-
Mind versus Heart -
- Part one -
1/10//2004
The man without the Spirit does not
accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments
about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's
judgment. 1 Cor 2:14-15 NIV
Preface
Depression and suicide - so widespread
in our western culture today - are the symptoms of a sick society in
which a deep spiritual malaise has taken root, and almost
everybody is more or less effected. The causes of these ills will be
examined from a Biblical perspective, and empirically, according to
my own experience of the last thirty years living in two continents,
Europe and, for the last 23 years, Australia.
I believe that people suffer depression because
of something missing in their lives which has been denied them for
too long, to the point that some even suicide as a way out from
their suffering. They are ”starving” for a spiritual life,
being deprived of an experience of the sacred, by
Modernism/Rationalism, which nowadays dominates our thinking, and
which pertains exclusively to the domain of the mind -
at the expense of the heart. As
Henry Makow states in The Riddle of
Anti-Semitism:
URL:
http://www.savethemales.ca/000612.html
27/9/04
"The Jew
championed reason against
the mythical world of the spirit,"
de Poncins relates. "He was the doctor of unbelief; all who were
mentally in revolt came to him..." Judaism and the Vatican, p.116
The theory of Rationalism says that ‘reason is the foundation of
certainty in knowledge (opposite of Empiricism)’. This philosophy
values only what is rationally and scientifically proved, and
everything else is discarded.
Therefore, if society values what is rational
more than what is not, for example literature, poetry, art,
metaphysics, and religion, then the spirit within us is neglected,
and we pay a high price in suffering, getting depressed, to the
point even of death by suicide for some desperate souls.
It is not surprising then that the heart is the first to suffer.
Statistically it is heart dis-ease which tops the list of causes of
death; the brain, following cancer, is only third.
In my opinion there is a broken link between
these two - the heart (the seat of the will) and the brain (the
organ of the mind). These links are broken since the Fall, but with
the grace of God, these links between heart & mind can be
re-established, or united once again, and the healing process will
be accomplished.
*************
The Biblical Perspective
The most
obvious biblical passage that I have come across in reference to
this split between heart [spirit] and mind [flesh] is
Mark 14:38; (also Mat. 6:13), which says:
“Watch
and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready,
but the flesh is weak”.
What Jesus calls “spirit” is none other than
the will which, as he says, “is ready”; but the “flesh”, the
mind, is weak. The will is a power to be reckoned
with, for it is what makes for determination, fortitude, stamina,
courage, endurance, resilience.
Nonetheless, the will’s origin is
spiritual, for it comes from God, the primary spiritual force,
whereas the mind (psyche in Greek) is material.
Genesis 2:7 tells us, “then the Lord
God formed man of dust from the ground (material),
and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life (spiritual) - nephesh in Hebrew -
and man became a living being.
According to Mark 7:21 (Matt 15:19) the heart
is the source of all evil thoughts and deeds: “For
from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders”. According to this
biblical anthropological perspective, the heart takes the
primary place and the mind second, or even third.
Jesus says in Matthew 22:37: "Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind ”. (see also Deut.
6:5). Here again the heart comes first, then the soul, and the mind
comes third.
In the Gospel, words such as
‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘mind’ and ‘body’ are used metaphorically most of
the time, to express positively, or negatively, realities of life.
For example, the word ‘soul’ sometimes means the ego of the person,
as in ‘me’ or ‘I’; sometimes as the life-principle of the person,
which sustains him/her as a living being.
The Biblical
Anthropological Perspective
The heart is the centre of man’s
interior life, and it is here where the man’s spirit
resides, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
(Mat. 5:3) "Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they will see God.” (Mat 5:8)
(a) Soul is life, i.e. the ‘I’.
“Anyone who wants to save his life will
lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.”
[Mat 16:25 NJB].
(b) Soul and body, “Do
not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in
Gehenna” (Matt. 10:28).
Here the soul is viewed as the prime mover, or
the focal point [principle] of a person’s life. Hence, there is no
identification with soul (life = “I”), as we have in (a);
rather, the soul here is the principle of the person’s life;
the body instead is the vehicle through which the man is
enabled to expresses himself.
Finally, Spirit (rauh in Hebrew, or
pneuma in Greek] is the vital breath of life. “The
earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind (rauh) from God swept over the face of the
waters” [Gen 1:2].
