10.

10 - Emotional liquidity that is above, not below, intellectual

solidity
We may sometimes wonder how to harmonize the two aspects of our human
personality: the head and the heart. A preponderance of the head makes us so
intellectually solid that we become impervious to essential human emotions. At the
other extreme, a preponderance of the heart makes us so emotionally liquid that we
lose the solid ground of essential human rationality.

Gita wisdom puts first things first: understanding self-identity comes before achieving
inner harmony. When we, despite being immortal souls, mistakenly identify ourselves
with our mortal bodies, our worldview and pleasure-quest gets restricted to the
material realm. Within this shrunk vision, excessive emotional liquidity makes us
sentimentally crave for material pleasures; we live in denial of the reality that
temporary pleasures can never satisfy our longing for permanent happiness. In Vedic
parlance, this is the path of karma. Excessive intellectual solidity makes us want to give
up all emotions, even our craving for pleasure; we live in denial of the reality that we
can’t live without pleasure. In Vedic parlance, this is the path of jnana.

Gita wisdom integrates both these paths in a higher-level synthesis that eliminates their
futile denials. That synthesis is the path of bhakti, which expands our vision to perceive
our spiritual identity. Understanding our identity helps us regain a viable intellectual
solidity that launches us into a whole new universe of spiritual emotions. This universe
is permeated with flowing and flooding emotions, but that emotional liquidity is above,
not below, intellectual solidity. This emotional flow doesn’t drag us down into material
illusion, but moves us up towards the highest spiritual reality, Krishna, as indicated in
the Bhagavad-gita (10.10).

It is in this bhakti universe that our head and heart attain the perfect balance and we
relish the ultimate fulfillment.