have access to when we live from the true connection of our essence.

    1. It is the combination that works very well. Knowledge without understanding or wisdom can go quite wrong.

52. It looks like there is a battle, a battle from the mind over the body as it tries to make us believe that it is the brain that brings the intelligence to life and makes us neglect the body. The body where the universal intelligence is held and eventually will bring us the so called ‘salvation’ we are for ages searching for. We will continue to look in the wrong direction when we keep listening to the mind.

53. Yes we have a mind that is less than honest to us, but in our current times we neglect that dishonesty and instead give it the credit for it’s so called intelligence. When looked at from the body and to the state of the world today, is not that intelligent at all.

54. ‘Whole body’ intelligence is the only way to wise and clear trains of thought. The mind on its own has no true reference point or marker and can justify anything it wants to, to make our desires make sense. But the body feels and knows everything it experiences and cannot lie.

55. Why is it that intelligent people do things that are not so intelligent – such as doctors who smoke, or naturopaths that drink alcohol? to me this shows this is a so called mental intelligence – a regurgitated knowledge that says something but does not live what they say. Hence real intelligence should come from the way we live and from the response of the body, for in the end the body is the barometer of truth and is the marker that shows how much we live a body intelligence as opposed to a head intelligence.

56. Intelligence alone is certainly not enough to keep us well and healthy. Here of course we are talking about a linear kind of intelligence, the kind our world is driven by, the kind of intelligence that schools are based upon, the kind that asks you to recall and regurgitate, proove and re-proove, repeat and memorize. And to a degree, this may be needed in our world. However, when we make this the only acceptable form of intelligence we sell ourselves short. There is the intelligence of the body, our innate intelligence that really is the foundation of life, the one that saves us and is our rock. The same intelligence that lies in an animal when it heads for the hills in the knowing that there is a tsunami coming, whilst all the ‘intelligent’ humans head for the beaches.

57. We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly”. . . what a Topsy turvy world we live in. And to think it is not the mind that challenges our arrogant behaviours that play out at the expense of our body, it is always the body that is the one to speak up; now that in my book makes it very obvious as to who is the most intelligent.

    1. Yes Kathleen, the body knows the truth and cannot be but the truth, as it shows us very clearly in these stop moments where we are, for instance when confronted with a accident or an illness or disease. In these moments we also get to feel what the true purpose of our life is. And that it is the intelligence of the body that knows so clearly where we belong, a way of being that is constantly being avoided by the mind, as in this state of being, it will be revealed in its deceitful nature.

58. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” This is such a great point Joel, for how can it be that our mind may ‘know’ many things but so often we allow it to carry on leading the way at the expense of our bodies? There is definately a missing link here and as far as I can see, the body is it. After all, it communicates physically and harmoniuosly as a whole unit, so it makes no sense that the mind and its thoughts should function without any input from the rest of the body.

59. I would not only say ‘Intelligence Alone is Not Enough’ but that intelligence is not it. At all! Only when we start to truly understand whole body intelligence as presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine we will be heading in the right direction.

60. How to be loving with each other and to live in harmony with each other is not something we learn with a university degree or even something that is taught at schools. It is something we all carry within us in our body, and it is only through the intelligence of the body that we have access to this treasured way of being, that allows true brotherhood to reign. At birth we come in with this knowing of how to be with each other, for I have yet to see a violent baby (!?)…And so part of the answer lies in appreciating and fostering this body intelligence from day one, allowing us all to be who we are and express as such. We cannot make another form of intelligence more intelligent than the intelligence of the body, otherwise we will all be lost (as we have seen happen already). Thankfully Serge Benhayon has reminded us of this truth to come back to and value again!

61. There is the intelligence of the mind, and there is the intelligence of the body. The world and its state is enough proof that the intelligence of the mind is not what will fix or change things in terms of giving true and lasting results. When will we turn to the intelligence of the body? For it is here that the true answers lie, and not in terms of what we want or expect, but exactly what is needed for us to have true change.

62. A beautiful exposing of the vastness of true Intelligence that we have yet to tap into and the memory recall of facts taught and passed on. Very inspiring of what is their waiting for us all in our true living way.

63. In a recent conversation regarding the issues currently faced in America with mass shootings and gun laws, or in London with Gang activity and stabbings to name a few instances, there is often the comment that there is a lack of education and I find this interesting. Yes, in some cases there is a lack of traditional school system education but in a lot of cases, it is that the education that they have received has not given them the tools in life to deal with the tensions and the human issues that lead to joining a gang and seeing violence as a part of life, or where your life is so unbearably that you pick up a gun and take out as many people as possible. For me, the education needed is more to do with awareness – building people’s awareness to encompass outside of their personal bubble, to comprehend their impact on others, to understand other places and people and ways of living and appreciating the world around them. Equally part of this is developing their awareness of what they feel in life and providing the tools so they can deal with what they feel, rather than developing coping mechanisms which become more and more extreme. We cannot fix the issues of the world from knowledge alone, for even within the most intelligent in society we have not escaped the issues the less educated face such as obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, pornography, exhaustion, racism etc.

64. Clearly, our intelligence hasn’t changed the way we interrelate, communicate, self-neglect, argue, abuse, go to war or improved the health stats of the world population. So yes, quite clearly there is something that we are missing and our intelligence alone is not enough.

    1. Nailed it Rachel – something is certainly missing from our current picture of intelligence!

65. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” Learning to not react to any situation, but to trust what we feel in our bodies and then respond appropriately is maybe one of our most valuable lessons in life.

66. Great call to look more closely at the energy underlying our choices: are we trying to protect ourselves and reacting in some way? And how does this then influence the choice we make? When we feel totally settled and within ourselves, the need to override the body’s signals of what it wants, diminishes. In otter words, the more I connect to that sense of stillness within me, supported by how I am in my day- how I move, walk, talk, eat.. the less I need to grab on to anything from outside of me to make me feel calm, energised or distracted from not wanting to feel a tension within. The tension is temporary and surface, the stillness is deep and a permanent fixture- albeit sometimes hidden away under the tension or other emotions/feelings.

67. True intelligence is here for us all to tap into by the way we live in connection to our soul . A beautiful sharing of this power and livingness from our bodies, that we are not taught and yet is truly recognised.

68. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” Maybe indeed Joel. Perhaps we would all do well to pay more attention to the signals that our bodies are sending us.

69. I have recently met some very highly respected professors who are well thought of in their areas of study. While they are irrefutably highly intelligent, amazing brains, they are not very good at being humans, just being – to me they are deeply un-confident when not hiding behind their knowledge, self-conscious, anxious, stressed etc – their vast intelligence is not enough to provide the answers to human life, so we have to ask what we will place most value in – is it possible to have an intelligence that takes care of the whole and not just the part?

70. Being discerning about the quality of intelligence behind the way we think is key to our health and wellbeing.

71. At one level we can look at society and say that intelligence has moved our society forward. We have more technology than ever, our capacity to build buildings, bridges, infrastructure etc. But as you have raised Joel there are inconsistencies with this. It’s not about being perfect, but it is about living in a way that is truly representative of who we are and leaving behind who we are not.

72. Great points Joel. There seems to an intelligence that we have been told is intelligent that is not so intelligent and the true intelligence of the body that we have learnt to override.

73. True intelligence has nothing to do with being able to recall things. True intelligence supports us to see the All in everything

74. It always amused me when relationship experts or marriage counsellors had relationship issues, or when a doctor would be sick from smoking or a fitness instructor professing a super healthy lifestyle needs coffee and alcohol to get through their week – it is not about being perfect, but about a way of life that matches what you are role modelling to the world – and this takes more than intelligence of the mind alone, it requires a connection to our bodies and a way of living that flows naturally rather than a forced regime

75. True intelligence comes from our connection to our heart. Everything else is a false start and impostor. Thank you Joel for this reminder.

76. Where has our intelligence really gotten us if we are still endorsing activities that resemble the times of the colosseum?

77. While it is important to distinguish things and words to be precise in regard to their meaning and purpose we shouldn´t keep them as something completely separate as in truth they are interrelated and complement each other. That becomes obvious when we look at intelligence and love; intelligence without love is loveless intelligence and love without true intelligence is reduced to a mere emotional version of what we still call love but is actually void of true love. True intelligence always comes with love, truth, care, honesty, wisdom, understanding… The moment we isolate a ‘word’ and thus its meaning and application we reduce and distort it which always leads to some sort of harm.

    1. Alexander in a short paragraph you have given a brief history of the bastardisation of words and what happens to the meaning of words and how they can change over time.

78. “Yet while the mind is an amazing tool and some people use their intelligence for the betterment of mankind, at some point we should step back and take stock of how we are truly going” – agree Joel, at some point we should take stock of the phrase and examine the truth behind: “quality over quantity”. Continuing in the quality we know life to be these days, with all the ill/disharmony you share with us in the post, will not produce the quantity of true love that we are in such desperate need of to raise the quality of life.

79. The form of intelligence very well displayed here serves as a protection of some sort, a protection from truth basically and thereby endangers our true well-being. Looks like we need to be protected from that intelligence.

80. There is no true intelligence in overriding the body’s signals.

81. Thanks, Joel. You have such a beautiful way of exposing the hypocrisy and lovelessness in the world without any judgement or recrimination, so that we can actually ask ourselves these real questions.

82. When we are less than truly intelligent we are being asked to look at our choices and we are also asking to accept our less than intelligent choices, so what we judge as mistakes is an opportunity for more growth.

83. Like with everything in life and especially words we need to qualify them to assure we understand the meaning and don´t fall for a picture that may look good but offers little truth. It is content before wrapping what counts.

84. We call ourselves civilised, but in truth we have much to learn, we are brutal in our treatment of ourselves and each other and as a humanity we do not respect one another. Intelligence in terms of knowledge is not the answer, we need to go deeper…

85. It is true the systems we have in place are not working and have never worked. Throwing solutions such as money at situations does not improve things – it’s just a band-aid.

86. I used to think I was not intelligent as the type of intelligence that was championed by my family and society growing up was very different to my all body intelligence, took me till recently to know that I am highly intelligent.

87. Intelligence is by definition wise. And yet so many of us who are labelled that are making choices that simply don’t make sense. So if we finally admit this mental knowledge game is not it, we can at last start to explore what true intelligence might look like. This in itself is a wise first move to make. Thank you Joel.

88. Intelligence is over rated and wisdom from the body is under rated.

89. I feel we have become so wayward in believing that our current education system works for us, to me it does not. And the proof of this is the rates of illness and disease in our society and the fact that we spend our working days collectively employed feeding the ‘profit monster’ which has an insatiable appetite, to the point where for most companies they have pared back employment to such an extent that everyone has to work even harder to make up for the lack of personnel. People compete with one another to get that ‘sale’ and corporations take each other to court citing unfair competition? Which costs million of pounds. Why is it we cannot see the rot in our society?

90. “Why would doctors smoke, after everything they have studied?”- I feel a reason for this would certainly partly be based on the fact that doctors are expected to work ridiculously long hours without sleep, are responsible for whether people live or die, and put under so much pressure to be absolutely perfect without ever being taught to honour their own body first before they could ever expect to truly heal another body. Also, if modern medicine understood the truth of reincarnation and karma, they would not hold such a need to keep people alive no matter what and would not get into as much emotional sympathy for people with illness and disease as if it is their own responsibility. But even after all these excuses to smoke to momentarily relieve stress, in the end it makes absolutely no sense based on doctor’s own understanding of the damage they are incurring to their own body in doing so.

91. It seems to me that the greatest form of intelligence would not allow abuse of any kind towards another person, and if there is abuse, then is not only unwise, but very unintelligent.

92. Here we have it, pure and simple,”It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.”

93. We can never point the finger. Everything we do not wish to see in the world we can work on ourselves and it would impact the whole world. Love needs to be felt inside first and then acted upon.

94. “If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.”
    The intelligence in this paragraph is greater than many a university lecture. For it clearly shows how important it is for us to not only be with and in our bodies, but to understand what they are sharing, without judgement. As to feel ones soul is divine. But then to honestly sense that our body needs true support to feel equal to the steadiness of our soul is the very essence of living again the truth of who we are.

95. A beautiful exposition of how we have yet to tap in to the real intelligence available to us.

96. Protection is detrimental because it comes from the belief that we will be hurt or we don’t want to be hurt. But we can’t be hurt when we are ourselves and express truly from how we feel.

97. When the reality of life for many is struggle, difficulty, misery and the like, even when many may have a car, a house, a partner and\or kids etc., clearly there is something missing…a greater truth about what true quality of life means and how to practically live it.

98. We have a choice to fill our ‘utility belt’ in life’s with mental intelligence and functional skills, or a wealth of lived experiences, relationships and lessons we’ve learnt from engaging with life. The latter can still involve studying and education, but it’s how we apply this that makes all the difference and use it as a BUILDING BLOCK for our skills and personality rather than the ‘Be all and end all’.

99. ‘…avoid feeling or ease tension …’ This feels like the bottom line for why we are in the mess we’re in. Everything that’s not working in society comes down to behaviours that have been adopted to avoid feeling and dealing with our stuff. So, yes, agreed, intelligence from a knowledge perspective simple isn’t enough. What we really ought to be teaching each other is that it’s ok to be sensitive and that supporting one another brings great healing, which then avoids the drama we create, all for the sake of not feeling equipped to deal with our hurts.

100. Sometimes I notice how there can be a big pressure on those of us who are labeled as ‘the intelligent ones’ to be the ones who have all the answers, who get everything right all of the time, and who can at any moment – should they so choose it – save all of mankind from our ill and misguided ways. But surely this is too much pressure, because if what is deemed as the most intelligent is in fact a largely due to memory and recall, then those who are the best are just like everyone else, and so they do not have all the answers and cannot save anyone, but rather can most valuably contribute to the whole just like anyone else and play their part with all of us. Surely then, to separate ‘the intelligent ones’ out in out into own group leaves them out of what we can all do together.

101. I just love this article. it’s like a summary of all the education we ever really need. And it doesn’t cost the earth, or require us to read a million text books. the information lies with us the entire time. Our bodies are like our personal encyclopaedia.

102. Our Intelligence is not necessarily measured by our education standard. I see it more in the way we live our lives and our common sense and the love and care we give ourselves and others.

103. There are so many examples when you can look at so called intelligent people and see them pretty much destroy their lives for no real apparent reason. Take someone being an alcoholic, drug addict, gambler, bullemic etc. they could be functioning completely normally but then things may have gotten overwhelming for whatever reason and so turn to their vices more as an escape rather than anything else even though they know they are not going to resolve anything somehow the short term thought seems enticing. Yet if we were so called intelligent and knew the ills of them which we do, we would not even contemplate turning to them – which shows their is far more at play then purely us.

104. Although the body can never lie, the body can appear to be fine, when deep down it is suffering. The beauty is, no matter how long something is buried, it cannot stay buried for long before it resurfaces. That is why it is a much more reliable source than the brain, which seems more concerned with instant gratification than true vitality and well-being.

105. Imagine an education system where we were supported in living in the world just as we are and learning how to respond rather than react to life’s tension and impositions?

106. “is intelligence alone enough?” If we are truly honest, we understand that there is more that is needed than our justification from the mind, as it is our six sense that allows us to make choices that will take into consideration our whole being in consideration of the all.

107. Quite sobering really! As you have shared this is the key ‘If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’ On reflection what I can feel is that even though I know this I still take the wisdom of my body for granted. I go about my day and the whole time it is working to truly support me .. I need to give this more respect really. Talking of intelligence the other day on the radio I heard of ‘smart fridges’ it is a fridge that takes pictures of the food you have in it so when you are out shopping you can see what is in your fridge and what you need to buy!!! Just another example of how much effort we put in to disconnect to our true self and also in what we feel is important!

108. It is true we know what to do when we get sick, and this is proven to us time and time again when we get a cold or the flu. But inevitably we go back to our old ways, until the next time – for a species that prides itself on being intelligent, we don’t seem to be getting any wiser.

109. When I look around, sadly it confirms that our ‘Intelligence Alone is Not Enough’. If we add our body’s intelligence into the equation of life, I wonder how that would look. My guess is we would have less illness and disease if we let our body’s intelligence lead the way instead of our mind’s intelligence.

110. Its a great question of what intelligence is. Being smart or having great recall is not it and it is evidenced everywhere, in every aspect of our life. Yet we still don’t question them or even the quality of our thoughts and because we regard our thoughts so highly we can demean ourselves and place ourselves into dire situations, simply for the quality of our thoughts. Once we do start to question and include the wellbeing of the body in the questioning, will be see that intelligence is not what we thought is was.

111. Until we admit that we do not think and that our thoughts are fed to us from the source of energy we align to (either love or all that is not love) we will continue to make choices from our mind at great expense to the body it is enhoused within.

112. ” If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives. ” This sounds very true and is practical and logical and best of all it makes sense.Thanks Joel.

113. Saying Yes to the awareness that is on offer all the time does support a lot the tension that is build up in our body when we ignore the fact. We really have to numb ourselves to not feel, what our body is registering all the time. Saying NO to behaviours will not work longterm , when there is not a choice made in the first place saying Yes to all that is there to be felt.

114. Perhaps it needs to be said and thus appreciated, that even though the kind of intelligence we have been fostering for so long is not leading us as a humanity back to the light from which we came, there is still underneath it all, the desire to understand and this is where maybe our true multidimensional intelligence has been coming through all along, unbeknownst to ourselves and yet very strong in our true intentions, maybe deep down inside everyone knows that there is stupendously more to life and at some level of awareness are seeking it, albeit at times through mediums that lead to nowhere, the fact of the search is something to be seen and respected.

115. When one part of the world is living so called ‘well’ and looked after, or a subsection of the population is so called ‘well’ health wise, this still does not show the full picture of our world, as there are a plethora of people who are in dire circumstances and facing disastrous life and ill-health situations. No one can sit back and just ignore this, as it is our collective responsibility to work on this. But this is not coming from an activist point of view where everyone needs to jump in and fly to Africa or volunteer at the hospitals – but rather it is about supporting each other as a community and this begins with the true care of self and ones family in terms of quality of relationships that we hold together. The quality of our relationships in our homes is the key aspect to supporting all other people out there that are in need of true role models that can inspire through the way that they live, and support another to make the needed choices and changes that will truly begin to shift things.

116. Another great blog Joel questioning the fact that if we are indeed such an intelligent species then why is it so that we have such an increased incidence of illness and disease? There is obviously far more to this so called intelligence than we think and perhaps this very intelligence is actually getting in the way of our natural body knowing that can lead the way in more responsible ways than we like to admit.

117. As a society we have a long way to go to learn to live harmoniously in a consistent way with each other. There is much unrest in the world despite all the advancements in medicine and technology…

118. We have more university degrees than ever before but are we truly any more intelligent? Our Children go to school at a very young age and learn the three R’s but are they any more intelligent? Have we stopped to consider that they have very little in the way of a childhood any more, where they can just be themselves, run around and play. I feel we are all measured by a piece of paper as today it seems you cannot advance in the work place unless you have a degree of some sort; experience doesn’t count anymore. Gone are the days where you could start your career on the shop floor and work your way up to management level by gaining experience with in the workplace. Now I see we have people managing the workforce with university degrees but no idea how the industry works? This make no sense to me whatsoever.

119. We seem to be intelligent enough to go to the moon and talk about building space stations but have yet to realise that the way we are living is simply not working. And not only is it not working we have yet to cotton on to the fact that throwing solutions at these so-called problems aren’t working either.

120. Self-acceptance allows us to live knowing that we are vehicles of expression and that the more fire we claim in our bodies, the more awareness we are given to understand life, so there is no longer need to seek protection, as the best protection is to live from an open heart.

121. It must be my Joel Blog day as this is my second blog of yours this morning, I feel very spoilt.

     When I was reading “Sure we get it right at times and many live comfortable lives….” it struck me if we examine how we think we got it right for just a second we would soon realise it couldn’t be too right when a huge part of the world population still lives way below the poverty line. So even the parts we think we got right go further in proving your point. They are an illusion we have formed in our mind at the expense of our body (If one person is less we are all less).

122. Its an interesting thing to expose what intelligence is. Currently we see intelligence as how smart someone is, how well they do in school, what kind of job they can get based on their intelligence. Essentially it is something based on recall. Then there is emotional intelligence which is about how we understand and relate to others. But we do not consider that our body has an intelligence and is in constant communication and that it communicates on every level, not just physically. There is a whole science here to be explored.

123. “When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place.” This is so true, and occurs when let patterns rule our choices rather than continuing to honour the wisdom of the body.

124. In 2013 the definition of Domestic Violence was changed to include coercive control as a consultation found that excluding 16 and 17-year-olds from the definition left young victims without the help they need to change their situation and escape abusive relationships. So yes I agree where exactly is so called intelligence leading us if abuse is not only continuing but starting even younger with our younger generation. Maybe we should let go of the word intelligence and instead embrace the words and actions of truth, love and responsibility.

125. What is truly nuts is the fact that we live with so many aches and pains like sore lower backs, sore knees and hips and we often suffer from migraines and headaches and all this is seen as something you just put up with because ’hey, this is just how it is and at least it is not cancer’. We are compromising our health and wellbeing and do not want to admit this because we then would have to look at our lifestyle choices.

126. How arrogant from our mind to override the body´s signs and language. Yes, we can, but to what prize?! And then complaining after many years of overriding, that it does not function the way anymore, how it should be. I used to use my body for pictures and ideal and wanted it a certain way to be. Since I am listening to my body, moving it in a way that is its nature and feeding it right, I allowed it to be my best adviser in life. That is true intelligence for me.

127. I watched a nature programme about a fish who creates a mandala in the sand that is probably 100x his size and is a masterpiece of engineering, he can not see or observe his art piece he is in the knowing of what is needed by the universe. Our true intelligence is so far from our conventional ideas of it, it is quite staggering to see how much we have reduced ourselves to be.

128. ‘I agree, whole body intelligence is the way forward. It is our body that is connected through it’s particles with the universe where true wisdom comes from.

129. ‘Looking more closely at those mind driven ‘smart choices’, many have a similar outcome – they avoid feeling or ease tension rather than heal it.’
     When I don’t want to feel something inside I can ‘take off ‘and get very fervent on something else and get really result driven about that instead of feeling and healing what is underneath.

130. It’s so true. We call ourselves intelligent but continue to choose to do things that are harmful to the body. Why is it that the mind is so glorified and celebrated but the body is disrespected and trashed? It simply doesn’t make any sense.

     1. I agree Rebecca, it doesn’t make sense to me either. I feel if we ignore our body’s intelligence it allows us to make some irresponsible choices, it feels like our mind is not at all connected to our body, and it seems to be working against our body instead of with it in harmony.

        1. Yes, it’s like we have a toy that we like to abuse. The mind loves to dominate and control, and drowns out the messages from the body. There is no respect or love for the body from the mind.

131. Thanks, Joel. I love how you expose the hypocrisy of how we often choose to live, with such loving care for humanity as a whole.

132. Your writing confirms for me that intelligence is not in the brain, but in our whole body. Learning to be aware again of our whole body intelligence, like we did when we were 3 years old, and act upon that would mean for me that life would be a lot simpler, more fun and more connected.

133. I do recognise this Joel, not only it happened in myself but in people around me too. Intelligent people, that can reasoning well in normal situations but become emotionally driven when something occurs to them that hurt their feelings. In that emotional state their reaction to the situation was unthoughtful and more or less an automatic that needed to be done to numb or displace that feeling of being hurt.

134. We have more degrees and academic accolades than ever before, and yet we are no closer and possibly even further from being able to live together without suffering and disharmony – what worth is a temporal assessment of intelligence if it leaves us to have war, domestic violence etc as a part of life

135. Great article Joel, if we look at the most intelligent people in the world – they still abuse themselves, that simply doesn’t make sense. How often do our bodies suffer the consequences of the choices we make with our minds? And how different would our choices be if we made them from our whole body rather than just our wayward thoughts?

     1. Well said Meg, to call our thought being wayward at times. Intelligent people with proper education suddenly doing or saying things that actually do not make sense and at the same time are being detrimental to the body and people and life in general.

        1. You could say – absolutely proof that energy exists…

136. I agree with you that we have more university degrees than ever before but as a collective society where has this got us. Illness and disease rates are at an all time high, abuse is rampant, and most people I talk to seem to live a life of dissatisfaction. So there has to be something wrong in the way we are living, and I feel championing greater intelligence isn’t it. As it feels cold and impersonal.

     1. Agree, Mary, life can feel cold and impersonal, whereas deep down inside we all crave love and connection and melt when we meet someone who lives that. All the university degrees don’t support us in listening to our bodies, in letting go of hurts and taking responsibility for the way we live.

137. There is an interesting point being made here, about how humanity as a whole can be regarded as continuously using our intelligence to solve the problems that we all collectively are facing and have been facing for many centuries. And yet, despite all of our best efforts, life continues to become more and more intense and stressful, with disasters and dilemmas that we have yet to even be able to begin to fully address. So the question reveals itself as simple: what is the intelligence that we have been using? And is it working? And is there another way to look at and to approach our lives together?

138. “If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” As a society we champion doing things and ticking off the boxes on our lists, but what if the true intelligence was founded in being and feeling from the body how we are to proceed? When we observe the world around us and how we move within that we begin to be more aware of ourselves and how we move and we learn a great deal about the world too. It’s is how we feel within our bodies that will mark a new movement towards universal intelligence and one that will benefit the all.

139. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” – This nails it Joel! Thank you!

140. .
     Thank you Joel there is an innate wisdom within us, that everyone can access. And for those of us who know and have experienced this, it really behooves us to live in such a way that this is by the very nature of our being communicated

141. Perception is a result of movements. So, if you move your body in a way that is filled with understanding, then what you see when what you see doesn’t make sense, is simply the lives of people figuring things out, getting things mixed up at times and often being misguided, but there is also the core of each person who can be seen and appreciated, even adored – because it is at this core where the light of the soul resides and it continues to do so throughout all of our misdemeanours.

142. How can our current level of intelligence be intelligent when it can not see that that what it has been doing is not working. This concept of feedback is essential to all successful living systems and business models.

143. True intelligence comes from our bodies and the minds intelligence is simply not the wholeness fullness and honesty of our body our cells and our particles in harmony and flow with the universe and is felt and know as truth accessed in our loving connection from within.

144. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” This is great Joel. So much energy is put into mind intelligence, but our body has its own wisdom – and doesn’t lead us up the garden path …..

145. I love the last bit in this article, ‘the less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something’. It exposes very respectfully the madness we run with when we function from our heads only… and that when we explore being open and unprotected, remarkable opportunities and connections manifest.

146. This is totally gold Joel, Thank you! Indeed we have given our power away to that which lives between our ears only to suffer as a consequence of the head’s demise, it has definitely taken a long time to realize that true intelligence does not come from the head but through our connection with our whole body, as it is only then that we are able to connect to something wiser and grander that is not just for self gain but for the benefit of the all.

147. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” So well said Joel. In other words the difference between feelings and emotions perhaps. Emotions come as a result of our minds reacting to the feelings from our bodies so it’s the moment we leave our body and let the mind take over that we try to dull down or numb what it is we’re feeling.

148. Intelligence without the body will be in ignorance of the body or consider it only in so far as to ensure the mind´s delusionary independence.

149. Unless we bring love to the equation the kind of intelligence we are accessing is loveless. The moment we make love our number one our intelligence will be governed by love.

     1. I experience that this loveless intelligence comes from our heads and that it is when we respond and decision-make with our whole bodies (all senses involved) that we make wholesome, loving, inclusive choices.

150. ‘Maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ This is a maybe that I have been exploring and am blown away by the steadiness and sureness that comes from decisions made in connection with my body rather than in the confines of my head alone.

151. What we interpret as or mean by ‘intelligence’ is an important topic; is it just a measure of how much we can recall or calculate or is there more to it than that and is it something that we create or that we connect with? True intelligence surely has to encompass our whole body and being and everyone as equals and in my experience when we pay more attention to the signals our whole body gives us it helps us to connect with an intelligence that is universally harmonious.

152. If ‘intelligence’ as we know it was enough we would all be walking brains without need for the body below it. Yet this is not how our physical form is constructed… so could it be we are missing the role our body plays in the grander scheme of things and the Universal intelligence we are an innate part of? Why do we choose to walk around so truncated with a mind running renegade to the body it belongs to?

153. If we get caught up in the intelligence from our head we are so out from our true connection. Our true connection comes from the intelligence of our body.

154. There is so much talk regarding the mind and intelligence, particularly when looking at mental health it is mainly the brain/mind that is studied, but what about the heart and whole body intelligence? The mind no matter how amazing it is is not a stand along organ/system and as you have clearly expressed here, where has so called intelligence got us today … not a very good place. Whole body intelligence as presented by Serge Benhayon founder of Universal Medicine is what we need to be discussing and studying, this is where it is at, this is the true way forward.

155. The more I listen to my body the wiser I become not only about me but about life in general. It is so simple yet absolutely true…

     1. I agree Thomas there is so much deep wisdom within our bodies, we just need to feel, connect and move in a way for it to flow through.

