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The Heart and Emotions
We’ve come to the third plane which is called the emotional plane. This plane deals with heart and through heart, it deals with a wide variety of emotions that heart may generate. It is only due to the existence of this plane within us that some of the most meaningful words like beauty, love, joy, happiness and other such words have a place in the dictionary of every language, as well as in our lives. However, the relevance as well as the presence of these words or emotions may differ in percentage, in case of different people; depending on the strength of their emotional planes.
Looking at the word ‘Beauty’, we’ll simply not be able to feel any type of beauty and hence we won’t need this word in our dictionaries, if we don’t have emotional plane. This is because, though the intellect deals with information, facts, logics, calculations, analysis and conclusions; it doesn’t deal with feelings. Hence when it comes to beauty, only your heart can feel it and your intellect is absolutely incapable of feeling the beauty of anything as it can’t feel anything to start with. All the feelings and emotions are dealt with by the emotional plane through your heart and this is why heart is considered as the most important entity within you, by the people who deal in emotions.
It should be noted that among the important entities within you, like intellect, heart, ego and conscience; only your heart and intellect have the ability to act independently and all other entities need help from one or both of these entities in order to carry out their operations. This means that your intellect can do all the calculations on its own and it doesn’t need help from the other entities. Similarly, your heart can generate all types of feelings and emotions on its own and it also doesn’t need help from the other entities.
However, when it comes to your ego and conscience, they don’t have the ability to do anything directly and both of them depend on your intellect as well as on your heart; in order to carry out their operations. Though your conscience can do certain things on its own; it still needs one of these entities to give expressions to those things, in most cases. Moving ahead, when it comes to your ego, it can’t calculate anything on its own like your intellect and it can’t feel anything on its own like your heart. Your ego is more like an application which can control both your intellect as well as your heart and hence it can get what it wants through them.
For example, your ego can’t make any calculations or analysis like your intellect does but it can control or possess your intellect and tell it how to make calculations in different situations. It means that the calculations may still be done by your intellect in all types of situations, but the nature of such calculations can be imposed on your intellect, by your ego. For instance, when you try to settle a property division with your brother, your ego may control your intellect and it may tell it to use its abilities in a way that you or so to say your ego gets as much as it can, through this division.
You can consider the ego like a virus which corrupts the system it possesses and hence such system can’t work in its natural way. The moment the ego possesses this system which is your entire existence; it starts operating this system; in any way it wants. The ego can possess your body, intellect and heart; and through them, it can control each and every activity which needs one or more of these entities. The entities that ego can’t control or possess are your conscience and your soul and hence they always remain pure.
It should be noted that your soul can neither be controlled nor damaged in any way by your ego. However when it comes to your conscience, it can’t be controlled or possessed by your ego, but it can suffer damages through the hands of your ego. It means as your ego becomes stronger, it reduces the percentage and quantum of conscience you have as these two entities are in constant war within your existence and they try to damage each other as much as they can. We’ll discuss this topic in detail, later on.
When it comes to your conscience, it is also dependant on your intellect and heart to get things done through them, like your ego. Your conscience can also control your body, intellect and heart just like your ego can; though your conscience does so to improve the performance of your system and not in order to gain benefits through it, as we’ll discover later on. Hence your ego and conscience need your intellect, heart and even your body in order to get a number of things done, in most cases.
In order to understand this concept in a better way, imagine a property was purchased jointly by you and your younger brother, though the percentages of investments made by each one of you may be different. Let’s suppose you made an investment of 60% and your brother made an investment of 40% in this property, many years back. Now for some reasons, a division of this property is under consideration. Let’s suppose you’re a person ruled by ego and your basic type is intellectual type. It means you’re an intellectual person having high ego. In this case, your ego may control your intellect and it may tell your intellect to find out a way which may bring maximum profit to you through this division.
It should be noted that if there is no ego and only your intellect is doing this calculation; the matter may be decided in a very practical and intellectual way. Your intellect may simply let your brother know that the property should be divided in the ratio of 60% to 40% as investments were also made in the same ratio. Hence it looks like a practical solution based on fair calculations. This is what your intellect does when it is exhibiting in its independent state and it is not being controlled by any other entity like ego or conscience.
However, as your ego controls your intellect, the way it operates changes. This is because your ego doesn’t care about what is practical or fair, and all it cares for is to get more and more; and to possess more and more. The only objective of your ego is to gain advantage over everyone and everything; and it is not concerned with the ways through which such advantages may be gained. This is why your ego may often land you in troubles because it controls and misuses the abilities of your intellect, heart and even those of your body in order to satisfy itself and such misuse often brings problems to you; according to the law of karma.
