Freedom

The mind and the heart are opposites. They experience the world around them very differently.

The most important criteria for the emotions of the heart is the self, “what does that mean for me”. I can say “that does not feel right for me”, and it will suffice, no further explanation is needed. If you’ll press further and ask me “why not?” I’ll think of you as insensitive and judgmental. After all it doesn’t feel right to me.

The idea may be right or wrong, the food may be healthy or unhealthy the relationship may be beneficial or destructive, all that doesn’t matter. What matters is how do I feel about it.

The mind operates drastically different.

I hate the idea, it makes me nervous but my mind is objective and I must admit that it is the truth.

My heart is passionate; it pulls me toward its desires. It does not rest nor does it get distracted, it keeps pulling me like a mighty river rushing to the sea.

My mind is cold, I understand what’s right, yet there is no fire, no passion, nothing tugging at me to actually do that which I understand to be beneficial.

While the mind operates, while the person is deep in thought or meditation, there is no emotion. The scientist can’t get emotionally involved in the experiment, well, neither can the philosopher, or the Chossid deep in meditation. To be sure there is a time for emotion, but the time is not on the midst of the intellectual process.

When the heart is burning with emotion the mind is nowhere to be found. Try reasoning with someone who is in love, who is emotionally involved, you’re wasting your time. The heart is on fire, you are trying to extinguish a blaze with a few drops of water.

In Chasidus the love to G-d that we arouse through meditation during prayer is felt after the mediation. Although the mind has the power to awaken the heart, it can only do so after it leaves the room, it must allow the heart to digest the residue of the mind. When the mind itself is at work, the heart is bored it feels left out of the discussion.

Now here is where I must be cautious not to fall into slavery.

You see, the worst form of slavery is when I am a slave to my instincts. I understand that a particular behavior is wrong and terribly destructive, I think about it for many hours a day, yet I can’t get myself to stop the terrible behavior.

Since only a trickle of the mind comes down through the “throat” to the heart to inspire, the trickle can easily be interrupted by the “pharoh” who resides in the “neck”, waiting to enslave, to control me. To control what will make it’s way to my heart.

Freedom isn’t easy. Most people in the history of the world preferred the familiar state of slavery over the pain of fighting for freedom.

I must control my heart by ensuring free passage to the fragile yet critical trickle of the mind to the most important part of me, my heart.

(Mammar Pesach 5719)