The Empirical Perspective
From this perspective, the heart is the
warm abode of the will, affection and love, while the mind
is the cold residence of reason [the intelligence].
The “we” and the “I”
The heart is to people (the plural “we” - you
and I) what the mind is to the person (the singular “I”); the former
acts on the collective level, the latter on the individual level.
The heart creates relationship while in our minds we are always
alone. The heart reaches out, while the mind goes in. Our heart
makes us utter the warm word ‘we’ – in a social and
communitarian sense, whereas the mind, by the word “I”,
expresses only “the self”.
Nowadays, the ‘heart’ is regarded as romantic,
but outmoded and not taken seriously, though we still say in a
figurative way, ‘I love you with all my heart’, ‘my sweetheart’, ‘my
heart bleeds for you’, ‘from the bottom of my heart’.
Our modern society does not rank the heart
very highly.
“He has a good heart. But he acts
irrationally, illogically – he doesn’t think straight”, one
might say of somebody who is not a “rational” thinker, as if
belonging to an extinct species who do not follow reason.
These detractors most value the highly
educated, intellectual type, rather than the hearty, or intuitive,
type. They are the followers of Illuminist philosophy in which the
mind reigns supreme - “cool” or so they like to think.
This trend of worshiping the mind, “the Queen
of Reason”, did not start with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his
contemporary Voltaire in the 18th Century, but long
before, when mankind appeared on earth.
In Genesis 3:5 we read:
"For
God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil."
This passage sounds quite familiar, how in the
beginning when the original sin occurred, man fell from Grace by
disobeying God, his Creator. This passage states what happened, but
it doesn’t explain why.
Why is it that man said “No” to God from the
beginning? Why is it that mankind still refuses to obey God Who is
the source of eternal happiness, joy and life? And which one of
these two faculties is it - the will or the mind [reason] - that
says ‘No’ to God?
When I read in Genesis 3:5 of the serpent
telling Eve: “For God knows that when
you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil",
I have no hesitation in saying that the mind [reason] was
instrumental for the first sin, but only after the heart complied
with it. Because of this first evil act, our hearts were
hardened.
As the story goes: The serpent
said to the woman, "Did God really say,
‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Gen 3:1.
There was the woman minding her own business
and enjoying a peaceful morning stroll in the garden and the serpent
puts a spanner in the works. The cunning serpent puts in God’s mouth
words that he did not say. At first the woman refuted it, but later
believed. This lie, or insinuation, was as the ‘sting’ in the
woman’s heart that says, “God is deceiving us”.
But God said: ‘And
the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every
tree of the garden; You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in
the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will
die” ‘‘[Gen 2:16; 3:3].
Nonetheless, the insinuation [sting] that God
was a deceiver really poisoned [hardened] her heart.
For the serpent, twisting what God had said,
offered false reassurance to the woman: "You
will not surely die." She believed him, and at the same
time began to doubt God, His intentions, His caring and His love.
Thus the heart [and will] of man was corrupted.
The link, which bonded them intimately to God’s heart and will, was
broken. Their disobedience was an act of supremacy which said, “Me
first”. Their hearts [will] were dethroned by their own egos
[minds]. Their will [heart] was unable to perform His Will. Man
became “autonomous”, for his mind, initially subservient to his
heart, became the principal of their actions and choices. The mind
became absolute, “we are like God”, and no longer subservient to
God’s will.
As an analogy,
the “Queen” [the mind] rules supreme over the “King” [the will],
i.e. the functions of the mind override the functions of the heart.
From then on, man’s will became corrupted along
with the crystallization of thousands, millions of Egos [me, I] ever
since.
When MIND Became
Supreme And Absolute
According to Catholic Tradition, we know that
the angels rebelled against God. “Non-serviam” they said. “We will
not serve!” They refused to do God’s Will; as a result a war began
in heaven between the good angels and the rebels. The good angels
won and the rebellious angels were cast out of heaven forever.
We call these angels, devils,
their leader Lucifer, or Satan [God’s
adversary]. Lucifer – whose name means ‘morning star,
light-bringing’ - said “No” to God, because he thought, or
rather his mind told him, that he was the best of all – so
why should he serve anyone.
