The Heart and Mind

there is a kind of link between the mind and the other organs of the body. But this link is not a cognitive one. It exists only in a purely physical sense. The truth is that all the organs of the body act under the direction of the mind. None of the organs function independently of the mind. The error of this argument lies in the fact that an ambiguous word, that is, communication, has been used to define this link. The right word to express this matter is direction, not communication. The difference between the two is that the act of direction is unilateral while the act of communication is bilateral. The word “direction” tells us that the mind unilaterally issues directions to the organs, whereas communication means that this activity between the mind and organs of the body is bilateral. In the above argument, first of all the word “communication” was used for contact, then it was concluded that the heart was a thinking organ, whereas there is no scientific basis for such a supposition. The great loss occasioned by this error was that those who believed in the concept of heart-based God-realization were deprived of wisdom, for they were seeking wisdom in the heart, whereas wisdom did not stem from the heart at all. It is to compensate for this lack of wisdom that religionists (those who believe in one religion or the other) resort to concocted stories to make their point. Man is a thinking animal. All of man’s activities are controlled by thought. It is believed that man’s personality is shaped by his thinking. It is this thinking faculty which is called the mind. These are the words— synonyms –for the mind that occur in the Quran: Aql,