Wednesday 18 May 2011

Rule 5: Intellect and Love


Intellect and love are made of two different materials. Intellect ties people in knots and risks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything. Intellect is always cautious and advises, “Beware too much ecstasy,” whereas Love says, “Oh never mind. Take the plunge!” Intellect does not easily break down, whereas love can effortlessly reduce itself to rubble. But treasures are hidden amongst ruins. A broken heart hides treasure.

The difference between intellect and love is often addressed as the difference between heart and mind, and this is a large topic. Sometimes we talk about the difference between feelings and thoughts. The brain researches would say that both, intellect and love, are produced by rather similar neurons which are only interwired differently and use different neuro transmitters.

But it is our experience which marks a clear distinction whether we think about something or we open up to love. Most likely, we do not just have two different systems of processing information or integrating stimuli but also different levels of consciousness, which means different forms of organizing the whole of our perception and experience.

The reactive mind is an important instrument on all levels of consciousness which are connected with feat. It serves for the collection and categorization of experiences which have to do with perils and threats so that they are available in case as warnings: “Beware, this has already put you in danger before.” So the intellect also plays the role of an over caring protector of a fearful soul. The price of this protection is the knotting: The ropes of life get disrupted and equipped with knots. Thus we always have something to easily hold on to when we are in danger of slipping down the rope of life. When we came into a risky situation, the intellect helps us out quickly. We immediately regain control when something inside of us has let go.

This is what can happen in meditation or in a deep breathing experience. We float in something much larger than we are, experience space and freedom which is fascinating and fulfilling, and  then the mind comes in and mesmerizes us by stating that it is dangerous. In an instant, the feeling of endless space is gone and freedom yields to the well known narrowness.
This is the consistency of the mind. It is a loyal watcher of our normality and reliability. This way we stay calculable and well functioning members of a materialistic society based on individual achievement. For this, we sacrifice our aliveness, the power of the heart.

For this aliveness is not a comfortable cushion for relaxation. It wants to abandon the safe haven and sail into the unknown, like those who courageously dare to step into the cold waters of a river against the advice of their minds following their hearts which tells them that there is more, more plunging into the alien, threatening and finally miraculous areas of life.

The power of the heart appears to be bound to break. It is weaker than the power of the intellect which is able to think about distractions and distortions all the time. But the heart is powerless and breaks down or apart when the circumstances become dry and loveless. Yet this breakdown is only seemingly a breakdown as it just shows a surface. In the innermost part of our being, the flame of the heart is always alive and shines for anyone who is willing to feel and to look deeper.

It does not break our hearts when we have very bad and difficult times. It breaks our trust in our hearts and we cut us off its power by starting to whine, by getting angry or depressed. We close ourselves off and hand ourselves over to our intellect to help us out of our misery. It is only when we patiently start to untangle the knots which we had tied up in order to save ourselves, that we feel our way back to the heart. And amidst the turmoil of the catastrophy, our heart sparkles like a hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered and recovered.

Mystic teachers want to liberate us from the misguidances of our reactive mind. Yet we should be grateful for the gifts of our intellect. In an integral and holistic view of development, our creative intellect plays a crucial role. We need it desperately to find sophisticated solutions for the complex problems in our world, just to name one example: As we have enough food on this planet to feed every human being, an intelligent solution is needed to build up a net of distribution which balances the lack of nutrition in many parts of the world with the excessive waste of food in other parts.


The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. www.elifshafak.com

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