It is common to hear people say their head leads them in one direction and their heart in another. In yoga, the fundamental basis we establish is: you are a single being. There is no separation of head and heart; you are one whole.
Let us first understand what is being referred to as the head and the heart. You usually assign your thoughts to the head and your emotions to the heart. But if you look at this carefully, with absolute sincerity, you will realise that the way you think is the way you feel. But it is also true that the way you feel is the way you think.
What you normally think of as ‘mind’ is the intellect. But, in fact, the mind has many dimensions: one is the logical aspect, and another is the deeper emotional aspect. The deeper dimension of the mind is conventionally known as the heart. But in yoga, this emotional mind is known as manas. Manas is a complex amalgam of memory that moulds emotions in a particular way. So, the way you feel and the way you think are both of the minds.
The way you think is the way you feel, but thoughts and feelings seem to be different in your experience. Why is this so? Because thought has a certain agility about it. For example, if today you think this is a very wonderful person, you have warm feelings about him. Suddenly, he does something that you don’t like. Your thought tells you he is horrible, but your emotion cannot change immediately. It struggles. If it is sweet now, it cannot turn bitter the next moment. It has a wider turning arc.
Depending on the strength of your emotion, maybe it will take three days or three years, but after some time it will turn around. There is no need to create this conflict between head and heart. Emotion is just the juicier part of thought. You can enjoy its sweetness, but it is not entirely steady. Your emotion goes this way and that, but it is less agile than thought. Since it takes longer to turn, and its intensity is usually substantially greater than thought, it often seems as though thought and emotion are different. But they are no more separate than sugarcane and its juice.
Thought is not as intense as emotion in most people’s experiences. But if you generate an intense enough thought, it can also overwhelm you. Only 5 to 10 per cent of the population may be capable of generating the kind of thought that is so intense that there is no need for emotion; 90 per cent of the population can only generate intense emotions. But there are people whose thoughts are very deep.
They don’t have much emotion, but they are very deep thinkers.
It is best not to create polarities within yourself. Thought and feeling are not different. One is dry. Another is juicy. Enjoy both.
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. He was conferred the Padma Vibhushan in 2017. Isha.sadhguru.org