Thinking Mind vs. Heart

Thinking with the mind, brings peace to yourself (on your decision making) but thinking with the heart brings peace to your "Self" and also to others too.

Mind & consciousness: Consciousness is the energy of the soul whereas mind is part of the material body. Mind is one of the elements of the subtle body. Just as our eyes have the ability to see and when we direct our eyes on a particular object our eyes see that object. Just as the power of seeing is the characteristic of the eye, the power of consciousness is the characteristic of the soul. Consciousness in that sense is spiritual in nature whereas mind is one of the objects on which the consciousness gets focused. Therefore, the difference is that the consciousness is spiritual whereas mind is material being part of subtle body. From a practical perspective, we sometime say – our mind is disturbed, my consciousness. The living entity in the material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil among various species. 

Every problem and solution we’ve ever came up with was a product of our mind. Every worry and excitement, every thought and feeling is a product of our mind. Everything we perceive as a reality is a product of our mind. The mind is the agent of your Mental being and it is constructed by 2 parts, The Thinking Mind and The Emotional Mind. Many mistake the thinking mind with the conscious and the emotional mind with the subconscious, or the heart, but that’s just a misunderstanding.

The Thinking Mind is like a kid with a net, in a garden, chasing butterflies. In this analogy the butterflies are thoughts, the kid is consciousness and the garden is the collective unconscious. The Emotional Mind is constructed by your subconscious, super-conscious (which is the code of your soul), your Paradigm and the part of your Heart (not your actual heart but the agent of Your Emotional being, the one responsible for creating emotions) that creates meaning linking thought, value and emotion together. This sets the rules of what will promote what emotion. If your Thinking Mind collects butterflies, your Emotional Mind gives them value based on your beliefs, and connects them with the emotion linked to their value.

Let’s say you are raised to believe that black cat crossing your road is a bad luck. When you see this happen your Thinking Mind will send the information to your Emotional Mind and because the information says black cat your subconscious links the information with that topic and everything connected to it. The belief of a bad luck links that topic with a feeling of unease and your information along with it. The thinking mind Collects Information and Shapes Thoughts based on your Beliefs and Paradigm. The emotional mind links the information with emotions and emotions promote chemicals we call feelings. Every feeling makes an impact on your body and changes its frequency of vibration until the chemical is gone and your body returns to vibrate in its default frequency. So you see, the thinking mind and the emotional must work together as one to make a difference, the one without the other is useless.

The Net Bigger: The net is the frequency on witch you think. Bigger net means higher frequency and higher frequency means More Quality Thoughts which will promote positive emotions, feelings and vibrations. Smaller net means less quality thoughts, emotions and vibrations. Your default frequency of vibration is determined by your default way of thinking. To get a bigger net all you need to do is raise your frequency of vibration or manually detach from the problem and the emotions linked to it. Learn to be comfortable using only your thinking mind for a while before you start sending “butterflies” to the emotional mind. This way you will experiment with different kind of “butterflies” having a better chance to choose a quality thought and promote higher vibrations. Higher vibrations means bigger net and doing this more often will set a higher frequency as your default one.

For the purpose of enjoying, the soul (purusha) gets situated in material nature (prakriti). Just like a person who wants to enjoy a cricket match, although he can see in all directions in the room, but his eyes and vision gets focused only on the TV screen. All these inputs are integrated and brought forward to the television. The television screen offers them for enjoyment or suffering to the soul. Similarly, what our eyes, ears, nose and other senses perceive, all those inputs are integrated by the mind and offered for perception by the soul.

The mind offers objects for perception and when the soul focuses its consciousness on the object then the soul’s desire change. For example, if the mind offers an agitating picture to the soul and the soul decides to focus on that picture, the consciousness also gets agitated, and the soul starts feeling disturbed or angry. If the picture is essentially alluring, then the soul by focusing on that becomes allured. In this way the mind proposes various objects and situations for material engagement and enjoyment for the soul.

The mind is always in a constant race from one thought to another, from one worry to another. It constantly moves from one object or task to another, never standing still. This restlessness hides the happiness that is within you in the same way that a choppy sea hides the bottom of the sea. When the sea gets calm you can see the bottom.

In the same way, when the mind gets quiet you experience the happiness that is within you. You cannot see a treasure at the bottom of a stormy and muddy lake, though it is there. However, when the wind stops, the water becomes still, and the mud sinks, you can see the treasure. The treasure is there, whether you see it or not. So is happiness. It is always here, only hidden by constant thinking and worries. Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something, forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.

Just like if a TV show is going on in the house but if we do not look at it, it will just go on and we can continue doing our work. Similarly, the mind may offer us some inputs but as soul we may decide not to invest our consciousness in it then the mind will not affect us. This way by thoughtful internal observation and introspection we can delink our consciousness from our mind. Thus, we will not get influenced by the mind’s feelings and moods and our consciousness will stay good even if our mind is in an irritated mood.

With MIND, you think on the perspective of judgment, correctness, practicality and with self concern. but, with HEART, you think on the perspective of emotions, feelings, ethics and altruism, the above holds good, for decision making and analysis. Here the heart in that sense refer more to a conceptual entity rather than an ontological entity. Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our mis-perceptions. People will always notice something about you. It might be the way you walk or the way you talk, or just simply your personality. Live each day in the way you want to be remembered. Live in such a way that people will be inspired by those unique qualities that you have and strive to live better lives for themselves. Do not look for happiness outside yourself.

Happiness is a choice. Peace is a state of mind. Both are free. Happiness is like the sun, it is often hidden by the clouds of thoughts and worries. You have to scatter and dissolve the clouds - your thoughts and worries, so you can experience happiness. You don't have to create happiness, because though you may not believe it, it is part of your essence, but is just hidden. All you have to do is calm down your mind and feelings, because when there is a quiet mind and inner peace, happiness emerges from within you. Happiness is not something far away and unattainable and does not depend on circumstances, objects or events. It is an inseparable part of your consciousness, of your essence, and comes out when your mind is free from disturbing and constant thinking.