“With the persistence of a moral slogan and the liturgy of a secular mantra, the idea that we must follow our hearts has been established. This formula—repeated tirelessly in self-help speeches, therapeutic rhetoric, and opportunistic spiritualities—has managed to impose itself as an existential imperative. It presupposes that the heart carries a truth that predates language, immune to the contamination of calculation and the suspicion of thought. Affection is presented as a refuge for what is genuine; reason, on the other hand, is reduced to a defensive artifice, a machine that conceals more than it reveals. However, what you propose subverts this binary that organizes so many of our decisions: neither the heart nor the mind, taken in isolation, are sufficient to guide us fairly. Both operate on the basis of a constitutive partiality; neither can, on its own, offer stable guidance.
The mind dissects, organizes, projects. Its strength lies in the outline, in the geometry of the argument, in the distance that allows it to observe without drowning in what is observed. It has eyes, but no legs. It is capable of drawing a map, even with admirable precision, although it often remains motionless in front of it. The heart, on the other hand, throws itself forward. It does not wait, it does not calculate, it does not hesitate. It has legs, and they are fast, but it cannot see. Its logic is that of impulse, not of vision. Hence, love—not by chance—has been called blind. Not because it lacks meaning, but because it springs from a source that does not require sight in order to move. It is not love that does not see; it is the organ through which we embody it that is not made to see.
This split between seeing and moving—between understanding and acting, between distance and surrender—has structured much of the Western tradition. The dichotomy between reason and feeling, between logos and pathos, has founded schools, produced ethical systems, generated unresolved tensions, and left behind a long trail of misunderstandings. We have been led to believe that we must choose: either unflinching lucidity or unjudgmental authenticity. Your observation, however, introduces a decisive shift: that choice is as arbitrary as it is paralyzing. There is a third option, less spectacular, less invoked, but radically necessary: consciousness. It is worth pausing on this term, so often diluted by indiscriminate use. Consciousness is not an intensification of the mind, nor a purification of feeling. Nor is it a metaphysical concept floating above the body. Consciousness is, above all, lucid presence. Presence not trapped in what it feels or thinks. Presence that does not act out of reaction or urgency. It does not impose, seduce, or dramatize. It observes. It listens. It acts when appropriate, not because it is programmed to respond, but because it has seen clearly. Its strength does not come from power or desire, but from detachment. In the most demanding contemplative traditions—where self-knowledge is not reduced to introspection—consciousness is not identified with mental contents or emotional tides. It is that which welcomes experiences, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions without becoming confused with them. From this position, thought loses its rigidity and emotion loses its violence. Neither disappears, but both are transformed. The self ceases to be a field of conflicting forces and becomes a point of convergence. It is not a matter of dissolving tensions, but of inhabiting them without being possessed by them.
That place, although difficult to reach, is not a theoretical abstraction. It can be experienced. And living from there does not mean giving up feeling or giving up thinking. It means ceasing to obey without awareness. It means not submitting to the fear that the mind fabricates, nor to the vertigo that the heart demands. Living from consciousness redefines freedom: no longer as an escape from the world, nor as simple self-determination, but as a form of inner sovereignty. One is no longer a prisoner of what stirs within. One becomes observation without being captured, someone capable of acting without the need to escape.
This approach is not just a conceptual alternative. It proposes a different existential map. It is not about replacing one form of absolutism with another, or reversing the terms of the old conflict between logos and eros. Consciousness does not nullify the mind or tame the heart. It reinscribes them in a broader structure, in an architecture of discernment where each can exercise its function without seeking to govern. It is no longer a question of obeying those who shout the loudest, but of restoring each faculty to its rightful place. And this redistribution, far from being a tactical strategy, allows for something substantial: walking without certainties, but with direction. Consciousness does not guarantee success, but it makes clarity possible. It does not eliminate error, but it makes it livable. From there, even stumbles take on meaning. The value of the journey is no longer measured by the goals achieved, but by the way in which it has been traveled. Even failure, if accepted with awareness, becomes embodied knowledge.
Returning to the center, then, does not imply returning to a lost origin or seeking refuge in an essence. It implies occupying an inner space from which everything can be seen without being absorbed by anything. From there, life is not imposed: it is chosen. Not by external mandate, nor by conditioned reflex, but by a decision that arises from clarity.
Therefore, it is not a matter of following the heart or surrendering to reason. It is a matter of returning to that within us that can see both without confusing them. That—with precision, without the need for mystical embellishment—we can call consciousness. Living from there is not necessarily more comfortable. Nor is it safer. But it is more sincere and honest. Because it is there, and only there, that the act of living is transformed into embodied thought, and freedom ceases to be an ideal and becomes a form. There is no greater certainty than this: to inhabit the present from what you see, from observation itself… allowing each gesture to carry with it its transcendental quality.”
Prabhuji
