72 § Heart and Brain

In the review Vers l'Unité (July-August and September-October, 1926), under the signature of the Mme. Th. Darel, there is an article in which there are certain considerations that some close, in some respects, to what we ourselves have said elsewhere. Some reservations might be made about various expressions which fall short of the precision that is called for; but we do not think it will be any the less of interest to quote here several passages. If there is an essential movement, it is that which makes of man a vertical being, of voluntary stability, a being whose ideal impulses, whose prayers, whose purest and most elevated sentiments rise as incense towards heaven. Of this creature, the Supreme Being made a temple within the Temple, and for this endowed him with a heart, that is to say an immutable point of support, with a centre of movement making man adequate to his origins, similar to his First Cause. At the same time, it is true, man was provided with a brain; but this brain, whose innervation is a characteristic of the entire animal kingdom, is de facto subject to a secondary movement (with respect to the initial movement). The brain, instrument of the thought enclosed within the world and transformer of this latent thought for the use of man and of the world, thus makes it realisable by its mediation. But the heart alone, by a secret aspiration and expiration, allows man to remain united to his God and to be living thought. Thus, thanks to this royal pulsation, man preserves his promise of divinity, and he unfolds under the aegis of his Creator, careful of his law, happy with a blessed power that belongs uniquely to him, to ravish himself from himself, in turning to the secret way that leads from his heart to the universal Heart, to the divine Heart . . . Fallen back to the level of animality, however exalted he may have the right to call his animal status, man henceforth can use only the brain and its appendages. So doing, he lives only by its transformative possibilities; he lives by the latent thought spread throughout the world; but it is no longer in his power to be living thought. Nevertheless, the religions, the saints, even the monuments erected under the sign of a no longer existing spiritual order, speak to man of his origin and of the privileges which attach to it. However little he may desire it, he has only to focus his attention exclusively on the needs inherent in his relative state, and his attention can then exert itself to re-establish equilibrium within, to recover happiness ... The excess of his deviations leads man to recognise their inanity. Out of breath, here he is, instinctively falling back upon himself, taking refuge in his own heart and, timidly, trying to descend into its silent crypt. There, the vain noises of the world are quietened. If some are still to be heard, it is because the depth has not yet been attained, the august threshold has not yet been crossed ... The world and man are one. And the Heart of man, the Heart of the world are one single Heart. --- Our readers will find here immediately the idea of the heart as centre of the being, an idea which, as we have explained (and we shall return to it again), is common to all the ancient traditions that spring from the Primordial Tradition, the vestiges of which are still to be met with everywhere by whoever knows how to see them. They will also find the idea of the fall, that cast man far away from his original centre and interrupted for him the direct communication with the 'Heart of the World' that was a normal and permanent feature of the Edenic state.[1] Finally, they will find here, as regards the central role of the heart, the indication of the double movement, centripetal and centrifugal, comparable to the two phases of respiration.[2] It is true that in the passage that we are now going to cite, the duality of these movements is related to that of the heart and of the brain, which seems at first sight to introduce some confusion, although it could also be upheld from a slightly different viewpoint, where heart and brain are considered as somehow constituting two poles in the human being. With man, the centrifugal force has for its organ the Brain, and the centripetal force the Heart. The Heart, seat and preserver of the initial movement, is represented in the corporeal organism by the diastolic and systolic movement which continually brings the blood, generator of physical life, back to its propelling agent, and drives it out again to irrigate the field of its action. But the Heart is still something more. Just as the sun, while diffusing the emanations of life, retains the secret of its mystical royalty, the Heart assumes subtle functions not discernable by him who is not dedicated to a life of depth and who has not concentrated his attention on the inward kingdom of which he is the Tabernacle .... The Heart, in our sense of the word, is the seat and the preserver of cosmic life. The religions that have made a sacred symbol of the Heart know this, as did the builders of cathedrals who erected the holy place at the heart of the Temple. They know it, too, who in the most ancient traditions, in the most secret rites, withdrawing from discursive intelligence, imposed silence on their brain in order to enter into the Sanctuary and there to raise themselves beyond their relative existence to the Being of being. This parallelism of the Temple and the Heart brings us back to the double mode of movement which, for the one part (vertical mode), raises man beyond himself and frees him from the process that belongs to manifestation; and for the other (horizontal or circular mode), makes him participate in this manifestation in its entirety. The comparison of the Heart and the Temple, which is alluded to here, we had found especially emphasised in the Hebrew Kabbala;[3] and as we have already said, the opinions of certain theologians of the Middle Ages that liken the Heart of Christ to the Tabernacle or to the Ark of the Covenant[4] can be related to this. On the other hand, regarding the vertical and horizontal movement, this has to do with an aspect of the symbolism of the cross, especially developed in certain Muslim esoteric schools, of which we shall perhaps speak someday.