Using both heart and mind for decisions, especially life-changing ones

Rational people believe emotion has no place in their lives and that they only use logical analysis for life-changing decisions.

Heart-oriented people or emotional people believe only impulses from their heart are at play in their decision-making. They may make or change decisions quickly, often disconcerting rational folk.

In yoga and Sufism, both the heart's impulses (heaviness, fast beats, peace/silence/naturalness) and the mind's logic are considered valid factors in decision making. While I don't have details of techniques from either path, there is a little-known gem from Daaji that gives a nice algorithm to combine heart and mind as instruments:

https://youtu.be/iMKZebmjNnw - How to sync your heart and mind?

Delightfully simple and lucid techniques to satisfy both the logical mind and the impulsive heart.

Please watch, try to remember the points, and then watch again. Like me, you may have missed some crucial ones :-)

And for the rationalists who ask why the heart at all? Why not stick only to logic? The answer is the heart "sees" patterns across a huge expanse of data. Distributed processing across vast timeframes, even an entire lifetime, as well. Yet, its response is immediate. Making sense of the response using the slower and relatively more sequential processing of the logical mind is the crux of the issue. And Daaji has addressed it brilliantly in this video!

Two simple questions to train your mind

There are effectively only two questions one has to ask to train one's mind:

1. What am I doing now?
2. What should I be doing now?

 If both answers match, one's mind is trained at the time.

The answer to the second question obviously requires some planning - short, medium, or long-term. But the two questions are the easiest way to check if one's mind is attending to what one wants, i.e., is "am" == "should"?

A lifelong project or goal, like mukti or self-realisation, is difficult to pin down to such a simple technique. But "am" and "should" matching naturally is a sign of progress.

Per PYS [1], an untrained mind fluctuates between these states of mental attention:

1. kṣiptam - disturbed, agitated, jumpy; habitually, involuntarily reactive; rajas-dominant mind
   
2. mūḍham - stupefied or somnolent; unreactive; tamas-dominant mind
   
3. vi-kṣiptam - distracted, but with illuminative flashes; mind sattva-dominant at times, but generally overlain by rajas

Further training leads to ekāgram - willed attention on a single object, as long as desired, with a sattva-dominant mind

In the highest mental state, niruddham, sattva is totally dominant, and one's attention moves effortlessly, freed of all potential and actual distractions.

NOTES

[1] Slightly evolved descriptions than in 5 mental states.

Stalactites and separation

Think of a cave.

A limestone cave.

A cold climate.

Water seeps in from the ground above and covers the ceiling.

It freezes into ice.

Water keeps seeping in, and the layers and projections of ice start to descend.

They lengthen as icy water keeps flowing inside, and each stalactite grows, separated from the others.

Now, imagine the water in a stalactite coming alive. It wants to fully experience its original unity, its commonality, with the others. Resisting gravity, it returns to the ceiling and the flowing water beyond.

Next, imagine your mind, weighed down by its identification with your body. It seeks its original lightness, balance, understanding, and expansiveness. It wants to become subtler and relaxed, but has to strive against its own habits of painful effort, of experiencing and expressing itself grossly, through the body, and against others.

Mind Sandwich

An ice block in a brook on a warm summer day.

 

Think of its bottom and top surfaces. One is in water, the other is in air.

 

Compare it with one's mind - think of range, stability, movement, changing state or vibratory levels. (Ignore evanescence, solidity, physics of ice.)

 

            ATMOSPHERE

     {{vapour}}

     {{{{{ }}}}

          I

       BLOCK

          E

     ~~~~~~~~~~

     ~~liquid~~

       A BROOK

 

Compare:

 

    {{Subtle vibrations}}

    {{{{{{{{{{ }}}}}}}}}

              M

              I

              N

              D

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    ~~ Gross vibrations~~

 

Ponder:

What is at either end of the mind?

At one end, it's obvious - the body. But at the other?

Is there another end? Or does the mind just become subtler and subtler?