What is Emotional Intelligence

Part 2 What is emotional Intelligence

This is part 2, in a series of executive overview audios, on Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) . In this series of lectures, Emotional intelligence is a topic that is attracting considerable amount of popular attention globally. I have read many excellent books, studied works and experiments undertaken by well known scientist and psychologist namely Dr. Daniel Goleman, Dr. Andrew Samuels, Dr. Art Markman, Dr. Daniel G. Amen Dr. David Caruso, Dr. John D. Mayer, Dr. Peter Salovey, Dr. Mitch McCrimmon, Dr. Joseph Ciarrochi and many other psychologists from our well known international universities and attentively listened to their wonderful talks and explanations on Emotional Intelligence, besides my own extensive study of Bhagavad Gita and you will find some of these findings and thoughts are mentioned in my lecture series. As you will observe I am concerned with are: does it make sense to speak of emotions as being intelligent or can we weave intelligence into emotions? If so, is there such a thing as "emotional intelligence?" And if so, how does it relate to critical thinking including a detailed analysis of the relationship between thoughts, emotions and desires as provided in Bhagavad Gita? 

In the modern world, most of us are asked to think for a living, yet few of us have ever been taught much about the way our minds work. Nobody would be asked to build a bridge without learning some physics or to practice medicine without knowing biology. Why should understanding our mind and its thinking power be any different? 

So let us examine what is emotional intelligence? 

Many questions arise? Most simply, can emotional intelligence be reasonably conceived as a measure of the degree to which a person successfully (or unsuccessfully) applies sound judgment and reasoning to situations in the process of determining emotional or feeling responses to those situations. Would it entail, then, the bringing of (cognitive) intelligence to bear upon emotions. Would it encompass both positive and negative emotions. Would it be a measure of the extent to which our affective responses are "rationally" based.

Is a person with a high degree of emotional intelligence, one who responds to situations with feeling states that "made good sense," given what was going on in those situations. Or will appropriately generated feeling states serve as a motivation to pursue reasonable behavior or action. Emerging naturally out of "rational" emotions would be "rational" desires and "rational" behavior.

Here first let me ponder over functioning of our brain in brief. A single component of the "Limbic System" so often identified being the locus of emotion in the brain is called Amygdala. My motivation for this brief study is the claim by Robert Ettinger that there exists in the brain a "self-circuit" that is the seat of feeling, and that this brain center is probably below the cerebrum because self & feeling are attributes of all animals. If I was to attempt to rationalize his thesis, I would locate the "self-circuit" in the orbito frontal cortex.

The frontal cortex is the base platform of all our critical thinking, as I understand it, we acquire a means of assessing and upgrading our ability to judge well. To understand the role of the affective dimension of mind and to engage in high quality reasoning, one must have not only the cognitive ability to do so, but the drive to do so as well. The front cortex enables us to go into virtually any situation and to figure out the logic of whatever is happening in that situation. It provides a way for us to learn from new experiences through the process of continual self-assessment. Critical thinking, then, enables us to form sound beliefs and judgments, and in doing so, provides us with a basis for a "rational and reasonable" emotional life. It is important and evident that to learn to solve problems effectively, one must have the desire to do so. One must feel the importance of doing so, and thus be driven to acquire command of the art of high quality reasoning. What is more, One must be committed to it. Thus the affective dimension, comprised of such feelings is a necessary condition and component of high quality reasoning and problem solving.

For high quality reasoning, and controlling your mind you need a set of tools for more effective thinking.  I first brought these tools together in class that I developed to teach senior executives at companies interested in enhancing the performance of their senior managers.  By bringing these tools to their managers, these leaders are helping to develop a new culture.

To get started on the road to this new culture, it’s valuable to evaluate your behavior first.  I often give a questionnaire which comprises a set of behaviors that you may or may not perform.  Put a check in the first box next to each item if you think this is something you should do.  Put a check in the second box if you think this is something you actually do.  Check both boxes if both categories are true. I discuss these tools, tips and tricks for editing our behaviors and achieving our goals, including why we tend to fail with habit change, how to live a good life, relationship and more.

Here I want to recite Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 verse 37 which is in Sanskrit, it reads as follows:

"kaama esha krodha esha rajoguna samudh-bhavaha

maha ashano mahaa paapmaa viddhy enam iha vairi-nam"

This when translated in English it means that it is desire, it is anger, born of rajas. It is a voracious eater, a great sinner. Know it to be the enemy.

 Here the Lord explains that when likes and dislikes morph into desire and hatred, they increase the rajas in our system, creating a vicious cycle. So what is the end result? Here, he says that when desire and hatred arise, they shut off or conceal our wisdom.

 Our wisdom, or ability to discriminate, resides in our intellect. Due to a lifetime’s worth of conditioning, this wisdom does not become our second nature. Wisdom is like a shining light, which can easily be covered if we are not careful. So desire, or anger, arise from the deeper, subconscious aspects of our mind and cover this light of wisdom. We then lose any ability to decide right from wrong, and behave foolishly. Lord says here that our wisdom can be covered in three ways.

 The thickest, most dense covering occurs due to taamasic desires. These are desires that have lived inside our system for ages, and once they get activated, they totally cover the wisdom. They are so strong, and so in tune with our likes and dislikes, that nothing can be done once they are activated. Examples of taamasic desires are excessive drinking, drug usage, or even the overpowering desire to be “right” which can lead you into violent fights and arguments.

 Lord had mentioned that likes and dislikes are like highway robbers. They distract us from our path. But now, He uses the term “enemy” to refer to desire. What is the difference between a highway robber and an enemy? A highway robber does not care who we are, he just wants to distract us, rob us and let us go. But an enemy knows us, knows our weaknesses well, and intends to cause us great harm. Therefore, desire and anger are much more dangerous than likes and dislikes.

 When we give a lot of attention to our likes and dislikes, it increases the proportion of the active quality, or rajas, in our system. When this happens, our likes and dislikes grow in size like weeds and become strong desires. We then go into a vicious cycle : strong desires create more rajas, which in turn makes the desires even stronger. Similarly, if dislikes grow, they turn into anger and hatred.

 Now, when a strong desire gets fulfilled, there is a temporary pause in that desire, and the mind becomes still for a short amount of time. As we have seen earlier, an absence of desires clears the mind and lets the eternal essence shine through. When that happens, we experience peace and happiness. But, most of us wrongfully attribute that temporary spark of happiness to the object we just acquired, rather than to the absence of desire. So then, we go through life fuelling our desires, in the hope that we can recreate that experience.

 The tendency to recreate happiness through repetitive acquisition of an object is called greed. Moreover, the ego becomes strong through the increase in rajas, and it begins to go outward, comparing us with others. If someone has less than us, pride is created. Conversely, if someone has more than us, jealously is created.

 The practical lesson here is that we should not encourage our likes and dislikes. In other words, if a like or dislike arises in the mind, we should not give it too much attention. If we do, it will get stronger. It is easier to control a like or a dislike. Once it has grown into a strong desire or hatred, then it becomes much difficult to control ………….... to be continued