THE INTELLECT
Volume 5, Part II – Category 7
December 2025
Paul Brunton’s notes in Category 7 help us to understand how he uses the terms intellect, reason, intuition, and intelligence. He cautions us about the importance of precision in our language usage, both in communication and for our own understanding.
Intellect, reason, and intelligence are not convertible terms in this teaching. The first is the lowest faculty of the trio, the third is the highest, the second is the medial one. Intellect is logical thinking based on a partial and prejudiced collection of facts. Reason is logical thinking based on all available and impartially collected facts. Intelligence is the fruit of a union between reason and intuition. [7:1.14]
True intelligence is the working union of three active faculties: concrete thinking, abstract thinking, and mystical intuition. [7:1.5]
The intelligence, as something more than intellect alone, can be used to carry one’s thinking to the verge of an intuition which will light up some of our understanding. But such a success requires certain preconditions: a measure of equilibrium in personality, a measure of self-discipline in character, intensive pondering on the truth. [7:1.30]
The development and use of intellect is a necessity and a blessing but taken too far in itself, and with strong ego identification, it becomes a hindrance to further spiritual advance.
The cultivation of intelligence is one of the supreme duties of man. Fact-fed thinking–hard, deep, rational, and thorough–is what converts vague surmise into unbreakable certainty, blind belief or tormenting doubt into irrefutable knowledge, and native error into new truth. [7:2.1]
The right use of words has brought into being that immense store of recorded knowledge which is one of the most precious heritages man possesses. Today, through the understanding of words, we are able to shake hands with the world’s most renowned sages, to have the privilege of a discussion with the distant wise, and to sit at table for an intellectual feast with the dead. [7:5.140]
Mind and its expression in language are thoroughly interwoven and to improve one is to improve the other. [7:5.20]
When the aspirant has great devotion to the Overself but little understanding of it, Nature will halt them at a certain stage of their spiritual career and compel them to redress the balance. [7:2.87]
The dangers of developed intellect are pride and complacency, over-analysis and over-criticism. [7:1.43]
The intellect can quite expertly give its support to any position the ego desires it to take up. It can become instrumental in the search for truth only as it becomes freed from egoism. [7:1.46]
The intellect ought to work only as a servant, obeying intuition’s orders in practical life or filling in details for intuition’s discoveries in the truth-seeking quest. [7:1.10]
It is not enough to purify the moral nature of evil and sin. It is also needful to purify the intellectual nature of error and delusion. Hence moral discipline must be complemented by an intellectual one. [7:2.108]
What is involved in this process of intellectual discipline and purification of the intellectual nature?
We have begun our studies not by learning new matter but by unlearning the old. So much that we take for granted is not knowledge at all but fantasy. For instance, we assume unconsciously that “B” must exist. The only way to cure ourselves of false assumptions is first to discover that they are assumptions. The only way to clear our minds of false learning is to inquire into all our learning and examine its warrant. And since all thoughts are embodied in words, we can carry out this essential preliminary task only by examining the words habitually used, the terms we have inherited from our mental environment, and to see how far they are justified. [7:5.22]
We need not be afraid to question everything, to doubt everything, even the words we use and our own very selves. We have nothing but falsehood, illusion, and self-deception to lose if we take nothing for granted. [7:2.122]
Care is to be taken that the deceptions into which both a person’s logic and their sentimentality are liable to fall, are avoided by the use of sharp discrimination. [7:2.99]
Metaphysics enables the mystic to make clear and conclusive to themselves the principles on which their inward experience is based. This helps them, not only by satisfying the need for intellectual understanding, not only by supplying weapons to fight both their own doubts and the criticisms of sceptics, but also, by giving directional guidance, enables them to avoid errors in mystical practice. [7:7.58]
Unless one is prepared to part with a wrong habit of thinking, unless one is willing to eradicate all limited conceptions which blur clear-sightedness, unless, in short, one is willing to reorient the mental outlook completely, it will never be possible to penetrate the world illusion. [7:3.31]
Ultimately, can intellect and reason bring us to the realization of Truth, to experience of our Soul, Overself, our essential Being?
If you are trying to grasp the great Mystery do not make the mistake of unwittingly holding on to the intellect while doing so. [7:1.67]
The words we use belong to the limited range of conditioned existence. How then can they be of actual service in describing the Unconditioned? The only service they can render is a symbolic or suggestive one. Reality cannot be expressed in any of the positive terms we know, for there is nothing like it in the familiar world. It may be hinted at negatively. [7:7.67]
If you try to make Mind a topic for analysis, worship, or discussion, it is no longer the unseen uncomprehended Mystery but a projection, whereupon it is at once objectified and becomes an idea-structure. Such an act falsifies it. You honour it more truly if you stay silent in voice, still in thought. [7:1.90]
A study of PB’s 2-part essay which comprises section 8 in “The Intellect” is highly recommended for a more comprehensive understanding of this Category. Access it here: https://www.paulbrunton.org/notebooks/7/8
In this e-teaching only two quotes from Chapter 7 of Category 7 – “The Intellect” was shared. We will focus on that chapter: “Metaphysics of Truth” in January.
*PB cautioned, in regard to the study of his notes, that each note should be studied SEPARATELY before attempting to combine their meanings. The groupings of notes in these e-teachings should be appreciated only loosely. We should make every effort to grasp the specific nuance of the usage of a given term in each separate quote.
Compiled by Judy S.