[5] It is, in fact, this symbolism that is the theme of what follows in the same article, and we shall take from it one last citation, the beginning of which can be related to what we have said about symbols of the centre, the cross in a circle, and the swastika. The Cross is the cosmic sign par excellence. As far back as we are able to go in time, the Cross represents that which unites, in their twofold meaning, the vertical and the horizontal. It makes the movement that belongs to them participate in a single centre, a single generator .... How can a sign susceptible of responding so completely to the nature of things not be accorded a metaphysical meaning? By becoming the almost exclusive symbol of the divine crucifixion, the Cross has but accentuated its sacred significance. Indeed, if from the beginning this sign represented the connections of the world and of man with God, it became impossible not to identify the Redemption with the Cross, impossible not to nail on the Cross the Man whose Heart is in the highest degree representative of the divine in a world forgetful of this mystery. If we made an exegesis here, it would be easy to show to what point the Gospels and their profound symbolism are significant in this respect. Christ is more than a fact, more than the great Fact of two thousand years ago. His figure is for all the ages. It rises from the tomb wherein relative man descends, to resurrect incorruptible in the divine Man, in the Man redeemed by the universal Heart which beats in the Heart of Man, whose blood is poured out for the salvation of man and of the world. The last remark, though expressed in somewhat obscure terms, agrees fundamentally with what we have said about the symbolic value of historical facts, and especially the facts of sacred history, apart from their own reality as facts and, of course, without that reality being in any way affected; but it is not on these considerations that we propose to dwell at present. What we wish to do, taking advantage of the opportunity given us by these quotations, is to return to the question of the relationships between the heart and the brain, or the faculties represented by these two organs. We have already made some remarks on this subject[6] but we think it will not be without interest to develop it somewhat further. --- We have just seen that in a sense one can consider the heart and the brain as two poles, that is, as complementary elements. This perspective of complementarity does in fact correspond to a reality of a certain order, at a certain level, so to speak; it is even less outward and less superficial than the point of view of opposition pure and simple, which none the less also contains a part of the truth, but only when one keeps to the most immediate appearances. With the consideration of complementarity, the opposition is already reconciled, at least up to a certain point, its two terms as it were balancing one another. Nevertheless, this point of view is still insufficient by the very fact that it none the less leaves a duality. To say that there are in man two poles or two centres between which there can be antagonism or harmony as the case may be is true when man is considered in a certain state; but is it not a state which could be called 'uncentred' or 'disunited' and which, as such, characterises only fallen man, who is-we repeatman cut off from his original centre? It is at the very moment of the fall that Adam becomes 'cognizant of good and evil' (Genesis 3: 22), that is, he begins to consider all things under the aspect of duality. The dual nature of the 'Tree of Knowledge' becomes evident to him when he finds himself cast out of the place of the initial unity, to which the 'Tree of Life' corresponds.[9] However this may be, it is certain that if the duality indeed exists in the being, this can only be from a contingent and relative point of view; once we place ourselves at a deeper and more essential point of view, or if we consider the being in the state corresponding to this, than the unity of this being is thereby re-established.[10] The relation between the two elements which were first apparently in opposition, then complementary, becomes something else: it is a relationship, no longer of correlation or of coordination, but of subordination. The two terms of this relationship, in fact, can no longer be placed on the same level, as if there was between them a kind of equivalence; on the contrary, one depends upon the other through having in it its principle; and such is indeed the case for what is represented respectively by the brain and the heart. In order to make this clear, we shall return to the symbolism we have already mentioned,[11] according to which the heart is assimilated to the sun and the brain to the moon. Now the sun and the moon, or rather the cosmic principles represented by these two heavenly bodies, are often represented as complementary, and in fact they are so from a certain point of view. A certain parallelism or symmetry is then established between them, of which it would be easy to find examples in all traditions. It is thus that Hermetism makes of the sun and moon (or of their alchemical equivalents, gold and silver) the image of the two principles, active and passive, or masculine and feminine according to another mode of expression, which are indeed the two terms of a true complementarity.[12] Moreover, if one considers the appearances of our world, as is legitimate, the sun and moon really have comparable and symmetrical functions, being, according to the Biblical expression, 'two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night' (Genesis I: 16); and certain Far Eastern languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Malay) designate them by terms which likewise are symmetrical, signifying 'eye of the day' and 'eye of the night'. Nevertheless, if one goes beyond appearances, it is no longer possible to maintain this kind of equivalence, for the sun by itself is a source of light, while the moon only reflects the light that it receives from the sun.