The Cardiac Brain

This excerpt ** of a statement made by by J. Krishnamurti, was forwarded by Prasad in our XX70 group. 

You know, there is the intellect, and there is pure feeling—the pure feeling of loving something, of having great, generous emotions. The intellect reasons, calculates, weighs, balances. It asks, “Is it worthwhile? Will it give me benefit?” On the other hand, there is pure feeling—the extraordinary feeling for the sky, for your neighbor, for your wife or husband, for your child, for the world, for the beauty of a tree, and so on.

When pure feeling is corrupted by the intellect, there is mediocrity. That is what most of us are doing. Our lives are mediocre because we are always calculating, asking ourselves whether it is worthwhile, what profit we will get, not only in the world of money, but also in the so-called spiritual world—“If I do this, will I get that?”

And I - started thinking - 

Absolutely true. Very true. Most of the time they are in conflict. Sometimes it is very challenging. I have thought so much about this conflict; especially when we have to make choices between the CORRECT decision and the RIGHT decision.

Added to this is the fact that we are all "cause and effect" beings - meaning if something happens, we feel the need to attribute that to a cause. And similarly, if we cause something to happen, we expect an effect. Strictly speaking, in the scientific world, this is very true. Nature and science, both follow this process. The problem is we, as human beings, do not know all the parameters of this equation, we do not know the unknowns, we do not know their coefficients!

And we are not able to accept that we do not know.

 Interestingly, one day I was daydreaming about the good old question “Should the heart rule the head or vice versa?” And I on doing some research, interestingly enough, I came across an article by the National Institute of Health that the heart has its own nervous system and in medical terminology, it is called the Cardiac Nervous System (CNS).  This CNS is like a heart’s own brain and is called the Intrinsic Cardiac Nervous System ICNS).

So, I started thinking. When we say “heartfelt condolences” are we subconsciously or unconsciously referring to that brain, the ICNS? We don’t know. Did human beings have some latent skill to discern between the source of the thoughts?

However, when I came to the word "mediocrity" I was at my "Hmmm, let me think" mode. I had two questions 

a. Is a decision where the cerebral brain (head) overrules the cardiac brain (heart) always signify "mediocrity"

b. Is "mediocrity" something negative. Giving the benefit of doubt, the author probably may not have meant it in a negative way, but...

This is where Jairam's article* (The Hindu - March 13, 2022) on "being average" came to my mind. 

The first line read "We of the average fraternity are comfortable in our skin, better adjusted". 

So did this have a negative connotation? I re-read the article and actually confirmed that quite the opposite is true.

In fact, as I understand, Gautam Buddha is known to have asked people to follow the "middle path". Could that be mediocrity, with a negative connotation, he was referring to? I don't think so. 

When we get our blood work done and the numbers come up for all our vitals, aren't happiest when all the values, are in the middle, near the mean or the mid-range values? Now that mediocrity, is more welcome than anything else.

The examples could almost be unending.

Coming back to where we left off, we can safely confirm that mediocrity is not necessarily a negative thing. May be the author did not mean it in a negative way, after all. If that were true, the usage of the phrase "When pure feeling is corrupted by the intellect, there is mediocrity" comes in to question, isn't it?

I may discuss "CORRUPTION" in another page!

Secondly, let's talk about whether it true that when "feeling" (cardiac brain decisions) are overruled by "intellect" (cerebral brain decisions) there is mediocrity?

Let's take an example -  

A father is standing outside his burning house. He just ran out carrying his mother and 10 year-old. His other child is still entrapped inside and he wants to rush in to save that child also. He rushes in, not caring to think about the risk to his own life. He goes in and gets hold of the child and while running out collapses due to suffocation and both lives were lost.

His decision could have been to let the firemen do their job to rescue the other child, since they have better equipment and the chances of rescuing the child are higher, the other child will still have a father. We do not know when the decision is made whether the fireman will save the second child or not.

This is a very challenging situation and I wish no one has to make such decisions, in the first place. It is heart wrenching. But then, if the decision was made to let the fireman do his best, is there "mediocrity"? 

We all know this is a difficult question to answer. Our discussions could and will go on forever. There is no right or correct answer. 

But one thing is certain - THERE IS NO MEDIOCRITY, in this case.

Hence, in my humble opinion, and acknowledging Mr. Krishnamurti as an intellectual person, it is, at best, a very complex issue and the generalizing / sweeping, simplistic statement made above was probably made based on the demographics of the audience!

References

*The law of averages - https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/the-law-of-averages/article65199451.ece

** The source of the excerpt - http://w.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20110904.php?t=Feeling