Feelings of the Heart

They say our eyes are the windows into our souls. We can often see the pure heart in animals. This picture says a lot and we will not find such eyes in our leaders or bankers or doctors who inject vaccines full of poisons into our children. We are facing a total crisis in modern civilization simply because of a great lack of heart. Greed, selfishness and separation have ruled, and so events have to take their natural course.

We will not hear from industrialists any sorry for the hurt and ruin they do and it is the rare pediatrician who will apologize for the death of an infant resulting soon after vaccination. And what can we say about the nuclear power industry and its supporters that are still beating our ears with the obscene rant that nuclear energy is safe even after they have opened up a hell on earth in Japan?

You cannot be human without feeling. Alice Christensen

And this is the reason some people think that we have aliens among us, reptilians who would eat us alive for breakfast! Well okay, perhaps that is going a bit far but the point is that we have among us creatures with no feeling of compassion for us humans. We normally call them sociopaths and psychopaths and they are the way they are because they have no capacity to feel, to empathize or to have remorse for what they do to others.

Because this is a time of great stress and challenge to our beings—that will challenge us on the level of heart and soul—I am going to start sharing more from my HeartHealth work. When I was a young man and first lived at the University of the Trees in Boulder Creek, California, someone said to me that I had a big heart. I looked down at my chest  then behind me trying to understand what they were talking about. At that time I was stuck in my head though I had the capacity to release a river of tears while watching movies.

I had already read thousands of pages of spiritual materials including many of the books of Christopher Hills, the director of the University of the Trees and my mentor who changed the course of my life. He routinely mentioned the heart but I still only understood what he meant conceptually.

The head is just a peripheral. The heart is at the center of being.

I write the way I do because I follow my heart, not my head. It is an irresistible force that drives me—facing me with choice-less choices like the publication of my essay yesterday, More Bizarre Than Science Fiction.

Introduction to HeartHealth

Anyone who knows about life and health and love knows that the heart plays an important role in our overall sense of wellbeing. Since the heart is known to be the seat of feelings and the most intense emotions, knowledge of how our thoughts and feelings can be harmonized and balanced is crucial. Feelings are our most essential guides in life but emotional education and emotional intelligence are some of the areas and subjects most neglected in modern human existence.

Emotional intelligence comes with an appreciation of each feeling’s role and function in our awareness.

Most people do not have to be told that loving, positive feelings are somehow related to health and happiness and as such seek and hunger for the most positive expressions of life. Even though our world is full of suffering, most people would rather feel loving and appreciative than resentful and depressed.

But life is such that we have a difficult time with our feelings, thoughts, and reactions to things in general, for life on our planet is difficult. There are painful realities to be confronted. This is one of the greatest truths of life and the failure to accept this creates some of the basis for deep mental illness. David Reynolds, an American exponent of Japanese Morita psychotherapy said, “People deny reality. They fight against real feelings caused by real circumstances. They build mental worlds of shoulds, oughts, and might-have-beens. Real changes begin with real appraisal and acceptance of what is. Then realistic action is possible.”

We have our feelings and recognition of our feelings and feelings about our feelings.

Books have been published that speak about emotional intelligence and that within the heart is a secret power that can transform our lives. We’ve all been told to follow our hearts but this has seemed almost impossible. How does one actually get in touch with his or her heart and follow its messages? Does the heart really communicate with us? Does it really have something to say? What does following the heart really mean? We have been told to love ourselves but how do we do this? And how can we love something that we do not now already love?

Life stripped of feelings is a life stripped of meaning.

In talking about the heart, the first immediate difficulty we face is the confusion between the physical pump and surrounding nervous system and the core being which lives within it. The heart has always been known for more than its capacity to pump blood and Chinese and Ayurveda medical systems have known this for thousands of years.

The knowing and feeling center of the heart is a different order of intelligence than the thinking center of the mind.

