Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

distinguish between what Joseph Pearce calls the intelligence of the heart and the intellect of the head. The heart itself has been in a state of hypnotic hibernation for at least around three milleniums; the spirit of life is trapped in the camouflaged caves of the heart. Our persistent inability to tread what we know to be the right path, the stranglehold of malice on our consciousness, and our paralysis in making any headway towards the goal of universal brotherhood, are reflective of the apparent triumph of our head over our heart in the yin and yang confrontation within our consciousness. “It is very hard to get your heart and head to think alike; in my case, they’re not even friendly!”407 quipped Woody Allen in his movie Crimes and Misdemeanors. The evangelist Billy Graham contended that hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything. Author Somerset Maugham chipped in, “I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell…their heart is in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ”408 Albert Einstein maintained  that the present-day problems cannot be solved with the mindset we were in when we created them. The New Age writer Elaine Matthews says, “Passion and joy, goodness and beauty, love and compassion are the birthright of every human being, built into our genes and intended by Nature to speak in every beat of our heart”, and asks, “why then do so few of us experience these wondrous qualities in ourselves and in our lives?”409 In her opinion, “In order for a sentient being to achieve a high level of intelligence and to continue growing and expanding in that intelligence, Nature has to move that being out of the realm of instinct into the realm of choice.”410 But to avoid the risks involved in such a movement, Nature has provided the evolving human being with “a second level of intelligence which would temper and balance the choices made by the brain. That level is heart intelligence ‘designed’ by Nature to give the intelligence of our brain a holistic view of its world as well as a humane, compassionate ground on which to base its world-views and decision making; its choices.”411 In his book, Biology of Transcendence: a Blueprint of the Human Spirit (2002), Joseph C. Pearce makes the same point by contending that the evolutionary structure of the brain and its interfacing with the heart were designed by Nature to reach beyond our innate evolutionary capacities.

The Upanishads proclaim that the lotus of the heart is the locus of the divine and of love, kindness, and goodness. According to the Mundaka Upanishad, Hridayam sannidhya — ‘the One Source resides in the heart’. The Kaivalya Upanishad describes the heart-lotus as

 

 

 

407 Cited in: Jen Johans. Film Intuition. Woody Allen’s Existential Crimes and Misdemeanors. 2002. Accessed at: http://www.filmintuition.com/Crimes.html

408 W. Somerset Maugham. BrainyQuote.com. W. Somerset Maugham Quotes. Accessed at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/w_somerset_maugham.html

409 Elaine Matthews. The Heartbeat of Intelligence. 2002. Writer’s Showcase. New York, USA. p.vii.

410 Elaine Matthews. The Heartbeat of Intelligence. Accessed at: http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-emotional-intelligence/matthews.shtml

411 Elaine Matthews. The Heartbeat of Intelligence. Accessed at: http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-emotional-intelligence/matthews.shtml

 

perfectly pure, free from all rajasic and tamasic dirt, free from all passions and delusions, containing within it the orbs of the sun, the moon, and fire. The Chandogya Upanishad says that as far as the universe extends, thus far extends the space within the heart. And the Mundaka Upanishad makes the awesome assertion that when the knot of the heart is finally opened, the mind will stop ranting, all doubts will be cleared, that you will stop running around knowing that you have finally arrived, as you behold the portal of the gateway to immortality. The import of all these maxims is that we need go no farther than our own heart to know the ‘knower’, to experience the divine. Yet, at some hazy but fateful time in evolution, human consciousness became mind-centric and the ‘knot of the heart’, the Hridaya Granthi in Sanskrit, got tightened, marking perhaps the beginning of the decadence of the god-like species. Man before that time, was like any other animal, free from guilt and deception. Rudolf Steiner wrote that “God, having vanished from the world, is reborn in the depths of the human heart”. But, ensconced in the heart, He seems to have gone into deep slumber or, appalled at what He could observe, decided not to intervene. Whatever it is, it was the rise of the asymmetry between the heart and mind — which some experts like the American psychologist Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1976) have dated as recent as the second millennium BCE — that has resulted in the transformation of consciousness into the kind we presently have. With the dawn of dominance of the mind over the human consciousness in human evolution, the emotional and spiritual prowess of man has weakened, and the holistic human heart became a mere physical entity. In the words of James Hillman, “the [spiritual heart] had first to become a machine and the machine become a spare part, interchangeable from any chest to any other”.412

It is inconceivable, but there was indeed a time, which is most of the history of habitation on earth, when the heart was the primary source of intuitive intelligence, the center of consciousness, the source of love, and the seat of the soul in the world of humans.

