Is an Intellectual More Balanced than a Sentimental Person?

In these days people give less importance to sentiment; they rely more upon the intellect. The reason is that when they meet two sorts of people, the intellectual and the sentimental, they find in an intellectual person greater balance than in the one with sentiment. This is no doubt true, but the lack of balance is for the very reason that there is a greater power than the intellect, which is the sentiment. The earth is fruitful and creative, but not so living and powerful as the water. The intellect is creative, yet not so powerful as the heart and the sentiment. In reality, the intellectual person in the end will prove unbalanced too, if there is no sentimental side attached to it.

As to the life of the mystic, there is no restriction: there is balance, reason, love, and harmony. The religion of the mystic is every religion and all religions, yet the mystic is above what people call their religion. In point of fact the mystic is religion, for it is not any religion, it is all religions. The moral of all religion is reciprocity: to reciprocate all the kindness we receive from others, to do an act of kindness to others without intending to have appreciation or a return for it, and to make every sacrifice, however great, for love, harmony and beauty.

Often people have imagined that a mystic means an ascetic, and that a mystic is someone who dreams, dwells in the air, does not live here on earth, is not practical, and that a person who is an ascetic must be a hermit. Now this is not the case in reality. Very often people want to see the mystic as a peculiar sort of person, and if there is someone peculiar, then they say that is the mystic. Now this is a wrong conception and a one-sided exaggeration. A real mystic must show equilibrium and balance. Real mystics will have their head in the heavens and their feet on the earth.

The real mystic is as wide-awake in this world as in the other. A mystic is not someone who does not possess intellect; a mystic is not someone who dreams. A mystic is wide-awake, yet capable of dreaming when others are not and capable of keeping awake when the rest cannot keep awake. A mystic strikes the balance between two things, power and beauty. A mystic does not sacrifice power for beauty, nor beauty for power. A mystic possesses power and enjoys beauty.

No doubt, the more one is conscious of the inner attitude the less becomes one’s action. For thought controls action, but it only gives a rhythm and a balance to life. Compared with a person who is capable of running, not knowing where one is going, another is better off who is walking slowly, but knows toward what one is going.