The Poetry of the Heart
by Osho

The intelligence of the head is not intelligence at all; it is knowledgeability. The intelligence of the heart is the intelligence, the only intelligence there is. The head is simply an accumulator. It is always old, it is never new, it is never original. It is good for certain purposes: For filing it is perfectly good! And in life one needs this– many things have to be remembered. The mind, the head, is a biocomputer. You can go on accumulating knowledge in it and whenever you need it you can take it out. It is good for mathematics, good for calculation, good for the day-to-day life, the marketplace. But if you think this is your whole life then you will remain stupid. You will never know the beauty of feeling and you will never know the blessings of the heart. You will never know the grace that descends only through the heart, the godliness that enters only through the heart. You will never know prayer, you will never know poetry, you will never know love.

The intelligence of the heart creates poetry in your life, gives a dance to your step, makes your life a joy, a celebration, a festivity, a laughter. It gives you a sense of humor. It makes you capable of love, of sharing. That is true life. The life that is lived from the head is a mechanical life. You become a robot– maybe very efficient. Robots are very efficient, machines are more efficient than man. You can earn much through the head, but you will not live much. You may have a better standard of living but you won’t have any life.

Life is of the heart. Life can only grow through the heart. It is the soil of the heart where love grows, life grows, spirit grows. All that is beautiful, all that is really valuable, all that is meaningful, significant, comes through the heart. The heart is your very center, the head is just your periphery. To live in the head is to live on the circumference without ever becoming aware of the beauties and the treasures of the center. To live on the periphery is stupidity.

To live in the head is stupidity. To live in the heart and use the head whenever it is needed is intelligence. But the center, the master, is at the very core of your being.

The master is the heart, and the head is just a servant– this is intelligence. When the head becomes the master and forgets all about the heart, that is stupidity.

It is up to you to choose. Remember, the head as a slave is a beautiful slave, of much utility. But as a master it is a dangerous master and will destroy your whole life, will poison your whole life. Look around! People’s lives are absolutely poisoned, poisoned by the head. They cannot feel, they are no longer sensitive, nothing thrills them. The sun rises but nothing rises in them; they look at the sun empty-eyed. The sky becomes full of the stars– the marvel, the mystery!– but nothing stirs in their hearts, no song arises. Birds sing– man has forgotten to sing. Clouds come in the sky and the peacocks dance, and man does not know how to dance. He has become a cripple. Trees bloom– and man thinks, never feels, and without feeling there is no flowering possible.

Watch, scrutinize, observe, have another look at your life. Nobody else is going to help you. You have depended on others so long; that’s why you have become stupid. Now, take care; it is your own responsibility. You owe it to yourself to have a deep, penetrating look at what you are doing with your life. Is there any poetry in your heart? If it is not there, then don’t waste time. Help your heart to weave and spin poetry. Is there any romance in your life? If there is not, then you are already in your grave.

Come out of it! Let life have something of the romantic in it, something like adventure. Explore! Millions of beauties and splendors are waiting for you. You go on moving around and around, never entering into the temple of life. The door is the heart.

The real intelligence is of the heart. It is not intellectual, it is emotional. It is not like thinking, it is like feeling. It is not logic, it is love.

Love is available only to those who go on sharpening their intelligence. Love is not for the mediocre…love is not for the unintelligent. The unintelligent person may become a great intellectual. In fact unintelligent people try to become intellectuals; that is their way of hiding their unintelligence. Love is not for the intellectual. Love needs a totally different kind of talent– a talented heart, not a talented head.

Love has its own intelligence, its own way of seeing, perceiving, its own way of understanding life, its own way of comprehending the mystery of existence. The poet is far closer to it than the philosopher. And the mystic is exactly inside the temple. The poet is on the steps and the philosopher is just outside. At the most he can approach the driveway, but never the steps. He goes on round and round. He goes on moving around the temple, studying the outer walls of the temple, and becomes so enchanted that he forgets completely that the outer walls are not the real temple and that the deity is inside.

The poet reaches the door, but the door is so beautiful that he becomes hypnotized. He thinks he has arrived– what more can there be? The philosopher is lost in guessing what is inside. He never goes there, he simply thinks, philosophizes. The poet tries to penetrate into the mystery but gets hooked near the door. The mystic enters into the very innermost sanctum of the temple.

The way is love, and the way is a loving intelligence. When love and intelligence meet together you create the space in which all that is possible to a human being can become actual. A loving intelligence is what is needed. Intelligence alone becomes intellectual, love alone becomes sentimentality, but a loving intelligence never becomes intellectuality or sentimentality. It gives you a new kind of integrity, a new crystallization.

The precediing was excerpted with permission from Intelligence: The Creative Response to Now,
St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 2004.

To listen to this and many of Osho’s talks, visit: www.osho.com/talks/audio/htm
Other books by Osho are published by St. Martin’s Press and CW Daniel. There is a large selection on the Internet, or ask for Osho titles in your local bookstore. And, for more information about Osho and the many hundreds of books by and about him, see www.osho.com