156. I would say that many would resist what this article is saying and maybe even pull it apart and yet what if we tried to answer what it is asking? There are many things in the world that not only don’t make sense but aren’t what we would consider even intelligent and yet we walk straight past them without really blinking an eye. How can anyone that has studied health not be truly healthy? There has to be a big part of this ‘study’ missing and as this article has presented there are other examples. Yet we keep going back down the same road without putting our head up and considering our bodies know and I loved the example of when we are sick as this brings it more to light. Today I am stopping more and more of the thinking and doing and settling back to the feeling and being.

157. True intelligence is when we use our eyes to observe what is going on without taking anything on and then using our bodies to respond to what life is presenting us with, thereby, accessing infinite wisdom from within ourselves.

158. It is only through honesty that we can understand the current state of our health and wellbeing and the fact that it is a total disaster! We are being offered the opportunity to correct such issues if we can understand that true intelligence is a whole body experience with access to the wisdom of the universe and not just from the mind that is driving our bodies to the ground.

     1. Yes this is something I have noticed too. Choices from my mind alone have little regard for the impact on my body, whereas decisions made in connection to my whole body have a sureness and consideration for the all that is very inspiring.

159. I too have witnessed how ‘intelligent people often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.’ This all depends on how we define the word intelligence. If it is knowledge based is there any wisdom? I know which I prefer. Learning to listen to my body – and honouring its messages – has taught me so much.

160. This is a brilliant reality check you offer here Joel. For yes, we seem to be advancing as a society in terms of technology and our academic achievements, but is all this truly supporting us to live with greater health and well-being or with greater truth and love for ourselves and each other or with a greater understanding and connection to who we are so we can live our true potential. For as you have pointed out, in all honesty we are not experiencing this and in fact underneath the façade and gloss of our ‘advancing intelligence’ we are increasingly becoming more ill, violent and abusive with ourselves and each other with the advancing technology and intelligence supporting this. Yet our bodies are what continue to provide us with the evidence of how we are faring as a humanity. Evidence that regardless of how much we try to numb, dull or escape it, it continues to call to us to listen. From every step we take to every choice we make, our bodies reflect the absolute truth, as wise it would be for us to invest in establishing a deep and loving relationship with this marker that knows in any moment what is true, what is loving and what supports us to be our true and Soulful selves. For the purpose is lost as is the love, if we are not living the truth the represents the truth of us all.

161. We hold intelligence of the mind to be the pinnacle of achievement but staring at us in the face is the pure and simple fact that it is not working. In fact, we hold it in such regard that as children we grow up believing that we are less if we do not possess this power of intelligence and that we have nothing to offer if we can not master it. And within that, as we strive to be intelligent and have others acceptance, there are always others who reach higher levels of unobtainable levels of intelligence.

162. No matter how intelligent we may think we are it is proof by what is presented here that it is impossible to say that intelligence as we know it today is the answer to everything. Intelligence may bring us a great job, money, a position in power or that education/intelligence is the answer to our problems with our youth etc. but are we truly content believing intelligence has all the answers? The answer has to be no, otherwise we would not have the extreme abusive behaviours carried out by those who are regarded and think they are intelligent in our society today.

163. It is interesting to consider that we, like you say, Joel, implicitly trust our mind while most of the time it is not that honest about its motives or when these motives happen to be exposed are heavily defended.

164. The question for me really is, ‘What type of intelligence are we using if we are going down a very dark hole in almost every aspect of human life”? I would say without doubt that every decision made from the mind without consulting with how our body feels first is doomed to only deliver short-term solutions that keep us spinning around and not evolving as a species.

     1. Totally agree Fiona, well said – without our body’s wisdom at hand we are inviting lovelessness to be what leads our way.

165. There are so very many ‘whys’ that can be added to this list and I agree it is definitely not about pointing the finger but instead taking a step back, taking stock and choosing to see all that is going on (and there is a lot going on). Love is intelligent and comes from whole body intelligence as Universal Medicine presents. It does not judge, compete, want recognition or think it ‘got there’ wherever ‘there’ may be on its own. It is a movement with the whole being, the whole body and this is the education we need to teach.

166. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!’ this is so true.I’m discovering the more I switch from what’s going on in my head and return to my body, the clearer I become and the simplicity of what’s next is revealed. No matter how enticing working something out in my head seems to be, I know it’s not the way and just a smoke screen for the clarity that is waiting for me – even if initially it is to feel an old hurt I’ve been carrying around.

167. ” ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.” A great question to ask Joel and one that makes no logical sense. If we consider that we accept intelligence just to be based on what the mind can recall rather than on what the body knows and feels to be true, we are leaving out a major factor in the equation and one that we really need to start paying more attention to.

     1. Indeed Sandra, we leave a major factor out of the equation when we only trust the intelligence of the mind. While doing so, in indulge in giving importance to the mind, we too inadvertently close the connection we naturally had with our body like when we were a child.

168. In future times, the understanding of true intelligence will be an accepted awareness, and the isolated linear thought streams known as intelligence today will be relegated to its rightful place.

169. The only intelligence that matters is that which comes from the body, as anything else is fed to us. It doesn’t take a very detailed look at humanity to see we are a seriously retarded species in terms of our physical health and wellbeing. Any other species that became so unwell would start to die out or be picked off by stronger animals.

170. In the place I work, the staff continually complain of headaches, sore backs, tiredness, stomach aches etc. It seems normal to them and they love to talk about their pain with each other and it feels like they support each other in their dysfunction.

171. Yes, indeed. Going into the mind to avoid what we are feeling is the norm, as we are not taught from a young age the importance of staying connected to our bodies as a constant source of truth.

172. Given we are so called intelligent how come we continue to over eat and get fatter and fatter, comprising our health and our quality of life or we continue to smoke cigarettes even when we have lung cancer. These are just 2 examples of how we continue to abuse ourselves when we know it is harming us, even killing us. Does not make sense really unless we can see that the mind overrides the body in these instances, because our bodies wisdom would never allow these behaviors

173. A brilliant blog Joel exposing the intelligence so many rely on being ‘everything’, if this was true why is the current state of the world in such a mess? This blog offers us an understanding of true intelligence and how it connects us deeper to our bodies allowing us to feel the greater awareness and wisdom we all hold.

174. The heart is where our true intelligence lies, within the body that feels everything; an amazingly honest reflector.

175. Recall is simply that-recall. It is not intelligence as true intelligence comes from the body and not the mind.

176. The more I dispense with my protective strategies and reservation, the more awe and wonder I let into my life – it is transformative and so much fun.

177. Beautiful – this is one of the examples of how mental construct is not actually helping us in truth but actually the mere contrast.. It helps us to detract away from being in our body – hence the greatest intelligence can not be in our minds but the one and only organ that beats the body forth – our heart.

178. With the advance of intelligence, we are discovering more about the amazing intelligence of our body, but instead of appreciating and treasuring it more, somehow we seem to think we can abuse it even more – because the body knows how to work towards restoring its homeostasis. Clearly there’s no intelligence in such way of thinking.

179. We have a lower mind and a higher mind and the body is our bridge.

     1. Look after the body and through it we can access what is divinely intelligent.

        1. … universal intelligence.

180. It seems ironic that we have more people educated to degree level than ever before, and yet the world is in such a mess – it makes no sense.

181. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel”. Now this would be an intelligent move.

182. The intelligence we have been using has misguided and led us away from what our true intelligence is.

183. Another great question is : why do we feed our elderly who live in aged care homes and do very little, if any exercise, 3 meals a day which consist of 3 courses, fruit juice and tea or coffee, and in between the main meals morning tea, afternoon tea and supper which consists of cake/biscuits/ ice cream in a cone/sausage rolls or party pies, lemonade and tea or coffee Does not seem very intelligent to me.

     1. Yes it begs the question what are we trying to fill? That is more food than most can comfortably digest in a day, and not even considering the quality of the food. Food has become so much more than nourishment for us it stimulates, rewards, fills our emptiness and more. Giving the body some space to feel what it truly needs, and listening to the body is key to our true health.

        1. Yes, it certainly does “beg the question, what are we trying to fill”. I would say, from my own recent observations, that in an aged care facility the food would be filling many gaps; loneliness, fear of what’s next, missing the life they had and much more. Unfortunately, there is a danger that with the over-feeding of the residents in this situation that they could end up with body issues that could easily be avoided if wisdom, not intelligence, was brought into the catering equation.

        2. That is exactly the problem Victoria they have no space to feel what is going on in their bodies because the space is filled with eating and the body is filled with food. Their whole day revolves around their 6 meals….sad but true.

     2. Most of mankind eats and lives like this. So it makes perfect sense they offer these habits in an elderly home aswell. It is something that makes them “happy” and for the most it is the only pleasure in life- “good” food. There are more and more people awakening and feeling though that it does not work anymore to eat the way the majority eats. It does not need a NO to certain foods, it needs a YES to responsibility and awareness first, then it is much easier to change your eating habits.

184. Joel it does amaze me that we put so much emphasis on intelligence, especially when this intelligence is missing so many fundamental facts like truth, purpose and love. Until we have whole body wisdom/intelligence we will be relying on something that is not considerate of the all and hence we will not resolve the state of the world that we find ourselves with.

185. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” So true Joel… when we respond to what we feel there is no attachment to anyone or to things being a certain way, however when we react we are attached and or invested in a particular outcome.

186. The honesty of our bodies offers a flow and harmony in life that no amount of mental intelligence can bring.

187. This is how we currently live in a nutshell: “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” Start with connection to our bodies which never lie… and all else falls into place.

188. I always find it fascinating how even after going through the highest echelons of education the world has to offer, we do not know how to do the basics of life, how to be consistent and committed and have loving relationships – we have gained all this knowledge but we have not learnt about life along the way.

189. The body clearly has wisdom. It has a natural ability to heal when we are sick or wounded and yet rather than work with this nature, we use it to ‘justify’ our less than loving lifestyle choices. Yes, the body does eliminate the poisons we drink and eat but this just uses our precious energy resources in a constant effort to bring us back to its innate harmony and balance. What would it be like to work with this wisdom and intelligence? How much more harmonious could our lives be?

190. We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives,… This is an extraordinary statement… So simple and yet so incredibly revealing that is understood would wake us up to this Machiavellian existence that so many of us put such great stead in

191. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel” – This is so important because in order to develop our awareness of the world and open our eyes to see more clearly what is going on, past illusions and glamour, means that we have to distinguish WHY it is going on and how waywardness is simply a distortion of the truth. Our reactions to this are our own distortion of the responsibility, we have to present another way and not get stuck on the world’s woes.

192. Joel what you raise here is something for humanity worldwide to debate and discuss, the situation is obvious when we ask ‘how are we doing’ as on mass we are not doing well at all, in fact if we looked at us like an animal species in the wild we would be completely out of control. And much of this does boil down to the arrogance of the intelligence that we hold as so important, yet its that intelligence that rewards us for being not being truly loving. Given love and truth are the foundation of life and energy is an integral part of that, to have an intelligence that does not make those Number 1 tells us it can’t truly be intelligent or that what we have settled for as intelligence is much smaller than it really is.

193. Time will show that mental intelligence has caused a huge amount of harm, when we come from the head we are always going to be a million miles away from the intelligence of the body and what it has to offer.

194. Intelligence from our bodies is very different from our mind. If the mind over rides the body intelligence it could not be from the same source.

195. Intelligence comes from the Latin inter -“between” (see inter-) + legere “choose, pick out, read,”. The root of the word legere, ‘leg’, is “to collect, gather,” What if our intelligence is based on what is that we can collect/gather based on what we choose to read (or not) of life, hence what we pick out life to be, and what we choose to choose based on such understanding?

196. The body always has all the answers

197. Why originally do we subvert our intelligence and play out what looks like very un-intelligent choices (wars, abusing the body, abuse in relationships) when in fact what is underneath and within us is very wise and loving? We hold onto hurts which change our way of being, and when always acting from the unresolved hurt our intentions and hence actions aren’t clear.

198. Could it be that we get taken by our own needs and desires and lose sight of the All, lose connection with the the Divine Plan and the interconnectedness of everything and everyone?

199. Why would a man of the cloth studying compassion, god and religion and then go on to abuse? Is there something in the organisations and their teachings that is not truly religious and actually self serving, and thus creating a place for such abuse to thrive.

200. This should be studied more … the intelligence of/within the body .. not the mind ‘If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ One thing that really stood out for me in when first knowing Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is how they asked such shockingly sensible and normal questions that I had never in my life, up until that point, heard anyone else ask or talk about, like why do we spend so much time, investment and money trying to find out about other planets when we are in such a mess on this one? Surely it would be better spending all the time, investment and money (even though it is not money that will change anything but instead our choices and the way we live) into why a so called ‘evolving’ planet are things getting worse … mental health, illness and dis-ease, natural disasters, domestic violence, abuse, cyberbullying, war, addictions, poverty, homelessness, racism …the list goes on. We need to stop. We need to ask ourselves these sensible questions and then work with them, backwards, because in how we are currently living it is clear to see something is very very wrong.

201. Taking an honest look at our world, societies and general state of health (or lack of it) today I think we do need to be questioning what we call intelligence and where we are going with it…

202. This is what makes common sense, common sense! We may underwrite common sense as just basic ‘common sense’ yet most would not be living what would seem to be the most common sensical thing of all which is to not abuse the very body they live in.

203. Our minds go for something to stimulate or relieve ourselves but not to heal … yes this is true, and it’s about learning to observe how we feel rather than reacting … this takes honesty and acceptance but it give us a space to understand where we are and to know that we can in fact feel something and not try to bury it or protect ourselves, a big lesson for all of us.

204. The kind of intelligence we have been using and acclaiming is clearly not working going by the state of our societies. People say that all the ‘bad stuff’ in the world is just human nature. I feel this article is showing that is because we are favoring intelligence from the mind over the intelligence of the heart – or to put it simply, LOVE.

205. True intelligence for humanity has always been in the inner heart… It has always been so and will always be so, it is in this connection that we will grow and evolve

206. Intelligence without people is not true intelligence. We may know all the formulas in the world but what true use is it when we don’t make it about humanity?

207. We have been trained and schooled to trust the mind explicitly and even when we question it, it is rare that we deeply question its motives, and yet when it comes to the body we question it and berate it when it offers us the truth. The body is the first to tell us we are sick and it is the mind that will overrule this until such time it is impossible to avoid. True intelligence involves the body and brings a wisdom and understanding that the mind alone can not bring.

208. A beautiful sharing and knowing of true intelligence and something for us all to treasure and connect to through our bodies. Relearning to trust our innermost connection instead of the separation from this and looking outside is the only way to bring true intelligence and wisdom in our lives, our societies and the world at large.

209. Feeling the difference between wisdom and ‘intelligence’ and knowledge is like feeling the difference between silk on your skin… or sandpaper.

210. Intelligence is a misused word from what I can see, intelligence is attributed to someone who has been educated in school or college.
     Intelligence for me is a person who uses all their personal resources in any given moment in time.
     A simple example is the story of the “emperor with no cloths”
     The most intelligent person in the society was a child who expressed the truth, now that’s intelligence.

211. A mind that is not impulsed by the love of our inner-heart is a barren and empty place that will quickly become populated by the type of thoughts that cause us to move in a way that is counter to how love would move us.

212. Allowing ourselves to feel what our body is telling us is an amazing gift to ourselves and something we sadly are usually taught to deny . The beauty of our true intelligence from our body in connection is amazing as you share here Joel so clearly and really is life changing and inspirational .

213. I totally agree and it is my experience that true intelligence starts ‘with a deeper connection to the body’ and building a respectful, listening and responding relationship with it.

214. A great article Joel, showing that true intelligence must incorporate the body and what it is feeling, living from the mind and in disregard to what the body is telling us, will surely bring on illness and disease.

215. There is so much to appreciate in our bodies, and its intelligence is far reaching. There is much to ponder here Joel once again. Thank you.

216. The fact that the brain can say it wants to smoke, regardless of what the rest of the body feels, I find very interesting. Essentially the brain can do something that the lungs do not like, this exposes how disconnected we can get, that even our own organs can work against each other at times. We have an unexplainable intelligence in our finger tips, not at our finger tips, the magic is actually in them, for the intelligence is in our body. I am so glad that there are people like you that are out there reminding us of the bodies intelligence when it is connected to as a whole and not a part.

217. Intelligence as we know it is not enough as shared here so simply and clearly but the true intelligence that is there for us all from within to connect to is the real knowing and what is needed for true health well being and harmony in the world.

218. Unless we see life as a whole we will keep going as we do as we will reserve us the right to do whatever we like to do most of the time as we have accepted that we can do one thing in a certain setting but behave completely different in another.

219. Pingback: Whole Body Intelligence – Our Inbuilt Best Friend – The Truth about Serge Benhayon

220. Intelligence Alone is Not Enough, this is so true Joel, when we rely on intelligence alone we are missing out on what our bodies are actually relaying to us. So could it be possible that we have become so mind driven at the expense of our bodies which produces such levels of stress that the body breaks down and illness and disease takes over?

221. It is true the mind is unruly and will cause havoc if left to it’s own devises, this is why we need the connection to the body first and then the mind will fall in line with that, instead of being free to be used in a destructive manner against us and humanity. You only have to look at history to see the effects of people who have been disconnected from their body and soul to see how ugly things can get.

222. I remember at school being one of the cleverest in the class, and yet there was so much that confused me at school and I lacked alot of confidence. These days I am much less interested in thinking or studying my way out of a problem as I find increasingly that all the answers are there inside me in how I feel…. my responsibility is to make sure I’m feeling as much of it as possible.

223. Such a great question Joel: why do any of us trust a mind that can harm – even in the most basic of choices like the food eaten, media watched, conversations had. It’s a bit of an “oopsy’ moment when we actually can feel that some choices aren’t a really loving choice.

224. It is the connection we choose to have with our bodies that determine the quality of intelligence that is available to us, so if we choose to live in constant protection and keeping others out so too will be the level of intelligence we have access to reflect that or we can choose to be open and fully transparent in everything that we do and we have access through our bodies to the wisdom of the universe.

225. Intelligence is such an abused word in recent times. Intelligence in now equated to mental education and the consequences of this is that it’s only the brain that ends up intelligent at the expense of the rest of the body and so society suffers as a consequence.

226. Mental intelligence can only get us so far, it is then Universal Intelligence that will take us back to our true origins.

227. ” building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel ”
     The humour of all the efforts humans put into gaining mental intelligence believing they are getting more intelligent , is that every human is super intelligence at an energetic level if they would only live it. A common example are parents who are caring for a baby , when they energetically know that there is something a miss with their child before there is any intelligent medical evidence to prove it so.
     The only evidence the parents are acting on is the feelings their body are attuning to as the baby cannot speak and the parents have no medical knowledge . How many times has it been recorded where parents bring their child to medical care to be told there is nothing wrong when at a shorty later stage an illness has been confirmed in the child by the medical staff.
     True intelligence comes from the whole body not just the head.

228. I am slowly getting more and more honest about why I eat when I am not hungry and often it is, as you say, to ‘avoid feeling or ease tension rather than heal it’. I have known that on one level – everyone does to some extent – but I have felt ‘helpless’ to stop it at times as well. But slowly but surely I am developing enough self-love, and self-care, and connection to my body that is supporting me to get more and more honest and to see healing my hurts as a super good thing, and not something to be avoided and buried. Some days one step forward, and 10 back, but other days leaps and bounds.

229. Recently I realise how easy I go into reactions when I feel rushed or stressed. It creates a feeling of narrowness, contraction in my chest and feeling like I am putting myself inside a tunnel. It is a sure way to disconnect whenever I choose to react but this I notice is happening less and less thanks to the teachings from Serge Benhayon, I have become more aware of my choices and how they affect me and others.

     1. As I get familiar with a deep wide flow in me, the sharp edges of a reaction stand out more and more and I am less likely to get sucked into them… what incentive can there be to giving up that gorgeous feeling inside?

230. I agree it is not to ‘point the finger at anyone’ but to instead look at how we ourselves are living. However, I do feel it is also really important to be fully aware of all that is happening in the world instead of just dealing with our backyard so to speak. Today I attended a web broadcast where someone spoke about genetics and epigenetics and the absolutely crazy things people are doing crossing breads of animals and creating things like featherless chickens to make it easier for people to eat. This is most definitely not intelligent but instead sheer arrogance in thinking we have and are in control .. truth and love will always win we are just currently resisting it.

231. As humanity, we are very good at understanding things on a mental level and we can explain things, like yes we drink coffee because we are exhausted, but often the next step that is needed is left out and that is the changing of the behaviour that is actually not supporting us. And to be able to change a behaviour we need to change the cause of why we are so tired as in this example.

232. When we allow ourselves to feel what the body is telling us, the mind actually says thank goodness, I don’t need to come up with something!

     1. When we are present and with the body we are not fed the thoughts that would have us believe there is something more we need be or do.

        1. So true that’s my experience too, “when we are present and with the body we are not fed the thoughts that would have us believe there is something more we need be or do.”

233. Very thought provoking blog Joel… understanding intelligence to encompass so much more than our thoughts, is something modern philosophers and scientists have attempted to understand and capture.
     What you’ve shared here sheds more light on it than anything in current literature and makes more sense to the actual experience of thinking, ideas, feelings, emotions etc.

234. Your ‘taking stock’ list certainly dispels the long-held belief that we are an intelligent species. How can we be when we commit such mind driven atrocities against others and often ourselves? To come to know that the mind is actually not the intelligent part of us but that there is another part, our body, that is truly intelligent is a game, and a life changer.

235. “… a mental craving for a certain food not because it’s good for us, but because it stimulates, dulls or soothes us in some way…” Its great when this is realised as then it presents an opportunity to make a clear and a truly informed choice as to what we are feeding… the issue, the Spirit or the Soul?

236. Without a connection to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon I would not have any true knowledge of just how amazing our bodies are and their incredible intelligence! Thank you for sharing Joel.

237. Being honest about the truth of how our mind overrides the body causing the body harm and suffering, but at the same time accepting that this is what the mind does, this is what we all go through, yet never dismissing what is truly going on, we then have a choice. A choice that is made by the body is much more irrefutable than any choice the mind can make.

     1. “Being honest about the truth of how our mind overrides the body causing the body harm and suffering,” It really is about us being honest and not skimming over it, as the mind causes alot of harm to the body.

238. It’s really worth pondering on how the mind doesn’t like us to have access to the awareness the body brings and sets on a path of denial that the body talks until the body talks so loudly in the form of illness and disease we cannot but listen. So when I feel tension my mind will want to seek relief and numbing out of that tension – for me this means eating when not hungry, eating foods that will dull, more distraction away from the body for mental orientated activities.

     But what is this tension that I’ve grown up to fear/loathe/hate/avoid? Could it be worth exploring and not ignoring? So much of my life I’ve spent running from tension and seeking relief. What if I just stopped and felt what was being communicated. No-one likes to hear fire alarms but without them …? What if tension is a wonderful way for us to know what is true and what is false and trying to mask this is dangerous for our health.

239. Indeed great examples exposing how although we are so called ‘intelligent’ a lot of what we do is certainly not that and has not been for eons. As you have shared here we seem to have missed quite a major thing. That actually the body speaks and true intelligence is not from the mind but in fact the whole body and being. Focusing on just the mind is like focusing on a tiny speck in the night sky and missing out the whole universe!

     1. “Focusing on just the mind is like focusing on a tiny speck in the night sky and missing out the whole universe!” so true Vicky, this is an illusion when we get caught in it.

240. The current state of the world with the increase in corruption, wars, illness and disease is a clear indication that the intelligence we have been relying on is a lie and does not work, It is only through our reconnection to our bodies and inner heart that once again we can access the true wisdom that lives within in order to enjoy harmony with the all.

241. I love what you have expressed here Joel, it is wise and powerful. Yes our bodies are where true intelligence lives and it is our responsibility to live from connection to our bodies and the wisdom it conveys;
     “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.”

242. From time to time it is also good to just stop and see how we are truly going, to reassess , to take stock and to make any refinements to our diet for example, to our exercise routine, to our sleep pattern, to how we move and express ourselves, always good to pause and take a personal stock take.

243. “Why would doctors smoke, after everything they have studied?” when I read this it really didn’t makes sense so there has to be something going on that makes doctors smoke when they have all the harrowing facts in front of them. As you say we have a mind that is less than honest about its motives, and it this that we have to look at, the dishonesty of the mind and why we make choices that work against the body. Intelligence falls way short of the true intelligence of the body and it is this that medicine and doctors should be more willing to observe and live by.

244. Having strived most of my life for mastery of intellect, I am now coming to understand that this is a very limited intelligence, based on mental agility and recall, that does not encompass a big picture view of life, the parts we all play and a true intelligence based on how we are unified rather than individual.

245. “Looking more closely at those mind driven ‘smart choices’, many have a similar outcome – they avoid feeling or ease tension rather than heal it.”

     You are bang on the money here Joel, that is exactly what many of the mind driven choices do. We as a human race are far more sensitive than we give ourselves credit for, and when we don’t choose to live and honour that sensitivity, there is a tension there, and that is one of the many tensions we hold in our body.

     When we don’t live who we truly are – which can take place in a myriad of ways – there is a tension. And quite often we don’t want to feel nor understand that tension and then there a myriad of ways to bury that feeling. Many of which appear ‘normal’ to the world – excess: eating, drinking, exercising, work, sport etc….

246. If intelligent people can make unintelligent choices and if illness and disease keep rising equally with a rising amount of PhD’s than we have to question the intelligence we call intelligence because it does not seem to be successful in every way. We can say we almost got the answer and keep on going but if we do not honestly address how we are going – is it with copious amounts of coffee, is it with all nighters, is it with disregarding that body that we so want to find cures for to heal? – than we probably have to stop and feel what we are actually doing. Because true answers come with love, not without it. And love needs to also be in the body not just in our mind.

247. And so the elephant in the closet has been revealed.

248. It makes sense that the whole of our body has the answer to life and not just one little part of it.

249. The final two paragraphs say it all for me. Overriding the body to what it is offering me there is no doubt I am in reaction, reaction to not wanting to feel and read what is truly going on. In this moment I abandon the body calling on my mind to find a way to numb it. The mind then thinks only of itself in separation to the body and soul. How can this way of being be true intelligence? True intelligence simply cannot be anything other than all encompassing.

250. “…maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” – In my experience through our body we have access to an intelligence that is harmonious and always considering of the whole, this is what I would call true intelligence rather than the kind of thinking that comes from a mind in isolation or opposition to the body.

     1. Yes. I agree. And it is in a respectful relationship with my body that I can access this consideration of the whole, of everyone, of all of us being in life and evolution together.

        1. It is that simple, develop a loving, respectful relationship with our bodies, so we are more open and ready to listen to all the communication and messages the body delivers clearly – whole body intelligence.

251. This is a great blog Joel that highlights some major discrepancies and hypocritical facts that we observe in our everyday lives that only serve to disillusion us further with the world around us – and until we start to see through this type of falsehood and correct it, the world will never change.

252. The amazing intelligence of the body has been widely underrated in the world today and yet when we deepen our awareness of our bodies it’s like we are no longer long lost friends you only visit every couple of years. But an intimate relationship that develops, shifts and fosters such love and understanding that any small or big bump in the road of our health and wellbeing can then be healed or explored further by the internal conversation that is then outwardly shared.

253. Our bodies are barometers of the universe, its sensitivity uncelebrated, for we are constantly responding to energetic shifts, refining what we know supports us to evolve.

254. Bingo! Who would have thought that connecting to our bodies – a live feed of knowledge would actually help us to think more clearly?!!

255. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” Yes, our body is the wiser master, and when the body and mind are aligned the intelligence we can access is in consideration of the whole.

256. Mind limiting intelligence has devastating consequences for humanity. We have lost the capacity to feel, and solely driven by thoughts and desires humanity as a whole loses out. For many, homes, material possessions and comfort take precedence over care of self and well-being, this is unintelligent behaviour, but the accepted norm. Universal Medicine presentations offer an opportunity to become more aware of what is going on, they prick the false bubble of existence and expose truth: that how the majority choose to live leads to the catastrophic rise in illness and disease rates world-wide.

257. We believe it’s not safe or we won’ get what we want if we allow our true feelings expression so we jump to the mind for safety and use control to make us feel empowered so we continue in the illusion until we wake up to what is really going on.

258. This is a great statement and deserves to be studied more closely – “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think! “. What is basically being said here is that the more we deal with our hurts the freer the body becomes and this in turn affects the sort of thoughts that we have! This is huge. Dealing with our hurts then becomes a priority if we are to be able to freely be who we are in essence.

     1. Yes, and with space within the body there is more room for our natural clarity to be.

259. We have allowed our bodies to be the slaves of our minds for way to long. It may sound extreme but we basically torture, poison and highjack our bodies through the demands we place on them through what we may believe is the right thing to do. Maybe though we cannot approach the issues now find ourselves in with the same level of ‘thinking’ that got us in the mess we now find ourselves in. Perhaps a new way of ‘thinking’ is required. In fact maybe no ‘thinking’ is required and a new way of listening and honouring the constant communication of our body – our true master and best friend ever. We could never say the same thing about our mind. When it is not working in tandem with our body, then it is off doing its own thing – very self-centred making everything about me. But it works with the body we connect to a much grander intelligence than the mind alone could ever deliver.