Hence your intellect controlled by your ego may start finding ways to get as much as it can from this property division and it is not concerned about what is practical or fair. It should be noted that the definition of fair is different for all four of these entities and they don’t have a common definition of what is fair. In fact, these four entities called intellect, heart, ego and conscience may have different definitions for most words and this is what makes us very complex in nature as we have a number of definitions for every word or situation; as all these entities lie within us.
When operating independently, your intellect defines ‘fair’ as the resultant of unbiased calculations done in a particular case. Since we’re living in intellectual world and most of the laws as well as other systems have been designed with the help of intellect, the definition of fair for intellect may be the prevalent definition of fair in most cases. This is because the intellect has delivered this definition for different situations and hence it may reach the same definition when put under similar conditions; unless controlled by another entity.
The definition of ‘fair’ in case of your ego is something that brings you maximum gains; thereby bringing it maximum satisfaction. As a result, the definition of fair according to the ego may look biased and unfair according to prevalent norms; as such norms have been set up by uncorrupted intellect, in most cases. Coming to your heart, it may define the word fair in an altogether different way, depending on what it feels like at that moment.
For instance, if you’re a heart dominated person; your heart is not controlled by your ego and it is inclined towards your brother; you may ask your brother to decide this settlement in whichever way he wants. As a result, even if your brother divides this property in the ratio of 50-50 which is unfair according to your intellect, your heart may happily accept it and it may even consider this division fair. When it comes to your heart, a deal of 50-50 may be equal to a deal of 60-40 or even to a deal of 0-100. This is why the word fair rings different bells to your heart.
However, if your heart is controlled by your ego, it only means that your heart will be misused. Accordingly, your heart may be pushed by your ego to define the word fair in a way that the latter may receive satisfaction from the division. You should know that love is the natural emotion of your heart and hate is introduced by your ego. Therefore, as long as your heart remains unaffected by your ego; you are able to love purely. On the other hand, as your ego starts controlling your heart, the ratio of hate in your heart and the ratio of control in your overall personality may start increasing. Hence, if your ego controls your heart in this case, a different type of meaning for the word fair may be found.
An interesting thing to note is that though your ego can control your body, intellect and your heart; and their natural expressions may get distorted due to the corruptions introduced by your ego; the results will be different in the same situation; depending on your personality type. It means that though your ego can control these entities, your overall personality type is still decided by the plane which is the most developed. For instance, if your emotional plane is the most developed one; your natural expressions in most situations may come from the heart and not from the body or intellect; if the ego doesn’t corrupt these entities.
If your ego controls these entities, your natural expressions may still come from your heart as it is the strongest among all three entities; though these natural emotional expressions will be corrupted by your ego. Hence if you’re an emotionally dominated person with high ego; your natural response in most situations is an emotional response controlled by ego. As already explained, the ego doesn’t have an independent system of its own and it operates through these three entities. Accordingly, it can’t make you express yourself intellectually in most situations; if you don’t have much intellect to start with. It means your ego can get things done through your intellect, heart or body but it can’t change the strength of these entities; especially in the short run.
Since the ego loves the best thing among a number of things; it may control the strongest one among these entities in order to get things done. Hence if you’re an intellectual type which means your mental plane is the strongest among the three planes; your ego loves your intellect much more than your body and heart. Accordingly; most of your actions and reactions may be intellectual ego type, which means intellectual actions corrupted by ego. On the other hand, if your emotional plane is the strongest one; your ego loves your heart the most and hence most of your actions will be emotional ego type; which means corrupted emotional actions; as we’ll find out soon.
Similarly, if your physical plane is the strongest one; your ego loves your body the most and hence most of your actions may be physical ego type, which means corrupted physical actions. Therefore, your physical body may be corrupted or misused the most by your ego in this case; as it is the most dominant among all three entities and accordingly; it is more likely to give an outward expression to what your ego wants.
If this is the case, your body may be misused by your ego which means you may have a disagreement with your brother and you may engage in a physical fight with him. You don’t care about fair division and all you care for is to beat him up, if he doesn’t settle the way you want. This is because your ego is controlling your actions and your body is the weapon for your ego in this case. As a result, your ego uses this weapon against your brother and hence you may beat your brother up.
Moving to the second possibility, if you’re an intellectual type with high ego; your ego may control your intellect and hence it may be used as a weapon. As your intellect deals with calculations and analysis; the final expression may be to profit as much as you can, through the application of your intellect. Accordingly, you may try to use your intellect to twist some facts related to this division in a way that you end up having as much share as you can.
In the third case, if you’re an emotional type with high ego; your ego may control your heart and hence it may be used as a weapon. As your heart deals with feelings and experiences on the most subtle level; the final expression may be to hurt your brother as much as you can through the application of your heart, if he doesn’t agree to do what you want him to do. Since your heart is corrupted in this case; it operates on the principal of hate instead of operating on its natural principal; which is the principal of love.
