How Did the Heart Gain Superiority Over the Mind in Love?

I was listening to the ghazal by Rajinder Krishan, sung by Talat Mahmood in the film Jahan Ara:

“Main teri nazar ka saroor hoon, tujhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho...”

Lata Mangeshkar has also sung two couplets of the same ghazal. Both interpretations are very beautiful. Madan Mohan’s music and the singing are of course outstanding, but the poetry is truly superb.

Poetry is not bound by any limit or restriction. In it, thought soars free like a bird in the sky. Perhaps that is why a poet sometimes raises questions for which even science does not have a complete answer.

Look at the final couplet of this ghazal:

“Teri zulf hai, mera haath hai, ke tu aaj bhi mere saath hai  

Tere dil mein main bhi zaroor hoon, tujhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho.”

The lover is not searching for his place in the beloved’s mind; he is searching for it in her heart.

This very point forces me to think: how did the heart gain such superiority over the mind in love?

According to science, the brain plays the central role in love. Attraction, emotions, memory, and attachment experiences involve different parts of the brain and chemical systems. The heart’s primary function is to pump blood throughout the body.

Then why was love associated with the heart?

One reason is perhaps that the effect of emotions is felt in the body. Seeing someone makes the heart beat faster; in fear the heart pounds hard; in grief the chest feels heavy; in joy the heart feels light. Human beings attributed these physical sensations to the heart, and gradually the heart became the symbol of love.

But this conception was not formed solely from physical experience. Its roots in human civilisation are very ancient.

The ancient conception of the heart:

Among the ancient Egyptians, the heart held special importance in relation to human personality, the inner self, and moral quality. In their religious ideas, the heart retained an important place even after death. This shows that the heart was not regarded merely as a physical organ but was also linked to a person’s identity and deeds.

In ancient India, too, the conception of the heart was not limited to a physical organ. The Sanskrit hridaya or hriday was used not only for the heart but also in the sense of a person’s inner being and interior existence. In the Indian intellectual tradition, there are various ways of viewing the heart as the inner centre of the human being.

In the Bhakti tradition, the relationship with God was also expressed through love and devotion. Remembering God and attachment to Him became a matter of the heart.

This call of Meera Bai is an example of the same heartfelt attachment:

“Mera man Hari se jorr do,  

Hari se jorr kar sab se torr do.  

Meri preet musalsal aur hamesha Hari se hai,  

Jaise baajigar musalsal apna khel khelta rehta hai.”

Meera Bai’s heart is joined only to Krishna and cut off from all worldly relationships. This love is so continuous and unceasing, like a juggler who keeps performing his act without pause, an expression of complete surrender and one-sided true love.

Thus in the Indian tradition, the heart did not remain merely an organ of the body; it also became a metaphor for the human being’s inner experience.

Shah Latif’s heart:

Within this tradition of the subcontinent, the conception of the heart held by the Sindhi Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai also carries special significance. For him, love is not merely a thought but a state that affects the entire being of a person.

"Karro manjh karry, jean lohaarn lapetyo,

Munhjo jeau jarry, superyaan sogho kayo"

That is, just as a blacksmith firmly joins one link to another, in the same way my beloved has firmly joined my jee, my inner self, to himself.

Here love is not a decision of the mind; it is a bond of the heart.

In Shah Latif, the heart is not connected only to human love. In one bait (verse) he mentions “qalb saan lisaan”, both heart and tongue, for the expression of faith. In this way the heart becomes the seat of inner conviction.

Sachal Sarmast carried the same Sufi tradition of Sindh further. He says:

“Sain Sachal chai, ishq na lurhi paar  

Manho mandar manjh, rahi tho preen piyar.”

That is, love never ends; in the temple of the human heart the beloved’s love always dwells. The same idea is found in Persian Sufi poetry in Rumi when he says:

“Dil-e tust ke o khana-e ma’shuq-e tust  

Pakash bedar az palidi, ke arus-e husn dar way ayad farud.”

That is, your heart is the house of the beloved; keep it pure from impurity, for the bride of beauty descends into it. In both Sachal and Rumi, the heart is not an empty vessel but a sacred dwelling where the beloved, whether human or God, resides forever.

This is the point where Sindhi Sufi poetry, the Indian spiritual tradition, and Persian Sufi thought appear joined to one another.

Heart and love:

The Sufi tradition deepened this conception of the heart still further. For the Sufis, the heart is the place where love and gnosis descend. Here metaphorical love and true love become linked to each other. The beloved may be a human being or God.

This doha of Bhagat Kabir also points to the same truth: that the desire and love of the heart do not end even after the body perishes:

“Maya mari na man mara, mar mar gaye sharir  

Asha trishna na mari, keh gaye das Kabir.”

That is, Maya did not die, and the mind did not die; only bodies kept dying. Hope and craving (trishna) also did not die; thus spoke Das Kabir.

In the poetic tradition of the subcontinent, Persian, Indian, and Sufi influences kept mingling with one another. In Urdu poetry, the heart became a major symbol of love, separation, pain, and memory.

In Mir, the heart is full of pain; in Ghalib, the heart asks questions.

Look at this couplet of Ghalib:

“Jala hai jism jahan, dil bhi jal gaya hoga  

Karedte ho jo ab raakh, justujoo kya hai.”

Where the body has burned, the heart too must have burned. For Ghalib, the heart is not merely an organ of the body; it is the centre of a person’s love and of his entire story. The body has turned to ash, yet the lover is still searching through that ash, perhaps in the hope that some trace of the heart remains.

In the Urdu language, even today the major symbols of love are linked to the heart:

dil lagana, dil jeetna, dil harna, dil torna, dil mein utarna, dil se utar jana.

We do not say that someone has broken our mind; we say:

“He broke my heart.”

Even though we know that the brain plays the fundamental role in the experience of emotions.

Then that same couplet of Rajinder Krishan comes before us:

“Teri zulf hai, mera haath hai, ke tu aaj bhi mere saath hai  

Tere dil mein main bhi zaroor hoon, tujhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho.”

The poet is certain that whether the beloved remembers him or not, he is surely present in her heart.

Here the paths of poetry and science diverge.

Science says that memory and the experiences of love are primarily the work of the brain.

Perhaps both are right in their own places. Science can explain the physical and chemical processes of love, but what love means for us is a question that passes to poetry.

Today we are in the age of computers and artificial intelligence. We know far more about the brain than before. We know what happens in the brain during the experience of love, which chemical systems are involved, and how emotions affect the body.

Yet even so, the symbol of love today is still not the brain but the heart.

When we express love to someone, we send a red heart symbol.

We say:

“You live in my heart.”

Perhaps because the heart is not the scientific centre of love, yet it is certainly the centre of the human language of love.

The brain tries to understand love; the heart becomes the metaphor for feeling it.

Ghalib searches for the heart in the ashes.

Shah Latif’s lover’s jee becomes joined to the beloved.

The Sufi seeks God in the heart.

And Rajinder Krishan says:

“Tere dil mein main bhi zaroor hoon, tujhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho.”

Perhaps this superiority of the heart in love has come not from science but from humanity’s centuries-old civilisational memory.

And perhaps that is why, even today, in the age of artificial intelligence, the most authentic sign of love is not the brain but the heart.