When truth, love, and power are harmoniously aligned, they produce the paramount principle of personal growth: intelligence. This encapsulates every idea discussed thus far into a single unified whole. When we perceive the beautiful union of truth, love, and power, we intuitively recognize intelligence.
Truth is intelligent. By embracing truth and shedding ignorance, falsehood, and denial, we create the ideal conditions for lifelong growth. We learn about ourselves by exploring physical reality, continually predicting consequences and gradually refining them for greater accuracy. As we accept each new level of truth, we progress to ever higher levels of awareness. There can be no intelligent growth without truth.
Love is intelligent. We can’t learn and grow alone in vacuum. We must form new connections within ourselves and with others to extend our capabilities. By coming together as a community, we achieve ever-deeper levels of intimacy, thereby increasing our understanding, motivation, and creativity. There can be non intelligent growth without love.
Power is intelligent. We are immensely creative beings, free to express ourselves in physical form. By shedding idleness, timidity, and cowardice, we become capable of wielding power responsibly instead of living in fear of our own greatness. With disciplined, focused action, we create our own reality and honor the truth of who we really are. There can be no intelligent growth without power.
Intelligence is the highest form of human expression. Our intelligence is what defines us as human beings. It is our greatest strength, our staunchest ally, and our most noble pursuit. Without it, we are nothingness; we are form without substance and existence without purpose. It is only through the deliberate exercise of intelligence that we give our lives meaning, a meaning that is consciously chosen.
Our universal principles give rise to the following definition of intelligence: Intelligence is alignment with truth, love, and power. There is an elegant simplicity to this definition. In order to behave as a “smart person” in any area of your life, you must bring yourself into alignment with truth, love, and power. If you use these principles to guide your life, you will live intelligently. When you violate these principles, you turn your back on intelligence.
Take a moment to ponder the above definition of intelligence. Does it satisfy your logical mind as well as your intuition? When you reflect on your most intelligent choices in life, do you find that you have aligned yourself with truth, love, and power? When you consider your biggest regrets, can you identify a lack of alignment with any of these principles?
Far more than the sum of its parts, intelligence offers several emergent qualities of its own: authenticity, creative self-expression, growth, flow, and beauty.
* Source: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina