Our mind, and our heart. Which one rules you?

Yes, I agree, we do need both, but I think we are better off putting more weight on our heart's side of the scale, than on our mind's side. A coldly, logical, rational approach to life, is often one without any warmth to it, and it sometimes leaves prickles up the spine of anyone that we associate with too. A warm, fuzzy, gushy approach to everything can turn people off too, I expect, as well. Yes, balance is the key, as you pointed out.

@innertalks Yes, and you need to approach each situation differently. Sometimes allowing both to work in unision to help each situation.

@kaylachan I think, though, that emotion connects us more strongly than thought can. I would rather kindness, compassionate empathy, and understanding, rather than a coldly logical response, every time. Yes, we do need to tailor our responses for every situation. I agree with that too.

@Shiva49 Would a closed mind still work with an open heart though? Can an open heart bypass a closed mind? Or, in this instance, is the mind stronger than the heart, and so if it closes itself down, in its own cave, only, does it also cut off our contact with our heart too, then too? I do not think so. Even with a closed mind, input can still trickle past that mind into the real us, via our hearts. We just have a harder time implementing action to these suggestions, coming to us from our higher self, if we have a closed mind, and if we are being mostly controlled by this mind. Sometimes, even a closed mind will be opened, by some life event sometimes though, as it is impossible to keep it completely closed all of the time. The thing that is keeping it closed, is our ego. Other parts of us can still get past this ego stronghold sometimes, like our higher self, through dreams, intuition, etc...

Yes, that's one reason why we have a mind, to explore it, and to use it to explore outside of it too. If God exists, we can attach our mind to our heart and explore whole other areas of inner worlds too. We can use our mind as a receiving station to receive this guidance coming to us from our soul, from God, or from out there somewhere, as information comes to us in dreams too.

@innertalks A closed mind is darkness personified. An opportunity lost that we could regret forever.

@innertalks - Thank you, I try my best to explain it the way it was revealed to me. You're exactly right!!! We're on the same page. Thank you JESUS! That revelation of Love is what makes the difference. (God is Love) The power of Love is awesome! That Love in us makes a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us. Galatians 5:6 Faith worketh by Love. (Lack of Love/ God can't intervene, because it's a Law.) Romans 10:17 Faith comes by hearing the word of God. That goes back to the mind, where words are filtered and accepted or rejected into our hearts. (surrendering/submitting to his word) James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. It's powerful, and I get excited talking about it. (LOL) If we just allow God's word to be planted in our hearts. We can speak to mountains. Matthew 17:20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” COME ON! LOL Words are powerful; when they're planted in our garden (Heart/Spirit) trees are growing and there's fruit growing. -This fruit is what we feed and offer others around us. Example: if someone is gossiping talking bad about another person (bitter). This communication becomes a seed in others' minds If the listeners accept the word. Now bitterness/hate can spread inside a whole family, generation, race, and nation. Imagine the power of Love and what it can do. I honestly believe especially in our world today. The enemy/devil attacks us in the mind to get us off that LOVE WALK. If he can do that now our faith doesn't work. Now we can't please God. (Hebrews 11:6) Jesus told us in Mark 12:30-31 30- And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31- The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Romans 13:8 - Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Love is Powerful -Thank you for this discussion. lol..

@payout That's very well written again, and a great explanation as to how love works for God, and how it can work for us too, in our own lives, for him. Love's power even powers God, because a oneness of itself needs a vehiclelising energy of expression, and to bring actionability to the word. Love animates one fully, and properly, according to the law of love, which is another name for God too. All is love, all is God. We are all love, if we accept God's love into us, by us loving him fully too, as well as us loving our neighbours, and ourselves too. When we love all, we love as God loves..

Thanks, you have put that all very well together, and nicely explained in a way that most people could easily understand what you have said there too. I think that there is one other factor involved here though. God is love, and at the very heart of our self, so are we. We have different functioning parts of us, as does God too, our body, our soul, our mind, and our spirit, but really love should be the controlling factoring agent over it all. This is giving into (or surrendering to) God in ourselves, and flowing his love with all of who we are as Jesus Christ told us to do, and then all is well, and going rightly for our life then too. Jesus Christ told us to love the Lord our God, with our whole self, and then our lives will be rightly lived for God, and for ourselves too. This advice is given in a few places in the Christian Bible, and one such place is this one: Saint Matthew's gospel, chapter 22, verse 37. Jesus said, "You must love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind."

@innertalks From that perspective, my heart rules.

Well, the Christian Bible does tell us that God looks into our hearts, to see the real us there, and it also tells us that we cannot serve two masters. This would sort of be implying that we should have only one ruler within ourselves too, and it seems to be God's preference for us that it is our heart that rules our life, over our mind, as that is where the Holy Spirit is connected too, and where God's love lives in us too. Should our heart rule our mind, or not, then? God created us from himself, love, and in the end, we should bow to love's rule, or be like God, and live from love in our life. We should allow our mind to sit in the background as a communicator, or just as a worker, but not as the ruler, or the prime instigator of things in our life.

@just4him Yes, I try to live that way too. I never want the desires/designs of my mind to overcome the right approach of love which my heart wants me to take.

Yes, well said. I guess that both our heart and our mind can serve to focus us on our tasks in service of God. And yet, if we say that both our heart, and our mind, are serving us, what, or who, is this "us" that they are serving. It, this "us", the real "us" must be our higher self, or soul, I would think.

@innertalks Maybe...

If both try to rule, what happens if they fight, and bicker over who to follow? God says that he is one God, and so this points out to us too that we too must have some part of us running the show too. The question is which part of us is this. The shape of our lives is determined by which part of us we let rule us. Is it our ego, our mind, our emotions, our heart, our gut feelings, our intuition, a secret guide, channelled information, prayer inputs, our higher self, our soul, or what? Or, do we let go of all of these possible control agents, and just let God be himself in us then too? Can we be without such input, and grow as a tree grows, from its programming alone? Does God want us to be automatons, or free agents? Well, he gives us some free will, so I think he probably wants us to make considered consciously aware decisions about the direction of our life too. Our decisions should improve over time though, and we should do our best to grow from life, not just as a tree grows, but with our inner conscious side awake too, increasing in aware consciousness, and wisdom of application of love, and considered mind action, as we go along.

@DocAndersen Yes, there is a lot of merit in debate and consensus like brainstorming. No man is an island, and discourse with yourself alone, seldom improves yourself in any areas at all.

@innertalks somehow over the course of the last 100 years or so, we have lost the art of debate. Plato, Socrates and the great thinkers of the past spoke often of the need to debate. The need to discuss. I think if both rule, they talk. discourse leads to the right course!

Yes, our mind will go off endlessly looking for just peanuts, or bananas, if we let it do so. We can train it to go looking for other things instead, like wisdom, understanding, our soul, even God, can be found with a properly tuned inquiring mind, linked into our hearts, as well.

@innertalks I think we have been missing the forest for the trees because our mind is allowed to go haywire, dictate its terms. We need to restrain it and take charge putting the heart before the mind than the mind dictating terms to us and we getting used to dancing to its tunes. The state of the world clearly shows how grating the music is and the daily dance is worse, more like a pandemonium with hell let loose at times!

@Shiva49 Yes, most of us would agree, I think, that we are more than our just being our mind, or our heart alone. If this is so, and if we are really some type of alien, within a Human body, call, it a soul, a higher self, or some other inputting functionative, why would we try to restrict ourselves to just being one part of our whole conglomerative whole? You mention this "we" too, as not being our heart, or our mind, so what is this mysterious part of us, this "we", that we really are, our true, or our higher self. In your words, this "we" must be pretty dumb too if it misses seeing the forest for the trees, or is this part of us wringing its hands with us continually, because "we" let our minds be in control of us? If this was so, there are two "we's" here. Our higher self, and our ego-self, are both "we's", but it is our ego-self that "we", our higher self, have to try to tone down somehow, and until we embrace love with our heart, our ego, linked to our mind, seems to be stronger than our heart, linked to our other "we", our higher self.

Thank-you. I appreciate your endorsement of my thoughts.

@innertalks your welcome dear

Yes, I agree, that our feelings are usually stronger than our thoughts, and yet we should use our thoughts too to lessen these feelings, if required, and to discipline ourselves from acting out on these feelings indiscriminately, and inappropriately too. Thoughts and feelings can act hand in hand, but love should temper both of these too, I think. Place love over any other feeling, and ask ourselves, is what we about to think, or do, good, necessary, or kind, and is it truthful too. Is it the type of thought that is worthy enough for love to follow, or be guided by too?