Conception is the manifestation of a child in the mother’s womb from the un-manifested Universe! Soon thereafter the Intellect starts to develop within the brain of the child and gives it the sense of existence or being! We will call this as the state of ‘Being’ or our ‘True Self’, when our Intellect only knows that we are! In this state we are complete within ourselves and nothing beyond us exists! Our body, our successes, our failures, and the Universe have no relevance or existence! So, there is no conscious deliberate activity emanating from this state! It is a state of intellectual and physical inactivity!
Then as the child in the womb becomes more aware of itself as well as its surroundings, our Intellect moves into its first state of activity, which we will call as the state of ‘Awareness & Acceptance’! In this state as a child we live fully in the present moment and there is no inner feeling of incompleteness! Our identity, ‘I’ or ‘Ego’ has not yet developed and as a child we remain free of likes and dislikes, prejudices and biases!
Soon after the child is born, the child’s up bringing starts. Our parents, relatives, friends, teachers and our external environment start to influence our Intellect! As a child, we are being conditioned and programmed to organise our life, gather knowledge, skills and experience; have desires, expectations and plan goals for the future; develop likes or dislikes of people, things, situations and events; to acquire a socially acceptable behaviour; to have a belief system partly based on our parents belief system etc.. This programming or conditioning which is retained in the memory of our Intellect is our ‘Ego’.
The state of ‘Ego’ is the second state of Activity of our Intellect and is unfortunately the default state for most of us! It is the most reactive state as it highly affected by the external environment creating waves in the ocean of our Intellect! However, It does subconsciously manage our daily routine functioning like a programmed Robot so our Intellect is not burdened with frequent decision making to respond to the familiar and repetitive situations of daily life!
Regretfully, most of us do not have a clear understanding of what constitutes our ‘Ego’. It is mistakenly understood that we have an ‘Ego’ only if we are being ‘Proud’. This lack of correct understanding of our ‘Ego’ makes it very difficult for us to handle many situations that happen in our life resulting in unnecessary magnification into major problems!
Quite simply, we can know we are in the ‘Ego’ state when we are thinking about our own self, or when we have thoughts relating either to our past or the future! In this state, our Intellect is not consciously aware of the present!
The state of Ego, is a state of incompleteness of the Intellect as it has been programmed to always achieve something in the future, implying that we are incomplete at the present moment! Fear and Anger are predominant emotions of our Ego as it is afraid that it may not be able to fulfill its desires and achieve its goals in the future! This often results in surfacing of other emotions like sadness, frustration, depression etc. The stress level of our Intellect also remains relatively high in this state causing health and psychological problems too!
The third state of our Intellect, which we can call as ‘Analytic & Diagnostic’ state, is as result of our learning decision making based on analysing and diagnosing situations logically and rationally.
It is important to know from which state our Intellect enters into this third state. If it enters from our default and incomplete state of ‘Ego’ then the analysis and diagnosis will be subjective and centered around our own self! So, the resultant decisions and actions will serve our own self even though our Ego might make itself believe that it is acting for the good of others! If we enter from our state of ‘Awareness and Acceptance’, then the analysis and diagnosis with be done objectively for the greater good of everyone concerned and so our actions will help a larger section of humanity!
For ease of understanding, these different states are shown pictorially in the above diagram! The infinite, un-manifested Universe is represented by the extensive blue colour. From this un-manifested Universe a child is conceived. This is shown in the centre of the diagram as ‘Manifestation’. From this emanates the child’s state of ‘Being’ or True Self, a passive but a state of completeness, then to the first active state of ‘Awareness & Acceptance’ shown on the periphery of the circle. From this develops two other active states which are also shown on the periphery of the circle, state of ‘Ego’ and the state of ‘Analysis and Diagnoses’.
The three states of activity are shown on the periphery of the circle as we humans can move from any one of these three states to the other or combination of two states quite easily. Regretfully, we don’t, and we spend most of our life solely in the ‘Ego’ state and that is why we have shown the state of ‘Ego’ on the top of the circle!
The default state of Ego, is the one and only cause for all our problems and unhappiness! This is a self centered, and a reactive state wherein we are generally insensitive to the present moment situations as well as to other precious people around us!
So, ideally we should remain as long as we can in the first state of activity which is the state of ‘Awareness & Acceptance’. This state is the manifestation of The Totality within us! In this state we remain stable and peaceful and so the best decisions and actions emanate from us! To be in the state of ‘Awareness & Acceptance’, we simply have to become aware of and accept the present moment as it is now! Of the three states in which we can remain Intellectually & physically active, this is the most powerful and stable state! We regenerate our Intellect and Body which get dissipated and tired when we are in the state of our ‘Ego’ or in the ‘Analytic & Diagnostic’ state.
So, be Aware and Accept the present moment unconditionally at all times to live life fully, peacefully, cheerfully, happily and in good health too!
We have to use our unconditioned Intellect and not our Ego to live life fully in the present moments! Ego can only take us into our past or into our imagined future – The Totality
Our Intellect is unconsciously conditioned to have a very strong identification with our Ego and our body resulting in a weak or no identification with The Totality, our true identity! In order to live life fully we have to reverse this; have a strong identification with The Totality and a weak identification with our Ego and our body!- The Totality * 300717
Live Life Fully! 
This “detached intellect” that you speak of is always available to us with all the answers that we want in any situation. It manifests itself much more through feelings, gut, instinct, intuition (call it whatever you want), rather than through thoughts created by our mind (though even answers provided by our intellect ultimately end up as thoughts so they can be acted upon, but the origin of the thought is the key, and answers that come from our intellect originate from a place much deeper than our minds). In fact, we can only “feel” these answers when we quieten the mind completely so we can truly listen.
Yes, the detached Intellect, which is intuitive, instintive, gutsy, feels and observes objectively, is always available to us. Provided we are Aware! Without awareness we drift into our Ego (mind) state, which is the default state for most of us!
You have also pointed out a very important aspect, which is the origin of thought, which may get converted in action subsequently! Yes, thought can originate in our Ego (mind) state or in our detached Intellect state. Ego originated thoughts are centered around our own self, for the satisfaction of our Ego’s desires! Detached Intellect’s thoughts are for the greater good of our family, society and mankind at large!
Quitening our mind (Ego) is a planned effort to be done. This is in the purview of our Ego. So, Ego has to control itself and this disturbs our peace and tranquility which is essential for our detached Intellect to function. Instead of effort, try using present moment awareness to get underneath the dark veil of our Ego and reach our detached Intellect.