260. So true Joel, learning that everything is energy and that our choices either confirm the energy of surrender (to love and light of Heaven and Beyond) or detracting away from it.. Hence we have the current problems and situation – that all stem from one of the two sources. Life is much more relatable in this way and understandable of why we got where we are now. And at the same time is offering us our way out. Universal Medicine is offering us the awareness of the bubble we as a society live in and by. Which one of the two sources are you living by? And what would you actually truly like to live by?

261. ‘If this is the case, and in spite of our high levels of collective intelligence, our health and quality of relationships are NOT improving, it begs the question “is intelligence alone enough?”’ Why is it that we’re willing to invest in intelligence yet not look at the way that we’re living that has lead to the world being the way it is? We are seeking solutions from the mind that enable us to continue our way of life in the hope of having a different outcome from these choices.

262. ‘… how many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu? We may not even go to the doctor but innately know the basics that support the body.’ It’s not that we don’t have access to a greater form of intelligence – but that we don’t choose to live it consistently, often dismissing that the simplicity of what is known in the body in favour of an intelligence that appears more sophisticated – but lacks the all-encompassing wisdom the body holds.

     1. I like this flag you have waved, Kylie… ‘dismissing simplicity’. And I can see the habits we have that introduce complication and the madness of this. Simplicity is very innate in us and very cool.

263. Our bodies do certainly come off second best! Why would we not listen to the wisdom that is offered to us everyday without fail from the body that has been with us since birth and know us better than anyone else? Thank you Joel for a wakeup call.

264. When we pay more attention to our accolades than the quality of life we live, when we invest more into a pension plan than the health of our body, when we take greater care of prized possessions like cars than we do ourselves, we do have to question ourselves: “Just what are we so proud and arrogant about? And how intelligent are we really?”

265. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” This is a great point, maybe true intelligence lives within our body as it seems to be able to communicate with us when things go wrong.

     1. You know, I love that line. It staggers me how many things we do, from a suggestion of the mind that harm us in some way, yet struggle to find something the body might prompt us to do that leads to harm…

266. So true we trust the mind implicitly thinking this is the only source that knows what is true or not, yet it is the body we go to when all else fails. I know that when I am sick I become more aware of the body and take more care, but I was soon back on my mind driven activities as soon as the illness was over. Until we accept that it is the body that has the true divine intelligence and the mind does not have the intelligence we think it has we will continue to make un-loving choices that do not support the body or a true way of living.

267. At my work we have monthly progress reviews to see how you are developing against key objectives. This is a fairly standard thing, in the business world. So as you show Joel isn’t it odd that we don’t readily do the same with our personal life? We tend to turn a blind eye, block out and deny all the things that don’t add up in any way. We moan a bit about some of the side effects but why don’t we truly look to change this? The answer is, it seems to me because the intelligence we are running with doesn’t want to be shown up as not the true wisdom it thinks it is. But it’s not so clever – for our body and life will continually show what is true and what’s not.

268. The education system has a very lineal progressive purpose which is to raise the mental intelligence as high as possible for children, but what if relying solely on this form of intelligence and kicking feelings, intuition and observation to the curb is actually doing more harm than it is helping young people to be out there in the world?

     1. A brilliant, probing and important question, Susie. A what if that invites us to re-consider what we prioritise. Thank you.

     2. Great point Susie you only have to see the disorders and problems with children such as cutting, abuse, mental illness and eating disorders that were not about in my school days, to wonder why this is happening. Our education system may have become super smart but it is failing so many of our children in so many different ways, the pressure and expectation to do well is way out of balance with the rest of life.. School should be a place to build a foundation for the future not a place to cram in as much knowledge as possible.

269. I was speaking to someone yesterday who shared that in 30 yrs time he thinks computers will be doing all the ‘thinking’ for us – they will be the intelligence. Which made me consider that if we take the emphasis of humanity being academic to get ahead, then whats left is for us to look at how we are living. No longer would we be able to see ourselves as more based on what we know. And Joel your blog also looks at why we have put the mind first rather than living from the body first.

270. Is it possible we have set up the world to make knowledge the answer? I.e. You can only know how to diagnose someone if you are a doctor or teach a subject if you are a professor. It seems we have put roles to skills and made this more than what we might already know within us.

271. We are so fortunate to have access to Universal Medicine and its founder Serge Benhayon and his presentations on the Ageless Wisdom. Through the presentations we have learnt the importance of listening to our bodies and the truth they hold rather than our mind which bends the truth to suit itself. The body never lies and shows us through illness and disease that we need to change the way we have been living.

272. A good point Joel that protection is re-enforced with the mind. The mind can justify and blame and hold onto a memory that creates justification of protection. Without the intellect these thoughts would just melt away and our natural state would be without the protection.

273. The body suffers the consequences of our mind and its waywardness and yet we have not yet realised this because we highly prize the intelligence that the mind offers. But this intelligence is only offered to some and not all; it cares only for itself; and it will compromise our body at every opportunity. We therefore need to stop and ask ourselves how intelligent is our intelligence?

274. I so agree that intelligence alone is not enough. In fact coming from our heads is actually detrimental if we are to find truth. Truth lives in the inner heart and to access the inner heart we need to be in our bodies. Denial of the body prevents us from accessing truth.

275. I feel that your last sentence is going to need to be read many times over to be understood by me in full. We presume we have freedom of choice yet when our thoughts override the intelligence of our bodies it does make me consider there may be more at play than I have wanted to acknowledge.

276. The difference between knowing and living or doing is everything or true understanding. Knowledge is simply not enough it is a one dimensional version of the whole and without it being embodied or lived and developed it is worth nothing. I would go so far as to say that it is harmful to know that something is wrong and not do anything to stop it means that the wrong gets to continue.

277. True intelligence understands that our job here is not about ‘righting’ the ‘wrongs’, but about preventing the dis-ease or disharmony occurring in the first place. This can only be achieved by listening to our whole body intelligence. That is, to train our mind to be obedient to what the body is feeling and not run off on its own wanton course at great expense to our physical health and well being and that of those around us, as is the case with the example of child sex abuse in the church. When body and mind are working in synergy with each other, by way of us being consciously present in all that we do, we open ourselves up to the vastness of the Universe and all that is being communicated to us from this space. Thus, true intelligence does not override the signals from the body but wisely uses them to determine what the next course of action will be. As always we have the choice as to whether we allow ourselves to be impulsed by this, or by the renegade thoughts of a mind left unleashed.

278. The intelligence our current world holds up as desirable is far from ‘enough’. One just has to look at the decisions intelligent people can make to know that this intelligence falls short. The true intelligence that will revolutionise the world and its ills is the intelligence of the inner heart and whole body intelligence. This has a foundation of love and a respect and consideration of everything equally. Without this out ‘intelligent’ decisions may work for some but not for all.

279. If there’s one thing you could say it’s that our current way of being is extremely unintelligent. Even the most casual of chats with an aquaintence you meet reveals how so many of us slam our body to ‘get things done’ and behave in ways that are to our own detriment. Many of us moan about the side effects for sure, but how many like you Joel are willing to consider that the intelligence we call intelligence is not ‘it’? And if this is the case, where does our true wisdom come from? Considering this open us up to a completely different way of life.

280. It is so difficult to admit that my brain doesn’t know it all, even with a deeper knowing of this fact I still find myself battling with my head – “stop thinking this”, “these aren’t your thoughts”, “oh can you please just shut up” – the list can go on and on, but the more I develop a connection with myself, the more I can laugh at these thoughts and simply change my movements to get different ones 😉

281. Our commitment to meeting life through our bodies first, (feeling rather than thinking,) allows us the opportunity to observe and read without falling in the old momentum of reaction which only taints our experiences with unresolved hurts and keeping us away from the truth and wisdom of our soul.

282. Whole body intelligence is the feeling of connection we have with our every movement and it is from here we can observe and discern so much wisdom and support that can ultimately re-connect us to the all.

283. Thank you for exposing the conundrum Joel. There is no wiggle room for a wayward mind here! It is time for us to come home to our body and its amazing intelligence that never lets us down.

284. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something,” Very true Joel, reacting gets us nowhere and once we do, we become recipients and puppets to something that is not us, so it is our responsibility to read life in order to observe and not absorb that which is not from the love that we come from.

285. Thank you again Joel …. Its great to join the dots …. To feel and deeply connect with our bodies, the chalice of wisdom that we all have, and thence to experience a deep and abiding freedom.

     1. drink from the chalice of wisdom, there’s a song in that Chris 🙂

286. The less we get driven by needs, for security or comfort of some kind, the more free we are to listen to our body. Needs make us feel less and insecure, whereas the body shows us that we have access to all the intelligence we will ever need.

287. Joel you make a great point here about food and that we are mentally stimulated by it first – rather than craving it from the body. As I sit with this I can see my pattern of wanting something sweet to not stay in the stillness of my body, and then my body suffers afterwards by feeling racy or sick. My body was not actually craving it at all. We have so much to learn in terms of our relationship with food. And this comes from the wisdom of the body and looking at why we don’t want to feel amazing all the time rather than just looking at what we eat.

288. It is so true that with all the intelligence now so widely spread and celebrated in this world, there remains violence. But it goes deeper than this too, because not only is violence still here, but it is being encouraged as behaviour acceptable in our children through computer games and an array of digital media/devices. How smart can we really be as a human race to allow this, and where is the intelligence now that says no to furthering violence in our youth and actually puts an end to it?

289. Absolutely true intelligence comes from within the body when we stop to listen. To be able to connect to that we need to be living in a harmonious and loving way, in line with the cycles and rhythms of the universe.

290. “When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place.” This is so common,we forget about the suffering and the pain, we go back to a life of indulgence, why do we do this, when we know we end up back in the same place?

291. The more I understand of the body the more I understand what Serge has been presenting for years about the intelligence that is in the energetic quality of love.

292. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!’ This is huge what you are saying here. Going in to protection takes us one step away from ourselves and in to fight or flight mode. If however we can stay totally present and stand our ground what then?

293. The championing of the mind at the expense of the intelligence of the body has not served us well. Take a look at our bodies as a collective and that becomes very clear.

294. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’ This is true Joel, it is a conundrum that is well worth considering. We have a body that holds unimaginable wisdom and is in a constant flow of communication with us if we were to only connect and listen.

295. Not reacting is huge for me and everyone and is so important in our evolution. I find every time I go into anything else other than self-love I feel a lesser vibration within my body and, as my body is the marker of all truth, so I have become more aware of a shift in what is happening in my body!

296. Learning to discern the difference between what we feel, and how we react to what we feel is like starting to give ourselves permission for feeling what we have been feeling all along but not admit. It is a process of deepening honesty and vulnerability, and letting go.

297. The ability to store and recall facts has its place and is a great skill but not more or less than any other skill. It has become such a highly prized possession. This reflection shows how single-focused we have become; knowledge without wisdom is a dangerous thing.

298. The truth of this is palpable, “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” In my experience the reaction comes in so quickly that often we don’t get a chance to feel what we are reacting to. Before we know it the hand is in the metaphorical cookie jar and we are numbing ourselves in whatever way we find most effective. So it makes sense to develop a connection with our body where we are learning to feel what is going on. This affords us the space to then discern what is reaction, to observe it and begin to make a different choice when we feel ourselves reaching for the ‘cookies’.

299. Intelligence does not bring wisdom. In our disconnection from our hearts and bodies, wisdom is a sorely lacking expression and very much needed in the world today.

300. Such a brilliant article written with true common sense. I’m constantly amazed at what comes out when acting on a feeling rather than acting from my head. One is super super simple and the other leads to complication. It’s so worth experimenting with.

301. It is our mind that we use to override the body, out of security or protection. I can feel it is a way in which we are not fully commiting to life, that is essentially from the knowing in our body. It is our body that lets us feel what is right and what is not, the mind is often only choosing the safe path. Learning to not react to what we feel is key, and show us the way back to our true way of being, based on the senses we have in our body.

302. It would be very wise for us to determine the type of intelligence we choose before investing everything we have into it.

303. We can become quite seemingly indifferent about things that actually really bother us. This form of dishonesty always catches up with us for we cannot deny the absolute truth at the end of the day.

304. ‘It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’ this is brilliant. Recently I have been much more honest about ‘admitting’ when I am in reaction. i’m so used to overriding my reactions -often because I have told myself I am not to react because it is bad as it feels so unloving and poisonous. But, if I pretend I am not reacting when I am, there is no healing available because there is no honesty let alone truth, and there is no connection. Now I’m asking myself what is really going on and paying attention with as little judgement as possible and as much understanding and love. Just hearing what is going on for me allows me the space to accept myself and let go of hurts and return to harmony.

305. Being willing and honest about exploring the tension we feel through our bodies is what brings greater understanding and awareness to the choices we are making, and if they truly support us and our bodies. In other words our bodies reflect the truth of our choices in any given moment or situation. And although the tension we feel may not ever be healed, as it is a manifestation of the truth that we are not living all that we truly are, we can of course understand and heal that which is holding us back from living who we are in essence through the bodies are held in. Being guided by this intelligence, this whole body intelligence that is centered on what we feel though our hearts, is what will bring to life the wisdom required for us to bring real change and live together in the harmony, love and respect we deserve, in Brotherhood, so we can truly begin to advance and evolve as a humanity.

306. That conundrum is all too familiar. Although, I have to appreciate that more and more, I’m paying way more attention to the truth of what my body is speaking and giving less power to the tricks my mind plays. It certainly works out better for me when I do this, and there is often far less complication.

307. “…If this is the case, and in spite of our high levels of collective intelligence, our health and quality of relationships are NOT improving, it begs the question “is intelligence alone enough?”” – I love what you present here Joel, after all there is intelligence of the mind and there is the intelligence of the body. Our current society only seems to recognise the former as a form of intelligence, and yet everything suffers in our world when we do not allow the intelligence of the body to speak loud and clear for us all to hear. True wisdom is to do with applying the intelligence of the body into practice, into a lived experience that benefits the body and self and hence all around in its inspirations.

308. All you have shared Joel makes it very easy to understand how we chose to silence our body and override the signals, or even the connection with our body to go on in the way we go, although everyone will agree with you about the poor state the world is in. It is time to connect to our body and come to true intelligence.

309. This is great what you share Joel – so very real and relatable. The so-called authority we give to our minds – unconditionally, to be our guide to think our way through life. All the while the body comes along asking us to choose another way, a simpler way because it can’t keep the pace of all that our minds have us believe we are ‘entitled’ to have, eat, drink and do. While all these things in the world exist it doesn’t make them true, loving and necessary.

310. This is such a brilliant succinct sharing of how life can be. Our intelligence has definitely lead us down the garden path of separation and conflict on pretty much every level of life. Surely there has never been a more destructive time in the world than there is right now and apparently we are super advanced with lots of technology to prove it… it’s just like you share though Joel the lives we lead a fraught with pain and conflict… our minds are not the way to live, we have to employ our hearts first and foremost.

311. Joel, I enjoy your common sense logic which presents things so clearly. As you say: ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly’. So therefore, if we didn’t override the body but actually connected to what we can feel in the body we would access our whole body intelligence and not need to rely so much on ‘mental intelligence’. This mental intelligence is largely conditioned by the ideals and beliefs we have taken on so we are not actually free to think, we are being ‘thunked’.

312. When we numb ourselves from feeling tension in our body we are ignoring and suppressing the voice of our body.

313. Our body doesn’t lie, yet our mind can override its wisdom. We then can end up with ill health and a society that is getting sicker despite the so-called intelligence of doctors and academics etc. We need to listen to our body and honour its messages. We do know when we have overeaten, drunk too much etc, despite our mind trying to find excuses.

314. It is true that in the current education system (and in every industry) there is a forever striving to deepen knowledge and obtain results. We are becoming more rushed, stressed, have esteem lows, have an increase in illness and disease. It seems that becoming more intelligent doesn’t truly serve.

315. You ask some great questions here Joel, I look back on so much of my life when the intelligence or should say lack of it coming from my mind made so many decisions that were in total disregard to my entire body including my brain cells, now if my body was calling the shots life would have paned out a whole lot differently. Listening to the whole body intelligence is how mankind can move forward into the future and have life without all the pain, illness and disease, wars and all that goes with it.

316. mmm, so true. The mind justifies patterns of behaviour that are abusive to the body and gives permission for the abuse to continue. If you had asked me why I ate sugar for such a long time I would have been incredibly convincing. When my body spoke louder than I could ignore, I blamed everyone else still justifying my own choices! Until my mind got with my body’s program of honesty at every turn, until my mind admitted it had a choice to consume sugar or not, I could have continued to overrule the body – the only honest marker for my choices.

     1. I absolutely love what you have shared here Lucy! The mind can be very fickle indeed in its justifications and defences that allow it to continue as it wants over and above the consequences and effects on the body and all around. But eventually over time, the messages from the body become more blatant and harder to ignore. We can of course turn a blind eye even then, and say blame our genetics and say that the Diabetes was bound to happen and that one has nothing to do with it, or the heart disease, or the auto-immune condition etc. It is a big pill to swallow this responsibility one – but with honesty, it can be done and then only does our life truly begin to reflect how we can respect and care deeply for ourselves and the role model we cast out to society in all our choices.

        1. Each day we live is another opportunity to look at the choices we are making. There may well be more food on offer which is going to feed out addiction to sugar, and it may take more dedication to prepare for the day, but the responsibility we have to support ourselves is the greatest love we can ever offer ourselves, or indeed another.

317. It is a beautiful thing that you share here, it is in coming to trust our feelings, knowing what is reaction and what is truth. This brings true intelligence to the fore.

318. The more aware I have become of my body and listened to its messages – and honouring them – the more aware I have become of how my mind tries to dictate to me. The thoughts it produces often try to tempt me away from things I know are good for me. So ‘intelligence’, as society accepts it currently is not all it’s cracked up to be and not the answer for me.

319. This last sentence “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” strikes a chord with me. Not protecting ourselves gives space, it is that moment to be able to read what is actually going on, to feel rather than take it all personally and run back to intelligence to twist and suit our own agenda. The truth is, as a society, as a human race, we are not doing so well, so the intelligent thing would be to stop, take stock and choose to make some different decisions.

320. In a world where intelligence is championed, often at the expense of the body, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t matter whether a person is classed as intelligent or not they still experience the same issues, the same emotions and the same pains. What is crucial is how each one reacts to what they are experiencing, so when you see a doctor who is considered intelligent, smoking, it is quite hard to comprehend but it is a great example of the fact that, as you say Joel; “intelligence alone is not enough”, there is something more at play that is influencing his/her decision to smoke.

321. There is so much we do with our bodies that just does not make any sense what so ever, and yet we champion that as if a good thing, but long term we become ill, and then blame the body – it’s as if we are fighting the one thing that truly supports us.

322. We have been sold a lie about intelligence. No amount of information or knowledge will ever give us the body that knows that our true intelligence comes first from the body. True intelligence comes from honouring the body’s natural rhythm’s and cycles, which are in accordance with the divine rhythm and order of the universe.

323. When we allow our heads to rule us we lose connection with our bodies and miss the signs that our body shares, a whole body intelligence allows for a depth of understanding like no other; coming only from the head is limiting.

324. Absolutely awesome Joel. You have me wondering how different our education systems would be if we acknowledged the wisdom the body supports us to connect to. I bet that the food and behaviours that would be allowed in schools would be completely different and there would be no obesity epidemic. Instead we pump kids full of sugar, salt, carbohydrates and packaged fast ‘food’ that gives them a relief from the intense pressure we place on them to use their minds to garner safety and security.

325. ‘It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’ This is great to read, so confirming of my recent appreciation of being able to detect I am reacting to a situation and that actually it’s not going into any mind orientated solution or workings out; but that reconnecting with my body I will have the clarity to know what it is truly going on – reaction just feeds me a dishonesty that intends to propagate further reaction and inhibit healing.

326. Human beings are very selective on how do we measure evolution, how does it look like and on where to look for it. We may say that evolution is a sign of our intelligence. Yet, it is also true that how do we approach evolution is not a sign of true intelligence though. True intelligence never leaves the heart behind. On the contrary it starts from it. Evolution too.

327. I know that when I react to things I have to go into my head to justify my reaction and I ignore the body at that moment. The body never needs to justify it just says it as it is. I know when I eat something I know is not good for me and will make me bloat I will manage to justify to myself why I should have it rather than stopping and listening. The more I catch myself wanting to justify, the more I can see how my mind can play with me.

     1. So true alisonmoir. The justification game is exhausting and so futile too because we know what is true all along.

328. It can be quite exposing when we start to be aware of how we abuse our body by listening to the mind. The thoughts in my head can feel like a driving force running through my body with no connection to myself or anyone and it is this force that harms. As I learn to feel this force I give myself a choice in that moment to do something about it. I can make a choice to let go of the thoughts but also give myself an opportunity to feel more deeply into my body the root cause as to why I allowed the thoughts to come in, in the first place.

329. No matter what you write about Joel – you always seem to have my undivided attention. You make so much sense. This line in particular was gold for me: ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’

330. The bodies intelligence is a powerful connection. Not only does it offer us a constant communications daily with how it is feeling and or working or not working, but also offers us great wisdom and learning on how we can live with more vitality and flow. Responsibility and a willingness to be honest with how we feel will change the way we move in our daily lives and that is oh so powerful for our bodies healing.

331. We keep pushing the need for us to be more intelligent, to listen only to those we class as intelligent and yet, “If fact, ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.” how can that be? Are we banking on a part of the world that has actually never delivered fully what we claim it means? As we know, and as this article brilliantly sets out, the intelligence we run isn’t truly intelligence at all. It has become more of a thing we deliver rather than something you live and then allow others to be inspired by that living. It reminds me of the story of Jesus, a man that lived simply and from the quality he lived everything came. His study was people and the world around him and from that connection, his intelligence grew. He didn’t spend years locked away studying to come back and tell the world what he had learned. He was very much in the world connected and from there spoke. He was a living testament to an intelligence that we have walked away from and made into something that no longer breathes intelligence.

     1. Agreed Ray, and furthermore, intelligence is simple, always. Complication is proof we have lost our innate deep intelligence that would serve us best.

        1. It doesn’t get much simpler, “If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” It is only when something comes up and we don’t return to this that things become complicated. We can use this as a warning sign or as a stop point, when we see things are becoming complicated, stop and feel first and don’t try and think your way out of it. After all we take our body everywhere, it feels every point we live and so why not use it in this way, as a point to check in with to feel what is going on, simple.

        2. I love this logic – so simple, so obvious and yet we don’t have this as our normal!! I was in a situation yesterday where I was talking to a politician about local government and he shared how much we need people who have lived experience in local government, how there are too many people who do not feel they are ‘smart’ enough and yet their ‘smarts’ are exactly what is needed to bring change and support to their community.

        3. This is so true Lucy, it is the people who don’t feel they are clever enough to be in politics who should be in politics. For there is too much cleverness and deception already, and what we need is down to earth honesty.

332. We do let our minds run the show and its definitely to the detriment of the body. We champion intelligence, but when you look around its really not working in terms of our health and well-being. This is a great blog that lays out quite simply that intelligence alone is not enough.

333. It is a reality to me that the intelligence of my mind is actually not supporting me in any way, and in fact only tries to distract me from that what is living in my body, my body that knows how to be in any situation and how to handle any problem its being faced with. That what the mind is doing causes situations and issues not being dealt with instead and leaves these to be carried in the body where it in fact does not belong.

334. Pingback: Because Religious People are Stupid, Right?  – The Truth about Universal Medicine

335. This is such an outstanding realization – “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” This is true psychology and ought to be taught to everyone as it makes so much sense. The more we deal with our hurts, the less we will react to life and this brings with it true intelligence.

     1. Sure Elizabeth, and we can only deal with our hurts when our mind is not interfering but instead live in full connection with our bodies. Our bodies cannot else then be love as it is connected to this source and will naturally deal with any issue that will cross our path, it is only our irresponsible mind that can ‘bury’ our hurts in the body in order to make the body less free and reactive to life.

336. I love the way you write Joel, effortlessly unpicking the comforts and illusions that are making us sick mentally, physically and in relationships.

337. That last part I would completely agree with you Joel. When I don’t react or try to protect myself from something my body is feeling I have more space to think that there could be another way of relating to what I am feeling. Whereas in the avoidance and reaction the thoughts are very limited and restricted to everything and anything that will numb and distract, seemingly endless ways but all with the same ending.

338. Just a stonkingly great expose on the intelligence we hold superior and the body that suffers. I realise there is so much more actual work I can commit to in listening and honouring my body and my connection to my body. Thank you for the inspiration Joel.

339. I read an article this morning about the high suicide rates amongst our doctors. In fact it starts when they are in medical school. Something is very wrong when those that have chosen to go into a profession about saving lives end up taking their own. Getting into medical school is seen as very prestigious and only those with the best grades make it. We need to question why our most intelligent are deciding that life is too unbearable to carry on.

340. You have raised some great points here Joel, I would say in fact as the years have gone by many things have actually got far worse not better such as health, including mental health, abuse, corruption, housing, education, greed, the list goes on. So it would be a very valuable thing for all of us ‘at some point we should step back and take stock of how we are truly going.’ I would say here deeply take stock and not only take stock but be impulsed by our bodies (not our minds) in how are we truly going to move forward for the all. True intelligence comes from our body not from our mind.

341. One would consider doctors to be very intelligent people given the years of arduous study they need to do qualify to be a medical practitioner. Why is it that many of them smoke cigarettes when it is a known fact that smoking causes lung cancer as well as other numerous illnesses. Does not make logical sense.

342. ‘ The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, ‘ This is a great observation. When we open to a deeper connection with ourselves and others on a feeling level and allow ourselves the tenderness and fragility that is innately ours we can be more honest, and in this space our vulnerability can allow for even deeper connection and this is an awakening of our body intelligence which serves us very well.

343. I have come to know in my own body that the only way to fully support all of me is for the mind and body to work together. My mind can have thoughts that do not support my body – it can be that I get carried away in a project and push myself to get things done at the expense of not listening to my body and then feel exhausted when it is over. So although I may have produced something, I have left my body in a quality that is not loving – so therefore how does that support me and others? My mind might say I’m hungry, but if I only listened to my mind then I’d be pretty fat. The fact is the body is an essential part of intelligence as it supports the whole.

344. Thank you Joel… it is almost as if there was some implacable force driving humanity to continually desecrate the foundations of our lives.

345. What struck me reading this blog is how many religions, doctrines etc have asked us to deny our body, telling us that it was evil, dirty, the cause of all sin etc. Where they innocent in what they were doing or was it a control tactic? The body shows us exactly what supports us or not in life and when we listen to it we can never give our power away to another or deny the fact that the body is in fact our best friend..

     1. This is a really good observation, the indoctrination and mistrust of the body, can be seen to permeate many religious tenants, yet the true wisdom is there for all to feel.

346. Inteligence from our inner-heart comes with a depth beyond the sky and hence is never limited or fittable in a box. Hence the difference between the inteligence lived from our heart is known and that when it is not.

347. Intelligence on its own will not work, we all know that within. It is true intelligence which is love, is what we need to connect to, it is with this true intelligence that can then be, even any connection with knowledge based intelligence.

348. Exposing the lies we have fallen for in the quest for so-called ‘intelligence’ is deeply needed for we have allowed and adopted an intelligence within society that is everything but truly intelligent.

349. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” There is no love in the mind, only when it is connected to the inner heart will the intelligence of self love and care come into the equation.

350. Intelligence alone will never work and as the world around shows us – we are in a mess, people are suffering we have major poverty and inequality and yet we have thousands of professors, we have increased rates of violence and sexual abuse and rape yet we have thousands of universities. Everyday statistics show us that intelligence on its own does not work. Without love in the mix it will mean nothing. Love will always be the highest form of intelligence.

351. so many are betrayed and let down by what is perpetrated in the name of religion – they hear some words of truth but they are wrapped up in a package that comes with so much that is a lie – and the dogma, control, fear, repression, sexual abuse, abuse of power that can be perpetrated in their names. But what if this is all to stop us from connecting to the truth of religion – what if there is an intelligence that we hold that is innate within all equally, all it requires living in a way that we can access that which we are part of. And what if we have this state of affairs because we have allowed this lie to grow – because in those moments that we see what is true we have chosen to turn away and not express the truth.

352. Letting go of protection allows us to be open and to surrender into our bodies so we can start to live life impulsed from this connection creating joy and harmony with ourselves and those around us and not from the mental construct we have identified with at the expense of our health and wellbeing.

353. As Joel has expressed, our greater intelligence/ mind is clearly not working. It has not even reflected on its own inconsistencies and how they are playing out in the world. How can “we have more ‘centres of excellence’ and more PhD graduates than ever before and be smarter by the traditional measures than at any other time in history”; yet have our universal health and quality of relationships in crisis?

     Ironically, our usual fix is to use our greater intelligence/ mind to discover a ‘cure’. In this process, taking responsibility for our choices; listening to our body and what it is sharing with us; are often not considered. In fact, these aspects of living are usually ignored or considered too difficult to change. That reveals how much we are choosing to live in protection while dulling our awareness of what our body is revealing.

