The Role of the Mind on the Path
Dear friends,
The mind is a tool, and like any tool can be used well or poorly. "Don't be so intellectual!" is the counterpoint to "Don't be so emotional!" But neither the heart nor the mind should be misused or rejected.
Suppose you were a carpenter with a full tool belt. But you were especially enamored with your hammer. A friend of yours comes and asks for help changing the lights on his Christmas tree. You say, grabbing your hammer, "Yes! I'll be right there." Willing and serviceful... but surely the wrong tool.
One cannot reason one's way into full immersion with Spirit. It is only the truly open heart that can have Divine Vision. But the mind is extremely useful in the overall process. Both Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta [a pillar of Yoga philosophy] talk about using a thorn to remove another thorn embedded in your skin, and then throwing them both away.
One can tend towards perfect discriminatory intelligence (like Yogananda's guru, Sri Yukteswar), or a perfectly open heart. Most of us (ahem!) are somewhere in the middle, so using everything God gave you is not a bad idea. The right tool for the right job, as they say.
For many people there is a strong tendency towards one or the other. If you have a weak left arm and a strong right arm, what is your natural tendency? It would of course be to use the better-developed arm for everything. But what is probably a better approach? To intentionally use the weak arm, as that’s how we build strength and become more balanced.
So do not let your mind run the show on its own, but do not run from it either. The mind can be very clever and seduce us into all sorts of trouble. That's where the clear heart can check to see if what has come to us is from Spirit or just the overly-clever mischievous mind. But that's a topic for another post...
May we each use our minds as tools to help us find Spirit, and not merely for mental gymnastics, excuse-making, or seductive but false reasoning.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West