HEAD, HEART, AND BEING
Your individuality can be divided--just for the purpose of understanding it; otherwise there is no division. It is one single unity, whole: the head, the heart, and the being.
Intellect is the functioning of the head, instinct is the functioning of your body, and intuition is the functioning of your heart. And behind these three is your being, whose only quality is witnessing.
The head only thinks; hence it never comes to any conclusion. It is verbal, linguistic, logical, but because it has no roots in reality, thousands of years of philosophical thinking have not given us a single conclusion. Philosophy has been the greatest exercise in futility Intellect is very clever in creating questions and then creating answers, and then out of those answers, more questions and more answers. It can make palaces of words, systems of theories, but they are all just hot air.
The body cannot rely on your intellect, because the body has to live. That's why all essential functions of the body are in the hands of instinct--for example, breathing, heartbeat, digestion of your food, circulation of the blood. A thousand and one processes are going on inside your body in which you have no part at all. And it is good that nature has given body its own wisdom. Otherwise, if your intellect were to take care of the body, life would have been impossible! Because sometimes you may forget to breathe--at least in the night, how will you breathe while you are asleep? You are already so confused just with thoughts; in this confusion, who will take care about the blood circulation, whether the right amount of oxygen is reaching your cells or not? Whether the food that you are eating is being analyzed into its basic constituents, and those basic constituents are sent where they are needed? And this whole, tremendous amount of work is done by instinct. You are not needed. You can remain in a coma; still the body will continue to work.
Nature has given all essential functions of your body to instinct, and it has left all that makes your life meaningful ... because just to exist, just to survive, has no meaning. To give meaning to your life, existence has given intuition to your heart. Out of your intuition arises the possibility of art, of aesthetics, of love, of friendship--all kinds of creativity are intuitive.
Intellect has its use, but by some misfortune it has become the master of your whole being. That has created immense troubles in the world.
But the marketplace does not need your intuition. It does not deal in love, in your sensibilities; it deals with solid and mundane things. For that, your intellect--which is the most superficial part--functions. Intellect is for the mundane life with others in the marketplace, in the world, to make you capable of functioning. It is mathematics, it is geography, it is history, it is chemistry--all science and all technology are created by your intellect. Your logic and your geometry are useful--but the intellect is blind. It simply goes on creating things, but it does not know whether they are being used for destruction or for creation. A nuclear war will be a war created by intellect.
Intellect has its use, but by some misfortune it has become the master of your whole being. That has created immense troubles in the world.
The master is hidden behind these three: the body, the mind, the heart. The master is hidden behind all these three--that is your being. But you never go inward; all your roads go outward,all your senses go outward. All your achievements are out there in the world.
Intellect is useful in the world, and all your educational systems are techniques to avoid the heart and take your energy directly to your head. The heart can create troubles for the head--the heart knows nothing of logic. The heart has a totally different center of functioning, and that is intuition. It knows love, but love is not a commodity of any use in the world. It knows beauty, but what are you going to do with beauty in the marketplace?
Nobody wants his or her children to become musicians or painters or dancers. Everybody wants them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, because those professions pay.
The people of the heart--the painters, the poets, the musicians, the dancers, the actors--are all irrational. They create great beauty, they are great lovers, but they are absolutely unfit in a society that is arranged by the head. Your artists are thought by your society to be almost outcast, a little bit crazy, an insane type of people. Nobody wants his or her children to become musicians or painters or dancers. Everybody wants them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, because those professions pay. Painting, poetry, dance, are dangerous, risky--you may end up just a beggar on the street, playing on your flute.
The heart has been denied--and by the way, it will be useful to remember that the denial of the heart has been the denial of the woman. And unless the heart is accepted, the woman cannotbe accepted. Unless the heart has the same opportunity to grow as the head, the woman cannot have liberation. The woman is heart and the man is head. The distinction is clear.
Instinct, nature has taken in its own hands. And whenever you interfere with instinct, you create perversions. All the religions have been doing that; every religion has been interfering with the body--and the body is absolutely innocent, it has never done anything wrong. If you accept the body in its absolute naturalness, it will help you tremendously. It will help your heart, nourish your heart. It will help your intelligence to become sharper, because the nourishment for the intellect comes from the body, nourishment to the heart comes from the body. And if your head, your heart, and your body are all in a symphony, then to find your being is the easiest thing in the world. But because they are in conflict, your whole life goes on being wasted in that conflict, conflict between instinct and intellect and intuition.
I am not against anything. I am only against disharmony, and because your head is creating the most inharmonious situation, I want your head to be put in its right place. It is a servant, not a master.
A wise person creates a harmony between the head, the heart, and the body. In this harmony comes the revelation of the source of one's life, the very center, the soul. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible--not only to human beings but in this whole universe, nothing more is possible.
I am not against anything. I am only against disharmony, and because your head is creating the most inharmonious situation, I want your head to be put in its right place. It is a servant, not a master. As a servant it is great, helpful.
A Dublin milkman has just finished his delivery, so he parks his horse and cart outside the pub and goes in for a drink. Refreshed after an hour, he comes out to find his horse painted bright green. Angry, he strides back into the pub and demands, "Which of you just painted my horse green?"
A seven-foot Irish giant stands up and, towering over him, says, "I did. Want to do something about it?"
The milkman gives a sickly grin and says, "I just came in to tell you, the first coat is dry!"
Intellect is helpful! In some situations you will be in need of intellect--but only as a servant, not as a master.
PAST PRESENT, AND FUTURE
You have a past and you have a present and you have a future. Instinct is what belongs to your animal past. It is very old, solid; it is the inheritance of millions of years. And when I say it is animal-like, I am not condemning it. With the word animal the priests of all religions have associated some condemnation--but I am simply stating a fact, with no condemnation at all. Our past was an animal past. We have passed through all kinds of animals; our evolutionhas been from fish up to man, passing through all the species of animals. It has been a long, long journey to arrive at mankind.
Intellect is human. It is our present. That's how we function, through intellect. All our sciences, all our businesses, all our professions, whatever is going on in the world--our politics, our religion, our philosophy--they are all based on intellect. Intellect is human.
Instinct is almost infallible because it is so old, so ripe, so mature. Your eyes are blinking--are you doing it? They go on doing it by themselves--this is instinct. Your heart is beating, your breathing is going in and out; it is not up to your intellect to look after all these essential things of life. They are in the hands of instinct because instinct is absolutely infallible. It never forgets to breathe, it never forgets anything.
Your heart is beating, your breathing is going in and out--all these essential things of life are in the hands of instinct because instinct is absolutely infallible. It never forgets anything.
The intellect is fallible because it is new, a recent arrival. It is just groping in the dark, still trying to find out what it is and where it belongs. And because it does not have roots in experience, it substitutes experience with beliefs, philosoph...
