How do we distinguish the heart and mind?
- · When we go to our heart, we get out of our mind.
- · When we dwell in our mind (our thoughts of ourselves and our lives) the heart closes.”
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Question from Rambhadra Priya Prabhu. How do we distinguish between the heart and the mind? What is the difference between the two? What are the distinguishing characteristics, functions, symptoms between the two? Sri Prabhupada writes the soul is located in the region of the heart and the references for that 1515-1861 in the Bhagavad Gita. So where is the location of the mind? Are there any references for the same? In BG 7.4 only the eight elements that constitute the material energy are mentioned.
Answer, the word heart is generally used in our philosophy in a metaphorical sense. Biologically we know the heart refers to the organ that pumps blood and that is definitely not what we refer to when we talk about love either in the material or the spiritual sense. So when people, even in material life they show a shape with arrow in it, the heart shape with arrow in it, they are not referring to the physical heart although the shape may be slightly similar.
They are referring to the seat of emotions. Now what is actually the seat of emotion and ultimately the seat of love? That is the soul. So the soul is the source of consciousness and in that sense the soul is the heart.
So the heart in a metaphorical sense is the seat of emotions and in the ontological sense or the sense of nature of where it exists, it is the same as the soul. Now the mind is like the doorway to the soul or the heart. That means the soul's emotions are rooted through the mind.
So now where is the mind located? Just like the other five elements earth, water, fire and ether, are they located at any particular point in the body? No, they are distributed. So similarly the mind, intelligence and false ego, they are also not localized at a particular place but they are distributed. However, their distribution is not like the gross distribution of the gross elements because the element itself is subtle.
So generally speaking when we depict it visually we say the soul as one circle, around it is the subtle body another circle and around it the gross body the third circle. So this depiction is primarily to indicate the relative location of the two, of all the three. It is not so much to indicate where a specific element is distributed, is located or distributed.
The soul we know is situated in the region of the heart. Now what does this actually mean? So here when Srila Prabhupada uses the word heart and Krishna uses the word Hrid-deshe, he is referring of course to the super Sureshwara Sarvottanaam Hrid-deshe Arjun Tishthati for that. But Krishna is, we know that he is not referring in a metaphorical sense because there is the word deshe.
Deshe is the region. So if it had been, generally speaking, if it had been a metaphorical reference they would not have been a further description of location over there. So the soul is situated in the region of the heart.
Prabhupada gives the example of how a king is seated on a throne. So when the throne needs to be changed for some reason, if it is damaged or whatever, the king remains. He just gets up and shifts to a new throne.
Similarly in a heart transplant also the heart may be changed but the soul remains the same and it becomes situated in the heart. So Hrid-deshe indicates it is situated in the region of the heart. So that would mean that the soul is in the region of the biological heart and the soul itself is the same as the metaphorical heart at the seat of emotions.
So around the soul in the region of the heart is the mind. But the mind being subtle is and being in of being subtle we can't really pinpoint it to a gross location. Just as other elements are distributed, the mind is also distributed.
Now what are the characteristics? The mind we know is characterized by its function of thinking, feeling, willing. Actually these are the general characteristics of the full subtle body. In a rough sense we could say that thinking is an act of the intelligence, feeling is the act of the mind and willing is the act of the false ego.
But this is only a very rough correlation. Actually in Sankhya which is a different school of thought and many insights of which are included in the Vedic literature, in Sankhya the mind, intelligence and false ego are often thought of as comprising of the same structural element with only functional differences. So Sankhya there is a commentary by Ishwar Krishna called Sankhya Karika.
He elaborates over there that that in the subtle realm all three are basically structurally similar but functionally they are different. So in that sense the division of these three of that one foundation structure limited with three names and three roles is for functional purposes. Now of course there are some other commentators in the Sankhya tradition who differ and neither Srila Prabhupada nor Vandevidya Vashan or Jiva Goswami take any specific position on this.
So that's why even devotee scientists to some extent are not positive about whether we consider the three to be one or different. Srila Prabhupada talks about the three in a different sense, in the sense of being functionally different and Krishna also enlists them as three distinct elements. So there is definitely some difference between the three.
So irrespective of whether they are structurally similar or not, we ultimately can perceive their existence only in the functional terms. So that's why a functional view, functional understanding is enough for us. So the characteristics of the heart is that the heart is the source for all feelings.
Heart means here the soul and whereas the mind is the instrument, the tool for the feelings. Just like we may say sometimes the mind is the source of desires, however ultimately mind is also a dead material element. So desiring cannot be done by the mind.
Ultimately the desiring is done by the soul only. However, the mind stores our past desires and acts like a multiple option provider of various desires which the soul chooses. So the function of the mind is that it acts as a tool for us to desire.
Just like say for the soul is ultimately the source of speaking, but the voice box and the mouth, they are the tool for speaking. Similarly the mind is at a subtle level the tool by which the soul's desires are expressed in the material realm. So Krishna explains in the 15th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita in the 9th verse that Shrotram chakshu sparshanam charasanyam granamevacha, adhishtai manaschayam vishayam pasevate.
So there, this is all the senses are centered around the mind. So Dutta Karmapuram gives the example in one of his articles on the Puranjan allegory that the mind can, if we consider our material existence to be like a virtual reality, then the mind is like the multimedia computer that integrates the inputs that come from all the senses. So this 15.9 which I quoted, Shrotram chakshu sparshanam, he says that all the sensory inputs come to the mind.
So just like if we have virtual reality, then all the inputs are coming together and they are being made visible on the computer screen. So on the computer screen, the person who is playing say the video game or playing the virtual reality game of say flying a plane or whatever, then that person sees the screen and based on whatever is happening on the screen, the person responds. If their plane is crashing, the person might get frightened.
If the plane is flying very nicely, the person may get elated, whatever. So this observer, the person observing the computer screen is the soul and the computer screen, the image that is coming on it is like the mind. So in that sense, we can clearly understand the difference between the soul and the mind.
However, this just like when a person goes to a movie, the lights are switched off so that the person doesn't see anything except the movie primarily. Similarly, at the material level of consciousness, we don't perceive anything apart from the material reality. And that's why the soul, although the soul is capable of having its own desires and desiring to love and serve Krishna at the spiritual level, but the soul's consciousness is currently completely riveted to the computer screen.
And that's why most of our desires at present are the desires that are rooted through the material mode. That doesn't mean that all our desires have to be necessarily always material. We can because Krishna in a sense manifests even in this virtual reality for us.
Krishna manifests as the deities, as the holy name, as the dham, the scriptures and he manifests through his devotees also. So we can have spiritual desires also, but at our level of consciousness, even the spiritual desires have to be rooted through the material mind. And so if we have, say the soul here, the mind here, the gross body and the external body.
So we know the four levels of consciousness. So at Jagruti, the soul's consciousness is rooted through the subtle body, through the gross body, the external body. In Swapna, the soul's consciousness is withdrawn from the gross body and is kept only in the subtle body.
That's why we dream and we have feelings in relationship with the brains. At the level of Sushupti, the consciousness is withdrawn even from the subtle body. And the soul is almost like nearly unconscious.
And at Samadhi, that consciousness is redirected towards Krishna. So that now, the miracle of Bhakti is that, that redirection towards Krishna can even happen through the subtle and the gross bodies. So that's why Bhakti involves this principle of using the material things in Krishna's cause always.
But Rupa Goswami explains in Bhakti Samhita Sindhu, Anju Goswami elaborates in Durga Samhita Tika that, a pure devotee, a Swarupa Siddha Bhakta can act simultaneously at two levels. That means that that pure devotee has realized a Swarupa, say as a Gopala or Gopi in the spiritual world. In that pure devotee, being in Samadhi can act according to the Swarupa in the spiritual world and can also act as whatever the body the percipient has.
So that's how we hear some pastimes where Raghunatha Goswami was an external consciousness, a Goswami, a very renounced person and an internal consciousness was a Manjari who was in the spiritual world and he overate and who got some indigestion. So basically what that means is that in Samadhi, that consciousness can be rooted outwards through the world, but it is also going towards Krishna only outwards, through subtle and gross bodies and other times it can be rooted inwards and inwards also it goes towards Krishna spiritually. So that source of consciousness is the soul, the source of all emotions, the seat of all emotions in the soul.
But so to summarize, the heart or the soul is the root, R-O-O-T, root of emotions and the mind is the root, R-O-U-T, root of emotions. Thank you.