Dear Reader,

God has endowed each one of us with unique gifts, talents, and abilities to express ourselves through words, actions, song, music, dance, play, poetry and so on. Indeed there is a book hidden within each one of us. Given the circumstances, opportunities, resources, training, motivation, determination, discipline, and hard work most of us are capable of writing books. No wonder each year more than 400,000 books get published in the United States alone. In addition 60,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers offer unique opportunity for millions of people to publish articles, stories, poems, and research findings.

Like many of you I have taken the pleasure in publishing my second book, Spiritual Intelligence and The Neuroplastic Brain: A Contextual Interpretation of Modern History (March, 2010). What is special about my book, you might ask?

We are familiar with the concepts like rational intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ). Most of us associate the word “intelligence” with IQ tests as measured by standardized tests, like the SAT, GMAT, and GRE. No wonder E. G. Boring, an American Psychologist has said, “Intelligence is what intelligence tests test.” If so, is intelligence the IQ score of an individual person on a standardized test? 

Think of this. Since 1918 our IQ scores as measured by standardized tests have increased by 24 points. It is believed that each generation since World War 1 has been gaining 4-6 points. Scholars attribute the rise of IQ scores to better nutrition, smaller family size, better living conditions, better earning potential of parents, improved technology, and so on. 

While we are becoming smarter and intelligent year after year, our marriages are falling apart left and right. There is a divorce rate of 50 percent now. At this rate, hardly 30 percent of marriages would survive in the future. Some might ask what has this to do with intelligence? Some experts like Howard Gardner from Harvard University School of Education remind us that those persons that pay much attention at developing the emotional side of intelligence, inter-personal and intra-personal intelligence are good at nurturing healthy relationships. If we are high on rational intelligence (IQ), and low in emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ), how can we expect our marriages to last long?

Obviously education is the key to success in the modern world. However, in the kind of world where national governments and wealthy parents invest millions and billions of dollars to educating children, suicide rate has increased by 60 percent since 1968. Each year one million people commit suicide in this world of ours. Fifty million people migrate to cities looking for jobs. That is called the urban nightmare. More than a third of forests have disappeared in the past fifty years.

As the world gets smaller and technology gets better day by day, and while the rich become richer and poor become poorer, and the smart ones become smarter, the problems of ecocide, biocide, and geocide keep haunting humanity in the face, leave alone genocide, homicide, and suicide.

The very intelligence that has solved the mysteries of nature, world, and space is threatening the life system on this planet. While science keeps making quantum leaps and humankind finds itself at the threshold of moving beyond the borders of the earth, more than 18,000 human-made objects and debris keep swirling through the outer space That is what we call intelligence. It is quite likely future wars will be fought in the outer space.

We have entered into the world of digital technology, information revolution, and the world of globalization. Some experts remind us that like the Greeks we are embarked on a powerfully important transition—in our case from a written culture to one that is more digital and visual. Some experts are telling us that the intelligence that has invented this brilliant technology may end up threatening the kind of intellect that has produced it. In other words, so called “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” are not showing much interest in the calling cards of rationality: Reading , writing, and arithmetic.

Humanity today is at a crucial point in history. A scientist may produce a monster in a bottle while convincing the world that he/she is on a mission to produce an angel. A terrorist without any knowledge of the rudimentary principles of science can get hold of a nuclear bomb and anhilate life in a major cosmopolitan city. A scientific genius can produce anthrax in a lab and while in a depressive or angry mood can release the contents in a city like Washington, D.C., and bring our political governance to stand still. Computer chips may be inserted into human brains, and in the words of Ray Kurzweil, the futurist thinker, we are entering into the “age of singularity” when the intelligence of machines invented by human ingenuity is going to outsmart human intelligence by billions of times.

In such a context of ours we have to ask the questions once again. Who are we? Why are we here? Why are we not able to get along? Why do we keep fighting in the name of religion, caste, color, creed, and for land and power? How do we make sense of events and experiences that do not make sense to our rational minds? How do we get connected to a force and the power that is greater than us (God)? Why do we believe in this power to begin with? How do we know this power exists in the first place? Why some of us believe in what is called destiny? How can we cope with life’s uncertain moments of sickness, sorrow, and death? How do we find peace (shanthi), harmony (shalom), and tranquility (satori) while going through life’s ups and downs.?

These questions are not new. Philosophers, theologians, spiritual prophets and pundits have wrestled with these questions since the dawn of history. The difference is that the twenty-first century brain that is asking these questions is wired different unlike the generations of people that have gone before us. Our brains are adapted to living in computer literate and digitally informed societies unlike the brains of our ancestors that were adapted to living in semi-literate and computer illiterate societies.

I introduce my book, Spiritual Intelligence and The Neuroplastic Brain: A Contextual Interpretation of Modern History  to you and others. I invite you to take a look at it; share your questions, comments, and criticisms. Let the debate continue.  

With every good wish,

Charles W. Mark

charles@spirituality-intelligence.com