Therefore, Satan, the devil par excellence,
epitomizes the supreme EGO over all others who are under him.
There is no heart in him; that is why he cannot not hate God,
his creation and his creatures.
Unfortunately, nowadays, people have stopped
believing in the devil. “It is all nonsense”, or “These are just
myths and legends, good for children, old ladies and bigots”, they
say.
Of course, who is saying this? None other than
those who have been brainwashed and their will [read hearts]
corrupted, in the first place.
Do we not notice, among the majority of people
today, a trend of discounting everything of the past as oppressive,
especially if it has any connotation to Christianity? As an example,
take the word charity [God’s love], which in the past took
the supreme and absolute place in people lives. We read in 1 John
4:8 “Whoever fails to love does not
know God, because God is love” (charity).
The Reality Today
What do we see in our society today - happy
people, a healthy and drug-free civilization, vacant beds in
hospitals, life-long marriages, well-behaved children, harmonic
families, loving and friendly neighbours, hospitality reigning in
our midst, empty prisons, and politicians looking after us? I do not
think so.
Today People Think All Alike
Did we ever notice how the so-called modern
thinking has been so well standardised among the masses? The
public opinion has been created by the mass media as a means of
social engineering. We have become of one mind. We have
acquired “one mind” [read brainwashed], but are we of one heart?
Mind disorders
How many people are drugs-addicted or have
mental health problems? How many are affected by depression? How
many people, in our modern, well-informed and educated
society, attempt or commit suicide each day? Too many, for
Australia is listed as one of the top ten countries for
drug-addiction, mental health problems, depression and suicide. Why?
The “experts” of course have differing opinions
on these issues, but a common denominator is “stress” as the real
villain. But stress from what? They cannot answer that question,
because they are the problem in the first place, and they are in the
same predicament as everybody else, as the saying goes, “blind
leading the blind…”. Is this not a sort of “Catch 22”?
For a better understanding of depression &
suicide - heart versus mind issue, I use an
analogy: The sun is at the centre of our solar system, and is the
source of life for all of us with its light, heat and energy. The
moon merely reflects light from the sun, but generates no light of
its own.
Therefore, the sun is to the moon what the
heart is to the mind – bonded to each other, but one subservient to
the other. The sun, the energy-generator is the first and the
centre of our earthly life; the moon reflects light without
generating it; as the mind reflects ideas but with no understanding
when the heart is sick.
Conclusion
Depression is result of this dysfunction
between the heart and the mind, between the spirit and the soul –
there is no real life there but only the shadow of it.
Solution
We must go back to re-establishing the
functions of heart and the mind in the pristine order that
God wills for them. What I mean is that we much restore
Christianity, the religion of the HEART of Jesus centred on
the Gospel, which is faith, hope and most of all LOVE. We do
that and a new spring of life will appear.
Then depression and suicide will be things of
past.
Back
Depression & Suicide
- The Spirit of God -
Part Two
2/10/2004
Preface
In my last writing I dealt with
depression & suicide. I explained what causes these
happenings and why, largely with the help of the Sacred
Scriptures. I pointed out that the heart and mind of
mankind in our modern society are the main targets of
these two evils.
What I really mean by the word
‘heart’ is that place where the will
resides, and understanding
takes place.
"He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart, so that they
might not look with their eyes, and understand with
their heart and turn-- and I would heal them”
[John 12:40].
Now I do not want to go over the
same subject again. Though in the light of what I have
already written, I intend to develop a different angle,
particularly in relation to God as Trinity. Then
I will shed a new light on depression & suicide.
Premise
The Bible tells us that Adam
[meaning ‘derived from the earth’] was created first,
and the woman, whom God took from him, after. Although
this is a true story, if taken symbolically
the first man, Adam was a whole and perfect creature and
nothing was missing or lacking in him. Adam is the image
of wholeness that embodies the two principles, the male
and female [the Chinese
principles, yin and yang], or the will and
the reason, the heart and the mind, among others.
Once Eve was created from Adam, he
became two “bodies”, but one flesh with her.
Man and woman were created perfect. Then their will was
God’s will, and their hearts beat in harmony with God’s
creation. Moreover their minds were one and in unison
with their love for God to serve Him in everything He
commanded them to do.
