Hindu Medicine c8.158

c8.158

This view reflects the introspective self-awareness of archaic man, similar to the introspective sensations reflected in the diagram of the two breath channels in Haṭha-yoga tradition. Archaic man is not inclined to listen to his brain to the same extent that modern man endeavors to do, at any rate in his rational activities, business, administration and science. Archaic man has not yet undergone to the same extent the process of cerebralization, which leads to a predominantly conscious intellectualism. Modern man, following traditional belief, localizes his emotional functions in the heart; “brain-waves,” however, tell him where to localize his reason. For more primitive thinking, as it still lives on in millions of people and as it lies hidden in everybody, ready to emerge whenever stimulated by violent passions, the thinking function is much nearer to the center of emotional functions and more apt to be influenced by emotional waves. The thinking of the primitive man—and in this respect the Hindu is nearer to the archaic, the primitive type—has not yet become abstracted from the center of feeling to the extent that is reached later with the intellectual type through long training in critical self-control. He is more inclined to feel that his thoughts and decisions rise from the emotional sphere of his organism, that is, from his trunk. The gods and heroes of Homer still think and feel with their diaphragm. In the same way, a Pueblo chief, discussing psychology with my eminent friend, Dr. C. G. Jung of Zürich, explained to him, “I know you white men think with the brain. That accounts for your shortcomings. We red men think with the heart.”