[13] The lunar light is in reality only a reflection of the solar light; one could therefore say that the moon, as 'luminary', exists only by the sun. What is true for the sun and moon is true also for the heart and the brain or better, for the faculties to which these two organs correspond and which they symbolise, that is, the intuitive intelligence and the rational or discursive intelligence. The brain, inasmuch as it is the organ or instrument of reason, truly plays only the role of 'transmitter' and, we may say, of 'transformer'; not is it without due cause that the word 'reflection' is applied to rational thought, by which things are seen only as in a mirror, quasi per speculum, as St Paul said. It is not without cause either that the same root, man or men, has served to form numerous words which designate, on the one hand, the moon (Greek, mene, English moon, German mond),[14] and on the other hand, the rational or 'mental' faculty (Sanskrit, manas, 'Latin, mens, English mind),[15] and also, in consequence, man considered especially in his rational nature by which he is specifically defined (Sanskrit manava, English man, German mann and mensch),[16] Reason, in fact, which is only a mediate knowing faculty, is the strictly human mode of intelligence; intellectual intuition can be called supra-human, as it is a direct participation in universal intelligence which, residing in the heart, that is, at the being's very centre where lies his point of contact with the Divine, penetrates this being from within and illuminates him with its radiation. Light is the most common symbol of knowledge; thus solar light naturally represents direct knowledge, that is, intuitive knowledge which is that of the pure intellect, whereas lunar light represents reflective knowledge, that is, discursive knowledge which is that of the rational faculty. As the moon cannot give its light unless it is itself illuminated by the sun, so likewise reason, in the order of reality which is its own rightful domain, cannot function validly except under the guarantee of principles which enlighten and direct it, and which it receives from the higher intellect. On this point, there is a misunderstanding which it is important to dispel: modern philosophers[17] are strangely mistaken in speaking as they do of 'rational principles', as if these principles belonged nightfully to reason, or as if they were in some way the work of reason, whereas, in order to govern reason, they must on the contrary impose themselves upon it, and thus come from above. This is an example of the rationalist error, and one can understand thereby the essential difference which exists between rationalism and true intellectuality. It only needs a moment's reflection to understand that a principle in the true sense of the word, by the very fact that it cannot be drawn or deduced from something else, can only be grasped immediately, thus intuitively, and could not be the object of a discursive knowledge such as that which characterises reason. To make use here of Scholastic terminology, it is the pure intellect which is habitus principiorum, while reason is only habitus conclusionum. Another consequence results from the fundamental characteristics of the intellect and of reason: intuitive knowledge, because it is immediate, is necessarily infallible in itself;[18] on the contrary, error can always be introduced into any knowledge that is indirect or mediate such as rational knowledge, and one can thereby see how wrong Descartes was in seeking to attribute infallibility to reason. This is what Aristotle expresses in these terms:[19] 'Among the properties of intelligence, [$\varepsilon \chi \varepsilon \varepsilon$] in virtue of which we attain to truth, there are some which are always true, and others that can lead into error. The latter case is that of reasoning; but the intellect is always in conformity with truth, and nothing is truer than the intellect. Now, principles being better known than demonstration, and every science being accompanied by reason, the knowledge of the principles is not a science (but it is a mode of knowledge higher than scientific or rational knowledge, and it is precisely what constitutes metaphysical knowledge). Moreover, only the intelleet is truer than science (or than reason which elaborates science); thus principles belong to the intellect.' And in order to affirm still more clearly the intuitive character of this intellect, Aristotle goes on to say: 'One does not demonstrate principles, but one perceives their truth directly'.[21] This direct perception of truth, this intellectual and supra-rational intuition, the very notion of which modern man seems to have lost, is true 'heart knowledge', to use an expression frequently met with in Oriental doctrines. Moreover, this knowledge is in itself something incommunicable; it is necessary to have realised it, at least in a certain measure, to know what it really is, and all that one can say about it gives only a more or less approximate but always inadequate idea of it. Above all, it would be an error to believe that the nature of such knowledge could be truly understood by anyone who is content to look at it 'philosophically', that is, from outside, for it must never be forgotten that philosophy, like all 'profane learning' is only a purely human or rational knowledge. On the contrary, it is on supra-rational knowledge that 'sacred science' (in the sense that we have used this term in our writings)[22] is essentially based; and all that we have said of the use of symbolism and of the teaching contained in it is related to the means which the traditional doctrines place at the disposal of man to enable him to attain to that knowledge par excellence, with regard to which all other knowledge (in the measure that it has some reality) is only a more or less remote participation, a more or less indirect reflection, just as the light of the moon is only a pale reflection of that of the sun. 'Heart knowledge' is the direct perception of the intelligible light, of that Light of the Word of which St John speaks in the Prologue of his Gospel, radiant Light of the 'Supernal Sun' which is the true 'Heart of the World'.