In every culture, various organs of the human body are endowed with special powers. Many schools of medicine base diagnosis and therapy on the state of the principal organs. Equilibrium was to be achieved by manipulating those organs. Literature frequently mentions the heart. The pump. The heart is a universal symbol of life. It is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and does not require our conscious thought in order to function.
Science has distinguished our species with the label, homo sapiens. Thinking man. We are understandably very proud of this. But, perhaps to a fault by having to re-learn that all other life forms also think and have consciousness. If our brains are damaged, we cease to function at our full potential. However, our bodies can remain alive long after our capacity to reason has ceased. This is simply because the earliest structures in our brain architecture do their jobs without requiring conscious input from us.
Our brains are computers that adapt and mutate to our changing environment. In the fractal pattern of our existence, we apply one or another of these verbs to designate change according to the scale that we are viewing it from. With each subsequent generation, our brains have been both improved and inconvenienced by these adaptations/mutations. All occurring under laws that we are not the authors of, but rather that we are the products of. Our hearts are very different. They have worked perfectly without any major adaptations for millennia.
Now let us take this discussion into the spiritual realm. Much of our spiritual understanding depends upon our beliefs. Why? Because here we are processing non-physical things. Our brains chiefly use our five physical senses to acquire data and that arrangement carries within it, a handicap. In the same way that a sightless person experiences an increase in their power of hearing, our hearts and guts have developed as spiritual counterparts to our physical sensory organs. As our ancient abilities to gather non-physical data have atrophied with civilization in order to cope with abundant useless input, our hearts and guts have had to take up the slack.
Our Five Physical Senses can be easily impaired and manipulated. They have been reduced now to a state of ridiculousness that is similar to the Marketing concept of the Four Food Groups. Thus, with imperfect data, we try to understand our world. Our celebrated physical senses constantly misinform us. This is the cause of many of our problems. Our hearts and guts are superior sensory organs, but we must learn to utilize all parts of our being. We cannot harvest much from life using only our guts and hearts but not our brains. The trio must be used in concert in order to navigate the world we have constructed. Our hearts and guts, however, are always worthy of our trust.
Our brains are computers that have been given veto power over our hearts. This, in essence, is our freedom. This, in essence, is our responsibility before the universe that contains our possibility. This, in essence is our greatest stumbling block. This, in essence, is our arts, our religions, our philosophies and the immutable measure of our worth. Because our hearts can always perceive the truth, our character is defined by the choices we make. Freedom is often difficult. It is a walk through a fire. If we begin to make small choices, we make ourselves ready for the important choices to come. Fire can both destroy or harden a piece of wood.
I think of a Sovereign Brain. Her Advisors are the Five Physical Senses, the Heart and the Gut. In many individuals, she entertains a Sixth Advisor. If she bases her decisions on faulty advice, she is an unworthy Sovereign. If she bases her decisions on truth, she is a noble Sovereign. It is our hearts and our guts that confer nobility on our brains and ultimately make dignity possible in our lives.
For this very reason, it is imperative if we are to continue upon this Earth, that we take on the task of training, organizing and strengthening those aspects of our human brains that serve life. There are many examples to build upon. To many people, this task will seem like a going backwards and in a sense, that is correct. To others, this will be a vindication of their already ancient common sense practices. We will have to move forward together.
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