Love Is Not in the Heart

Why is the heart associated with love and not the brain? Or, not to be crass, why don't Valentine's Day cards show the sex organs? Why the heart, and not the stomach or the spleen? We feel things there too.

Is it because the heart pumps blood and feels warm? Is it because the famous writers of love always pointed to the heart? Does losing love actually cause pain in the chest? Is that true for everyone?

My sense is that the human mind likes to break big things into smaller things in order to understand them. When we think of a car, we think of the wheels, the engine, the transmission, the brakes, the air conditioning. We have to think that way. How else would we describe what's wrong when something breaks?

It is no different with ourselves. We separate the mind from the body. We break the body into smaller and smaller parts and pretend we understand it, but we don't. We know only a little about what is going on inside us. There is so much more to understand.

The truth is that the brain, the mind, the heart, the stomach, and the kidneys are all synchronized. They work in unison. Each has a primary role, but the rest of the body tunes in, doing its part so that every organ can fulfill its purpose.

So when you think of love, think of the whole body. Let go of the false image of the heart. That's really just for stories.