A Freshness in the Center of the Chest

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teachers says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more

marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox.

A freshness in the center of the chest.

This other intelligence does not turn yellow

or stagnate. It's fluid and it doesn't move

from outside to inside through the conduits

of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.

--translated from 'Two Kinds of Intelligence,'
by the 13th century Afghan poet, Rumi