Heart Smart

by Chris Ott

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There is, I think, a false notion that gets passed around in this world that is extremely common, and I don't know where it began. It is not unique to us Baba lovers, but common with us too. It is the notion that the head and the heart are divided - two discrete things. I have six things to say about that.

1. Baba does explain in his book God Speaks that in the mental sphere near the end of involution, the thinking aspect of the mind develops to full maturity before what he calls the "sympathetic" aspect of the mind. And these can rightly be termed, in loose terms, "the head" and "the heart." But I think rightly speaking they are simply two aspects of one sphere of human consciousness in its full maturity. To fully embody them we experience them one at a time before we bring them back together as fully matured souls ripe for God-realization. Thus, I get the feeling, we likewise are best taught about these two aspects as seperately also, as Baba does in God Speaks, for our better understanding. But I think they are really one thing that we study and experience these aspects of the one apart and sequentially (in duality) before they are reintegrated in their natural whole.

2. I cannot find anywhere by any perfect master or Avatar a statement that people need to avoid the head and stay only in the heart. Perhaps someone can correct me, but I have not found it. And I cannot find where one says that the head and the heart are truly discrete things. I find quite the contrary, that they are both real parts of a whole. The idea that realization happens when thinking stops, when mind stops, is also when love stops because there is no longer anyone left to love but Self and nothing left to think but Self and nothing left to know but Self. In fact so extremely prominent is thought and mind that the word "love" actually never even appears in Baba's book Infinite Intelligence.

3. It seems to me that the problem with this common notion that the head and the heart are actually discrete is that it leads to avoidance of thoughtfulness, inquiry, incite, introspection, and deep sustained careful loving contemplation of important spiritual subjects. The result is somewhat of a callowness, a shallow callousness that passes itself off, wrongly for sure, as love that is divorced from thought and discrimination.

4. Far from saying to be entirely heart centered, masters seem to encourage people not to divide these. Rather the encouragement from the masters seems to me to be:

think lovingly and love thoughtfully

Remember that acts of genuine love are often referred to as acts that are "thoughtful" or "considerate." And thinking people very often press their minds to find a solution to resolve the sufferings of humanity or their loved ones. One who says, "I can't consider solutions to your woes, for I am busy loving you," can hardly be said to love that person. And one who says, "I am too busy being rational to consider paultry things such as how my thoughts will affect the lives of others," can hardly be said to be a very profound or well-rounded intellectual.

5. Finally, after all this is a pretty simple and easy to explain point, I'd like to offer some quotes from Avatars that I think reflect the underlying unity of head and heart as aspects of mind that as it is best implemented in the divine life.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Matthew 22:37)

They have hearts but do understand with them. (Koran, 7.179)

The gift of understanding is more precious than any other attribute of Love — be it expressed in service or sacrifice. Love can be blind, selfish, greedy, ignorant, but love with understanding can be none of these things. (Meher Baba, THE OCEAN OF LOVE, Delia DeLeon, pp. 85-87)

You spare no pains to try to understand what interests you, but when I, your Beloved, say "Learn of Me" and "Perfect Understanding, the fruit of Pure Love," you are not prepared to sacrifice anything for its possession. What sort of love is this, I ask? (Meher Baba, THE OCEAN OF LOVE, Delia DeLeon, pp. 85-87)

I shall bring about a happy blending of the head and heart. (Meher Baba, 19 May 1932, New York, a printed message given to reporters who came on board the ship Bremen)

6. Conclusion:

I think this division in explanation by Baba and of experience on the planes is best understood as the exploration, both analytically in our ordinary state and experientially once on the planes, of two sides of a single coin called "the mind." To "analyze" means to take apart. To "synthesize" means to put back together. We should not analyze to the point of forgetting that the goal in the end is to re-synthesize each of these parts once they are fully understood and experienced - for a richer full experience.

Thinking of head and heart as separate can, even if only a conceptual division, be useful however. Elizabeth Patterson used to say, "My heart tells me what to do and my head tells me how to do it." That sounds pretty nice to me.