     As Joel expresses, “building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and a relationship to what we feel.” To start a conversation about the difference between “what we feel and how we react to what we feel”, gives the greater intelligence/ mind access to our own innate wisdom from our whole body. That feels like true intelligence!

354. It is scary to think we are so called the most advanced we have ever been yet our rates of illness and disease are soaring. And this coupled with the general levels of discontentment in the world shows us the intelligence we think is intelligent cannot be it. Otherwise we would not have people dissatisfied with life. We are seeing this in elections around the world where people are wanting change but not seemingly having anyone or anywhere to turn to.

355. it does seem like a paradox Joel that the less we use mental intelligence the more we are free to think – but it makes sense if we can understand that we have been fooled for a long time – that we think we think, rather than are being fed the energy of what to think. Thus our body and awareness are the most powerful tools we hold to truly discern what is at play and thus have the choice of what we allow to influence us.

356. I think it’s a great question to ask – just how intelligent is the intelligence that will poison itself or any other, hold some people higher and others lesser when in truth we are all equal.

357. Just the fact that we can so easily abuse our bodies shows us how unintelligent the mind is, and a great point has been made in this blog, even doctors who would be considered the most knowledgeable as far as the body is concerned can still decide to smoke and drink. Maybe it is time to start listening to the body.

358. How can anything be deemed intelligent when energy is not considered? As soon as we bring energy into the equation, true, full bodied intelligence makes itself known.

359. It seems like a no brainier (ha ha) when you put it like that Joel, but we have become so invested in intelligence and so practised in it that is seems hard to change. Nothing in the way society is structured supports listening to our bodies and this is something absolutely necessary for our wellbeing. The body is our marker of truth. It presents to us the truth of how well we are, directly related to how we are living. It is time to change.

360. This is a brilliant article to burst the bubble of intelligence is everything – I really used to think this was the case – especially attending a school that was all about grades – but there is so much more to life – and you are right – something is not working if the world is still suffering and yet we have so many intelligent people in the world.

361. ‘If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel’ Reading this today reminded me of the soap operas on television and how most are built on reactions with not much awareness of the difference between what we feel and how we react to how we feel. This is encouraging us to keep a very low level of intelligence and role modelling a way to be that is far from joyful. Likewise a lot of other programmes are built on sensational ways of behaving with lots of excitement masquerading as joy but in truth quite hollow. In fact most newspapers and journalese in general seem to follow a similar path. We have a long way to go but there is no harm in starting right here and right now by beginning to look at our reactions and what causes them and to allow ourselves to feel this in our bodies, to allow for the tension and it’s letting go, to start to notice how we feel in the moment and allow for the possibility of the true joy we once knew to return again.

362. Another amazing offering Joel, thank you, I love this blog. And what comes through loud and clear here is no blame but a level of understanding that shows us all how we play in the same pool, and while we may look at others in that pool with us and their choices, in fact we’re playing our own version of the same game we seek relief from tension and in that moment our minds rule and our bodies suffer the consequences. So the key is developing a relationship with our bodies and how we feel and you bring a further point here which is key to learn not to react to what we feel. The amazing thing is there is a true intelligence we are connected to and the body is it’s centre and it’s learning how to honour and live in a way which support us, all of us.

363. ‘When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place.’ This is so true Joel! Its like we see illness not of our own choices of how we live but as an unfortunate chance happening and therefore ignore the wise choices we make during illness which nurture and support us to return to health and immediately go back to the ill choices we previously made.

364. All our collective intelligence hasn’t yet prevented violence, abuse in and out of the home, exhaustion, rising illness and disease… so definitely something about the way we live isn’t in accordance with a deeper connection we all inherently have to ourselves, our body and to each other.

365. It does sound ironic…think less and trust the body and you’re more free to think! It does make sense. When we’re stuck in the mental thoughts trying to work something out, it’s like we only have access to a certain range of options. But when we trust the wisdom of our body and our inner heart, it allows access to greater wisdom.

366. You are a true role model Joel, love this blog, its a real great reminder to stay connect to ourselves above all!

367. Love it Joel, let the heart lead the way!

368. Indeed what a conundrum Joel; what you have expressed here is a great reminder to be aware and not override what the body communicates;
     “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly”.

369. I couldn’t agree with you more Joel, the body is where our true intelligence is. The fact that our bodies inform us through illness or injury also if we have drifted and not looked at why we are having difficulty in different parts of our lives. What you are reminding us of is that the mind alone is not where the truth and true intelligence is as many would be falsely informing us through our Education Systems.

370. Part of our problem is with our definition of intelligence, but is in many ways defined by the ability to recall, and is according to the understanding of most limited to the brain. This ignores the intelligence of the body, and indeed the inner heart. This form of intelligence in truth, can only be accessed by the consistency of a certain quality of movement. It is that movement, that opens up our connection to our inner heart, and from there flows into everything we do. It does not replace our other form of intelligence,or need to think – for that would be impossible – but by connecting to it, it does in turn change the quality of our thoughts, and means that our thoughts align to what we then feel in life. In that way, our temporal sense of intelligence is put to greater use, rather than being just used to serve self.

371. Until we stop giving in to the impulses the mind provides us, from information that we learned and excepted as the truth… there will not be any evolution till we stop and feel what is right.

372. As a society, we have invested in an intelligence that is void of the connection to the body, which is the key component to the gateway of the wisdom of the universe.

373. Thank you Joel, for sharing the virtues about listening to our body. I feel we are living in a world that has more science fiction than scientific fact.

374. We can have all the intelligence in the world but without love and connection we end up with a world where profit comes before people, where we fight for peace, where progress does not consider the consequences on our planet the list goes on, unfortunately intelligence has been championed to the detriment of humanity and lack of love in ‘progress’ does not support a world based on love.

375. It is impossible to imagine with our mind, how our world will look when we all use the intelligence of the body over that of the mind. Our body already lives intelligence and in that respect already lives the future.

376. Some of the most intelligent choices I have made was from connecting deeply to my body and from listening to its messages. Also choosing to not react to situations also allows space for me to connect to my body and respond from a place of love, whereas if I rely solely on my thoughts/mind I tend to get caught up in emotional drama.

377. Learning to listen to the wisdom of my body is a huge step towards acknowledging and understanding the wisdom we hold innately within.

378. Nothing coming from my mind alone has benefitted my body, or my life; and yet listening to my body has very clearly lifted the quality of my thoughts and every aspect of my life.

     1. Same for me Kylie, this highlights how important and beneficial it is to listen to our body. It shows that true intelligence involves a deep connection to our body as a whole, not just our brain/head.

379. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” Joel you have laid it out so clearly I have to agree. Our minds are capable of making choices that are so detrimental to the body you would have to call it self-abuse, not intelligent at all. Thoughts from the body love support and protect the body and all other bodies; it displays consistently more universal and more responsible intelligence.

380. ‘building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel’ – allowing the space and giving ourselves permission to truly feel and to be ok with this, rather than immediately reaching for something to numb us so we can override the tension.

381. Intelligence with out love and common sense is never worth it, as a society we have become lost because we have followed intelligence ignorently with out checking what this intelligence is intelligent to.
     True intelligence will always involve everyone and never leave anyone lesser.

     1. Sure Samatha, that intelligence that is naturally available to us through our body will always involve everyone and will never leave anyone lesser and that to me is the beauty of living in this connection as opposed to the limited intelligence of the mind. The mind is showing us very clearly that it is not capable of handling any problems we have in our societies very well as there are always groups of people that will benefit and some that don’t as that intelligence is simply not capable of involving all equally.

382. By neglecting and abusing our bodies we collectively are avoiding the intelligence that the body is naturally holding within. If this is true then the question arises to me, why are we behaving like this as in a way we say that we are the most intelligent species on earth? Animals for instance, to which we feel ourselves superior to, do not behave like that, they take care of themselves very well in their context of life, so what are we actually avoiding?

     1. Absolutely Nico. Animals actually in many cases take better care of their bodies than we do of our own as more “intelligent” humans! Something is definitely afoot here when even the most advanced academic has not put two and two together and realised how silly this actually is.

        1. Indeed Joshua, it looks like that the intelligence of the mind is helping people to avoid seeing that simplicity, and makes it even impossible to put two and two together as this intelligence is restricted in its thinking by the physical laws it has bounded ourselves to.

383. ‘We have dedicated our schools and universities to fostering greater intelligence and understanding of the sciences, arts, law, or humanities’ …. but in so doing we are encouraging our children and students to ignore their innate wisdom and simply absorb information and be able to regurgitate it in a certain format. This isn’t true intelligence. I wonder how different our world would be if our teaching institutions fostered connection to our own wisdom and encouraged honest and open expression inspiring discussion, learning and evolution.

384. Intelligence cannot be enough – if intelligence is the answer, then we will have to live with a lot of suffering and disharmony as we are currently more ‘intelligent’ than we have ever been before, educated with degrees and research and evidence and yet still struggling to curb the rising tide of illness and disease, mental health and tension between cultures, the list could go on.

385. It is not intelligence the is the problem, but the type of intelligence we rely upon, and more importantly, the type of intelligence we arrogantly ignore, or see as less. And by that I refer to the intelligence of the body, and our willingness to listen to it. And part of the reason we do not have a respectful relationship with our body, is that we are not embodied enough. We are for the most part disconnected from our bodies. Our thoughts are often elsewhere, and often we have no awareness of even feeling the rest of our body, apart from what is going on in our mind.

386. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something.’ A good point, Joel. Mental intelligence is often used as a way to avoid feeling something and we then reason the feeling away and bury it or we justify, defend or lash out from our ‘position of right’. If we allow things to be, including ourselves, we have nothing to prove and can just observe what is there and respond as needed. Then we stop mentalising and connect to our body intelligence which has a spherical knowing not a linear cognition.

387. This blog reminds me of a recent occasion when a small child that I know was looking up at the stars. He was filled with the wonder of them, and the security of being with family under them. One of the adults in the group felt it was important to let this child know the names of the constellations and their exact positions in the sky, and although they were well meaning, this intellectualised approach was not in line with what this child was experiencing, and so they simply walked away, choosing instead to remain in the wonder. This is a great example of how we can use intellectual knowledge to leave behind the child-like wonder of life.

388. I do like this paragraph…”We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” I also do not believe it is solely about intelligence or that that is what will solve the major problems we are facing in the world today.

389. Learning and developing our emotional intelligence which is”…building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel is as important, It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel…” To apply mental intelligence without this, offers a skewed and often one sided view of life.

390. You ask some very good questions here Joel about the behaviour of man kind. They are well worth pondering on…

391. “‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent, if it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” A brilliant blog stating the obvious but unlistened to wisdom and true intelligence of our bodies is so often ignored.

392. It really does beg the question who is running the body when we rely on intelligence as our motivation, when that intelligence does not support our own bodies best interests. When we bring in the whole bodies intelligence you would not dream of disregarding this intricate, delicate, complex, unique body we have as our life long vehicle.

393. The list of conundrum questions you pose Joel, like ‘Why would doctors smoke, after everything they have studied? and Why do some people who have PHD’s in psychology/marriage counselling get divorced?’ It is very clear that there has to be something else we are reacting from as it over rides what the person has learnt. And so it would make sense that the less we draw on this mental intelligence to avoid or action something, we could begin to feel what is actually needed and not let the reaction rule the behaviour.

394. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.”

     The body cannot lie but we have managed to do our best to make it appear as if it is lying to us or letting us down on some level with the constant over-ride of this amazing vessel. When it is given the space, when it is not overwhelmed by heavy food and emotion, it will let you know to the detail what is in harmony with it and what is a foreign invader to its system. Now that is an intelligence that is beyond any modern scanner or security system that the human brain has invented to date, for it is tailor made for each individual and is updated as the vessel refines and it does not have to pay a single employee to get this job done. This proves that true intelligence comes from the whole body working together, not one organ in isolation. This can be applied outside the body, as in we can all work together rather than going out on our own.

395. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” In this conundrum the body is the clear loser as it is at the receiving in of everything that we do. Does it not then make sense to listen to the body, really pay attention to it and work with what it is telling us? If we for example drink coffee and feel how it makes us racy we need to ask ourselves why do we want to feel racy, is it for example that we are exhausted and need something to pick us up? If we are honest and answer yes to this then we can go deeper and ask ourselves how is it that we are living that is exhausting us and is there another way to live that does not exhaust us. This way we are working with the wisdom of the body.

396. “So we are faced with a conundrum. We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.”
     Over centuries we have become more and more mind driven, we have dropped our sixth sense, the one sense that brings meaning and power to all the others. For our bodies offer a barometer in which to feel and sense life, a way of being that can be clearly observed in the movements & expressions of a young child. Introducing this awareness back into our lives is the medicine that the world so desperately seeks.

397. This makes sense of how an intelligent mind can be narrow minded. If we shut down our body and ignore what it is communicating and live by our mind’s command predominantly, we are robbing ourselves of access to the greater wisdom that is being offered.

398. This is good to recognise, the mind isn’t the true intelligent one. It is the body that will bring us true intelligence, it can’t lie, and keeps giving us signs, when we start listening it is a beauty that is unheard of.

399. Intelligence of the mind is nothing ..and is in fact dangerous…. without the intelligence and true wisdom of the inner heart.

400. As I feel into what is happening in today’s world there are plenty of people giving us answers but not so many who role up their sleeves and get in and make a difference. Serge Benhayon gives us his all and gets into life in so many ways, he is a perfect role model for modern society.

401. I accept the invitation presented in this article to stay with what I feel rather than react to what I feel. This I will need to apply as a practice to start with simply to develop my awareness of what is happening when. I know I can feel the difference, it is then a case of whether I honour this.

402. It is our ‘intelligence’ that doesn’t allow us to see that our choices are not intelligent at all.

403. It is interesting that despite all the resources we throw at many of the world’s problems, we cannot seem to solve them, even though we can put a man on the moon.

     1. So true Adam, the problems seem to be getting worse no matter how much money or resources we throw at them.

404. All people bring something special to the table of life. It doesn’t have to come from a learned thing because that is all right till it doesn’t work! We all have, call it a natural talent that is just easy for us, we don’t see the problems. When we choose to work with each other, life just flows for all.

405. Intelligence without love or a relation to people is not very intelligent.

406. It’s time for the world to start to wake up and become aware of true intelligence is that within our bodies and not the relying on the mental intellect which has only proven time and time again that it can be harming for our health as it does not consider the true nature of our beings.

407. Through the inspiration of Serge Benhayon and the mighty colleague that is my body, I am beginning to clock that every moment matters, that life is not the jumble of compartmentalised experiences we see it to be, but that the power to choose to be responsible with how we feel and respond in every moment delivers a self empowerment, an innate confidence that knows no bounds.

     1. ‘the mighty colleague that is my body’ – a humdinger of a quote that I am pocketing for the days ahead… thank you, lucindag.

408. The intelligence we rely on in our present day world seem to be an intelligence that keeps us in a state of struggle, and less than who we are. It takes a lot to be honest that this intelligence is not really intelligent at all, and that there is an intelligence that we know but we frequently do not choose to access.

409. Learning to feel and discern what is true to us through our bodies ,and not just using the arrogance of a mind that can justify anything and hide the truth so easily.

410. Yes indeed, Joel. When we let go of the protection and self preserving behaviours, we naturally re-connect to a grander order that constantly informs us, so we no longer need to grasp onto the regurgitation of knowledge to get through life.

411. It’s time to connect with our bodies and truly listen to wisdom they offer us and not allow the arrogance of the spirit to run us.

412. Reading this blog highlights to me just how little responsibility I actually take for my own health and well-being. I listen when my body brings me to a stop but pretty much override the early warning signs. It’s time to stay connected and listen to my body.

413. Your insights here Joel are ground breaking if we connect with the possibility that our bodies hold an intelligence that can more truly inform the mind. Individuality seems to be a key here. What happens if I start listening to my body? How will my world change, what will I have to lose and how will I be valued? I love what you have written and this conversation must continue if we are to face the reality of our failing health in relation to so many aspects of humanity.

     1. Great point Bernadette about individuality, it was not until I begun to consider that life as I knew it to be may not be it, that I have observed how deeply I have clung to consciousnesses & beliefs that I felt identified me as an artist.

414. This is such a brilliant understanding Joel, and I’m discovering this is true for myself, the more I dull with what ever (food is by far the most effective source), the less free I am to have clarity of what is truly happening. Hiding isn’t the solution this just perpetuates the lists you have presented.

415. At times I find I have a stubborn insistence that I can or I can’t do something, that something is ok or not ok, and many other strong opinions about things. And I am very good at backing these ideals and beliefs with ‘intelligent’ reasons, stories and at times, figures. Yet I have been finding that when something in life prompts me to drop any of these deeply held beliefs it feels so very freeing to my outlook, awareness and even how my body feels! I am understanding more and more that what I have been considering intelligent is more often than not a decoy away from my true inner intelligence.

     1. I understand to a point what you are sharing Golnaz, could you please expand on what are the things that are decoys for you?

416. “… building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel”. When we truly take a moment to stop and take stock of our current situation, it is clear that our historic and current approach to intelligence is not working, confirmed by the current health statistics. Putting our heads before our bodies is clearly not the answer we are looking for, so why not try putting our bodies before our heads, tuning in to what we are feeling, the way we are moving, assessing whether our choices support our bodies or drain them. As one who has spent some time experimenting with the two forms of intelligence, I can now vouch for the fact that the latter one is far more successful and for me, the only way to live.

417. Recently I had a difficult situation occur. There was a clear choice before me, and I chose the route that was not growth for me. After this choice I made polite conversation and logical suggestions. I seemed intelligent, you could say. But in my words and gestures there was a coldness locking others out and as a consequence, myself further in. This continued for two weeks or so, until the point my body felt really unwell. So I agree Joel, we have a capacity to go on in our mind while hurting our body, that truly is not very clever.

418. This is so true and it is empowering to know that this happens “… our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals,” Our mind needs parenting, bringing back in alignment with our body…this is a process, of reconnection and so worth looking at. My mind was very dominant and still tries to push my body around…but I am listening and the gentle wisdom the body is, is precious.

419. After re-reading this blog I do come to the understanding that we as a human species have given precedence over the intelligence of our mind at the expense of the body, in that completely denying the immense intelligence it holds. This makes me question what is it in us that makes us make these choices as our body shows at times very clearly, that it does not sit well in itself through illness and disease, aches and the many ailments we experience daily?

420. When I felt what it was like to connect to a deeper wisdom I absolutely knew there was something different about my ability to be able to lovingly support myself, which I had never done before. Thank you Joel for the opportunity to feel deeper into my relationship with myself, and in absolute honesty I am still very much learning how being a humble, tender, loving man works in our society, that has tried to harden me.

421. When we bring our inner most wisdom, which is the intelligence from the body to the fore as our leading light we will relate to each other from the same source, we will have a different way forward. Its for us to not hold back this light as it is the way out of this mess the intelligence from the brain has delivered.

422. It is a wise question to ask – How is it that we are so called more intelligent over time and yet the world is falling more and more apart? And how is it that we can have intelligence as such but no wisdom in how we use this intelligence?

423. Whilst there is any effort to try and improve things, we have disconnected from the fact that we are already whole, there is no where to get to and that we are unfolding back to what we already are. Knowing this gives us a different angle to understanding where true intelligence comes from because if we are already whole then how can we not be all knowing.

424. I can see how I have been stuck in the idea that intelligence is based on doing well at school, or that if you don’t do well then you are not intelligent. This was very much the case for me when I was younger. I had a teacher saying when I was about 11 that I would not amount to much because of my marks at school. No comment on the person that I was, thereby reducing me and who I am to a mark out of 100. It’s no wonder as we look at young people finishing school how everything is invested in that final school mark as the beginning or the beginning of the end to their futures. We do need to have a serious stop and look at what we consider as intelligent, for it is not what we think it is, in fact it has nothing to do with thinking at all.

     1. Jennifer, what an awful thing to say to a child! And for a teacher to have put you down like that is a sure sign of the arrogance of the intelligence of our current systems. The arrogance of intelligence and intellect does not consider anything outside of its own realm of intelligence as being intelligent. It ignores nature and its natural cycles and the innate wisdom that lies within each one of us should we just choose to access it!

425. This begs the question – what kind of intelligence are we aligning to? If we abuse and neglect the body is this truly intelligent? What kind of intelligence would allow us to think this way?

426. It is really of great value that we allow ourselves to challenge “our high levels of collective intelligence” in the light of the crisis and multitude of problems we have as society on a global scale, actually to do so would be very intelligent. It raises the question how to investigate intelligence with intelligence and or could it be that there are different types of intelligence we could make use of and maybe need to get to know first and foremost. Considering the body to have a form of intelligence that is completely different to the merely mental approach we are familiar with is a good, necessary and already challenging start (for the mind), but it is very easy to experience when we give ourselves the opportunity. We all should get the chance and support to make this experience as offered by Universal Medicine.

     1. Sure, Universal Medicine is able to show us the way, in which we will come to understand that we have a spirit and a soul and two energies to choose as a source of life. To me that insight helped me so much in understanding life on a completely different level and that taking responsibility is not in the doing but in the way we are.

        1. Yes Nico, we have both a spirit and soul each with their own intelligence that is making choices in any given moment. I know if I have a thought that is detrimental to my body it is from my spirit. My soul uses a completely different intelligence that is in harmony with my body and everyone and every thing.

427. We can rationalise every choice, there’s a “reason” to support every single one of our decisions, however if we only rely on the intelligence of the mind, we will often feel confused between what’s best because every choice will have it’s positives and negatives. However, once we begin listening to the body, every choice is more than clear.

428. I was at a lunch recently and one of the party shared how he was excited about a new invention, something to do with virtual reality. Apparently you put on a helmet, plug yourself into headphones and the next minute you are flying through space, playing ball with planets, or some other weird and wonderful experience that stimulates and excites the senses, and feels better and more real than real life….This concept doesn’t seem that intelligent to me, because there seems to be enough checking out already through computer games, phones, television to introduce another medium to distract us from real life. And what’s wrong with real life anyway, surely we cannot run away from the true intelligence of our body and what is tells us forever.

429. Life goes on and sometimes we may feel stuck in our ill-behaviours and hold onto to them because they are familiar and comfortable but when we pause and reflect on what is truly going on we can begin to make changes. I often find myself questioning whether I want to be in the same repeated behaviour that does not support me five or ten years from now. It helps me to see the bigger picture for the reason I am here.

430. It seems that as long as we get our GCSEs, our ‘A’ levels, our degrees, PHDs and qualifications we ignore and side-line equally important aspects of our lives such as relationships, health and wellbeing. How intelligent is this? By segmenting and compartmentalising one aspect of life such as ‘being qualified’ as being more important over the quality of our relationships and health is not so intelligent!

431. I agree with what you share Joel, its like the more we stay connected with our body, which itself has an intelligence of feelings … “the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something…” and that is, we have a tendency to avoid, dismiss or over-ride the feeling aspect which offers us a vital aspect of intelligence.

432. Many of us become so identified with our intelligence and ability to solve problems or equations that quality of living, loving and relationships are discarded as irrelevant and much less important. What if we reversed our priorities and were able to access an even greater amount of wisdom through actually connecting with ourselves and other people?

433. From what I have seen going on in the world, it seems when we come to a problem that we want to sort out we tend to think that we need to gain more knowledge in the mind to sort it out, or some technological advancement to solve the problem. The only problem with this approach is very often we have not dealt with the underlying cause but merely bought some time in alleviating the problem temporarily which usually surfaces later as a bigger problem or a problem in a different form with the same source or cause. And so it will go on until we wake up and realise that everything is energy first before it is physical and we need to address the underlying energy making things happen if we want true change.

434. “We have global pandemics of disease, starvation and ongoing issues with adult and childhood slavery.” Isn’t this the most shocking thing of all, that despite the fact that we are so technologically advanced that we have put a man on the moon, we have still not worked out how to stop child sex abuse or human trafficking. That is a very shameful indictment on humanity and a huge example of how we use technology to distract us from dealing with the real issues, our very messed up international human relationships.

435. I love how you bring attention to discerning what is felt and noticing what is a reaction to what is felt. When I believe my reaction to be what I’ve felt I am blind to understanding and will even justify my point of view and actions. Events then often repeat themselves with often increasing intensity until I have to take notice and responsibility.

436. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!’ Now you are talking intelligence Joel and I love the way in which you have pointed out that we all fall for the intelligence of the mind and over ride the true intelligence of the body! Brilliant article.

437. I want to take one of the examples here, a religion Catholicism that has seen abuse and paedophilia exposed on a grand scale, and no doubt more that we haven’t heard about. Yes nothing changes, there is no overhaul of the catholic church, no power to stop the rot. That is a big question we could ask, why do we accept this is ok, surely the walls of this religion should be crumbling? Or perhaps we are living in our own form of rot that makes us complicit to such corruption and unable to voice our concerns with any true authority or power.

438. Great to read this Joel when I am resting in bed unwell. There is nothing to do but respond to what my body is telling me and I can feel all the trying and doing I had been caught up in just melt away. I can also feel there is a choice in each moment to live with this connection to my body, not just listening when I am forced to but to listen and appreciate its wisdom always.

     1. nice reflection Jane, there is a real knack to listening without judgement or impatience. There is a world of wisdom available in the silence between all that mental chatter.

439. The body is a true compass to navigate the mind-driven complexities that marketing, advertising and entrenched interests put forward as the ways to live or problem solve… I was completely fooled and lost when first presented with the simplicity of the statement ‘the body is the marker of truth’. After a few years of observation I can now say with confidence that this is absolutely true. I can also say that that the mind is easily fooled unless it is informed by the body.

440. Intelligence without love is at best empty and at worst destructive. Intelligence of the heart loves every living being.

441. One of the ways I’ve really ignored my body is by not connecting the dots between behaviours and physical symptoms. I have often viewed my illness as unrelated to lifestyle, as “just one of those things” which is exactly what mental intelligence does – reduce and complicate things. I have found whole body intelligence holds everything as whole it doesn’t isolate, separate or compartmentalise parts of life like the mind does, in fact the body is very clear, truthful and simple in what it communicates.

442. Hello Joel and I was going to say we are asleep at the wheel with things like this but more accurately were are not even in the car and more so we are walking the other way almost. We use words and phrases like we know what they mean but more and more I see that the way we are is so far from who we are that’s it’s not alarming but comical. We can’t honestly call ourselves intelligent in the way we live currently and if we do we are not only asleep as I said but we are walking away all together from the car. If we truly want intelligence then this is a place to start http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-essence.html I am finding more and more we change the meaning of words, reinterpret them and you do this for a generation or two and then the meaning does change. Time to bring the truth to the meaning of words, here is a catalogue on a few http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index?page=1

443. I sometimes wonder if we have a very strong mind (high intelligence) we also have very strong emotions and our mind is not helpful here because the emotions seem to drive the mind. In other words it looks as if the emotions control the mind rather than reason and intelligence being in charge of emotions.

444. Mere intelligence has never helped me to make true and lasting choices or changes in my life, no matter how hard I tried or intended to convince myself. The moment love enters the scene intelligence becomes something very different, real and relevant.

445. You raise some great points for the reader to consider.

     “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” I think you might be onto something! 🙂

446. When we are small, we feel many things that we aren’t always able to explain, and when we try to explain to an adult, there is a tendency to either ignore what is being said or to call the child silly or stupid, and/or to deny that what they are saying is true. But who has the true intelligence here?

447. Love this Joel, and the title says it all ‘Intelligence Alone is Not Enough’ – it would seem that mental intelligence is more than happy to advance us in technology but at the expense of the body. If this was not the case our championed intelligence would be marvelling at the body and building a deeper relationship with it, instead of seeing it purely from a functional view point and trying to fix it so that it continues to function.

448. What is worse is when we use our intelligence to argue against our inherent wisdom, to beat down what we know in our hearts and in our bodies, as evidenced by the way we invent habits like smoking, championed for its health enhancing benefits, then condemned once the real effects became to overwhelmingly obvious to deny.

449. Your contribution reminds me of what is called confirmation bias and that we basically only see what we want to see, i.e. anything that makes what we are doing seem okay and doesn’t ask us to take responsibility.

     1. I agree and the more intelligent we are, the more we can reason in favour of the conclusion we drew because of our confirmation bias rather than realise that we have just made a biased decision.

450. Before we don´t experience and realize the kind and quality of intelligence and knowing we have from our body the mental intelligence we commonly favour considers itself to be the only way of being and thinking.

451. My reactions to life and in many situations were huge, even when it was hidden and not fully disclosed underneath I could be seething. So what did my reaction cause in my body, I feel it brought in emotional reactions, and emotions were the most addictive thing in my life. My life was filled with all sorts of drugs and alcohol so I know what addictive behaviour was like and what it felt like in my body. I am slowly feeling more from my body and responding to a situation without any conditions to a set outcome and therefore there is little or no emotional reactions, which includes the so called good emotions.

452. A beautiful reminder of what is really going on and the truth about intelligence. “Building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” Absolutely well said and a great sharing.

