Intelligence

 

 

Intelligence simply means ability to respond, because life is a flux. You have to be aware and to see what is demanded of you, what is the challenge of the situation. The intelligent person behaves according to the situation and the stupid behaves according to the ready-made answers. Whether they come from Buddha, Christ or Krishna, it does not matter. He always carries scriptures around himself; he is afraid to depend on himself. The intelligent person depends on his own insight; he trusts his own being. He loves and respects himself. The unintelligent person respects others.

 

And you can see the point. Why are the vested interests interested in creating stupidity? -- because that is the way they will be getting respect. No parents really want their children to be intelligent, because if the children are intelligent they are rebellious too, they are disobedient too. Obedience has been imposed on you as a great value; it is not a great value. It is one of the basic causes of the destruction of your intelligence.

 

I am not saying be disobedient. I am simply saying when you feel like being obedient, be obedient; when you feel like being disobedient, be true to yourself. Your only responsibility is towards yourself and nobody else.

 

An intelligent person risks. He will be ready to die rather than to compromise. Of course, he will not fight, as the Desiderata says, with unnecessary things, with non-essentials, but as far as essentials are concerned he is not going to be obedient.

 

-Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #12, Q4“