One learns, and one apprehends with the intellect – also, one comprehends spiritually.
Learning and apprehending is an analytical, syllogistic, sensitive-intellectual process.1
“There is nothing in the intellect that has not been in the sense”, goes the old philosophical adage. What the senses perceive physically, the intellect conceives and elaborates metaphysically. Still, this metaphysical process of developing intelligence does not rob physical perception of its individual and one-sided character.
Only when man comprehends – that is, “totally holds” – does he really know what the thing is in itself. But this comprehending is not an analytic-syllogistic process, a sensitive-intellectual act, but a simultaneous, sudden fact, an internal revelation or enlightenment, not an external acquisition. The comprehension is not derived from external objects but from the inner, eternal and infinite subject, which is God, the Absolute Thesis, called the soul in its human form. One learns from external circumstances; one comprehends from the inside, its inner being. The physical-mental ego does learning – comprehending is done by the rational-spiritual ego, by the Christ within, by God in us.
To learn, man needs a vast expansion of the intellect in a centrifugal direction – to comprehend it requires a deep concentration of the soul in a centripetal one.
The quantity of external facts apprehended makes man erudite, intelligent – the quality of internal value comprehended makes a man good and holy.
No religion promises heaven to intelligent men - all promise heaven to good men; discovering external facts make me a scholar, but it does not make me a good man. However, while realizing values within me makes me Good. I am the discoverer of facts, and this does not reach the essence of my being – but I am also the creator of self-values, which touches the inner core of my Self.
The king of intelligence, however evil, may feel happy - but he is unhappy for his world is made up of facts discovered by his powerful intelligence, but not values realized by his spirit. And, for that very reason, his intellectual heaven is his spiritual hell – it is infernal heaven.
No external facts can make me happy or unhappy – only an inner realization opens the doors for me to heaven or hell.
I am the creator of my heaven - I am the author of my hell!
This is where my greatest privilege lies – and my greatest danger!
How stupendous was the cosmic philosophy of the one who said: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul??"
What avails man to discover and possess all the facts discovered by the intelligence – if with this he loses his internal value, which only the soul can accomplish?
Science discovers objects – consciousness realizes the subject!
I know the content of my knowledge in science - but I am the content of my conscience! What makes me happy is not what I know but what I am... When what I am and what I know merge into a grand cosmic unity - then I will be perfect and perennially happy...
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1)- The syllogism is an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises); a common or middle term is present in the two premises but not in the conclusion, which may be invalid (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore, all dogs have four legs).
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