As a result, your heart may not be interested in any settlement at all or it may be interested in a different type of settlement; both of them leading to problems for your brother; depending on your exact personality type. For instance, during this meeting for division; you may bring up a number of emotional grudges from the past; against your brother and you may ask him to apologize for the wrongs done by him to you; before you may consider this division. It should be noted that since you have high ego, many of these grudges may not be justified or fair to start with. However, as you already understand by this time, the definition of fair is different for your ego.
Since the heart works in the most unpredictable ways among all these entities; the results may be surprising in this case; when seen through the eyes of intellect. For instance; your heart controlled by your ego may tell your brother that as long as he doesn’t apologize for hurting him in the past, there’ll be no division. Even if the property is shut down under dispute and the matter goes to the court for many years; your corrupted heart may not care and instead; it may feel happy. This is because all it wants is to hurt your brother if he doesn’t bow to your supremacy and apologizes; and in order to hurt him; you may also keep hurting yourself; as much as is needed and for as long as it takes.
It is like you hate the neighbor a lot and in order to trouble him; you set your own house on fire in a way that his house should also catch fire. If this is the case, your corrupted heart may fill with joy when your house as well as the house of your neighbor burn together. This is because the only thing you want is to make your neighbor suffer and you don’t care what price you may have to pay for it. As already mentioned in the third part of this book; the heart doesn’t know the language of price to start with and hence the question of profit and loss doesn’t rise in the first place.
All your heart feels is that your neighbor has hurt it, though in reality; he has hurt your ego and it is your ego which is controlling your heart and telling it that the neighbor has hurt it. Accordingly, your heart feels this pain and the only way it knows to balance this pain out is to make him feel similar amount of pain. Since money, assets, costs and material value of things are dealt with by your intellect and your heart has got nothing to do with them; any price it pays to hurt this neighbor is immaterial. It means that for your heart; a loss of Rs. 1 Million is equal to a loss of Rs. 1 Billion is equal to a loss of Rs. 100 is equal to a loss of Rs. 1 is equal to no loss at all.
It may sound surprising to many of you but this is how your heart operates. The reason it may sound strange to you is that the prevalent definitions of profit and loss have been established by the intellect which means by the intellectual type of people and they have not been finalized by the emotional type of people. In the language of the heart, only feelings matter and the cost or price doesn’t matter. Hence if you’re an emotional type of person and a friend helped you some time back by giving you Rs. 50,000 and that brought you out of trouble, this is how you may repay him when he’s in need; provided your heart is not corrupted by your ego.
If you have sufficient resources, you may even help him out with Rs. 5 million if this is what is required to get him out of trouble. The best part is that at the most; you may only feel that the equation of help is balanced and nothing more than that. I know many of you may be surprised as to how can Rs. 50,000 equal Rs. 5 million? However, if you’re surprised, it is only because you’re using your intellect to analyze this equation of help. Accordingly, Rs. 50,000 will never be equal to Rs. 5 million because your intellect deals with numbers and these two numbers are obviously not the same.
When it comes to your heart, it doesn’t deal with numbers and it only deals with feelings. Hence the way your heart sees this equation is that you were in trouble once, this friend helped you as much as it was needed to get you out of that problem, you got out of your problem only because of his help and you felt completely relieved. Kindly pay attention to two words only; as they may be the only words your heart may care for. The first word is help and the second is the phrase ‘completely relieved’. Therefore, the fair definition of help for your heart in this case is to help your friend as much as is needed to get him out of his problem so that he may feel completely relieved, just like you did.
Hence your heart equates feelings with feelings and not numbers with numbers. A feeling of help must be balanced with a feeling of help and a feeling of complete relief must be returned with a feeling of complete relief. Whether you spend Rs. 50,000, Rs. 5 million or even Rs. 5 billion is immaterial for your heart because it doesn’t deal in numbers and it instead deals in feelings and emotions. Accordingly, your intellect may see this act as an act of help which is much more in quantum than the quantum of help offered by your friend; your heart may see it equal in quantum because the end result in both the cases is the same feeling of complete relief.
It is interesting to note that even if your friend needs Rs. 5000 only to get out of his problem; your heart may do the same calculations. It means you may give him Rs. 5000, it gets him out of his problem, he feels relieved and you consider this equation balanced. Working on the same theory, your heart doesn’t know that Rs. 5000 is ten times less than Rs. 50,000 and you still owe your friend an act of help equivalent to Rs. 45,000 which is the difference in amount. As already mentioned, the numbers are considered by your intellect and not by your heart. Even in this case, your heart feels that help has been returned by help and a feeling of complete relief has been returned by a feeling of complete relief. Accordingly, it considers the equation settled though your friend may not think so, if he’s an intellectual type of person.