453. True intelligence starts first and foremost with a lived understanding that we in truth do not think! We receive the energy first to think and therefore the energy will determine the quality of our thoughts as our thoughts are never truly ours to own in the first place. What I mean is that if everything is energy then not all our thoughts are necessarily ‘ours’ even though we are experiencing them in our mind.

454. Thank you Joel! I can see how my mind will jump in first with a thought if I let it, as though it is the only one who has the answer and as it was at school the child who had the answer first took the credit! But since I have become aware of the intelligence of my body over my mind it doesn’t get away with as much!

455. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” This statement is really so obvious but it is like a case of ‘you can’t see your own nose’ syndrome. We need ‘mirrors’ reflecting this everywhere.

456. What amazes me about intelligence, is how history clearly is able to map out the repeating choices of mankind which to the logical mind would seem ridiculous – such as war. And yet we continue to carry out what ought not be carried out, and most of the time all very intellectually justified. I do not see how anyone can justify killing another person. And yet we have global treaties on this very subject.

457. When we take stock of us, our planet and what is going on, it is challenging to use the word intelligence in the same sentence. We have an intelligence but it’s not what we walk around using, accessing or living.

458. I love this Joel, the more we feel our bodies the less we will override them with what we think “If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.”

459. There is intelligence, and there is intelligence – the question is which one do we prescribe to? Do we actually know the difference? And how does it feel?

460. This is a valid point that ‘true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’ For me this is true alchemy, as I understand that I am shifting my consciousness to one of not reacting to being one of love.

461. Our true whole bodies intelligence is never-ending and it is offered to us without rigorous study, accolades or financial investment. This is true learning that is forever calling us to grow and expand.

     1. Our bodies provide us with the greatest free education and to everyone equally.

462. As useful as it is, intelligence alone is like a ‘head on legs’ – The body has an intelligence too because it hold the heart / the expression of love. In combination, the intelligence of the mind is far exceeded by wisdom

463. Our current intelligence is not so much the wring map to where we’re going but in fact not a map which will allow us to see beyond its own limitation – like a map of earth and then looking for the stars on it; it’s not going to work.

     1. I agree – or as it once was, a map that shows the earth as flat, dare to venture to close to its edges and you will fall off. By todays intelligence standards it seems absurd to consider the world being flat, and yet is it possible the same arrogant intelligence that was once convinced by the flatness of the earth is running the arrogance of the so called evolved modern intellectual consciousness? What else is there in our accepted truths that, like the shape of the earth, may be a long held and popular belief, but doesn’t make it true?

464. “…our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” Joel this is worth pondering indeed and I love how you present this blog with such clear logic exposing just how unintelligent many of our choices are.

465. Taking stock of where humanity really is at, offers us a sobering truth in which raises the question, have we really evolved or are we simply living in comfort? If we were living with true intelligence we would see a world that reflected brotherhood, harmony and love across the borders and within our homes. Yes, there is pockets of this lived, yet as a whole we have long way to go until this becomes the norm.

466. So much truth in life has been misinterpreted and bastardised and intelligence is one of them. We’ve compartmentalised intelligence to be the feat and genius of the rational mind but in disconnection to the intelligence of the body.

467. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” It is curious how the mind overrides our body’s signals, but when we understand energy as presented by Universal Medicine it makes sense and that is what is such a monumental aha with the Ageless Wisdom, it has been presented to us for eons we have just chosen an energy that is not interested in evolution.

468. After the amount of time humans have been on this earth you would think that we would have learnt that the intelligence that comes from or through our minds has been leading us up the garden path for eons. If as a race we could all step back at the same time and see the ridiculousness of our choices that result in all the illness , disease, conflict and all the other consequences that happen from choices made from so called rational minds, we should clearly see that this intelligence is not only not enough, but clearly designed to keep us from truly evolving.

469. Joel, this completely makes sense, ‘If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ When I listen to my body and take care of myself I feel well, have energy and am able to support others, if I override what my body fees I feel unwell and things do not flow and I am unable to work efficiently or support others – so for me true intelligence comes from my body not my mind.

     1. It is also true ‘for me true intelligence comes from my body not my mind.’ The moment I feel the rush coming from my mind to override what my body is feeling I get an instant message so that most of the time I find I can come back to my body. My lessons in life have brought a deeper understanding of the messages and their true meaning. So I am learning to feel and then read every situation so as to not go into reaction and allowing my body to respond. When I respond it feels much more loving in my body. Thank you Joel and Rebecca for sharing you insightful awareness’s for me this is true wisdom.

470. It is amazing to feel the impact mental energy has on the way we feel in our bodies.

471. One great example is cigarette smoking. Once society did not know smoking damages your health, and for a while it was championed as a health inducing exercise. But then everyone was made aware by articles, picture, videos and even a label on most packets sold. Did it stop people smoking? No. Yet all we needed to do was consult our own bodies – honestly. Pretty much everyone could not stop coughing when they started to smoke – we all know. The mental intelligence we have been championing is clearly not that intelligent, honest, nor wise.

472. “In fact, ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.” This is a great point Joel, but it is often something we can dismiss as we are so often led to believe that those who are trained to know certain things know more or know better that we do. But as you so clearly point out, this is not always the case.

473. A young person I know and I met up for the first time in 10 years with some schoolmates, being over 60 the majority of people I know are younger. The overall reflection of the group was the same; they had all gone to college, and all were in the same energy of ticking the boxes like they were in school. The person recanting the meeting said they were not recognised when they first met and was the only one that had broken the mold of what was expected of them, by everything outside of them. Intelligence is like salt and pepper on the table; it is always there if needed and a personal choice of how much you rely on it!

474. Yes Joel, what do all those PhDs really add up to? For how can many of us be so smart but then live with a body that’s ill or out of shape – this makes no sense to me. What would it be like if our foundational study in life was our body? What if our thesis touched on our heart? And we did our masters in moving with Love? I feel this would lead to a much wiser society for all.

475. no perhaps about it!…. YES the intelligence of the inner heart is the true universal, limitless intelligence.

     1. I absolutely agree Nicola. The intelligence of the mind becomes dull, dry and completely lacking when we open ourselves to the true intelligence of the inner heart.

476. You would have to be very unintelligent to not be aware that we are in a mess as a society. The question is how long can we refuse to look at what we contribute to it and keep blaming the microwave, sun, bad oil, weather, God, those people, this chemical, that or the other or anything other than our collective selves.

477. “…If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives…” Our head and body in union, working together brings love and this I feel, is when true intelligence comes alive.

478. I agree, pointing the finger at others definitely gets us nowhere. I love what Serge Benhayon discusses and presents here; that is whole body intelligence http://sergebenhayon.tv/episodes/whole-body-intelligence. As others have also shared here and what I know to be true is in fact that our body and heart take the lead with intelligence and the mind follows not the other way around.

479. Perhaps we need to consider our bodies with a deeper respect and honouring. So much kudos is given to the mind and this in itself seems to be insatiable. I can see how a connection to a physical feeding frenzy starts to try and fill up this insatiable appetite for more and more mental stimulation and recognition.

480. Joel, I love your list of points that doesn’t make sense but is played out continually in society.. even those that are partaking in the nonsensical action know themselves it makes no sense but the choice is continually made – so if we know that what we are choosing is not making sense yet we continue to do so, what is making the choice for us?

481. The body does often have to talk very loudly before we listen to it, yet when the crisis is over we usually quickly revert to overriding its constant loving messages until another often greater crisis emerges, repeating itself over and over again until we eventually can see that our body is far smarter than our mind and well worth listening to all the time.

482. This is severe .. .. “In each example there is a person who on some level has made a choice, first of awareness and then an action that leads to a less than intelligent outcome.” Why are not people calling out how ‘intelligent’ scenarios are letting us down, killing us?!? THERE is nothing ever lost in expressing truth, and exposing the rot, and the magnitude of this is immeasurable.. We live in a world that benchmarks intelligence, that is letting us down – an intelligence that protects itself. It makes clear sense why expressing truth is not truly valued for the power it is !!

483. We have developed a type of intelligence which scientifically tests many theories and is capable of in depth analysis and yet it will not expose itself in simply showing the correlation between the rise in illness and disease and the pursuit of academic progress, scientific research and technological breakthroughs when this so clear to see.

484. I agree, one of the biggest skills of intelligence is to rationalise, without necessarily any judgment.

485. Intelligence is the ability to process and retain information. It seems more like a skill among many or perhaps an amplifier of other skills but if we lack, for example, life skills, then intelligence can’t amplify what isn’t here.

486. Honestly we would not do things that are not healthy for the body and we do know what is right for our bodies and what is not yet there is that choice to go against this knowing so your questions are really great and something to look at for all of us. The explanation that we do it because we feel hurt and don’t want to feel that is great because when we numb or distract our body with choices that are not in line with it we are not so aware of the hurt. It makes sense.

487. You have clearly pinpointed our crazy way of living:- ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’ It simply doesn’t make sense to trust a lie when Truth is always available inside our own skin.

488. Just yesterday I read in one of Serge Benhayon´s books a sentence saying something about the next level of intelligence being Universal Intuition (after having accepted and realized clairsentience as true intelligence). Not that I could fathom yet what that means in its all-encompassing meaning but the mere notion of different levels of intelligence and that we are developing or evolving to higher forms of intelligence made me stop …and open up to the much more that is awaiting us or actually may already be available to us.

     1. That is so interesting Alex, as all the way through Joel’s article the words “common sense” kept coming into my mind. So often this is considered inferior to “intelligence”, yet “common” is the root of communal, community, communion, meaning common to all, and is far more intelligent than intelligence! It is practical and present in the body.. Clairsentience is clarity of sense which is common (inherent) to us all, and available for us to develop in this time when the intelligence of the brain is failing us. It seems that the intuitive intelligence is the next step, but I imagine we cannot go there until we have mastered the clairsentience fully.

        1. I love your remarks and exploration of words in their true meaning and origin leading us back to common ground, the oneness we all come from. So, let´s master and make clairsentience our common sense and then see what is going to come next.

489. Intelligence of the mind means nothing when we have so much disharmony on earth. You only have to look at the atrocities that occur daily on this planet to to see that even the highest mind intelligence has no desire to put a halt to this.

490. We are finally beginning to realise that the “gold” is not within the “intelligent” head and yet it has been in our own backyard.

491. If we were truly intelligent how could a person, like myself, take copious amounts of drugs that I knew would destroy my health, my relationships, my job opportunities and alienate my family. doesn’t really make sense does it. It was only when I reconnected to my body and started listening to it could I give up drugs. I realized that it was my body that held the true intelligence.

492. “… Intelligence alone is not enough…” Intelligence WITH the inner heart is wisdom

493. I reckon it is fair to say that intelligence on its own, with out love or the human body holding it to account, is not delivering us or our societies in to the promised future that it so readily encourages us to seek. In fact, I would go so far as to say that intelligence without love and the human body holding it to account is very much holding us back from the future we are naturally and by evolutions grace are already heading towards.

494. We live in a world in which our definition of ‘intelligence’ does not add up. A loveless life does not equal intelligence, and yet it is what we are promoting every time we champion the mind over the whole.

495. Are the choices I make coming from the intelligence of my mind, or from the intelligence of my body? It is a give away if these choices are at the expense of my body than I know my heart was not in it.

496. It is not that thinking is a “bad” thing. It is only when such thinking is done in isolation to and at the expense of what we feel. If we honoured what we felt as being equal to what we think, then one would not be capable of making the cold clinical decision to sell and manufacture arms all in the supposed name of business.

497. Thanks, Joel. The intelligence of the mind feels so cold and barren without the all-encompassing warmth and knowing of the inner heart.

498. If we evaluated the intent behind our careers, home set-ups, relationships and our world’s great ‘systems’ e.g. education, healthcare services and so forth, how many of these have roots in protection and security? As you’ve shared in your blog, many of the choices we make are about feeling as ‘secure’ as possible rather than joyful, and even intelligence is used as a protective shield and something to fall back on rather than responsibly to evolve ourselves and humanity.

499. It is really quite amazing that we, as a human race, should think ourselves so intelligent by the evidence of our material prowess when the litany of the state of the world over centuries from the inhumanity to each other and the present world crisis of ill health, violence and the planet itself from our selfish greed is so abounded.

500. I did spend a lot of my life trying to live from the neck up… it was exhausting, complicated and discordant; only looking OK’ish when I had everything under control (gripped tight). As I integrate my whole body into my life, decision making, choices and source of wisdom, everything changes: I am working with, rather than against, the natural cycles and rhythms in life and have access to a whole lot more intelligence than the limited version in my brain.

501. Said in short, there is simply no true ‘advancement’, when such glaringly obvious aspects of our living in relationship with ourselves, and together as human beings, remain as they are, and in some cases, continue to degenerate. It’s time we stopped the false glorification of mental attainment over the way in which we meet our fellow man.

502. So many of our behaviours simply do not ‘make intelligent sense’ whatsoever – absolutely agreed Joel. And yet we pride ourselves on being at ‘the top of the chain’ – sentient and capable of seemingly great intelligence… Che? What we’ve bought the meaning of intelligence to be, then is asking if not screaming to be questioned.
     I have learnt a great deal from Serge Benhayon’s presentations on this very thing. What is exposed is our preference for ignoring the truth of the matter, as our bodies so readily do present to us – and in obvious ways… We know what indulgence in alcohol feels like for example (not good) – we know that it’s a poison, we know there is damage to cells, functional capacity in the body, our relationships and more… and yet, we imbibe. We know the harm done by abuse of any kind, and yet, we continue… We have to ask, just who or what is running the show?
     It seems that the lessons for us here to learn will keep returning, and likely in harsher form, until we get it – that the form of ‘intelligence’ we’ve so stringently relied upon simply does not serve us in full – in missing out on an enormous part of the picture (the body) and the deftness with which we avoid and justify the ‘obvious’ harm that’s right in our faces, the form of intelligence we’ve leaned on clearly does not encompass the whole. We need to bring our awareness and responsibility with our bodies and senses back into the picture, and not relegate these – or the inner knowings readily at our disposal – as lesser or secondary.

503. Intelligence certainly is not enough in this world. Listening to our bodies was a new concept that I had not considered before connecting to Universal Medicine and the presentations of Serge Benhayon! What an amazing difference it makes to my life when I truly listen. Thank you Joel for your sharing.

504. The mind may be challenged by the notion that the body has an intelligence or even a greater one than itself, but why not give it a chance? What is there to lose in face of all the misery, complication and conflict as the result of a loveless intellect? The only item here to lose is our pride and arrogance to think that we are mentally intelligent.

505. The problem is that we consider ourselves ‘intelligent’ and ‘advanced’ forgetting about the key ingredients that actually determines if what we have is true intelligent or true advancement – that of love and responsibility.

506. This blog really exposes the fact that we are not as intelligent as we think we are and that universal intelligence and wisdom comes from the body not from the mind.

507. I used to feel intimidated and inferior by those who I regarded as being intelligent. I would get anxious about not being able to understand words spoken or would hold back in case I would be laughed at for saying something that may have seemed silly to another. It was a belief that I had taken on from early on in my childhood never feeling I was good enough. I have come to realise that true intelligence comes from the body and not from the mind and as I embody this truth I do not feel inferior to another who may think they are intelligent for I am learning to accept all of me for who I truly am.

508. Wouldn’t it be great Joel if our leaders did take a step back to look at how we, as a society and as individuals, are really going. Perhaps it is time for us to look at changing our leaders who will lovingly and truthfully do this!

509. Great to raise this subject and question just what kind of definition or limitations we’ve been putting on the word intelligence and has it truly been working for us. I say whole-body mindedness is the way forward rather than the mind in separation from the body.

510. With love as the absolute marker every form of intelligence that is loveless would be exposed for the false intelligence it is; false because without love the makings of such intelligence wouldn´t be all-encompassing of everyone equally but create some form of divide or separation, ie would favour some and harm others. This can be applied to our own body and its parts that make it a whole and the way we treat it or the same with people.

511. A great sharing Joel beautifully presented showing clearly our so called intelligence is not so intelligent when it comes to living ,life ,health, well being and everything else. Listening to our body through our connection to it and the all is true intelligence and wisdom that is a living way.

512. “…maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives”. A good suggestion that needs to be considered deeply if we are to change anything in this world.

513. Yes it could be true that we are “smarter by the traditional measures than at any other time in history”. Yet the fact that we are the most disharmonious, destructive, sick and fragmented living beings on this planet of ours, shows clearly that our concept of intelligence and the measures with which we pride ourselves is seriously flawed.

514. Your examples of what is reality doesn’t make sense – why these acts would be carried out yet they are common and not questioned. It kind of feels it is like the blind leading the blind. As a species it would make complete sense if these actions were chosen and others around see this, would we not support the person to see that this is not very intelligent at all. How we continue in life with our heads in the sand and only focused on what is going on in our own homes and sometimes then that is not even the case.

515. How can we champion our intelligence and progress as a result of this intelligence when we look at the world today? It was man’s intelligence that invented high-tech chemical weapons with the intent to main and kill. Genius in engineering and chemistry but to what end and what value when it is intended for the sheer annihilation of another human being?

516. Great expose of the way we pride ourselves when we regard intelligence in reference to that is possibly achieved without regard to the quality of relationships we hold with our bodies and others around us – True intelligence is encompasing and leaves nothing behind as it is through the connection to our own quality that allows us to tap into the wisdom of the universe.

517. Reconnecting to your body reveals just how much of a prison we are in when we are living only from our minds.

518. We pride ourselves on our ‘intelligence’ providing security in life, and yet, we are more compromised than ever as a humanity.

519. Joel I love your dissection of the meaning of intelligence – for me there are now 2 types of intelligence: (1) the intellectual kind that belongs in the head and (2) the body kind that comes from a natural source: the body. At times these can align and work together which means that the head intelligence can work in line with the body intelligence and do things that will support the body and everyone/everything else. Unfortunately when the head intelligence is not in line with the body, it tends to go ahead and invent and do things that appear pretty cool, but are done at the detriment of the body. So the key is to hold the body intelligence as the focus and keep the head aligned to the body! Sounds simple, and it is, only the head intelligence tends to go rogue most of the time in our society!

520. The ending of this blog resonated with me Joel. I am much more free to think when I am not using my mind! What is already true and present emerges from my body. I love the confirmation this provides – it tells me over and over again that the way forward is already known when I allow my body to speak. Imagine if our education system was built around this way of being! Awesome blog.

521. Absolutely, the dichotomy between mind and body – one organ’s limited intellect versus the true intelligence of our whole body and the whole of which we are part.

522. The fact that we think we are such an intelligent species is quite exposing itself of the level of intelligence we are accessing. It doesn’t take much to see that we are killing ourselves or to realise our impact on the planet we are living on. We seem to pretend this is not what we are doing but it can’t be hidden. Not so intelligent if you ask me.

523. ” a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel” – relating intelligence to body and feeling, probably even suggesting that true or whole intelligence can only be accessed via the body is far from the definitions and the everyday reality of how we see and ourselves use intelligence. Quite a step ‘down’ into the body our so-called intelligence might think as it like to see itself as above the body.

524. I have been around many academic intelligent people, suffering from many ills but when it comes to knowing their body they don’t know where to start, I use to be part of this. But then through Universal Medicine I started to understand and become aware of true intelligence, which comes from our bodies. Not from outside in books, PhDs, but from a true connection to the body and Livingness. Our body holds true intelligence, if only if we stop, to listen and connect to it.

525. It is more taking a step back to be able to see the bigger picture to then be able to make a decision including the whole than taking a step or two forward to achieve more and always being at the front but not being able to see the whole.

526. Looks like our understanding of intelligence does not protect us from illnesses, wars and in general disharmony in all places of life on earth. So how can we call this intelligence?

527. ‘We have global pandemics of disease, starvation and ongoing issues with adult and childhood slavery.’ And is it not true that most of us would prefer these issues did not exist so we turn our backs and focus inwards on our lives and what is impacting us rather than accepting that what is going on is very real and needs to be talked about.

528. Wow so what you are saying here Joel if I have understood correctly is that there is an all knowing intelligence that we have that we don’t want to feel and therefore we use another lesser, narrower, reduced form of intelligence to over-ride or counter the first grander intelligence we cannot stop feeling! This is a major revelation into human life – thank you for expressing this so clearly.

     1. It is absolute madness that we chose and continue to choose an intelligence that is less than we are capable of when we let the mind run the show.

529. When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our ill-ness in the first place. The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us those choices are not so smart. How come we can do the same thing again and again? Do we really get away with it? If the body lets us know that a choice does not support us, what makes us do it again? Why do we abuse our body? Why is it that some are not even aware they are abusing their body? The mind is having a ‘field day’ as much as there is time in the day.
     My mind is not love, and it pays to love and nourish your body for all that you know is love, and give that to the mind to focus on .. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.”

530. “Why does a ‘man of the cloth’ abuse young children, after all their years of studying God’s love and compassion?” Is this then showing us that our entire understanding of God and how to commune with God is essentially flawed if those who elect to put themselves in the position of Priest, a Divine position end up abusing and deeply harming children entrusted to their care, the very antithesis of Divine Love. We know it’s a reality but are we really questioning what this is reflecting about our awareness and relationship to the Divine? When we begin to honour the Divine within us, not only does it dismantle the need for Priests and Holy Men to commune with God on our behalf, it returns us to our most fundamental relationship of all, the one we have with our bodies and therefore with God and the irrefutable knowing that whatever we do to another, we also do to our selves.

531. It was a revelation on attending Universal Medicine presentations to understand and feel the truth about the fact that higher intelligence comes from the body and the heart, not the mind…that the body is the marker of truth…and that from the body we will find our true way home.

532. If all we had was intelligence, and it is just stuff that is in books, could we say our smartness is only a library card we carry around with us? How far would we get out of town on our library card?

533. Thanks, Joel. When I read through your list of horrific yet everyday occurrences of how we are really going, I wonder how it would be for an alien from another planet to come and observe us. When are we going to wake up and stop tolerating the lovelessness?

534. We have yet to accept that our mind is not ‘King’ and it is through the body that we have true intelligence. I know when I listen to my body and don’t choose to override it with my mind, that I have a much deeper understanding of life and of people. The body speaks in a different way, it does not give us answers and solutions like the mind does, it offers the truth that we don’t always want to hear.

535. It seems we have a lot to learn about where true intelligence comes from and how we use it. Like any tool we are blessed with, if we are choosing to not use it for the greater purpose of humanity and for evolution, then it potentially creates a colossal amount of harm and disharmony. This is what we are currently experiencing world-wide.

536. Super, super post Joel, and your line here: “If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel” – sums up whole life and our development in it. Cancel out the true body-connection, and we have an intelligence rather like a headless chicken, running around without any idea before then collapsing…

537. A brilliant sharing on the truth about intelligence and does it really support us as humanity and where we are really going. Listening to our bodies and the wonder and truth it shares with us is very real and honest way of living that allows awareness and true wisdom to guide us all in our evolution.

538. Reading this article made me wonder why we’ve accepted so much force being imposed on us? And why have we taken on beliefs and ideals from other people without feeling if they resonate with ourselves? Isn’t it truly intelligent to feel for ourselves if things shared with us are true or not true? We are only able to distinquish truth from lies if we are connected to our own truth. Which lies in the connection with our hearts and body. Our mind is an amazing tool, but will never ever give us the answers when it’s not connected to us! We’re so extremely powerful, but only when we come from our body and heart.

539. I was getting off a plane this morning, looking at the advertisements for advancements in technology on the walk to the passport control desks and was considering one which had a quote about human innovation and motivation. There seems a ceaseless and restless need that drives us to push the limits of our mental horizons, building, designing, creating more and more things, but to what end? It feels like we like are wandering deeper and father into a forest, chasing the bright tempting lights of creation that gives us fleeting moments of warmth and recognition, individualisation before leaving us feeling empty again, when all the while we are walking away from where our true home is always waiting with an eternal fire burning in the hearth.

540. It would be great to learn about the science of our well-being. Only today I was in the classroom discussing how stress can change the pH (acidity or alkalinity) of our blood. The students were fascinated to hear this. Its certainly something we should be teaching and learning about more, so we can understand from both angles how intelligent our bodies are. It’s true that before we know mentally, the body already knows.

     1. interesting to consider the science of our own well-being. Its a course I’d sign up for….but then again if i listen closely enough, I am already its student.

541. Often times the intelligence of the body is overridden by a mind that believes it can think itself out of any situation, leaving the body behind to follow in its wayward path. When, however, the body is given its authority, there is wisdom that speaks louder than words because the intelligence from the body would never cause harm to any living thing.

542. As a society we have become very good at managing life through the endless vices available, it is only by our choice to reconnect to our bodies that we can allow ourselves to feel and meet life through our bodies first and respond accordingly with the quality of our movements instead of relying on the head with the complexity and burdens it imposes on our bodies.

543. “Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat?” – We know sugar is toxic, addictive, rots our teeth, messes with our blood sugar levels, makes children hyperactive and creates weight gain, amongst other things, and yet it is dressed up to be a treat. Think children’s birthday parties which are laden with sweet treats. What we need to start thinking is ‘why are we using sugar as a treat when we know what it does in the human body?’.

544. Let’s face it, humanity is not in a good place. When we are honest about this, we can see that intelligence as we know it, isn’t working in evolving us as a species. Isn’t it time that we try another way, a way where we listen to our body and let it guide the way.

545. Can’t read this blog enough Joel to enforce how important what you share here is. Intelligence alone has kept us going round and around the same conundrums for aeons. Only an open heart can see through the issues to the real truths of life.

546. We cannot think our way out of the problems that we have currently in society, if we could we would have done it a long time ago. Something has been missing and what is missing is the intelligence that comes from the body. The body is one whole organism, highly interactive and super responsive to what is going on within it and around it. It knows exactly what is going on and loves to communicate this to us. The problems occurs when we do not act on what our body is telling us so we might for example continue to eat a food that constantly gives us sinus problems every time we eat it but ignore it and blame it on something else. The body is clearly telling us not to eat it but our “intelligent” solution is to get an anti histamine tablet and continue to eat it. To change all this we are going to have to become humble enough to say that we have gotten it wrong and that the first place we start with is the body.

547. Beautiful blog Joel. I am reminded of how wonderful it has been to watch someone close to me slowly develop a deeper connection to their body and now listen to the amazing wisdom they have reconnected to. Something we can all do if we choose to reconnect to our true intelligence.

548. I love this, somewhat perplexing, question ….. ‘Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat?’ …. put like that it’s actually very ironic. We know we shouldn’t be eating or drinking it, as the consequences on our bodies are not favourable, so it becomes a treat, maybe because it’s something we try to avoid doing. But we secretly crave it and sometimes we are weak and we give in. The question is, if we know it’s not good for us, why are we doing it at all. Are we purposely trying to harm ourselves, or are we just not wanting to take responsibility for the way we are living. Do we actually enjoy being irresponsible, in spite of the consequences?

549. ‘it seems for centuries now we have thrown our collective intelligence at life to try to improve things’ … it’s interesting that our path to improving things seems to be to develop more things to have in our lives rather than looking at what we are doing, how we are doing it and exploring where we are going wrong. Rather than widening our playing field, maybe the answers are to dig deep, to uncover the hurts that are preventing us from truly moving forward.

550. We are all capable of making un-intelligent choices when we are willing to ignore the intelligence of the body

551. How long before we start to consider the effects of what we call intelligence as being far reaching. We have redefined intelligence to mean, recall and mental activity when it is so so much more. So there are those who think they are ‘smart’ and those who think they are ‘not smart’… both schools of thought being based on a made up definition of intelligence

552. It looks as if we use the wrong tool without realising. Our mind has great difficulty getting us to change our lifestyle. Our body is much better at this but feedback from our body is not generally considered to be part of our intelligence – equal or superior to our mind.

553. Intelligence has great difficulty to go outside what it chooses to be intelligent about. An intelligent skeptic has great difficulty going outside his or her skepticism, almost regardless of their intelligence.

554. When you research different kinds of intelligence, seven, eight or nine labels come up, but these are all ways of thinking that is not based on true body intelligence. We can feel, using clairsentience, a higher sense than our normal five. When we let our body impulse our mind through our movements, the wisdom there is without limit.

555. Perhaps the reason why the ‘intelligent man’ makes such obviously not-so-intelligent choices is down to a reliance on the wrong kind of intelligence in the first place… What would it look like if we changed the source of our intelligence, and tried listening to our body over our minds?

556. What is intelligence? Really, this article exposes how what we call intelligence is not supporting the well-being of any human on this planet or the planet. Do doubt true intelligence comes from the hearts expression, through the body. I don’t always live this, but I know it is the truth when I do.

557. Intelligence does not support us in our interactivity with each other, in our relationships, our health, our emotional wellbeing and in a way of being that supports us to live life to the full. It can help us in the function of life really well, but on its own it does not bring the richness and depth we are all seeking to feel in life.

558. What is true intelligence? Is it to evolve? If it is – should everything be assessed to see if it is supporting evolution?

559. “Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat?” This has to be the biggest paradox of all, that fact that we ingest substances that are known to be toxic and yet con ourselves that it’s a treat and say odd things like ‘it’s only once in a blue moon’ and ‘everything in moderation is okay’. I would say that on an intelligence scale of 0 to 10, this has to be ‘zero rated’!

