62. A man musing on objects develops attachment for them, from attachment arises desire, from desire arises anger.[1]
63. From anger arises delusion, from delusion confusion of memory, from confusion of memory loss of intellect, from loss of intellect he perishes.[1]
There is a simple but powerful metaphysical system underlying these verses and I apologise to the uninitiated reader, but would be happy to briefly outline this system should anyone wish it so.
While I will avoid vague (undefined between myself and the reader) terms such as 'natural' or 'intuitive' thinking, readers who accept that the intellect is that which conceives solutions will also be able to entertain the possibility that by improving/strengthening the intellect we improve our ability to solve the problems that face us.
This improving of the intellect is the meta-solution to all problems, and (caution: opinion) it should be a requirement for all human beings that they develop this faculty (as the only known living beings with access to higher reasoning faculties). Failing such, you are not living up to the name 'human'. Perhaps this is a hardline stance.
Education (formal) fails us here. We are provided with material to think with and about, but scarcely are we conducted through the arenas of thought by those who have made it further than we. Instead, education seems to be a way to simply 'make a living' by learning a skill and applying it in exchange for money.[2] A noteworthy read on this is the Cardinal JH Newman's thoughts on how British universities in the early 1900's were moving away from pure 'intellectual' development and became more utilitarian. A brilliant intellect allowing us access to his thoughts.[3] Suffice to say, things have worsened much since then.
[1] From "The Bhagavad Gita" by A Parthasarathy. As an aside, I cannot recommend his book "The Fall of the Human Intellect" enough.
[2] I'm making a generalisation here. If you happened to have someone teach you who opened up your mind, you're one of the lucky few in the world.
I would be interested to hear more about this.