This is why people dominated by their hearts may prove most unpredictable at times because we decide the predictability of people on the basis of intellect whereas the heart doesn’t know the language of intellect. It is only if you know the language of heart that you may predict the next action of someone dominated by heart. Let’s now look at a beautiful incident from the life of Lord Krishna, in order to understand the working of heart in an even better way.
Lord Krishna is a powerful Emperor at the time of this incident and he possesses great amounts of wealth. One day, a janitor comes and tells him that a bagger-looking person named Sudaama has come to the door and he’s claiming to be lord’s childhood friend. Lord Krishna is busy with his queens at that time but as soon as he hears the name Sudaama, everything just disappears and before anyone may understand anything, he starts running towards the door; barefoot and calling out his friend’s name.
He reaches the door in frenzy; he embraces his friend and he welcomes him in. Everyone is surprised by the way a powerful king is treating a bagger as lord Krishna is personally doing most things for his friend. Sudaama stays for some days and then he asks for lord’s permission to leave. Sudaama is suffering from extreme poverty and encouraged by his wife, he’s come to lord Krishna, in order to ask for financial help. However, he is unable to ask for such help after witnessing the purest love of lord Krishna for him; as he feels that introducing money to this equation may take away the beauty of this love. Hence he leaves without asking for any help and lord Krishna also doesn’t offer him any financial help.
Hence Sudaama leaves for his village, absolutely filled with lord’s love. However, as soon as Sudaama leaves, lord Krishna starts distributing his wealth and he starts ordering one possession after the other; to be handed over to Sudaama. He doesn’t do so in front of Sudaama as that may make him feel ashamed. Queen Rukmini is present at the venue and she’s looking at this whole act in a surprising manner. As lord Krishna keeps assigning more and more of his wealth to Sudaama, a time comes when Rukmini interferes and she asks the lord to reconsider this distribution as she feels the lord may give him everything if she doesn’t stop him.
Hence she interferes and she asks the lord as to why is he assigning so much of his wealth to Sudaama? Lord Krishna says that his friend helped him in time of need and he’s returning the favor. He then tells her that at a time during childhood, they were stuck in a jungle for a long period of time due to bad weather; and they had almost nothing to eat. Sudaama had some rice with him but the quantity was so small that it was not sufficient even for one person and both of them were almost dying of hunger. Sudaama took out the rice, he offered a handful to lord Krishna and he kept another handful for himself as this was all he had; and they both ate the rice. As the weather got better, they both got back to the village.
Lord Krishna stops after this and says that he’s returning the help offered by his friend; many years back. Rukmini gets confused after hearing this incident as her intellect was not able to understand how lord Krishna can offer so many valuable things in return for a handful of rice. She asks lord Krishna as to how can he justify giving immense wealth to his friend in return for a handful of rice? What surprises her the most; is that lord Krishna keeps assigning one valuable after the other to Sudaama and he keeps saying that he still needs to assign more wealth to balance out the help offered by Sudaama.
The answer to her question is one of the most beautiful answers ever; and such answer can only be given by a person with pure and absolutely uncorrupted heart. Lord Krishna says that the equation is easy to understand; when Sudaama helped him; he only had two handfuls of rice; both of them were in need of it and he gave him one handful. He then says that the entire wealth of Sudaama at that time was two handfuls of rice and he gave him one; which means he gave him half his wealth.
Hence in the deepest sense, his help can only be returned when the lord also gives him half of his wealth at this time. He says this is why he is assigning one thing after the other to his name; he’s calculating whether the half mark has been reached or not and as he finds he still has more than Sudaama; he keeps adding more to Sudaama’s account so that both of them have equal amount of wealth. Can you imagine the magnitude of purity as well as the strength of lord Krishna’s heart from this act? This is what your heart can do when it is not corrupted by the ego. For heart, feelings equate with feelings and numbers don’t equate with numbers.
Let’s look at the mindset of Rukmini as well as that of lord Krishna during this incident. She’s assessing Sudaama’s act of help through her intellect and accordingly; she is not able to understand how such immense amount of wealth can be equal to or even less than a handful of rice. On the other hand, lord Krishna is assessing Sudaama’s help through his heart and hence he finds that that he also needs to give half of his wealth to his friend, in order for such help to be called fair. You see, the definition of fair is different for your heart and intellect.
The reason why lord Krishna uses his heart instead of intellect is that friendship is the domain ruled by heart and not by intellect. Accordingly; his conscience stops his intellect to interfere, even if it wants to do so. In addition to that; the lord understands that when Sudaama helped him out; he did so with his heart and not with his intellect. It means Sudaama helped lord Krishna out of love for him and not in order gain something. Since Sudaama’s help came from heart; it can only be returned from heart; in the deepest sense. Hence lord Krishna returns this help through his heart and not through his intellect.
Himanshu Shangari