According to Osho, when mind and heart meet, their surface split dissolves and their original oneness is revealed—like many branches returning to a single trunk. This inner union shows that science and religion, too, are complementary: reason reaches its limit, and the dimension of transcendence begins. Recognizing this unity becomes a transformative turning point in how we see and live.
When your thinking and your feelings work together as one, you find a deeper wholeness that welcomes both facts and mystery.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, do mind and heart, thought and feeling, ever become one?
Many times they do. And when they become one, a very significant event occurs. Yes, he is asking whether, sometimes, mind and heart—thought and feeling—become one. They do. In the very depths they are one; only on the surface are they separate. Just as the branches of a tree are separate above and below they become one in the trunk. In the same way, thought is a branch of our being, and feeling is also a branch of our being. Only on the surface do they appear separate; deep within they are one. And the day we come to know that thought and feeling are one, that day science and religion are no longer two. That day science has a boundary, and there is also a realm of transcendence where religion begins. Krishna is a man of dharma. And I am speaking of him as a man of dharma, as…
Mind is always old. Even a one-day-old child has a one-day-old mind, because mind means the past. It accumulates the past; it is accumulative it goes on accumulating experiences and everything that happens. It is always old and it goes on becoming older and older. But the heart is always young; it never accumulates, it is non-accumulative. It lives in the moment. That's why the mind and the heart are never in agreement, they cannot be in agreement, because the mind talks about the past and the heart wants to live spontaneously, right now. The mind always gives advice, tries to be very wise, calls the heart a fool, mad, and all kinds of names, but the heart never becomes wise in that sense; it remains a fool.
The heart is basically poetic, hence it is unpredictable, and society depends on predictability. society does not trust the poets, the musicians, the dancers, and never the mystics, because they are really far gone! (laughter) The poet is still hanging around the boundary; sometimes he is prose, sometimes he is poetry, sometimes calculation, sometimes intelligence. He is just living in a boundary world. He goes to both worlds, he is a visitor in both worlds; he moves between the heart and the head. But the mystic has completely dropped the head, he has chopped it off. He lives only through the heart. He is pure poetry, pure song, pure dance, for no other reason than the sheer joy of it! And to me, that is the very essence of religiousness. Only that state is capable of knowing the truth.
Osho, you often tell us to listen to the heart rather than the mind. But how is one to know which voice is the mind’s and which is the heart’s? Please explain with compassion.
Renuka! The matter is absolutely straightforward. There is not the slightest confusion. The mind always points you outward; the heart always points you inward. When something within says, “Go out—earn money, gain position, prestige, ambition,” know it is the mind speaking, because these are not the heart’s longings. When something says, “Sit silently, close your eyes, dive within yourself, take a plunge into your own being, listen to your life-breath, step into the inner sound that is rising,” then know the heart has spoken. The inner journey is the heart’s message; the outer journey is the mind’s. There is no reason for mistake here. When hatred arises, know the mind has spoken; when love arises, know the heart has spoken. When thoughts surround you, know the mind has seized you; when waves of feeling rise, know you are in the heart. When negation arises—an urge to say “no,” when doubt…
Put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness above, below and in your heart.
CONSIDER ANY AREA OF YOUR PRESENT FORM For a logician, knowledge must be expressible -- that which can be known can be made known to others, there is no problem. If you have known it, then where is the problem? You can make it known to others. But the mystic's knowledge is not of thoughts. He has not known it as a thought, he has known it as a feeling. So really, it is not good to say, "I know God." It is better to say, "I feel." It is not good to say, "I have known God." It is better to say, "I have felt him." That is a more accurate description of the phenomenon because the `knowledge' is through the heart it is like feeling, it is not like knowledge. PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS.... Mindstuff, consciousness, CHITT, is inexpressible. If a single thought is moving, it…