After the fall, perfection, harmony
and love were tragically shattered. The spirit of God
was not bonding them as one mind and one heart any more,
but the evil one gradually and incrementally took over.
Thus the Lord in Genesis 6:3 [NAB]
said: “My Spirit shall
not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh”.
That is the actual situation of
mankind; the spirit of God is far from it. [Christ,
through his death and resurrection, re-established
everything in him, but that is another topic, which I
won’t touch here.]
Trinity
Jesus told us that God is
His Father, and after he ascended in heaven he
sent us the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Church always
understood that God is one, but Three Persons: the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
According to Jesus, the Father
comes first and His Will also:
“If
you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide
in his love”, [John 15:10]
"When you have lifted up the
Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that
I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the
Father instructed me”, [John 8:28].
“Just
as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the
Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me”,
[Mat 12:50].
“For
whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my
brother and sister and mother," [John 6:57].
Hence, the Father is the
first. In the relation to the Son, the
Will and love of the Father is the principal
and of utmost importance, for the Father’s will is the
Son’s will – for in God there are not two wills but one.
This will is the heart of God; and the
heart of God is the source of power, with which all
things on earth and in heaven are created.
Therefore, one is the
Father, one is the Son, and one
is the Spirit of Truth, Love and
Life that bonds them together as Three Persons
but one God.
Hence, unity [and perfection
in their relationship] is what makes God, God. In God
there is no division or conflict, but one Will,
one Mind and one Spirit. The Will
of God is His creative power, which comes from His
heart; the Mind of God is the Son that is His
Wisdom
and Knowledge; and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of Truth and the bonding Love that united
them as one indivisible Divine God.
Mankind was created for God, as we
see in Gen 1:27,
“God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them”
[NIV]. Or
“God
created man in his image; in the divine image he created
him; male and female he created them”. [Gen
1:27; NABWRNT]
That means mankind was designed
[created] in God’s image in perfect wholeness and with
one will, one soul, and one mind. Since the fall, the
will of mankind has been tarnished and corrupted, his
heart hardened and became callous, devoid of
understanding and unable to do God’s will; while his
soul is subject to suffering and death,
and harmony between his mind [reason] and his will no
longer subsist. The functions of the will and reason are
separated, because the spirit of God does not dwell
in them.
Let me illustrate with an analogy.
The Father is to the Son and the
Holy Spirit what the sun is to the moon and the earth:
¨
The Father generates the Son, the
Son in return loves the Father and this exchange [or the
result of their relationship] begets the Holy Spirit
that is the divine bonding Love between the Father and
Son.
¨
The sun gives both light and heat
to the earth. The moon is the beneficiary of this same
light, which then is reflected back to the earth. The
sun is the primary source of light, heat and energy; the
earth receives it and transforms it, i.e. life.
As far as the earth is concerned,
after the sun, the moon takes a secondary place, because
from our point of view it is seen mostly at night and
with a clear sky. However, by its sea-tides and its
attractions exercised over the earth during its various
phases, the moon effects the rotation of crops, and
plants, among other things, and is a life-stabilizer on
earth.
Depression & Suicide
To use a totally different analogy,
depression is like an eclipse of sun, when the moon is
situated between the sun and the earth – the sun
disappears from sight and the light of the sun is
temporarily obstructed causing darkness over the earth.
In other words, during the eclipse, the
moon [read the
mind] for a while
obstructs the sun
[read heart]
from shedding its light over the earth [read
ME], consequently
an unforeseen night
takes place.
From a non-Christian point of view,
what I am stating here is pure nonsense. But is it,
really?
For
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things
that come from the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them,
because they are spiritually discerned. The
spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he
himself is not subject to any man's judgment”. [1
Cor 2:14-15; NIV]
AMEN
Last
revised: 26/3/2005
In
Greek, Psyche, or Ego. “For whosoever <hos:G3739 -
an:G302> will <thelo:G2309> save <sozo:G4982> his
life <psuche:G5590> shall lose
<apollumi:G622> it: and whosoever <hos:G3739 -
an:G302> will lose <apollumi:G622> his life <psuche:G5590>
for my sake <heneka:G1752> shall find
<heurisko:G2147> it.” [From the Grk & Heb Mat
16:25].
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