The Wonderful Heart

              Daniel Goleman in his great book, Emotional Intelligence, talks quite a bit about the heart as our emotional mind.  I believe that the heart has its own intelligence, language and field of awareness that is much more than emotion.  If we wish to use a single word it is better described by the word feeling.  The heart is, obviously, associated closely with religion and other supposedly non-rational ways of thought, which makes us, in this age of science and reason, ambivalent about its powers and capacities.  Hence even Goleman can write statements such as: “Indeed, religious symbol and ritual makes little sense from the rational point of view; it is couched in the vernacular of the heart.” And: “This logic of the heart—of the emotional mind—is…the logic of religion and poetry, psychosis and children, dream and myth.” (Emotional Intelligence: 294)  Linking poetry, psychosis, religion, dream, myth, and children together in one sentence is a striking example of the kind of ambivalence many hold the heart and its intelligence in. 

            What do I mean by the heart?  Obviously, I am not talking just about the meaty pump rhythmically beating away in the middle of the chest.  This is the physical heart, and it is where we point when we say we feel something.  But as the brain is the seat of the mind and the power of thought, is the physical heart also the seat of some spiritual organ of intelligence and spiritual power?  I believe so.  This aspect of heart experiences what Maslow termed “the transcendent emotions.”        

            The authors of the brilliant study, HeartMath, go further: “Moving beyond what we’ve been able to prove through science, our theory is that the heart links us to higher intelligence through an intuitive domain where spirit and humanness merge.  This intuitive domain is something much larger than the perceptual capability the human race has yet been able to grasp.  But we can develop that perceptual capacity as we learn to do what sages and philosophers have asked us to do for ages: listen to and follow the wisdom of the heart.” (The Heartmath Solution:xvii)   

            Later the authors claim that “the heart is a major conduit through which spirit enters the human system.  The qualities of spirit—love, compassion, care, appreciation, tolerance, and patience—all create increased coherence and order in the heart rhythm patterns.” (HeartMath:261)  Thus they believe: “The heart isn’t mushy or sentimental.  It’s intelligent and powerful, and we believe that it holds the promise for the next level of human development and for the survival of the world.” (HeartMath:5)

            Many do have some awareness of this higher function of the heart’s intelligence, but are confused about it—though most indigenous peoples are not--and are not sure if they should trust it.  The heart often understands through mysterious ways of knowing which we label intuitive, hunches, inspirations, etc.  The confusion can be eliminated to some extent if we know that the heart, like the mind, is in two states or aspects, but we have only one word for it, heart.  There is no ready verbal distinction, like brain and mind, for the two aspects of heart.  There is only “the heart.”  So, I am going to use the terms “heart” and “soul” to distinguish the emotional from the spiritual intelligences of the heart, for the soul of things is not only its heart, but also implies a higher intelligence, a spiritual power, an inner faculty, the intelligent “heart” of every human being.             

            The heart’s intelligence being sympathic, empathic and intuitive, implies that the psychic distance between object and subject that is characteristic of intellectual knowing is eclipsed and one can know “things-in-themselves” through direct perception, knowing from the inside out rather than the outside in.  Hence we also say that the heart is more certain.  It accesses “information” more quickly, in whole patterns or gestalts, than does the “rational” mind which must laboriously build to its conclusions. 

            Another reason for this confusion regarding the heart’s lower and higher functions is that the “soul” can be in touch with the sacred dimension of creation and this dimension is everywhere at once.  It is holy.  It is simultaneously “lower” and “higher” than human reason, the center and apex of human intelligence, the source and goal of human thought and aspiration, the alpha and omega of life, because it surrounds and therefore comprehends human reason.  The heart is the organ of intelligence that puts us in touch with this transcendent power and intelligence which is both pre-rational and super-rational: pre-rational in history, but super-rational in essence and thus always available as the perennial source of human transformation.

            The heart longs for the beautiful and the transcendent.  When the heart touches these it is filled with love and it tries to convey this spiritual experience in words or pictures.  The heart’s language is symbols.  Symbolism is the primary tool for the communication of multiple meanings and divine mysteries, a bridging device linking the concrete and material with the intangible and spiritual.  Symbols are mediums of spiritual truth and vehicles of the ultimate power of life.  Trying to convey the experience of transcendence makes the heart’s expressions “seem” irrational and overly-emotional to the “rational” mind.  But, too, the mental faculty most closely connected with the heart is imagination, that boundary-busting, symbol-forming fount of creative picture-making that always seems to people like Plato to on be the verge of perverse behavior. 

             Children have the heart’s intelligence in abundance, but schooling, by and large, either completely neglects it or trains them out of it.  Yet Jesus may have had something like this intelligence in mind when he said: "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew:18:3)  He is not saying be converted to his religion, but, rather, if one wishes to understand spiritual truths one must be converted back to that childhood mind we brought into the world with us. The union of heart and mind results in what I call ecstatic reason.  We need joy to approach the sacred, or the vibrations of its visitation will break us apart.  The Bahá’í Writings assert that: “The one true God, exalted be His glory, hath ever regarded, and will continue to regard, the hearts of men as His own, His exclusive possession.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah:346)

            Our “educational” system lacks heart, whatever it may possess of the wonders of intellect.  Without heart the universe may be a fantastically interesting place to study and delight in, but we do not belong to it, we do not identify with it.  With the heart we no longer exist in a universe, but joyously live in a creation.