Harmony of Heart and Intellect (Igor)

»Enlightenment is a transition from darkness of ignorance into the light of deeper understanding and awareness.«
Therefore a spiritual seeker is searching for the truth. I shall talk about two polarities, which we use for searching the truth:

Intellect which uses rational mind, and heart which uses intuitive mind.
Rational mind wants to be objective, intuitive mind is necessarily subjective.
Objectivity is the basis of science, subjectivity is the basis of spirituality.
Scientists investigate matter, mystics investigate consciousness.
Investigation of matter is based on doubt and uses verification with experiments, investigation of (your own) consciousness is based on faith and uses relaxation of mind, meditation.
Science is looking for knowledge, spirituality is looking for wisdom.
Knowledge is based on (scientific) theories, wisdom is based on spiritual virtues.
Science describes reality, spirituality feels, is aware of reality.
Knowledge describes existence, wisdom is aware of the purpose of the existence.

Both polarities, heart as well as intellect, are inevitably needed during the search for the truth.

About 40 years ago mathematics placed strict limits on what is describable by logical propositions, mathematical functions and computer algorithms. Actually, it confirmed, that the reality can only be described approximately and never completely. Any description in symbolic language, which is nowadays used by science (intellect), is necessarily only an approximation.

And this is exactly what wise men has been telling us for millenniums, in the west (Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, Pythagoras) as well as in the east (Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tzu). The truth is undescribable and has to be felt by heart, inner sense, intuition. Approximate, intellectual descriptions are of course inevitable on the path of comprehension of the truth and are useful instruments, however, they cannot provide the final answer. Everybody has to find the final answer by him/herself, inside. As Jung said: Learn well the rules, rituals and techniques and use them actively, however, at the right moment be prepared to discard them.

Intellect is a necessary support on the spiritual path in order to help us follow our heart. Mere leaning on the intuition can heavily mislead us, the traps of ego are very attractive and soon we can find ourselves in a trap of self-satisfaction and self “truth”. Such “wise men” are not aware of the limitations of the logical intellect. They accurately describe their “truth” and define it as the only “right” - in the extreme eagerness and enthusiasm they forget that for the same reality there can be an infinite number of different descriptions. This is of course the origin of many dogmatisms of world religions, as well as the dogmas supported by many scientists and, also by physicians.

All great wise men were aware of the limitations of the intellect and were pointing it out. Either enlightened masters avoid description of the truth or their description is intentionally contradictory: once, from one point of view, they give very consistent, attractive and inspirational description of the truth but then from the other point of view they discredit the former with different description of the truth, of equal quality but non-consistent with the former description. Masters don’t want that their writings would become the only truth (dogma, religion).

Humanity needs connection (union) of science and spirituality. On the spiritual path we need both, intellect as well as heart: they complement and direct each other. Without one or the other we cannot progress. As Albert Einstein said:

»Science without faith is lame, religion without science is blind.«