560. I have always found the innate intelligence of the body amazing. However, it was not until encountering Universal Medicine have I come to realise that that intelligence is in fact far more than sensory reflexes but is instead the source of true intelligence rather than the mind.

561. I think therefore I am, was a self-supporting line from a philosopher that he used to justify his existence 400 hundred years ago. In truth, the moment we think, are we not lost?

562. The letting go of the protection ( the armour round my heart) is so very freeing in how much more easier it becomes to express more of me…..to express all the love that is within.

563. What a great line to finish on – the suggestion that without our mind controlling the driving seat we may be freer to truly think. I am certainly enjoying my body’s intelligence and how this makes so much more sense of our world, our choices and the distracted mess we are in.

564. To discern the difference of what we feel and to react on what we feel is so wise and supports us staying with ourselves and not giving power away to emotions and reactions. It is interesting how our reactions and every thought thereafter is not coming from our natural expression but from a place where we already have given power away to an ideal or belief.

565. To discern the difference of what we feel, and to react on what we feel, is so wise and supports us staying with ourselves and not giving power away to emotions and reactions.

566. The body and mind working in unison is real intelligence.

567. Susan the illusion that we can never ‘move forward’ or indeed, leave any-thing ‘behind’ is one of the false beliefs that we all use to avoid every-thing that we don’t want to face. Every-thing that needs addressing is with us all ways, until such time that we deal with it in full and then it’s not.

568. ‘The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart.’ We seem to be more comfortable with choices made from the mind than those in line with the body – until the body allows us feel that we can never be comfortable living from the mind alone.

569. It is indeed interesting that when we are not protecting or reacting our mind has much more clarity and even space to consider loving, caring and supportive choices. As said by Universal Medicine it is not the mind that thinks but thoughts are coming from the body, ie the energetic quality the body is governed by, meaning that holistic intelligence is not a domain of the mind but the body first and foremost.

570. We all know to listen to the intelligence of our bodies and yet how many of us do? When we have a hangover from the night before we tell our friends that we are never going to drink again because we feel so appalling and then before we know it we are repeating exactly the same thing.

571. Interesting how letting go of our intelligence and feeling the body gives us more freedom to think.

     1. Yes, the body offers a wisdom that goes far beyond the intelligence of thinking. Therein lies the freedom.

572. ‘If fact, ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.’ When considered in this light ‘intelligence’ doesn’t come across as very intelligent and is exposed to be incredibly fake, so why do we continue to invest in it knowing that it has never really got underneath the nitty gritty of life?

573. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” Since meeting Serge Benhayon I learning how this is the key more and more and the more I connect with my body the more “intelligence” is there in knowing something and not just for myself but for the good of the all. Thank you Joel.

574. When I feel intelligence I feel cold, damp, institutions – which is exactly my experience of university and even though I actually loved learning I dropped out of university after one year as I was so disillusioned with the place on every level. Enter Universal Medicine and true intelligence was revealed to me and I love it, the love that is a natural part of being educated to live life to the fullness of the divinity that is available means that everyone is bought with us and no-one is left behind, and nothing is disturbed by the the evolution rather harmony is enhanced.

     1. Great point Vanessa, I didn’t know it then but looking back now and having a greater understanding of what true intelligence is, I could feel the emptiness of the teachers as they taught from the pages of the book. I couldn’t feel them in the lesson and there was very little connection between pupil and teacher. Education has changed since my days at school and there is more interaction but it is still about getting good marks and achieving something. Intelligence Alone is not Enough, we need to make our education system about love, this is something we can all then take with us into our lives instead of the dampness and coldness that the education system offers us at present.

575. No one has to be a rocket scientist to understand the wisdom of our bodies, we just have to pay attention to it. Any one can do that.

576. I love the understanding and simple truth in this line “But let’s not point the finger… how many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu? We may not even go to the doctor but innately know the basics that support the body.”.

     We do know what it’s best for our body, yet putting energy in our daily relationship with our body isn’t something a lot of people living on this planet do. A relationship where we learn to not only respect our body’s needs, but also learn to accept that our body is actually the only ‘tool’ we have and thus need, to have contact with the Divine. The Divine constantly communicates it’s intelligence through the body. Are we willing to start listening or at first considering that this might be true?

577. It is sad how much we can dismiss people because of their lack of education. This is a level of ignorance that we could really live without.

578. Our education system is failing us, as it stands you need a degree and also years of industry experience in order to develop yourself as a professional in what you do. Put simply we need to honour much much more how much we learn from seasoned professionals and on the job training. If working in industry was embedded into tertiary education similiar to apprenticeships I feel that graduates would be much more prepared for their chosen career.

579. ‘while the mind is an amazing tool and some people use their intelligence for the betterment of mankind, at some point we should step back and take stock of how we are truly going’ – Absolutely Joel. The percentage of what we can get ‘correct’ on test papers only shows our ability to recall information and regurgitate what we’ve been told to learn, but the true marker of how we’re truly going comes from connecting to a much greater form of intelligence, that of our bodies and the science of HOW we move and live.

580. ‘But let’s not point the finger… how many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu? We may not even go to the doctor but innately know the basics that support the body.’ – This is such a great point Joel, it goes to show that we all innately know that caring and nurturing for ourselves makes a difference. It is interesting then, that we seem to dismiss this knowing once we are ‘well’ again, and we return to the patterns that contributed to the illness/disharmony in the first place.

581. ” … at some point we should step back and take stock of how we are truly going.” A sign of true intelligence is the ability to create space and observe life and the issues we have created, rather than getting caught into them and pursuing solutions without truly appreciating and addressing their true cause. Humanity needs to take a huge step back and really admit that the way we are living is not working. The art of creating space and observing our selves is the living Science of Cause and Effect taught by Universal Medicine that connects us to the vast intelligence, which resides in our bodies. This intelligence has the amazing ability to reveal the real impact of how we live and thus supports us to make different choices based on the quality of life they produce. This is empowering thousands of people self included to observe the real science of our actions and hence make life changing choices that are restoring a solid foundation of health, integrity and respect within our selves, within our homes, within our personal and professionals lives once more, an interconnected, consistent expression of intelligent life.

582. Joel, this blog really does take a step back and ‘take stock of how we are truly going.’ How we are truly going is not so great, although we don’t want to truly see it. We seem to want to avoid, numb and bury seeing the truth about championing our so called intelligence and what it has truly lead to.

583. What is the point of producing people who understand their chosen profession theoretically only?

584. All the atrocities and sufferings in the world tend to stem back to the quality of relationship with have with others and ultimately ourselves.

585. Very true Joel, we get sick, then we take care of our self, we get better, and we go back to living the way we were that contributed to us getting sick in the first place…it does not make logical sense

586. If I look at my day, there are many things I do that just don’t add up. Especially things that doctors, physios and dentists (who I pay!) have told me would be good for my health, but I tend to do the very opposite thing. There seems to be a part of me that says ‘yeah whatever I don’t care – I’m just here for a good time’. But as you point out Joel, even if we go along with this view of life it doesn’t take very long to see that the junk and rubbish we create today, leads to unhappiness and misery tomorrow. There is no evidence this short-sighted way we get from living from our head will ever change or truly work, so why not give this way of living from our body a chance?

587. Our bodies in the drivers seat would not do the same thing twice if it hurt or harmed it… like burning ourselves on a hotplate, no way would the body choose to do that again. Yet the mind makes choices over and over again that continues to time and time hurt the body. It doesn’t quite make sense then why in society we invest so much in the brain being a source of all intelligence.

588. When the body speaks loudly enough indeed we do listen?. Do we really heed what is being shown to us? Great blog Joel to support us to make wise, self loving choices instead of choices that mask our true wisdom and intelligence.

589. This opens us up to really looking at what true intelligence is and clearly form the state of the world currently shows we have got something very wrong. Listening to our bodies and the amazing ness they share with us and the connection to the universe we are all part of really is true intelligence and something we are barely touching on but where we all come from and are going back to.

590. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’ I know this quote to be true for myself and my actions and I know it to be true for many I see and observe each day. Thankfully, because of Universal Medicine I am learning to listen to my body and I can say that it is possible to hear what it is saying.

591. Intelligence is clearly not enough. When I restrict my knowing to what I have learnt and recall from my head I cut myself off from accessing the knowing of the universe through my body that is connected. To defer back to my head confuses it as it cannot compute all that there is to know that is beyond its limited reach. Just knowing this allows me to let go of trying to work things out and trust what there is to feel and sense.

592. I was watching the first Episode on Serge Benhayon TV about Whole body intelligence, where he says “Intelligence has never stopped anyone from suicide, Love has” – We cannot become like robots, and believe that function and knowledge alone will ever raise us up out of our ills and suffering, for true love has an unmeasurable capacity to do amazing things, that cannot be done with intelligence alone.

593. Isn’t it about time we renamed our idea of intelligence something else – when it is also said that ‘stupidity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result’.

594. It feels like we have everything back to front, we think we are intelligent and we live our lives the way we want to live them, which is often not loving or supportive, consequently, we end up feeling a dis-ease in our bodies, which is unpleasant, so we use food, drink, drugs, exercise to numb this. In doing so, we are enabling a greater level of dis-ease to occur until our body forces us to stop and listen. Then, perhaps we do take stock of the way we are choosing to live and make changes to our lives, or maybe it’s a temporary stop before we resume our old ways. How much simpler to just connect to our inner self, and be guided by the wisdom of our body.

595. I was speaking to a hairdresser yesterday and discussing healthy lifestyles, and how easy it actually would be to prevent a lot of ill health. So why is the simple so hard, why do we get fatter and sicker yet have more education about living well than we ever have. That is a lack of intelligence, a lack of wanting to know how to be well. When I was ill a few years ago I searched the internet for more information and took control of my health, it isn’t necessarily always easy but the steps we need to take must start with us.

596. Love the focus that your article is bringing, Joel. As you share, we can think up new ways of doing things until the cows come home, yet, if we are not choosing to listen to the wisdom our bodies are constantly sharing, to take responsibility for the way that we live with all of our advancements, to ‘take stock’ and be honest about how we truly feel, then we are completely missing the point. We are using our arrogance to blindly push on in our comfortable lives, yet how comfortable are they really? The reality is, most of us need something, be it caffeine, alcohol, food, sport, drugs, stress …. to get us ‘through’ the day. Is this truly living? Our norm has surely deviated a long way from our natural joy-full way of being.

597. “We have domestic violence, family violence, inter-racial violence, sporting violence and, of course, many wars and conflicts that still occur in the world.” This statement begs the question, is our current education system and intense focus on knowledge for knowledge sake retarding us or evolving us? If our current world affairs are anything to go by, the former is definitely true. Enter The Way of The Livingness and the re-connection to our true inner wisdom, felt and communicated through our bodies. When we honour our innate knowing, it imbues the quality of our of every movement, thought, expression and interaction with the ‘Soul’ intention of restoring harmony, integrity and transparency to this world again – a true intelligence that empowers us to expand our awareness, deepen our purpose and commitment so that we can lift humanity out of the dire cycle of devolution it has currently got itself stuck in.

598. .I agree Joel that you have hit the nail on the head here! We most certainly have given credit to the mind and not the body that is our real marker of truth.

599. To step back at some point and take stock of how we are truly going is a thing we can do both on a very personal level and at the macro level. Both ways we’ll feel the correlation between the two – if society is not doing well we cannot stand and say we are doing fine.

600. Joel taking just one point “We have religions professing love yet either tacitly or by omission endorsing child abuse and/or the denigration and at times murder of women.” It is almost absurd to consider that we allow this to go on in the view that intelligent people are running these religions and therefore somehow accept the abuse, cover up the abuse because it’s religious. A clear example of where intelligence is not actually intelligent.

601. Intelligence is a measure of what facts one can remember – the more facts you can recite from memory, the more intelligent you are considered to be. One vital piece left out of this equation – the body and its innate wisdom and true intelligence.

602. Real Intelligence has the answers and it is in our bodies.

603. When we connect to true intelligence through the body, we soon realise that this knowledge is not just for the individual, but is universal and accessible to all.

604. It is very humbling to realise how often the body seems to be smarter than our mind.

605. Joel this is absolutely worth asking – ‘If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ – I know that I have totally given my power away to justify and making excuses as to why my body maybe showing what it is but really when we are disconnected to our bodies there is no intelligence that can cover this up. So I have begun with a deeper more committed relationship with my body and the more I allow this the more I realise how far away I have been from living with and in-connection to my body.

606. Intelligence from the mind, no. Intelligence from the body, Yes.

607. The wisdom from the body is so easily ignored when we are focussed on the external distractions, rather than the inner signposts that are constantly there to be read. I agree Joel, the body is the revealer of the truth lived (or not) and exposes that the mind is definitely not as smart as it has had us believe for a very long time.
     “When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place. The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart”.

608. Improving intelligence takes so much time and investment, were as simply being takes no effort – and its not about being lazy, our true being is mighty, full of joy and wonderment.

609. To understand that our movement affects our thinking is revelationary… when I think about all the positive thinking affirmations etc that l’ve tried over the years in an attempt to think more positively, when all I needed to do was change my movements.

610. “Sure we get it right at times and many live comfortable lives, but there are some pretty big things that don’t seem to be heading in the right direction.
     If this is the case, and in spite of our high levels of collective intelligence, our health and quality of relationships are NOT improving, it begs the question “is intelligence alone enough?”” – A question that needs to be seriously discussed in homes, at schools, workplaces and everywhere. How on earth can intelligence alone be enough when we look at the state of the world today? How come we don’t ALL question what is going on, when depression and suicide rates have never been higher. How come we are settling with a world that is getting more disharmonious by the minute.

611. If feeling our bodies is key to understanding who we truly are, then no wonder we do everything to avoid that feeling, because with knowing comes responsibility and many of us prefer to avoid that.

612. Joel what you mentioned at the start is really important; not only do we have illness and disease statistics going through the roof, but so many people are living with aches, pains, exhaustion and ‘manageable’ conditions that we don’t see in the headlines or are aware of. The extent of how we are disregarding ourselves isn’t being addressed in its rawness, and it’s so important we look at where we are currently at as a society so we can move forward.

613. It makes no sense that we will eat, drink and smoke things that are harmful to the body, and somehow justify our actions. Surely somewhere within us we really do know that our actions create our illness and disease but we choose to override and carry on regardless – this type of intelligence counts for nothing when we suffer either mentally or physically.

614. To study God’s love is to remain detached from it but what if we are not here to study love but to live it, be it, embody it. Does this explain the contradiction of a man who studies theology and lives an abusive life? Is there a tacit implication that when we study a thing, we are not that thing. So, if we make God and love ‘studies’, we are looking at something in a way that they are remote from us rather than something we can live, experience and be? And if we are not the love of God what are we and what is this absence of love capable of?

     1. This is a great insight Richard- “we are not here to study love but to live it, be it, embody it”. It does speak to a central flaw in our approach to understanding life.

615. We think we are free thinkers but this blog shows how much we are not that until we reach a point where we are not governed by pictures of how things should look and we can tune into the true intelligence of the body which can guide us in our choices and lead the way. To do this we need to let go of what we think we want and be open to be guided by this intelligence which knows exactly what is needed in every moment. The difficulty is that we are used to “doing it my way” even if that is a choice to be the underdog.

616. My relationship with food is always very reflective of what I am choosing in life – to support myself and nourish the body, or to avoid dealing with hurts and taking responsibility. From this perspective, it’s easy to see when we are not being so intelligent and why.

     1. So true Janet, our relationship with food, the environment we are living in and our relationships are such clear indicators of what we are choosing and whether our choices are intelligent or not.

617. What I like about this blog is that you don’t have to be wildly clever to understand this! Mental intelligence has been overrated since the times of Aristotle and its not improving this. Now the study and promotion of body intelligence, listening to what is actually going on in our bodies… that could be a game changer and one that the ailing planet and its systems of government, education and health are sorely in need of.

618. Interesting to observe social media these days – divided as it is between the so called social justice warriors, and the so called conservative voice of reason. The left and the right so to speak – one emotive, and one dispassionately logical in their assessment of all things. Both ultimately think that their approach to society’s issues is the correct one – an intellectual divide the has existed for thousands of years. And over time, each side has had their chance to implement change, to carve out their niche so to speak and make a difference to the world – and ultimately, both sides have failed, despite being lead by some of our greatest minds. This on its own should give us reason to question what we call intelligence, for we cannot just blame the social called lower rungs of humanity for society’s woes, or the uneducated, as we tend to do, thinking that the evolution of society simply resides in text books, that racism is an education issue, rather than an issue that is not so much due to a lack of intellect, but one born from the fact that we have separated from the lived understanding of our connection to all things.

     1. What I love about Universal intelligence is that it is not dependant on financial standing, whereas mental intelligence is more often than not, dependant on our ability to buy it.

619. I smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol for years before I finally listened to my body on both counts. Stopping smoking came one morning with an absolute knowing deep within that they would kill me, if I kept smoking. So I stopped. And then I started to feel what was being surpressed by smoking, and I transferred my addiction more onto food. With alcohol, it was one too many times of feeling so awful the next day following even 1 or 2 drinks. But as an intelligent person, I kept repeating the same behaviours until it got to a point where I just didn’t want to do it anymore. But why if I’m so intelligent did I start smoking and drinking in the first place as a young teenager?

620. ‘When the body speaks loudly enough we listen, yet when we recover we start doing and eating the same things that contributed to our illness in the first place. The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart.’ How dishonest to our body we can be and I can relate to this, many times after an illness I said to myself I will stop eating certain food I knew (as an inner knowing) were not good for me but slowly introduced the same food again overriding the body with my mind, who was arrogantly telling me that for one time it would not matter but it never stayed with one time and this I knew as well. For sure our body is the intelligent one!

621. Following the mind alone can do so much harm to the body. I can remember when I was in a wheelchair with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome how my mind was constantly busy yet my body had given up. I completely ignored what my body was communicating with me. Step by step I learned to listen to my body and I continue to do so. I can say that my vitality and wellbeing has changed enormously due to making a choice to follow my inner heart and align my mind with my body.

622. Most of us know the expression ‘you are so smart you are dumb’. Or could we say ‘people who are book-smart but may have no lived experience’? Where does it feel right to fit into this game of learning stuff so we can become a parrot and repeat it? To stop reacting and start feeling is the greatest education we can ever have.

623. What I can sense from reading this blog is that the body holds a universal intelligence while the mind is smart and holds a self created intelligence that is limited, ego centred and disconnected to the grandness we all are part of.

624. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.”
     I have this observed myself in my life, the mind is fast and does not care about the outcome. It tricks the body with emotions and senses. Only in true and honest connection with our body we can grasp and eventually act on what our body wants to tell us.

625. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.”
     This is a great observation, Joel. Our true intelligence lives in the connection with our body, so the missing link is our body and the honesty in which we allow ourselves to feel it.

626. One of the most stark and indeed startling differences between mental intelligence and true intelligence is that there is a massive range of different abilities in mental intelligence and no chance of us ever being the same, whereas with true intelligence we all have the same ability and potential to be equally intelligent.

627. True understanding can only ever happen in union with the body. When we leave the body behind, our intelligence is reliant on recall. When intelligence is a whole body intelligence, that is, it comes from a lived experience from the body, then this intelligence isn’t just for that one person, but is inclusive of the All.

628. Our present day intelligence is a strange thing – it seems to be based on a cold and somewhat distant functionality at any cost and forgets about people, the human factor. And how come the sages of old knew things well before the invention of microscopes, telescopes and other paraphernalia? And how come we don’t know how to build the Great Pyramid of Giza? Is it possible that there is another type of intelligence that we are not tapping into?

629. Yes, intelligence alone is not enough, as its one thing to be successful at school and study, however, there needs to be a measure of emotional intelligence to be successful at life.

630. It is really amazing when we actually stop and consider that we often cannot think ourselves out of situations like anxiousness, stress or depression. If intelligence is the pinical of our evoltion, then it is failing us on many levels

631. To counteract the focus and importance society generally places on our schools and universities and the fact we have more ‘centres of excellence’ and more PhD graduates than ever before, we need to re-balance the trajectory by bringing the body back into the equation and re-defining what full intelligence really looks like.

632. What becomes very clear is that the intelligence we choose does not allow us to see how very contradictory our behaviour is.

633. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” – an absolute pearl Joel. Once upon a time I would have said I felt like having a glass of wine or bar of chocolate, but now I’d say I was reacting to what I was feeling and then those things helped me numb it.

634. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” . . . this is an interesting line as when we first allow ourselves to actually feel what is going on we cannot help but react, but it is important not to confuse the reaction with the initial feeling. Well said Joel, as it is the ability to feel without the head coming in and tainting the feeling with past hurts or future expectations as these diversions steer us away from our true intelligence.

635. Great article Joel, how intelligent is intelligence?, not very when we see what the mind chooses. If we want to heal then we must at first feel and this comes from our body intelligence.

636. Could it be that the choice to not be in our hearts is in fact the less intelligent choice we’re making. It’s very sad that we’re not taught the grace and joy that naturally resides within everyone. This love carries an intelligence that is not only all encompassing but in complete oneness with all that lives both here on earth as well as in the universe. It is magnificent.

637. ‘We have growing rates of preventable lifestyle diseases like obesity and diabetes.’
     This fact alone says it all and exposes that we are living from the mind at the sake of our bodies.

638. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.”

     Well that offers the reader much…..it is one of those lines that goes around and around in your head as you figure out what is being presented and how much is packed into one line.

639. Mental intelligence would have us bettering the outside world but not paying attention to our inner world and being, yet love would hold everything equally.

640. If the intention behind our ‘intelligence’ is one of uniting humanity, lovingly and harmoniously, then we would have brotherhood; however, our ‘intelligence’ currently presents a life that is far from loving, uniting or harmonious.

641. There is no intelligence whilst there is abuse of any kind that we are all allowing.

642. We cannot call ourselves intelligent when we are not living as one harmonious brotherhood.

643. “The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart.” I must think of how my mind often tries to still eat a lot even when my body gives clear signals not to do that. It finds ways, like eating little bits the whole day or eating something sweet or salty that makes me not feel anymore how I had enough – it is ‘smart’ but in the end, and this can be much later, my body says a big stop and the mind gets exposed.

644. Thank you Joel. I just love the way you break things down in your writing and with every word I feel the joy of being able to nod my head in agreement. If we can put man on the moon then surely we can figure out that alcohol and cigarette smoking for example is not good for us and is in fact very harming. It is when we deny our body that how utterly unintelligent we can be gets totally exposed.

645. True intelligence is in harmony with all of life including nature. The state of our world is evidence of blind arrogance ruling most people.

646. What if we all stepped back and took a moment to assess our lives, the state of our health and the state of the world in general. We strive to better our lives and then get caught up in the comfort of the improvements we have made without really assessing if the changes we have made really support not only our lives but humanity as a whole. I know before Universal Medicine I could feel things in the world needed to change and that parts of my life needed to change but without the presentations of the Ageless Wisdom I didn’t understand what this meant or what changes I needed to make. Listening to the body and not the mind is a science in itself, but worth the study, because when we do, everything makes so much more sense and we would know that ‘Intelligence Alone is not Enough’.

647. We are so intent on making things better and more comfortable. Life is not about improving things and gaining more comfort. Are our choices and actions increasing the love, unity and return to the divinity we have strayed from? If not, there is little value in what is created and we have little cause to be proud of our intelligence.

648. It’s true, we take much better care of our bodies when we are sick. Why would we then go back to abusing them? It doesn’t make sense and does not demonstrate intelligence.

     1. Indeed Rebecca, it does not demonstrate an intelligence that I can see in nature and in the universe as there I can sense an intelligence that is so grand and well organized and not wavering from its plan. Could it be that when we try to be ‘smart’ we are not connected to that grandness we are inescapably part of?

649. It’s not, we need to listen to our bodies.

650. What is missing from our intelligence is love. If we truly lived more love in our lives, then the abusive and harmfull acts we label as evil such as murder, rape, or self-harm or abuse would simply not be possible, simply because love would never do such things to oneself or another.

651. ‘If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ …. this is something I have found to be true. It’s enabled me to consider life and the way I choose to live my life in a completely different way, a way that feels so much more open, spacious, joyful and honouring of me and everyone else.

652. “If this is the case, and in spite of our high levels of collective intelligence, our health and quality of relationships are NOT improving, it begs the question “is intelligence alone enough?” – We, the human species, have proved time and time again that the minds intelligence is not enough.

653. ‘we are smarter by the traditional measures than at any other time in history’, yes, we are, however, we have completely mis-understood what true intelligence is, as confirmed by the rising rates of illness and disease. Our minds have been selfishly craving the attention and recognition that comes from being individual, from standing out from the crowd. But what benefit is that to the rest of humanity? When we are truly doing things to benefit of all of mankind, we don’t need any recognition, the gift is in knowing we are truly serving humanity.

654. My mother was always so proud of my intelligence, as if she gained kudos for having produced me. She would celebrate and talk about my successes and keep very quiet about areas she was less proud of. That is not love. Love is celebrating all of who I am, regardless. It is something I am learning to do alongside developing the greater understanding of just how intelligent my body is, not my mind, and appreciating the wisdom I am now gaining from listening to my body.

     1. This is a very honest sharing that every parent should read. Thank you Carmel.

655. To allow the possibility that my mind might be wrong, no matter how ‘concrete’ the facts are, has been such a revelation to me. Also extremely humbling to accept how misguided I have chosen to be so many times.

     1. To allow the possibility that our mind may be wrong asks us to be very honest with ourselves and to keep rigorously track of that ‘smart’ mind that constantly tries to come with the answers we sometimes even haven’t asked for and with that tries to hold us in a ingrained behaviour that not allows us to see other views in life.

656. As research for my job I had to go and watch a ballet. It was at the extremely prestigious Royal Opera House in London. Hundreds and hundreds of people paying inordinate sums of money (more than £500 per ticket) to watch young men and women massacre their bodies (if you don’t believe the use of the word ‘massacre’ – just do a wee bit of research on what ballet dancers have to go through – or better still, watch the film MARGOT staring Anne Marie Duff). I sat there looking around the auditorium at these people enraptured, applauding, celebrating, marvelling at what they were seeing on stage. And every single one of them would have thought themselves “cultured” and “intelligent” for being at the ballet. It was akin to a Victorian Freak Show. I left at half time!

     1. I agree Otto and it is painful to watch sometimes the enormous reactions and crowd energy looking at people literally hurting themselves but somehow looking eloquent?

657. There is so much that encourages to seek knowledge to ‘gain’ intelligence without considering that our bodies may carry wisdom.

658. Such a powerful blog Joel.

659. Protection/relief, relief/protection, I have yoyo’d between the two for most of my life, whilst intermittently bouncing off the cushions of comfort, and what’s astounding is that I was convinced that I was living the good life.

660. Perhaps it’s time we stop relying so heavily on our minds and instead pay greater attention to our bodies and what they’re reflecting to us all the time, because as you’ve shared Joel our current ‘trustee’ seems to be leading us down the wrong path…

661. Joel your list of how we are truly going is very sobering indeed.

662. Intelligence seems to be mainly based on remembering and regurgitating knowledge. As mankind shows and considers themselves more intelligent than animals, this intelligence is void of love, otherwise how can there still be killing of each other when on our earth there has already been so much suffering through wars. The question here is, is intelligence able to learn from past mistakes, or does intelligence use the body and other bodies for selfish actions, in order to get more, to have more and to feel superior.

663. When we come to understand that true intelligence comes from the body, and it is not just about learning or gaining knowledge, we will value our relationship with our body and how we treat it to the enth degree.

664. We have numbed and repressed ourselves for eons and boy oh boy, are we in for a rude awakening when we finally manage to extricate ourselves from the quagmire of arrogance and ignorance that we are currently thrashing around in.

     1. Yes and in the meantime we are getting more and more uncomfortable with rising obesity and its consequences.

        1. and the more uncomfortable we become, the more we have to numb ourselves and so it continues.

665. We have numbed and repressed ourselves for eons and boy oh boy, are we in for a rude awakening when we finally wake ourselves up from the absolute fog of arrogance and ignorance that we have embalmed ourselves in!

666. “Intelligence alone is not enough”.. This morning I was pondering on how we are in the comfort of our education system and by playing ball with this how we stunt our natural pull towards evolution. In simply relying on recall for recognition and reward and believing it is the way forward we are severely capping our enormous capacity to be the so much more that we are.

667. Every-thing that we have thrown at all of the problems that we face in life have come from the same energetic source as the problems themselves. It’s like using mud to try and get the mud off your car!

668. When you break down the points, facts and statistics as you do, it definitely makes you scratch your head a little bit. We can be wowed by all the latest technology and science but not realise that the body we are living in is so much more amazing…and we can feel and experience this by simply connecting to our own breath and feeling. We try so hard in so many ways to avoid this natural way.

669. Joel, it’s great to re-read your article. I observe this happening a lot, ‘Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat? Cakes and sweets are considered a ‘treat’ and yet are full of sugar which is harmful for our bodies, so it doesn’t feel very intelligent to call theses things ‘treats’, more appropriate would be to call them relief, needs or comfort.

670. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’ Brilliantly put and so clearly describes the ridiculousness of the situation we have created.

671. It would seem that knowing something mentally – i.e. having information – is not enough to lead to a change in behaviour. Hence ‘doctors and nurses smoke’ as an example. So to me it is absolutely valid to question our view of intelligence and to consider whether true intelligence is more than gaining knowledge but includes living wisdom, walking it in our lives so that we are the ‘scientists’ that are the ‘proof of the pudding’. How much further do we need to follow this mental trail of breadcrumbs to realise it is simply going around in circles and not truly evolving us in any way?

672. It is high time we broadened our view to understand what true intelligence is and what it really entails. To consider it something that is attached to our ability to learn and regurgitate is clearly so far short of our potential it is ridiculous… as your examples show Joel.

673. Could it be that we call something ‘intelligence’ what is not the true meaning of it or what it could be? Our mind is actually a very impressive part of us – but where does it lead us to if we follow just its way?
     Einstein said once “We cannot solve our problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them“, and I can feel and see the deep truth in this words. And then the question rises: How to change our way of thinking? We have in fact to expand our view on what intelligence is and do not leave it to the mind. We can not think our way out of the dilemmas we’ve created. Choices are there to be made, the way of living has to change to make thoughts available which are different. It is like a real and foundational reconfiguration.

674. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” Through my meeting with Universal Medicine I have begun to explore the truth of this relationship with my body, and it must be said that the wisdom offered through our bodies is quite remarkable, and developing a way of life that consistently draws from this awareness is mighty confirming.

675. Is our mind just a river and our body the earth? When outside influences affect the river, it can cause damage to the surface by changing how it cuts across it leaving scars. Dams built cause things to held back and stored in deep dark places. Over time the river will always find its way to come back and flow in harmony with the earth and never have to think about it!

676. To witness first hand the effects of doggedly following brain intelligence at the expense of all else is truly shocking. Sometimes it is possible to walk into homes and feel the dis-regard and neglect of self immediately and yet be in the home of people who have all material comforts, are graduates and post graduates, have worked all their lives in substantial careers and actively served their communities for years. The one thing they have not done is lived in connection with themselves and as a consequence find themselves in retirement and old age with a catalogue of chronic and progressive health conditions. The level of self awareness so low they have no idea how they got where they are and consequently haven’t a clue how to support themselves and bring health back into the body. And even sadder is that this is accepted as ‘normal’. The question is ‘How can this be?’ ‘How do people willingly contribute to their own low levels of health and demise when they are ostensibly ‘smart’ people. The answer lies in the fact that from childhood we have been schooled and moulded to focus on everything outside ourselves, education, qualifications, careers, money, material possessions. Lives lived in total ignorance of deeper qualities and concerns: relationship with self, connecting and listening to the body and self care – this has to change.

677. “We have growing rates of preventable lifestyle diseases like obesity and diabetes.” That alone has to prove that all making life about reading, writing and arithmetic is not doing what we want it to do, if it simply results in us killing our selves by the way we are choosing to live. Surely true intelligence is raising our children and young adults to respect them selves and their bodies first and foremost, so that the lifestyle they choose nurtures their health and engenders respectful loving relationships.

678. If we used our true intelligence, there would only be one religion, there would be no wars, no starvation, no violence towards women or anyone for that matter, a massive decrease in disease and pollution and everyone on this planet could receive a true education about things that really matter.

679. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” This is indeed a conundrum Joel! But as you so clearly point out, if we were to live from the honesty of what we feel in our bodies in any given situation, rather than doubting that what we felt was true, there would be far less complication in our lives, and instead, much more love.

680. Our society shows clearly that we live from reactions instead from the intelligence we all hold. Nobody wants war, corruption, greed, bullying, domestic violence etc. but reality shows that we are not able to master this without us humbly asking the intelligence that our body holds to assist us in claiming back who we are from nature.

681. I love the questions you pose here Joel. If we sit honestly with the extreme unintelligent you expose, we start to see how addicted we are to being smart, being right, being “the one” and knowing it all. This false pride and ego boosting behaviour keeps us stimulated like any drug, save for the moments like this blog, where it wears off and we can starkly see that none of the things we call intelligent actually work.

682. Yes, we have .. “more ‘centres of excellence’ and more PhD graduates than ever before…” and we also have more diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular and cancer disease rates than ever before… I agree… it looks like we have more intelligence (on paper) … but our human body is showing us otherwise…

683. This is so true – how often is it that living solely from intelligence abuses the body eventually bringing us to a ‘full stop’ and we listen and are able to lovingly nurture ourselves back to health only to go back and participate in the abusive lifestyle that created our illness in the first place. The ‘Intelligence’ we call on to progress through our lives attacks the body and the innate wisdom sits in the body waiting to be called on to bring the healing that is then needed to restore whole health. Why don’t we just live from this innate wisdom every moment and allow the flow that this brings to guide us through life lovingly?

684. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.’ Such a brilliantly expressed stark reality asking me to actually question pockets of deference I still award my mind. Why is this I wonder? Do I not appreciate the simple wisdom my body communicates?- a universality that my mind cannot take credit for because wisdom is equally and unreservedly available for all (not like education for the mind that though is said to be for everyone is inherently elitist and competitive.)

685. If our connection to our bodies is where true intelligence lives, then as babies we are often wiser than grown intelligent adults.

686. This may sound totally nerdy and I know that I have said it before but I get nervous writing a comment on your blogs Joel as I kind of look up to you as a writer. I want to show you how much I relate to your articles and I don’t know how or if the message is getting across as strong as I feel it, as strongly as your blogs speak to me.
     What you have shared is the possibility that intelligence comes from more then just the mind and that is the reason I like your writing so much, it comes from the whole of you, mind and body. There is no real need for me to get nervous, all this article is asking of me is to connect to my body and then naturally there is an equal ability to write and to be truly intelligent if I choose to align. This will then be felt by all that read it, some may react but deep down we are all craving to return to this wholeness, so when we feel it, it feels like home, even if sometimes we don’t want to go home yet, its still home.

687. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.”. Agreed. I have heard Serge Benhayon present this truth for quite a few years now and yet it can still be difficult for me not to override what my body is telling me in favour of my wayward mind. The thing I find though is that the more understanding I can be towards myself, the more I am able to then connect to my body and really listen to what it is telling me. Understanding gives us space through the lack of judgement held therein – a space where we can then make a choice.

688. You suggest that “building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel”.
     Great point – we need a true intelligence that is honest enough and learns to distinguish between a feeling and an emotion = the reaction to a feeling.
     Doctoring emotions has never worked, it is always more of the same; is it time to go deeper?

689. How do you tell an intelligent person that has it all or doesn’t have it all that they are actually missing out on what they actually miss most: themselves. I can see for myself how much I’ve invested in being an intelligent person. Only recently I’m starting to feel and accept that it’s absolutely not about wrong or right. They are actually both void of the one thing that we’re craving for: L O V E. We’ve got so many tools to deny this energetic fact. We’d rather defend the arrogance with all our intellectual might than admitting that life is about love. In each and every moment, in each and every situation. A very different way of living. A very joyous way of living.

690. …and yet as a society we seem to hold the illusion that more intelligence, research and technology is the way out of the current predicament of humanity – not stopping for an instant, in our total arrogance, to feel that we may have missed one of the most important ingredients before we started cooking.

691. Taking stock of how we are truly going is an essential part of quality control that we don’t do enough of together as a whole society. We can champion our material and technological advancements, which are needed and great, but we need to also question what advancements are we bringing to the quality of all our relationships?

692. This is an amazing blog Joel making clear about our so called intelligence and how we can feel and listen to our bodies “building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” Beautiful and something that is an on going learning process and well worth it bringing true responsibility to our lives and that of everyone else also.

693. I feel this is where we go wrong with life in general, ‘trying to improve things’ instead of looking at truth and reality.

     1. Sure, we are always told to improve and that we are never enough but to me that is just the ignorance of the mind that does not want to accept the intelligence that our bodies hold which needs no improvement at all as it is already all that it is.

694. This blog clearly shows that intelligence is not what we currently think it is. The mind can never be truly intelligent whilst it excludes (and looks down on) the body. I have found my body when listened to is a vast source of intelligence that not only takes my wellbeing into account but everyone around me.

695. Our ‘mind driven’ choices are ones that satisfy an instant desire, either to feel momentary pleasure or avoid pain/discomfort. This pleasure can be from the taste of a food to the ‘time out’ of having a cigarette. They do not in any way take into account the effect these choices will have on the body, which has to process whatever substances, emotions, beliefs we have inflicted on it.

696. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” This is such a powerful awareness Joel and holds they key to the go to behaviors. Developing an understanding of the link between feeling and numbing these feelings will support a huge reduction in any behavior that is actually harmful to ourselves or others.

697. Joel, there is no denying that our current world has excelled in a certain type of intelligence – an intelligence that comes from the head and results in remarkable man made things. But like you, I question the quality of this intelligence as so much of it is done at the expense of another or self, and that there seems to lack a greater purpose to these so called feats. For my understanding is that true intelligence would never leave another or self, lesser in some way, it would never diminish who we are nor the body we are in, it would never be reductionist in its approach. Sadly most of the intelligence currently used in our world is of the reductionist type – Sky scrapers are built putting the builders under pressures that lead to many accidents, and even deaths; the latest technology has only pulled us deeper into disconnection with the use of programs and games that do not foster a greater closeness and warmth amongst people; the modern school systems and university classes are made to foster a think only approach with no feel and no consideration of the person and what they are experiencing as an individual etc etc. It is perhaps time for us to consider what we call intelligence, and to revisit the fact that true intelligence holds us all as equals and always offers respect on all levels.

698. Thank you Joel. By this blog I have a deeper understanding what actual intelligence is and how we have an made intelligence to be at times different than its original state. What we think intelligence is , is actually not a whole intelligence, but a separated part of it.. Hence there is no truth possible.. It is a beautiful question to ask ourselves: what intelligence are we using on a daily basis if we take stock of what has been shared in this blog?

699. I have said many times to patients I have nursed, our body will always tell us the truth – no-one ever disagrees. Which is quite fascinating really. But to follow on from that is why do we ignore the truth that our body is communicating or why do we think that we are somehow being punished, which is also a common tone of conversation, through the diseases and conditions that we have. We must know that we are more than what we are living and choosing otherwise we would not feel this way, we would not have this feeling of unsettlement.

700. ‘If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.’ – Brilliantly expressed – It is impossible to NOT understand the significant message that is here presented.

701. At school, uni, work and even through life in general we tend to hold those that do really well as bright and ‘intelligent’ but perhaps we should reconsider such a label if the ones we hold high on an intelligent pedestal are the ones equally abusing their own bodies they seem to know more about. Is it possible that these people could also be the ones that hold the deepest hurts too but conveniently do not show it so behind a wall of a mighty mind?

702. Such a great question “How many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu?” It seems when our back is against the wall, we find out that we do know how to take care of things after all. Why do we wait that long to connect to our innate inner awareness? It seems we have developed a pride in our lack of regard and at times deliberate abandon of our true wisdom. No wonder what we see around us is so far from the harmony and order that is reflected in nature and the universe. We pride ourselves for being intelligent. But what are we calling intelligence? Because in truth we are not being intelligent at all.

703. Intelligence has a coldness to it that keeps me distant. Wisdom draws me in, opens me up, inspires me, widens my eyes.

704. When you look at what “intelligence” has got us, its amazing that we still strive so hard for it.

705. if every human being is essentially the same, with a heart, two arms and a brain, than how is it possible for some to make wise and loving choices but for others to concoct war?

706. “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly” . . . . love it Joel as it demonstrates the upside down view we hold of intelligence.

707. The thing with our mind is that we have made it our main or even sole go-to-guide, but without the heart (the body) our mind is lost in all the thoughts and informations there are. Our mind does not have the ability to discern what is true or not but our body does.

708. ‘It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’ I relate to this little gem. It is so easy to get what we feel and our reaction to it confused – the difference between the body’s truth and our mind’s reaction to what the body reveals – an uncomfortable truth to be avoided at all costs until we get wise to the game we play, and decide to no longer allow the game to play us.

709. Love this Joel.. it calls us to examine exactly what we have called intelligence to date.

     1. In using the intelligence of the mind it seems we have become so wrapped up in how this defines and identifies us, what is so marked about bringing awareness to the body’s intelligence is that this cannot be owned or used for individual recognition – only appreciated for the wisdom it confirms within us all.

710. Interesting that the word is intelligence and not outtelligence. It is from connecting to our inner heart that we access true intelligence.

     1. This is brilliant Nicola. What most consider INtelligence to be actually comes entirely from the OUTer world. It is wisdom that comes from the INner heart.

        1. I am in INtire agreement Otto.

        2. ps: I wonder when we will tire OUT of this?

     2. How absolutely divine that true intelligence is accessed through the heart. Every-body has a heart.

        1. ha ha yes every-body has a heart – that makes us all equally intelligent unless we are out and disconnected.

     3. I love this Nicola, ‘outtelligence’ a great reminder when we think we are being intelligent what the source of our intelligence is.

711. So true Joel – when we live life in protection and reaction we are not giving ourselves the space to understand what is truly going on. My mind has ruled for so long that if has become the default setting and the more that I realise the wealth of wisdom that my body holds I am slowly beginning to listen and learn to let go of this mind control and allow my body to have a say. When I open up to my body every part of me lets go and allows for an amazing expansion – as the battle subsides.

712. ‘Intelligence Alone is Not Enough’ unless it is the living intelligence known as God and then it’s more than enough, in fact it’s every-thing.

713. “It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” This has been an invaluable tool for me over recent years learned at the school of Universal Medicine. It takes a bit of practice to catch the feeling before the reaction to it sets in but it feels great to not get emotional and instead take a moment to feel exactly what is happening. A response can then be made instead of a reaction. My reactions often set off a chain of unwanted events.

714. You present a fascinating point of discussion – there are so many part to this that can be unpacked and expanded on – how we measure intelligence in a way that for many leaves them feeling decidedly unintelligent, and how in our pursuit of intelligence we have actually left behind the very vehicle that apparently evolved us to this point in the first place. There is an undeniable intelligence that can be seen quite plainly in nature – the ability for a bird to navigate its way home with amazing precision, for animals to know when a storm or disaster is coming, that we miss out on while we chase the limits of our mental capacity. The more attention I give to my body, the more I learn about myself and how to live in a way that is far more rewarding than any temporally won intellectual badge of honour, and yet also supports me in doing my degree and gaining the knowledge needed to go out into the world and do what I want to do in life.

715. A fascinating perspective on what true intelligence might entail Joel. If I listened, let alone followed, everything that entered my mind it would be very scary. Learning to discern what is in fact worth listening to and what is not, in part requires me to know whether I am reacting to something in life, or responding to it. That I can only know through the way my body feels… so yes, you are spot on in my experience. True intelligence has to involve an awareness and connection to the body and the state it is in at any given point in time.

716. Ever since meeting Serge Benhayon and hearing his presentations on the Ageless Wisdom, I have completely opened up to the hugely important role that our body plays in our intelligence. Firstly if there is no Love there is no true intelligence. And that Love can be felt through us re-connecting to our innermost and our body – the mind alone is loveless and can make and /or lie about weapons of mass destruction. The physical body is a very useful vehicle while we are on earth and its divine particles are always updating with the expansion of the universe. It naturally aligns with the resonance of wisdom and truth. If we stay present with it we will know truth.

717. I had such a light bulb moment when I realised that intelligence has never stopped anybody from harming themselves, whereas love has and does it all the time. Intelligence alone will not solve our issues today, whereas love will 🙂

718. “In fact, ‘intelligent people’ often do things that might be considered less than intelligent.” This is a great point you raise here Joel, and something I have often pondered on myself. How is it that so called ‘intelligent people’ will not only do things themselves that they know are not good for their body, but also tell other people not to do while continuing to do it themselves. This doesn’t add up and suggests there is something more to where our ‘intelligent’ mind is getting its thoughts from. If the body knows differently, then is it really going to feed the mind with thoughts that don’t support it?

719. To evaluate how successful our current form or intelligence truly is we need to look at the whole of humanity in the world. If the whole is not working than the intelligence applied is not the full intelligence we can live with, which would be of equal service and honouring to all.

720. Yes, if we listened more closely to our bodies in the first place we would not need to experience so much illness and disease which occurs when we are led by the less intelligent mind over a very intelligent body!

721. “…building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel.” We have our body with us for all of our life. Why is it that we are not taught to listen and honour its messages? But instead to praise and extol the intelligence of the mind – which hasn’t resulted in sorting out humanity’s issues.

722. Joel without doubt when we cast our eye across present day society and reflect on the historic events we see that society is in a bad place, this is accepted, this is reality and no matter how many brains get behind making changes so far the only thing that I’ve been presented that makes true sense is that which Universal Medicine presents. It may sound a big claim but in reality for a sustained harmonious and deeply loving life we need look no further.

723. Joel – this in an awesome blog that calls out the state of where we are. What is true wealth and advancement? is it really money and the mental – or is it that the body is a marker of truth and therefore it is i=by listening to our bodies first that provides true intelligence.

724. Joel, this is so true, ‘how many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu? We may not even go to the doctor but innately know the basics that support the body.’ Reading this I can feel how we know exactly what supports our body and what does not as we listen to the body when we are really ill, we could consistently listen to the body and live in a much more vital, healthy way all of the time, this feels like a truly intelligent way to live.

725. ‘We have growing rates of preventable lifestyle diseases like obesity and diabetes.’ This amazes me, our refusal to look at how we are living, when adjusting lifestyle can make such a difference to our health. Our unwillingness to change is bringing down our national health system.

726. Clearly our intelligence is not bringing the “it” we are seeking…with the better, faster, stronger mentality we are not getting closer to harmony and great relations that we are all so desperate for. We are getting better at function, but within this lays a deep emptiness that misses the mark of true connection and understanding. Without connection intelligence is meaningless and hollow.

727. One of the greatest teachings from Universal Medicine is, that the quality the body is in determines our thoughts and in fact everybody has experienced that in some way or another and realised that their mental performance is not as good when they have not slept well or drank too much, etc. If this is understood, it makes total sense to take care of the body first and not give the focus to the mind at the expense of the body.

728. It is worth considering how the state of the world is when we believe ourselves to be intelligent. It is a good point that even the most ‘intelligent’ would struggle to find the answer to.

729. With all the examples you give here, Joel, such as doctors smoking or drinking knowing the effects on the body, it is definitely high time we re-defined true intelligence. The mind is not the source of truth because it can only store in memory and recall what it has been given, whereas the body is connected to the all-knowing and ever-expanding truth of God.

730. You make some great points here Joel. If we learned how to listen our body at school the world would be an entirely different place.

731. “Intelligence alone is not Enough”, is a great title and very exposing, as most of us have lived a life where intelligence and our mind is seen as King and the body as a functioning tool. It was certainly how I was brought up, no one asked me to feel from my body and I never asked my body how it felt unless there was pain or I was sick. This is changing but I feel I still use my mind more than listening to my body.

732. It is interesting how we have come to trust the seeming rationality of our minds when we have so much evidence that it can play tricks on us and yet so often we choose to override our body’s intelligence despite growing evidence that it knows better what will truly support us?! Looking at the reasons behind our choices to abuse our bodies will support us to go into reaction less and be more open to what our body is communicating to us in every moment.

733. Joel one of the mind blowing things, literally, that gets me is how a doctor can smoke or drink after they have dissected body parts affected from smoking and drinking – it makes no logical sense. So there has to be more at play. I know for me I have done things I would never dream of doing yet I have done them. Yet I am a so called very intelligent man with a degree etc.. I know for me there is always an underlying reason why I do something especially if it is in the disregarding or harming way and pretty much always involves not wanting to feel or see or understand what is going on around me. It is like I can dull or take the edge off life to make it more manageable – but it only works for a brief moment and then is intensified – so I either have to make my behaviours more extreme or look at whatever it is I have not wanted to.

734. Indeed hundreds of years focused on developing our academic intelligence and yet our societies are floundering in ill health, corruption, violence and war. It is evident that despite our technological advances, our academic intelligence is not getting to the root of our problems. However, there is a growing body of evidence (ha, ha) that is proving that our real intelligence is a consistent stream of awareness that comes from our bodies, all we need do is tune in, pay attention and surrender to its wisdom. Those who are choosing to live this way are addressing their health issues, relationship struggles and commitment to life with astonishing results. True intelligence resolves the problems that our so-called intellect has ignored for far too long.

735. The conversation you have opened Joel will inspire many to pay more attention to and be guided by the body’s intelligence and not the mind’s. The deeper question is why, even with the wisdom you bring. we continue to override what the body shows us, until an illness or injury forces us to.

736. The amount of things that I have done to my poor old body over the years due to poor judgement by the mind is not a short list, for a start if it was up to my body, do you really think it would have wanted to play rugby in the front row of the scrum, year after year and totally abandon any connection at all I had with tenderness. There are many things I have stopped and hopefully won’t be drawn back into next time around and would never do if I had my time over again.

737. By 2017 our mobile phones will have wireless charging capabilities and the introduction AR (augmented reality) combining real and computer-generated worlds. As of September 2010, stoning is a punishment that is included in the laws in some countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and some predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria as punishment for Zina (“adultery by married persons”). The technology at our finger tips may have evolved but what of the quality of relationships and health of the beings using them. The human race is lost and perhaps the beginning of true change starts with a simple return to inward bodily self responsibility and awareness.

738. “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” A paradox that is so true.

739. Ah, the freedom to think! When we think to do something, have we already lost? The body must have allowed the brain to be part of the gang, with the original plan just to keep the body running in more of a functional role of housekeeping, then it became aware, and freedom of will crept in. The battle for control has raged since that day. It is time for the intelligence of the body to be exercised more!

740. Wow Joel it was such a joy to read your awesome blog. I absolutely love this quote: “The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!” You offer a bitter pill most people have to swallow perhaps they can do it without reacting.

741. The ‘intelligence’ of the mind is in fact not interested in the well-being of the body but for its own pleasures only and if needed to the cost of the body. True intelligence can only be found in the body, the body that is in rhythm with nature and to which it belongs.

742. With the body’s ability to connect deeply to its soul, to ponder, to be thoughtful and considerate, and then to meet man’s temporal intelligence, expansion, alchemy and wisdom can then be truly felt.

743. The mind is quick to forget what the body never will. True intelligence comes from not overriding such simple truth. Thankyou Joel for this presentation of common sense, that is not so common as yet. We can only champion a lesser intelligence if we fool ourselves that nothing greater lays beyond the confines of the human mind. The truth is we belong to a vast and endless universal intelligence that is forever communicating to us, via our human form, all that we need to arise out of this mess we are in. We need only get our stubborn pride out of the way to hear such wisdom speak.

744. Is intelligence alone enough? Is our understanding of what ‘intelligence truly is a true understanding of intelligence. True intelligence comes from re-connecting to the heart and listening to the wisdom of the body. Our earliest ancestors have proven this, they had none of the current measuring mechanisms of today but were able to do so much more. Is it the arrogance or ignorance of the mind that is holding in place the blockages to moving forward in harmony and brotherhood? The level of responsibility each of us are living is a true indicator of where we are not being honest. There is much to ponder on here.

745. Reading this got me thinking about how we are always striving to be ‘smart’ and want the latest ‘smart’ car, ‘smart’ phone, ‘smart’ appliances, etc. so I looked up the meaning of ‘smart devices’ – “A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, 3G, etc., that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously.” This made me chuckle – we simply can’t get away from connection!

746. Brilliant intelligent blog Joel. Growing up I never looked at intelligence in any other way than what I could remember and was able to do at school and that reflected in my grades. Right there we start to make a judgement of ourselves as being intelligent or not. Imagine if at school or even before school that body intelligence was taught? Then children who were mastering, as such, listening and feeling their bodies and not distracting themselves, were asked to share how they do that, just like they would be asked a math question on the board.

747. When we become aware of the thoughts that come into our minds and actually bring awareness to them, you quickly realise they are often not a thought we would choose, so you are right Joel there is a source of greater intelligence that comes from our body that we then use to feel, choose and discern the minds thoughts.

748. Intelligence is very interesting. It is usually considered an ability of the mind. That intelligence is unable to discern truth, but it is able to discern inconsistencies. Hence, in statistics, it is not possible to say whether a result is the truth, but it is possible to say whether a result is consistent with the opposite assumption (the null hypothesis).

749. So simply pointed out Joel, that the key that can stop us from going off and running wild, is to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel. I know when I don’t catch a reaction it can be a start point for all manner of medicating behaviours and thoughts, indeed to catch what is being felt, and stay connected to what I’m feeling does indeed allow the space to think clearly.

750. We have pretty much built a society that has every possible avenue advertised for escaping what we feel. There are distractions upon distractions and all the things you have mentioned Joel. So what’s so bad about simply feeling what we are feeling that we have set life up to be this way?

751. To me what is been shared here has become quite ‘logic’. Isn’t it obvious that the more loving I am, the more I am able to understand what is truly going on. As well as it is only when I’m open that I feel in awe with life and that I feel curious and wondering. Where as my mind only wants to ‘prove’ and to ‘be right’. There’s no right and wrong in my heart. There’s only a reconnecting to an amazingness that I can’t even fathom with (only) my mind. How powerful is love? That is, true love? A love coming from the connection with my body and inner heart.

752. The true marker of intelligence is the knowing from our bodies and the movements we make thereafter. Without the body’s connection and intelligence we are left wayward with the knowledge we have from our minds. Our body’s connection is the depth and clarity we need to truly heal and live a vital life free from illness and disease.

753. I’ve come to know for myself that I’m the most intelligent, connected and loving when I am with my body and in my inner heart. What I feel at these moments is completely different and feels like ‘me’. Whereas when I’m with my mind, it actually is quite cold, arrogant and driven. So I do completely relate to what has been shared here.

754. It is so crazy that we champion our current intelligence when we live in ignorance to the true state of humanity.

755. If we’re not willing to listen to our bodies, we can certainly let our minds rule the roost. As an example, we eat foods that we know don’t agree with our bodies – but despite the food spending less than 1% of its time in our mouths (yummy) and over 99% of its time in our tummies (not so good), we do it anyway! It’s another one of those head scratching moments – like the many you present in the blog – that just doesn’t make sense…but we do it anyway!

756. This will be a revelation to many Joel. To think that our bodies are the ones we ought to be listening to and not the mind will probably “blow the mind” of many! It makes absolute sense that this is the case. What a different world we will live in when this fact is recognised in the future by many more people.

757. It is true, trusting the intelligence of the mind without question is holding us in a viscous cycle for our body. It is in holding the body for the wisdom that it has which brings true healing.

758. Joel, words of Gold once more from your pen…”So we are faced with a conundrum. We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.

     If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.”

     The answers, I feel, do lie in the body and in our relationship with and connection to the body.

759. Looking around our world and local communities with open eyes surely does provide a stop to consider just what quality of intelligence has landed us with all the disharmony that we have today. I like how you write, not in a pessimistic or judgmental way Joel, but are realistic about the many unresolved issues we have allowed to play out in our society by ignoring them. Bringing our intelligence back to include the wisdom of our body sounds like a very good place to start to me too.

760. This is very cool. I was recently talking to a student aged 12 years who shared that he felt he was dumb. He was discussing this with me in front of a group of his close friends. The friends commented and said that its kind of weird because he knows a lot of stuff but he doesn’t do well in school. The boy shared how school feels like a prison to him. I shared that school is one type of learning and you can have a wisdom that understands things in a different way. That a lot of school can be recalling information but that you may know about things from a deeper understanding. The boy then started to share about what he does know and understand and a wisdom came out of him that was very deep and profound. It is so important that we allow the space within education to understand that we don’t always need to teach facts to recall but that the students already have a wealth of wisdom that we can tap into and ask them to share.

761. We put all our focus on academic intelligence, our schools are getting more and more refined into getting children to pass endless tests for this and that and yet we are missing the point. Ticking boxes and learning how to pass tests won’t bring about change. Change will only occur when we start to have honest conversations about what is really at play.

762. Intelligence alone doesn’t seem to be hugely supporting us and humanity on so many levels. It is probably because we leave out the most crucial part of our true intelligence and that is our body. Our body, like our planet and our universe works as a whole, if we isolate any one part, then it simply doesn’t function or to its optimum potential. It makes more sense to me that true intelligence is in fact our entire body, that includes every particle and cell, no part is more important or less than the other.

763. A very true call Joel. We cannot and must not rely on the intelligence we have been relying on. There is so much more to life than we are willing to see.

764. Stepping back and taking stock at the true state and well-being of ourselves, the people we know, the people we see but don’t know and then listening to the news is surely enough to indicate a review of how we are apply our intelligence. It might be driving technology and we may be living longer –but I ask what is the quality of the longevity? Are we well due an audit on intelligence: where does it come from, what power does it have, why do we use it to hurt ourselves and how could we use intelligence differently?

