A person who follows an intellectual pursuit continuously, never relaxes. He does not divert his energy to another dimension, so his mind goes on working in only one direction unnecessarily. That creates boredom. Thoughts and more thoughts come and go; energy is diffused, wasted. You cannot enjoy it; on the contrary, you will be disappointed and disgusted with this unnecessary burden. But the mind, or the intellect, is not at fault. Because an alternative dimension has not been provided, because there is no other door open to it, the energy keeps circling round and round inside you.
Energy can never be stagnant. Energy means that which is not stagnant, that which is always flowing. Relaxation does not mean energy which is stagnant or asleep; scientifically, relaxation means that now energy is flowing through another channel, another dimension – it has entered another room.
But even though the room may be different, if it is not the very opposite of the room you were in before, the mind will not relax. For example, if you work on a scientific problem, then you can relax by reading a novel. The work is different: to deal with a scientific problem is to be active – a very masculine mode – whereas to read a novel is to be passive, which is an absolutely feminine mode. Even though you are using the same mind you will be relaxed, because it is the opposite pole of the mind which is being used. You are not solving anything, you are not active; you are just a receiver, receiving something. The dimension is the same except that emotion, the opposite pole, is being brought into use.
In the same way, when we love, the intellect does not come into play at all. Quite the opposite happens: the irrational part of your personality comes into action. Intelligence must be balanced by love and love must be balanced by intelligence. Ordinarily, this balance is not found anywhere.
If someone is in love and begins to neglect all intellectual pursuits, this too will create boredom. Even love becomes a tension if it is a twenty-four-hour-a-day affair. Once the challenge is lost, the enjoyment will also be lost: the play will be lost and it will become just work. The same thing happens with an intellectual who neglects the emotional side of his being.
These two parts, these two poles, must be in balance, only then is an integrated and individuated human being born; otherwise, whether emotional or intellectual, it will be the same disease. The East has become warped because it has been too concerned with the heart, while the West has been too concerned with the opposite pole. Both have achieved disastrous results.
In the West, the new generation is now rebelling against intellect, against reason. The whole mind of the new generation is leaning toward the irrational. Nature always takes its own revenge. Nature is very vengeful: it never pardons, it never forgets. If some part of it remains suppressed or unfulfilled it will have its revenge. In the West the irrational is taking its revenge. In the East the appeal is of the rational, the scientific: communism has much appeal and religion has lost its appeal. The irrational no longer appeals to the East because reason has been suppressed for too long.
To me, neither a human being nor a human culture can be healthy without an inner balance between the rational and the irrational. I do not take them to be two different things. I take them to be two poles of the same energy.