Intelligence "Out There"

SN'T IT A BIT ODD that we humans are wondering lately whether there could be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? By elsewhere, we usually implicitly mean elsewhere than in the human race, which seems a shame right off the bat, since this attitude ignores a possible intelligence in each tree, animal, rock, and planet, for starters.

Next, we wonder how to communicate with this possibly existing intelligence which we imagine as somewhere "out there" in space. We listen with our mile-wide radio antennas, and we send out cryptic symbols attached to our interplanetary spacecraft bound for unknown reaches outside our solar system. We speculate that since there are so many billions of stars out there, at least one of them must have an earthlike planet on which there is a humanlike life which may be further advanced than we are, and which has been trying for centuries to get in touch with us even as we fiddle with our radio apparatuses and antennas.

Most people of this mind-set fail to stumble upon one possibility which seems so obvious once it is considered. That is: perhaps these intelligences are about us all the time, have instant and intimate access to our innermost thoughts, and are constantly communicating with us--successfully!

"There is a certain inner calling, inner love, and inner intelligence that drives this whole great soft subtle machine, and it seems to permeate the cosmos from the outer physical layer through our most subtle thoughts and intuitions."

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with building huge radio telescopes to discover the physical realities of our universe. There are plenty of things to study "out there." And perhaps one day our scientists will receive a stray communication from some ham operator in another galaxy who is just trying to send a CQ across his own planet. Perhaps he will even be saying something intelligent which can with great effort be translated. But what then? What if he should give us some exceedingly wise axiom or theorem? Would we believe him? Or would we say (if we didn't comprehend what he said) that he is only of an inferior intelligence, but thanks for calling, over?

Would it be too revolutionary to suggest that each of us may be an amalgam of intelligences? Of course, we each probably have our own unique root intelligence, but what if that is being added to not only by our daily bumblings, bawlings, and joys, but also by others who have chosen as their intelligent work to aid us from behind the scenes, right here and right now? They can't be seen, you might say, so therefore one has no proof. How can one prove that there is "other" intelligence in this universe, and that it is right here?

By way of reply I might ask you how one can prove a sunrise, how one can prove that a bird is singing, how one can prove that there is such a thing as love or electricity. There is a certain inner calling, inner love, and inner intelligence that drives this whole great soft subtle machine, and it seems to permeate the cosmos from the outer physical layer through our most subtle thoughts and intuitions. It is not necessary to prove something that proves itself by its manifesting in every moment. Love may have no wheels or cogs, but it simply is. Intelligence does not need a high score on the SAT exam to exist. It is.

We need not look far to find extraterrestrial intelligence--it is only as far away as a kind act, a painful lesson, an intuitive perception, or a kiss in the dark. None of the above are confined to a mere physical lump spinning around a single white-hot sun. They belong to, and offer hints of, the Ultimate Intelligence.