The heart offers a deep wisdom and intuitive intelligence that is centered on its fantastic ability to network with a certain level of life. The heart is the perfect network solution because it is tuned to the universal constant of love and openness, cooperation, caring, appreciation, honesty and truth. It has the capacity for clear perception and also has the capacity to cut through the dualities and paradoxes of life with a speed and ease that can only be called super intelligent.

Heart intelligence is the bright flow of awareness and insight that combines the best of mental and emotional feeling processes of human consciousness. The human heart is the center of all true wisdom because it is in touch with what is best and most beneficial for others and ourselves at the same time. It is in touch with the whole, with three hundred and sixty degrees of awareness.

“Live in the heart and forget the head. Go down to the center of your being.” – Buddha

Saint-Exupéry wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” A dive into the heart opens up a normally invisible world; it broadens our awareness and in general seems to know which way to go in life. The heart seems to be able to see and feel far ahead and be able to weigh many things at once in its small fist; whereas the mind is flooded by contradictory thoughts that often just lead to confusion.

The awake and aware heart is at the center of our spirit; it is the home of our humanity. Knowing one’s feelings is knowing one’s being.

In the area of that ten-ounce muscle that pumps your blood is a secret that all the ancient cultures and the great philosophers and religious thinkers have always been aware of. Though the physical heart is the most amazing organ, beating billions of times within the context of a lifetime, its non-physical components are even more fantastic. A heart full of love, beating in joy and harmony with life is the true miracle and wonder to behold.

Awareness is heightened as we become more conscious of feelings as they occur.

Within the context of heart intelligence, the “negative” side of life takes on “positive” meaning for the true heart does not make such strict distinctions between the positive and the negative and can see the positive in the negative. The heart is not as self-obsessed with itself as the mind tends to be and one of its very sources of increased happiness is the freedom from self-obsession. It cares more for others and this is a natural joy. It is willing to sacrifice more for those it loves the most.

Inside the purified and free heart is a flow, a river, a current, a passion for life. Energized and aligned with its tasks in life the heart feels a spontaneous joy. In rapture the heart becomes utterly absorbed in whatever it is doing. Flowing into a state of forgetfulness our awareness merges and becomes one with our actions. In moments of “flow” the heart loses all self-consciousness, performs at peak states while knowing and experiencing the time frame of pure egolessness.

The heart offers us an increased mental clarity and intuition. It usually can see what is best in a situation. Then it will act and do whatever, take any risk, plan any action if that is what is called for to preserve either itself or those who it loves. The intuition is the fastest mental faculty and when we follow it we often act without thinking. Most parents know of the intuitive heart link because of their children and most would not take the time to think about stepping out in front of a car to save the life of their child. The heart cannot stand by idly when others whom it loves are about to get hurt. The heart offers us the most natural of all anchors. It rests at the bottom of unlimited compassion and passion; and it is connected to the universal intelligence of love, the creative and the receptive, the forceful and the gentle.

Our feelings are actually more important than our thoughts because they represent the sum total of all our individual perceptions. The heart mixes up all the signals in the brain into one feeling that we largely experience and identify as “me.” Feelings and emotions add weight to our perceptions, they give significance to events.

A being that knows and loves its own heart nature is not afraid of life and not so afraid to act and follow the prompting of its own inner nature. Hearts are guided by love and as such sustain a positive perspective in life, balance their emotions as opposed to judging them, and access an intuitive flow in day-to-day existence, even in the midst of  difficulties and the natural sufferings of life.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. – Paulo Coelho

To heart centered people even the most difficult problems in life are seen as challenges and stimulants for growth and evolution. Instead of constantly reacting and crying about circumstances, the heart helps people to make coherent sense of their challenges. The heart is the organ of change and it is the best navigational device we have. It knows what changes need to be made in our life and if it does not it bends over backward to find out.

Our feelings are navigational beacons that play a crucial role in making those decisions upon which our destinies depend.

Special Note: Please be advised that my HeartHealth book has not been edited by a professional and was written 16 years ago when my first daughter was born. At that time I was living not too far away from where I built my Sanctuary. The above materials from the introduction I have edited down and I will continue to do this as I share more of these materials with you over the next few weeks.