Decades ago, it was only Intelligence Quotient that was thought to be a valid form of intelligence. With fast paced steps towards development, in the 1990s, we were introduced to the concept of emotional intelligence. As stated in the previous BLOG about Emotional Quotient and how important it is to manage your emotions and also understand the emotions of others’ emotions could potentially be even more important than our IQ. Then came the 2000s, where our understanding of the various fields of intelligence were further broadened and with that came the idea of spiritual intelligence, emerging in a new wave of changes to way people look at things.
The term spiritual intelligence and spiritual quotient is widely regarded to come from Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, who wrote their pioneering book, SQ: Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence.
They describe SQ as the most put out fundamental intelligence. They say it is what we use to develop our capacity for meaning, vision and value. It is what allows all of us to dream and to strive. It gives importance to the things that we believe in and the role our beliefs and values play in the actions that we take.
Now, you may wonder why Spirituality is so important in today’s world. Here are insights to how Spirituality can help benefit you.
- Spirituality increases the ability of a person to be creative and to be aware and insightful. The power of intuition and awareness can be increased with help of spirituality.
- It helps tremendously in coping up and do away with modern problems of terrorism, inconsiderateness, lack of humanness. The concept of Spiritual Quotient is fast emerging as the next big aspect of scientific study as it directly correlates to a person’s awareness and consciousness. With modern problems, we require modern solutions, hence, an over all development also called holistic development is required to mobilise a child in tackling all problems under all aspects of life.
- Human beings have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Spirituality is the ability to recognise that there is intelligence beyond our five senses. There is a universal power that creates and governs everything within and beyond the worlds we know, and that power is omnipresent. We can surrender to this supreme intelligence through our awareness. We call this universal power by different names as per our religious faith.
- Spirituality makes things easier for us to go through the life’s journey with all its ups and downs. Spirituality exists within us, it does not require great efforts from our side to search it. Spiritual wisdom doesn’t need to involve fables and mysticism. It does not require to be linked to organised religion. Living happily depends on how much we are at peace with our inner self, our core – our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and desires.
- Our spiritual dimension gives us strength to find a sense of inner peace of both peace of mind and peace in the heart. It allows our inner values to steer through peaceful interactions with the world around us. It develops our concern for others, our concern for Mother Nature, and other living beings and it improves our conscious effort to make a positive contribution to society.
All of this helps make the world a better place. We all can heal the world and make it a better place. It makes us more responsible of ourselves, our family, the society we live in, our surroundings, our country and then all in all our universe too.
- It helps us interconnect our personal vision with the larger good of humanity. It makes us more humble in our perspective and to a great extent it reduces our selfish intentions.
- We human beings carry big egos, and want to feel all important. We tend to get swayed with our power, status and money. We never realise that if we are that important in this world. After all there are billions of people in this world. What is one against 7 billion? Arrogance and our humility spoils our relations with so many people. We all are fighting amongst each other for literally nothing. Instead, with our spiritual intelligence, we can save billions of people and educate them to be a better person.
Today, in the corporate world too, organisations and institutions have realised and acknowledged that their human element, which is ‘human resource’ is not simply an intellectual property consisting of human knowledge and skills, but is the human spirit as well. Corporates have realised that they need to nurture and value the human spirit which is an integral part of leadership.
- Spirituality and its practice with application will reduce misconduct to a great extent. Lots of awareness is being emphasised to apply spirituality at a workplace to ensure that employees are not just mere animals that are told what to do but to love what they do and find happiness, true happiness in life.
In conclusion, we’d like to say that, spiritual quotient is going beyond your cognitive and emotional skills. It is acknowledging your mortality and thinking of what you could offer humanity. It is living in humility, bearing in mind that you are just a tiny midget compared to the vastness of the universe. A robust understanding of this motivates people to balance their work commitments, time with family and inner growth. We all need to build a core and connect with it because after all, we are spiritual beings.