765. As I sit here this morning reading this blog, feeling tired, your words seem very pertinent. I normally go to bed around 8:30/9pm as it feels right for my body. The last few nights I have pushed it, and stayed up later and watched a TV series. My mind wanted to watch more and more and more (I used to seriously binge-watch these shows in my past) but I limited it to 1. But that still meant a bed time of 10-10:30pm. So this morning I am tired from a mind decision that was made, overriding what my body was telling me that it was tired and did not want to stay up late. My body is sharing with me that my mind decisions were not so smart!

766. Great blog Joel! It actually startles me how we can even think in such non sensical love-less ways that are justified by a belief or ideal in the mind. Love is definitely the best form of thinking!

767. Thank you Joel for this brilliant exposure on the downfalls and limitations of an intelligence that comes solely from mind based knowledge. Intelligence is not true intelligence unless it represents the truth of us all, the truth of humanity, the truth of the universe, the truth of God, therefore it is an intelligence that is truly universal. There is no greater intelligence than intelligence that is founded in universal truth. The amazing thing about true intelligence is that it is accessible to all, we all equally have access to this through the bodies we are held in. We all experienced how our bodies never lie it is only a matter of if we willing to be honest to feel this truth. This is the relationship we would be wise to invest in. For when we do, this intelligence will truly guides us and lead us to learn, grow and evolve together as a humanity, in Brotherhood, unified by a truth that is founded in love.

768. Always enjoy reading your writings Joel Levin and this one is no different. The choice between thought and the feeling. Some may argue these are one and the same but as you can see from this blog a thought on it’s own doesn’t support us and from what we are continually seeing it doesn’t make sense. Yet here we are in a world that not only supports the thought but thinks it’s our only way. We can see from the examples above on intelligence that we are smarter than ever before and yet we are sicker than ever before. The current intelligence we are running isn’t that smart at all because it’s leaving out an important part of the whole intelligence, the body. What brings you back to earth and is constantly balancing how you live and eat, your body. What needs to be given more time and more of a voice? The body. If we look back through history this isn’t a new concept or a far out way of thinking, this is how it was, the body impulsing the mind and not the mind working in separation to everything else. Time to return to how it was, how we were.

769. True intelligence will always come from the body first. It is interesting that our thoughts can often try to tell us differently, yet wisdom is not just from the neck up and from the thinking part of our mind, but the whole of the body together letting us know what is true.

770. There is a lot wrong in the world but there is also a balance of power that lies with people who live comfortable lives, and in the case of more affluent countries there is a comfort in those who have that mid range status. Why rock the boat if your own life is floating along fairly steadily. And there are plenty of distractions available to us, entertainment, coffee, alcohol to keep us amused and keep our own innate intelligence fairly far out of reach. Yet change starts with one person, and the ripple effect of that can be enormous, it is this denial of that fact that keeps us so lethargic to the possibility to live in a more prosperous and intelligent (in the real sense) world.

771. We can sniff things out with our nose. That would be the body telling us rather than the mind, but how often do we trust our nose and body instead of our thoughts. More now than I did in the past that is for sure. Blue cheese is a smell that I remember well, – so my nose was telling me something, and my sight was too as in, stop it is mouldy .. and my body knew by how it made me feel but my mind thought of it as expensive, tasty, special… I question myself, where is the intelligence in that?

772. Love this blog Joel. Absolutely marvellous! And we think we are intelligent yet this blog just blows all of that out of the picture and exposes it all. The body knows yet we think we know, but really no one knows or even really wants to know because the relief can be so tempting.

773. Thank you for setting this out to clearly and simply, it is obvious in your blog the incongruous relationship between the levels of intelligence we have in the world today, and the level of suffering, illness, disease, tension and ill health and wellbeing. If we where to tabulate all these things and look at the correlation, i would be interested to see if our pursuit into the mind, away from the body matches up with the rising statistics of illness and suffering? As you have stated, is it possible that being a walking brain, highly advanced in mental capacity but totally shut off from the body, is what is causing the degeneration of the body, and our relationships into domestic violence, racial and religious tensions, slavery etc. It is certainly worth considering, given the hundreds of years now dedicated to developing greater levels of intellectual prowess, to now given equal time and dedication to developing connection to the body and its own intelligence.

774. I love this line -” If this is true, then building true intelligence would start with a deeper connection to the body and relationship to what we feel. It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.” There is so much truth and love in this definition of intelligence and it brings a deep sense of equality because the moment we re-connect we have equal access to universal truths.

775. All throughout my life I have noticed how much trouble my mind can get me in; I could rationalize activities which were extremely unsupportive and even harmful… and so, often I understood I could not trust my mind…

     Now that I am more aware and honoring of my body I understand what was missing; my bodies wisdom.
     I now respect the wisdom/intelligence my body brings so my mind works (more often) for me by taking into account what my body has to say. I have access to a more full “intelligence” which delivers me more truth, consistency and the health & well being which is built upon loving choices.

     1. The body has that ever-so-slight benefit that it can discern truth, unlike the mind which can only discern inconsistencies.

     2. We are sitting on goldmines with our eyes cast outward in search of a treasure that lays buried within.

776. All your examples hits the nail on the head, and this one in particular stands out for me – ‘Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat?’ – This is certainly something I have done in the past, and back then I would have strongly argued that this food was good for me, because surely it gave me the comfort I needed in that moment.

777. One of the simplest and most obvious examples of this is the hangover. How many times have I promised myself I’d never drink again?! It’s insane. I pour poison into my body…my body screams at me…I hear it very loud and clear…it hurts like billy-o…..and then that evening I am doing it all again…..Those days are long gone. But – in truth, I am still repeating many choices that I know don’t support my body. Sure, they may not be as extreme as alcohol, and sure there are so many great choices that I am making…but there is always refinement…it is a living, evolving relationship.

     1. Spot on Otto – If it is not alcohol or another socially accepted drug we use to abuse the body, we can turn to extreme sports, extreme studies, or other hobbies and habits (however small or big) that do not support our connection with the body, but instead teach us to override and become ‘strong’ in denying the actual call and needs of the body. And our society celebrates this and calls this intelligence…but as Joel has so beautifully presented, there is a natural intelligence that is there that speaks loudly should we allow it a voice to be heard.

        1. So true. What I find so amazing is often I hear people lauding sportsmen and women, or mountaineers or extreme sportspeople or….the list is long. And they are praising them exactly because of the physical hardship and abuse of their bodies that they put themselves through. We actively celebrate these choices. We are actively celebrating the abuse of our greatest friend, our greatest teacher, our greatest wisdom and our one true mentor – our bodies. And yet we call ourselves intelligent??!!

     2. I agree Otto this and smoking are very good examples of, if we know both are poison to the body, and it can clearly be felt by the individual and proven by medicine as well as health statistics why on earth do we keep drinking alcohol and smoking. This just shows how on a huge scale, we are actually unintelligent not intelligent with so many different things, for if we were truly intelligent we would no longer be making both of these substances for use. They would have long gone.

778. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!’ If our freedom to think comes from the body and not the mind – there is a limitlessness we are yet to tap into, that will also completely re-write the way we view intelligence and education for starters.

779. Anyone who says chocolate is not good for us… well we know it isn’t but tastes so good, we aren’t going to listen. Foods like chocolate and ice cream are so liked because they comfort certain aspects of us, but if we ask our body how it feels after these foods than it may be a different story.

780. For all our intelligence we are certainly not more joyful and looking around, many are living with pain, and exhaustion. Very few are happy in their work. Why have we come to accept this as ok?

781. Yes the world is too much in focus on intelligence and I think people are slowly waking up to the fact that intelligence will not save us unless that intelligence is fuelled from the heart.

782. it is so easy to identify with our thoughts as being our intelligence, so it is a revelation to consider that in fact our mind is not the source of our true intelligence at all, rather something we use to keep ourselves in ignorance of that greater grander true intelligence we all have the possibility of accessing if we but allow it..

783. Hehe “The mind seems to kick in and make ‘smart choices’ once again… until the body shows us they are not so smart.” Thats so true. We bet on our mind and intelligence even we are shown over ages now that this does not come to a very ‘good’ end. Do we live in harmony with each other? Are our relationships lovingly and do we evolve together? Do we wake up in the morning in vitality and joy? Makes our life sense, do we live the truth for all of us? Is every single being on earth full of grace, joy and harmony? Do we live in brotherhood together? Are we living in accord with nature? As long as we can not say YES to all of this questions – we do not live truly intelligent I say.

784. The body is, and always will be, so much wiser than any mind could ever imagine.

785. The title of this blog says a lot in itself and then the questions you ask make so much sense Joel.

786. Brilliantly presented Joel… a path to true intelligence through our body and not our mind!

787. Another brilliant blog here Joel.. This particular line stood out for me this evening.. ‘It starts with learning to discern the difference between what we feel and how we react to what we feel.’

     1. Whats interesting is that even if we feel truth, once we go in reaction the truth cannot be expressed as a truth, therefore diminishing what we have felt in the first place.

     2. Yes that was the standout line for me too Abby… it isn’t just a matter of tuning into the body and feeling its impulses, we have to also know whether the impulse comes from a reaction or in response. If in reaction, we will be feeling and therefore thinking things that are not reflective of true intelligence, but will rather ensure we are protected, indulged, comforted or relieved in the situation.

788. ‘The less we need to protect ourselves or react to what we feel, the less we draw on the mental intelligence to avoid something, which strangely may mean that in that moment we are more free to think!’ A beautiful summation with insightful wisdom. Thank you Joel.

789. As I deepen my connection to my body, I find a voice that speaks with clear reason, and one that leaves nothing and no one out.

790. Another practical, no nonsense, brilliant blog Joel, thank you. When understood like this, how can we deny the magnificent intelligence of the human body?

791. I really love the simplicity of what you present here, and how the body is the key to connecting back to true intelligence it is amazing and requires a shift from reliance on the loveless mind that we often let run the show to the heart centric way to live that is through the body and leaves you ‘free to think’ as you so playfully present!

     1. Our ‘mind’ is indeed loveless otherwise we would not treat our bodies the way we do. We all know the effects of alcohol, caffeine, sugar, smoke, etc.. yet choose consciously to ignore them. It is as if we trick ourselves thinking we can get away with a little bit of harm when in reality we cannot. The results are evident in society and one of the tricks is when we say yes to one thing we are saying yes to everything it comes with which is why it can then take the body a while to recover from disregarding choices.

792. Brilliant Joel – I love how, based on a few factual examples, you simply pose the question – what part of us it really and truly intelligent?

793. By reading your blog Joel, it is evident that true intelligence comes from the body.

794. “If it is our bodies that send us signals that lead to well-being and our mind that overrides these signals, maybe our connection to our body is where true intelligence lives.” This is a classic quote. And so simply put.

795. I think that what we commonly refer to as ‘intelligence’ is often no more than our ability to hold a lot of information in our heads and then to retrieve it at will. However, a far more accurate definition of ‘intelligence’ would be the ability to make decisions that support the body to heal and to move towards a more harmonious way of being.

     1. That is a definition I can subscribe to whole heartedly!

796. Thank you, Joel. Maybe true intelligence is not something we think we ‘know’, but simply sharing the wisdom that comes to us, that is felt, when we are open and receptive. We don’t own this wisdom, it’s there for us all to access, to share, learn from and to support us to evolve.

797. We have championed mental intelligence for far too long and it is now time to embrace the true intelligence of the body however uncomfortable that may be. Great call to action Joel – as always you ask the pertinent questions that we have chosen to ignore and point the way forward to acknowledging where we are governed by our reactions and addressing this would have huge impacts on our collective health and wellbeing.

     1. From observation, with mental intelligence it seems to come with a huge amount of potential for comparison, jealousy and envy but with our body’s intelligence it seems to be more relatable and less likely for these feelings to occur.

     2. And Helen, by championing mental intelligence, we have guaranteed that we stay dim witted.

798. Thanks, Joel, Indeed, what needs to hit home is that we feel everything all of the time, but that it is our reactions to our feelings that make us choose crazy things and behave not so intelligently.

     1. Humanity has been living in such a way that the simplicity of what is on offer here is easily dismissed or could it be deliberately dismissed? For evolving with the bodies intelligence redefines our understanding of true responsibility.

799. And yes I find time and time again that the body holds the truth of our feelings.

800. I know that to react is harmful to me and others and that one reaction can so easily lead to another and yet I find myself reacting or reacting to reactions and joining the chain, that is until I choose to stop and do my best to unwind the reaction and to again begin free of such hindrances.

801. So the way this works I have found is that if I get repetitive thoughts or brain cravings (wanting food when not hungry or just eaten) is to come back to how my body feels and talk it out, either to myself or with another. When I stop running away from the feelings in my body the mind doesn’t have to run at 100mph and as you’ve shared Joel gives us space for clarity of thought. The process is the same for each feeling but I have found that it is a gradual process of learning to deal with when a hurt arises and to not hang onto it.

802. This is an awesome blog Joel and you call out the obvious; something that is not in the forefront of our intelligent minds…”in spite of our high levels of collective intelligence, our health and quality of relationships are NOT improving.” In fact not only is our health not improving statistics show it is actually getting worse. In spite of our university degrees our relationships don’t seem to have become more loving and tender within families, wider society and the wider world. Clearly something is amiss and our intelligent minds haven’t yet figured what that is yet! Your blog is giving us a nudge in the true direction.

     1. Good point Rachel, our intellect has created great technological development but what about our relationships, what about our openess with each other and truly knowing that we are all equal?

803. Great blog Joel. All these things are worth pondering deeply. We have a human race that is run by the ‘intelligence’ of the mind, yet look at the state of the world. Accepting the body’s intelligence would allow for more love in this world, as to listen to our bodies is to love ourselves.

804. Great point for discussion. Even to talk about what is intelligence and where does it come from? Does it even come from us? I agree with what you have shared and from experience I can feel and know that the body alone is far far far more intelligent than the mind …. it is just that the mind (or spirit) likes to ‘think’ it is more intelligent and do its own thing if given leeway to do so. Writing this comment I just want to take a moment to appreciate what has truly helped me to have a far clearer and true understanding of what is going on in the world. I used to react incredibly to all the ill that was going on and many times would go into my ‘martyr’ role to try and ‘save the world’ or get really upset at just how loveless we have become.
     Since knowing Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have learnt and remembered so so much and have a far deeper understanding with regards to what is going on in the world and why. Through building self-love and caring for myself more I have also let go of the martyr role as well as trying to save the world or going into huge reaction (none of which helps but actually adds to the disharmony that is going on) in what is going on within the world by understanding more about energy and choices, the energy of our choices, and what energy as we unconsciously choosing that make our choices. In other words what are we aligned to. ‘Everything is energy’ (Albert Einstein) and ‘everything is because of energy’ (Serge Benhayon). Which is also the case with the so called ‘intelligence’ we seem to give our power away to over and over again. True intelligence does not come from the mind but instead lies within our body. It is the innate wisdom and love within our bodies that is the true intelligence and if we live connection to this, allowing and responding, we would definitely see a beautifull change in the world.

     1. Very well said Vicky and your comment supported me to realise that the intelligence that most people refer to when they say ‘ intelligence’ is the ability to hold large amounts of regurgitated fodder that gets blindly handed from person to person.

805. Great article Joel; what if we didn’t return to our normal disregarding patterns when we discover ways to truly look after ourselves, e.g. if we got sick from a certain food or found out that smoking made us tired and have a serious cough then we made the decision to stop doing those things to ourselves and change the way we lived based on that feeling?

806. Thanks Joel, some in your face and down to earth facts. It is true what you say we have been listening to the mind instead of the body and look where it has got us – going around in circles.

807. “As you look around the world, it seems for centuries now we have thrown our collective intelligence at life to try to improve things.” But as you clearly show Joel intelligence (of the mind) is not enough. great post.

808. Another powerful and insightful blog Joel. Listening to the body is certainly one of the most intelligent choices we can ever make.

809. The way you list all these things makes it obvious that how we are living isn’t working. The way we celebrate our mental intelligence and omit the basics of relationships and health is crazy. We all need to find another way.

810. I had a friend with cancer who told me how his is doctor had spoken of the “3 month grace period”. This was the doctor’s observation of the fact that patients with cancer would often make changes to their lifestyle choices for three months after receiving a diagnosis, but after that they would then drift back to their old ways – the ways that got them to the cancer in their first place. I was fascinated to hear this come from someone of the doctor’s extensive experience – especially within the arena of a life-threatening disease like cancer. It makes me very aware of the force of that protection/relief that you talk about Joel.

811. A great blog and like all your blogs Joel, they ask me to look deeper into my life and how I am living, “We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly.” Love this line, it is so very true, and once exposed it is amazing how dishonest the mind can be.

812. The mind can do many things – even convince itself (and all of humanity) that it is the greatest intelligence. But it doesn’t take much to expose this – as this blog has done. The intelligence of the body is far greater yet it is one that we have classed as second best and in many cases that we outright ignore.

813. This is a genius road-map to true intelligence.

814. Joel, this is a great article and helps makes sense of what seem like crazy, unloving choices that we as human beings often make.

815. Thank you Joel this is so timely for me, studying Maths and struggling with the tension created by using my brain to work out seemingly abstract propositions and not sitting well with the tension this creates in my body. We seem to use the very thing that creates tension, our so-called intellect to attempt to solve the stress that is creates within us, which is not so intelligent. The cause can never be the solution. Learning to just stop, feel and nominate the tension trapped in our bodies without attempting to invent a way to avoid it is a miracle in itself. Through choosing to feel and acknowledge the tension, without any agenda to solve it is the most intelligent thing we can do because this changes the nature of our choices. The process requires us to connect with and build a relationship with our body, a relationship that allows us to then observe the effects of all our choices upon our selves and hence make more intelligent choices based not on our intellect but on our bodily responses, levels of vitality, inner stability and hence on the quality of our health.

816. Awesome read Joel and so well written, easy to follow and understand. So much you raise and expose in this blog giving us so much to consider and ponder on. And in taking the time to stop and ponder on what you deliver here, those thick veils of illusion start to melt.

817. There seems to be an unspoken acceptance of the fact that there is tension in life and that at least part of living is about relieving that tension and protecting ourselves from being hurt. But this discounts the possibility that tension and hurt are pointing out something greater – that we can heal, not just relieve. Would not true intelligence say that where there is tension, there is tension between two points – like a stretched rubber band – and perhaps it would be wise to look at this dynamic rather than seek ongoing temporary abatement of the symptoms. Perhaps that tension is because the body has its own innate knowing of what is true and that through our thought based intelligence we have created an ‘alternative’ knowing. The question is, which is more true? For me, as Joel has shared here, the body does not have the capacity to lie – it just offers its reflections through feelings and senses. So, perhaps it is the body we should be listening to more intently, if we want the truth of what is going on in our lives.

     1. Great points Richard. In order to truly heal, we must always look at the root of the problem – and there will always be an energetic explanation. It can be confronting and difficult, but it will always be healing.

818. Joel, brilliant writing. The new intelligence humanity desperately needs at this time is intelligence of the body. Humanity has lost its way massively. How different the world would be if all schools, colleges and organisations had self care and love as core curriculum subjects.

819. Thank you Joel for a beautifully lucid and cogent presentation of the intelligence of the body.

820. Awesome blog Joel! I can put my hand up and say that I have always classed myself as an intelligent person, supposedly having a high ‘IQ’, but boy have I made many un-intelligent choices in my life. And when the consequences of these choices have kicked in I have wondered what possessed me to make them in the first place as it really didn’t feel like something I would do. It’s taken a while, but I’ve stopped listening to my mind which loves leading me astray and have begun to listen intently to my body as I have discovered that it is the most intelligent one in this intelligence equation

     1. It is a pretty simple equation hey B(body) = L(Love) = T I (True intelligence), M(Mind) = LL (lovelessness) and all that comes with it. There is only one way to live truly and that is listening to your body.

        1. I just love how you came up with the intelligence equation Vanessa; I knew someone would. And as you say, “it is a pretty simple equation”, but I have found that once we bring in the mind the complication begins.

821. We may have a whole lot more educated people but, why is it so hard for them to get jobs after they have spent all of the time, effort and money in acquiring this mountain of knowledge? Knowledge without living it is just another book in the library. We are not a great advertisement for, as you have pointed out, an intelligent species with all the dumb things we do! The smartest thing we can all learn beautiful things from is the one we pay little attention to what it has to offer… our own body?

822. Thank you Joel. Beautiful and undisputable truth “… until the body shows us they are not so smart.”

823. To be called intelligent in most normal respects is a compliment. However if we really put the microscope over intelligent people what would we find?

     It is wiser to label intelligence more than merely the remembering of content, achieving high academic standings and being successful in life.

     Intelligence is the ability to love unconditionally to everyone you meet and still be a productive member of society, that takes intelligence.

824. Yes most unintelligent choices do point out that there must be a tension or dis-ease in our lives that we want to numb or protect – which is something these unintelligent choices all are very good for. Like smoking, having candies, watching porn etc. So if we want to move on it is wise to look at what causes the tension and dis-ease and work on that before we go to our numbing devices.

825. Your questions alone make a lot of sense and invite to a deep pondering and questioning our lifestyle and the sense of it.

826. Humanity spends incredible amounts of money to come up with solutions generated by people who have very limited and unloving relationships with their own bodies. Not that the solutions may not help us in life. But solutions are not answers. Here is the crunch, the mind will never accept that accessing answers requires building a loving relationship with the body and learning to move in a way that honours it. So, we will wonder for quite some time in solutionland going nowhere but having a great time pretending we are.

827. You are a prophet Joel! The only way out of the total mess humanity and the world is in, is to stop being lead by this so called intelligence we are being lead by and start listening more to our bodies and our heart. It is absurd that the more intelligent and qualified we have gotten over the ages the more messed up and diseased we have become, but that is the fact of the matter.

828. Brilliant blog and brilliant questions Joel. It really highlights how our mental intelligence doesn’t always communicate or connect to our body, in terms of how it feels. Also this confirms to me that our body is highly intelligent because it doesn’t hide the truth, whereas our minds can often deceive us in many ways.

829. Joel a great piece that shows in essence how much our life is affected by our choices to “protect” ourselves and the resulting effect this has on not only us but on all those we come into contact with.

830. This ‘intelligence’ we normally think of as intelligent reminds me of Google, like a huge bank of facts and knowledge we have memorised in our life. No wonder these days more and more you hear people say ‘wait while I google that’, we are so used to relying on information we have stored away. But as you beautifully show Joel this incessant searching and retrieving stops us from seeing that we are already naturally wise. Whilst we rely on these systems we will not ask or consider our own inbuilt database, our body. When we subscribe to the idea that the more facts you know the wiser you are we miss out on receiving the truth that is just there. It boggles our mind that we already know and that it really can be easy – but that is my experience of life too. Thanks for an amazing blog here.

831. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly’ – We have a body that carries the truth of the ‘all that is’ and yet we choose not to listen, how crazy is that? What is it about the lies the mind tells us that we cling to so ‘religiously’, that we are so resistant to exposing?. Here in lies an opportunity for some very deep ‘honest’ pondering. Thank you Joel for exposing what is considered an ‘un-exposable’ Lie in which we choose to live our life.

832. I would add the fact that we have (worldwide) millions of charities and causes – none of which are in any way changing the multitude of dilemmas you have listed here. Continuing to hope or believe that these ‘solutions’ hold the answers to our woes is fruitless. Yes, it’s time to go back to basics – learning to return to the truth we can feel in our bodies, one person at a time.

833. Great article Joel, joining lots of dots. Intelligence has its place, but only if approached from a body-first and humanity-not-self-first perspective – as you have done here.

834. Yes, true intelligence does come from feeling, as opposed to thinking. When we feel, everything is known in that one moment, no thinking required. It really is that simple, which completely contradicts the complexity of our education system and the acquiring of information. This contradiction is needed, as simplicity is our way out of this self-imposed complexity. The body brings us back to simplicity – to the simplicity of feeling.

835. How many times have I had the flu and felt lucky to regain my health, then gone on to live exactly as before, perhaps it is because I accept the flu as a normal part of a yearly cycle, where illness is considered inevitable. Maybe though intelligence if applied from listening to the body would mean that the flu is not normal nor inevitable and that not getting it comes down to how I live. And on a bigger scale than flu this can be said of every aspect of our health, well-being and the influence we can affect on other peoples lives by reflecting choices that are deeply caring for oneself.

836. Some soul searching definitely needs to happen around what is so called ‘intelligence’.

837. It is indeed a conundrum, that we have a mind that isn’t always honest and which makes decisions which cause the body pain and discomfort, which cannot but show the impact of what we’ve chosen. We cannot have true intelligence without the body, and our world is clearly showing this right now, so time to include both the mind in the body in our decisions.

838. The body is the true mark of intelligence. When we connect, feel and move from here we are living, breathing vessels of loving intelligence. The great thing about our bodies is that they are constantly talking to us, it is just us who chooses to stop, listen and move from what it shares that is the real key for vital health.

839. This is a very interesting blog Joel. I have known for some time that I cannot trust my mind yet I go to it time and time again. This tells me that I am making a choice to stay stuck in patterns and behaviours that do not support me or my body.

840. ‘Why do the majority of society eat or drink at least one food that is known to be bad for our health and call it a treat?’.
     ‘…how many of us take ‘better’ care of what we do and how we eat when we get the flu? We may not even go to the doctor but innately know the basics that support the body.’ Seriously, when we break it down and just look at what we are actually doing factually, it blows my mind.

841. Oh dear, dare I say another brilliant article Joel!
     There are so many lines I want to pull out, increase their point size and bold AND underline. So much common sense in here it’s crazy!

842. It is amazing how it is possible that we could spend years studying our physical body and its intricacies to become doctors, but fail to appreciate and become/remain disconnected from its intelligence therefore end up living in complete disregard. Could it be possible that they believe that their intellect is so great that it can surpass and harness what the Universe offers?

843. We do tend to go for comfort. Feeling what’s truly there in any situation can be something we’d rather avoid so we go for a wide variety of numbing or distracting techniques. Our ability to feel is amazing, it can guide us to live a better way, even though at first it may not make sense to the mind that has been conditioned with society’s unhealthy traditions.

844. I completely agree, Joel. We live in a society that champions intelligence, and those who with high academic achievement are largely left alone, and don’t get questioned or challenged for their behaviour. We have produced enough of those intelligent yet loveless minds and more on their way by the look of how the education system operates and is upheld despite some clear indications that it’s not working.

845. True intelligence should always be considering of the whole, and if we look at the harmonious laws of nature we see that ultimately everything works to serve the all, and nature is full of example of symbiotic relationships. Even in the case where sacrifice is observed, it is done with consideration to the overall balance of things….and then we have human nature. We are of course marvelously intelligent, but in comparison to nature, we are sorely lacking, and in part that is because we do not consider ourselves part of the greater whole. It is no wonder then that we take this same approach to our own body, arrogantly ignoring the fact that our being consists of more than just our thoughts. And we like that fact, because it makes us vulnerable, and in many ways subservient to a form of being we consider less.
     Yes, for all our celebration of our physicality, if you really look at it, we consider physicality a hindrance – thus why we constantly strive to impose on our physical bodies by way of changing our natural appearance, or abusing it by way of sport and the underlying ethos of “mind over matter”.
     True intelligence would consider our bodies with regards to the all, even to the point of realising that by creating a body that is ill through poor lifestyle choices, we are imposing upon the very society we belong to. We become not just a crutch to ourselves, but unto the very fabric of society.

846. Yes, I can see how true this is.. building a body of intelligence is as simple as following through with those nudges or feeling like, those thoughts that say..’no I’m not hungry’ and honouring it, instead of robotically going to the fridge or pantry and standing there looking at the food and then having a snack when you are not hungry at all… This over riding of how the body is, can become quite a habit. It is self care when one honours and follows through with those feelings or messages from the body.

847. ‘We have a mind that at times is less than honest about its motives, but that we trust implicitly, and a body that suffers the consequences, that cannot lie but we override regularly’ … love how you share, so simply, Joel, how ‘back to front’ we have become. Our reliance on the unpredictable mind, which is so often only concerned about its own comfort, has led us on a not so merry dance.

848. Such a great insight you offer Joel on the conundrum and doldrums of how many people are finding themselves. And the ‘go to choice’ to deal with this often seems to be a choice of more of the same. The ‘not feeling’ is such a seemingly big escape button – but it doesn’t eject us past the issue it just numbs it for as long as we can actually endure the numbing. In my experience even the numbing stops working and isn’t sustainable and my body is forever present to communicate what is truly supportive.

849. I am ever appreciative of the wisdom of my body, it is truly intelligent… it simply reflects every choice we make and reminds us we can always make a different one if we want to change what we are experiencing. When the mind and the body align we will know true union.

850. Joel that is absolutely brilliant – again! Simply superb.

851. Your post is fascinating Joel. I may have to read over and over as my mind is trying to work it out even though my body feels the truth of it… time to accept the intelligence of my body I think, or at least I think I think!! Thank you for pointing out in such an eloquent way how what we perceive as intelligence is not true intelligence at all, and that true intelligence comes from our body, and it is from our body that the answer to our human dilemma lies, if only we were to listen.

852. As always Joel, another beautiful, no holds barred, no nonsense blog – and this time one that clearly and simply exposes the true intelligence of the body. Love it!

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