According to Osho, the 'wisdom of the heart' is not emotion or the physical heart, but the clarity that springs from an empty heart - no-mind. When the mind's contents are dropped through meditation, a watchful transparency arises. This choiceless awareness intuits directly, beyond intellect, lending our actions clarity, spontaneity, compassion, and grace: the wisdom of the empty heart.
Quiet your mind until it feels empty, and a clear, gentle knowing shows you what to do without overthinking.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
The mind cannot supply wisdom. The mind is a parrot, because it is a bio-computer: it only repeats what it has been fed. It is never original -- it can't be original; it is not in its power, it is not its function. It is just a mechanism to store. It is not creative. It is just a memory, a storage system... good, if one understands its use, but very dangerous if one starts thinking that the mind can give you original insights. It is not possible. The mind can only give you whatsoever is given to it from the outside. It is in the service of the outside. It is a byproduct of the society. Hence there are so many minds, because there are so many societies and so many ways of conditioning.
Question: Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS THE WISDOM OF THE HEART? Maneesha, common sense carries many fragments of truth, but they are never complete. Around the world everywhere it is heard -- "the wisdom of the heart." But the truth is, wisdom arises not out of the heart, it arises out of the emptiness of the heart. But that is known only to those who have reached deepest into the self. But common sense carries fragments of knowledge. It knows that the people who are compassionate, people of heart, have a certain wisdom which is not knowledge, a certain insight, a certain intuitiveness which cannot be taught. They can see things, feel things. They are sensitive to things which are not available to the mind. So people start thinking that there are possibilities of the heart having wisdom.
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…
What exactly is intelligence, and what is the relation of the intelligence of the heart to the intelligence of the mind?
A totally new kind of education is needed in the world. The person who is born to be a poet is proving himself stupid in mathematics and the person who could have been a great mathematician is just cramming history and feeling lost. Everything is topsy-turvy because education is not according to your nature. It does not pay any respect to the individual, it forces everybody into a certain pattern. Maybe by accident the pattern fits a few people but the majority is lost and the majority lives in misery. The greatest misery in life is to feel oneself stupid, unworthy, unintelligent. And nobody is born unintelligent; nobody can be born unintelligent because we come from God. God is pure intelligence. We bring some flavor, some fragrance from God when we come into the world. But immediately the society jumps upon you, starts manipulating, teaching, changing, cutting, adding, and soon…
Osho, which is the voice of the mind and which is the voice of the heart? What is the criterion to know? Please explain.
All voices are of the mind; the heart has no voice. Where voices disappear, there is the heart. Silence is the heart’s voice. Emptiness is the heart’s tone. So there is no complication at all. You think one voice is of the heart and another of the mind; you are falling into a great mistake. All voices are of the mind. It is the mind. It is the mind that wants to grasp wealth, and the mind that wants to renounce wealth. The mind is very complex. On one side it says, “Grab it, plunder it, enjoy!” On the other it says, “What’s the point? It’s all insubstantial.” But both are the mind. On one side it says, “Run! Life is only for a few days—win some position.” From the other side it says, “What’s in positions? Look at those who have arrived.” The mind keeps talking to itself, keeps…