Although the heart has its own nervous system and is, in effect, a ‘specialized brain, at some point in evolution, for reasons still not clear, the heart got relegated to the margins, and the brain-dominated mind came to the center-stage of consciousness. It is this lopsidedness, this disharmony, that leads to faulty decision making, flawed prioritization, and a warped way of being and thinking. Its corrective measure involves a different paradigm which entails treating the human heart not as a magnificent muscular pump — which pumps more than seven liters of blood per minute through some 96,000 kilometers of blood vessels in the human body, a distance approximately 2.5 times the circumference of the earth — but as a generator of complex and multiple physiological patterns that have a vital bearing on human consciousness. Recent research has discovered that the heart, which has an inherent wisdom, independent of any other system or organ of the body, has an electrical field many times  more powerful than that of the brain. James Lynch (Language of the Heart, 1986), goes to the extent of linking the vascular changes registered in the fluctuations of our blood pressure with what he calls ‘the language of the heart’, which is integral to the health of the emotional life of all of us. Researchers have demonstrated that the heart routinely engages in a rational dialogue with the brain and the body via the nervous system and other pathways, and that the messages the heart sends to the brain not only affect physiological health but also profoundly influence perception, emotions and, most significantly, behavior. It is actually the central player in setting the frequency signatures of all bodily systems, ranging from the brain to the

 

 

 

412 Cited in: Stephen Harrod Buhner. The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in Direct Perception of Nature. 2004. Inner Traditions. Vermont, USA. p.70.

 

blood cells. The heart has neural cells, amounting to about 60 to 65 percent of the total cells in the heart, similar to those found in the brain and, being autogenic, it does not require a signal from the brain to beat and pulsate to maintain balance.

Although the human has been around for hundreds of millenniums on earth, the consciousness he has now, in relative terms, is ‘brand new’. And man, until very recently, has been relying primarily on intuition and instinct, the ‘gut’ feeling, with intelligence and logical thought playing merely a secondary role. Mark Hamilton (God-Man: Our Final Evolution, 1998) contends that mankind is still going to undergo one more evolutionary leap into a far more competitive being called God-Man. In the 1960s and 1970s, psychologists John and Beatrice Lacey found that the heart did not mechanically respond to signals from the brain, but was selective in its response, and that the heart actually sent messages back to the brain and the brain listened. And in 1983, the heart was reclassified as an endocrine gland, the source of a new hormone that affects the blood vessels, kidneys, adrenal glands, and regulatory regions in the brain. In 1991, the concept of a functional ‘heart brain’ was introduced, which decides when to trigger an emotion without the direct involvement of the ‘other brain’. New discoveries now offer a comprehensive overview of the heart’s intrinsic nervous system which enables it to process information, learn, remember and produce feelings, and then transmit that information from one cell to another. All these and related studies demonstrate that the human heart is a highly complex, self-organized sensory organ with its own functional intrinsic brain.413 Recent research has also shown that the human body and organs are highly complex, ‘non-linear’ organisms; which means that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The human heart, for instance, is now seen as a non-linear, self-balancing system that functions not only as a powerful endocrine gland, but also as a powerful electromagnetic generator and receiver, whose energy field is said to be 5,000 times stronger than that of the brain.

Although the efforts and resources directed in this direction are meager, it is already becoming evident that our heart is an extraordinarily versatile and sensitive organ whose domain of feelings is a parallel (though connected) source of energy, electromagnetic field, and intelligence. This new perspective on the heart’s functioning explains how the seemingly complex, disparate information of the body’s behaviors, molecular biology, and genes is organized into a single coherent picture. That perspective is now being called ‘Heart Wave’

— the body’s master key, which reflects, organizes, synchronizes, and synergizes the various ‘behavioral waves’ of the body. Although mainstream science has thus far been largely responsible for the relative neglect of the heart by ignoring emotions, and making reason, logic, and intelligence the primary determinants of human conduct and culture, it is now on the frontline of the effort to restore heart to its rightful place. Researchers suggest a strong link between heart energy and intuition as a systemic process involving both heart and brain working together to decode intuitive information. We have to awaken the somnambulant angels of the heart and destroy the rampaging demons of the mind. In our effort to alter the human condition, the heart has to be at once the locus and the focus, the catalyst and the conductor of the orchestra.

The Chinese philosopher Mencius maintained that, “No man is without a merciful and tender heart; no man is without a heart for shame and indignation; no man is without a heart to give away and yield; no man is without a heart for right and wrong. A merciful and tender

 

 

 

413 Institute of HeartMath. Science of the Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance. 2010. IHM. Boulder Creek, California, USA. Accessed at: http://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the- heart.html

 

heart is the seed of love; a heart of shame and indignation is the seed of right; a heart to give away and yield is the seed of courtesy; a heart for right and wrong is the seed of wisdom.”414 A holistic heart allows these seeds to sprout and flourish. According to the Buddhist Heart doctrine, a divine or a spiritual spark is the essential source of individual consciousness. It is the quantum Self, or the real “I,” within a human being. Although every heart is specific, hearts seem to have more in common