Experiencing Through The Heart
written by Matthew
Thinking is very addicting.
I tend to put a philosophy or some intellectual label on all of my experiences. When I bind all of my experiences up in the form of thoughts I create multiple, contrarian inner voices that go back and forth arguing over what I should or shouldn’t have done or what is right and what is wrong. The mind and its beliefs are always of a dualistic nature. These voices turn in to inner critics that quickly become all consuming. They question everything and never find satisfaction in anything. When I am living through the intellect I often feel exhausted and uninspired. My environment feels dull and there is this feeling of stagnation or living in the past.
Giving interest to our mind and its thoughts creates resistance within and doesn’t allow our higher intelligence (life’s intelligence) to flow through us. If we are always operating from the realm of thoughts and thinking we are only privy to the information of past experiences and outside conditioning. All of our decisions from this perspective will ultimately keep us living a repetitive and unsatisfying life that severs us from the freshness and awe inspiring experience that living in the present moment offers.
Allowing the wisdom of the heart and of life to flow through you brings a spontaneous intelligence in to your existence that always knows what to do and when to do it.
During a Kundalini Awakening or any shift in consciousness new realizations reveal themselves. I have this tendency to become overly consumed by the changes taking place and to identify with them through the mind. A good way to tell how immersed in your mind you are is to ask yourself how often you just HAVE to know what is going to happen. Do you get scared and contracted when uncertainty is arising? If, like myself, most of the time you answered yes to those questions, it is an indication that you are living through the limited perceptions of your mind and not opening up and trusting the infinite nature of your heart.
I go through prolonged stages where my mind or ego or little ‘me’ gets ahold of the awakening and the incredible experiences that come with it and I begin to spiral in to a state of ungrounded confusion. I refuse to feel what is in my heart because sometimes it is painful and difficult to face. Why not hide out in the space of my thoughts? I know I will suffer but at least it is a suffering I know. I become so fixated on my thoughts and observing them that I slowly cut myself off more and more from my heart and thus my truth. My awakening experience becomes ungrounded and unhelpful to me or anyone else. The realizations, experiences of bliss and mystical phenomena are wonderful but what good are they if they don’t help us to live a more expansive and full life on this earth right here and right now? Ultimately, awakening is an impersonal phenomena and doesn’t come in to one’s life so that they can escape in to the cosmos but rather, so that one can ground the experience of awakening in to the body and therefore be able to bring a presence filled with love and peace to this physical reality.
It is so easy for me to get caught up in all types of thought oriented practices while deluding myself that they are helpful to the path of awakening.
A lot of meditation practices encourage us to observe our minds and when a thought comes up to label it a thought. This is fine for building awareness initially, but at some point it needs to be taken deeper. Instead, I’ve found that observing that which is observing the thoughts a truer path to liberation from the mind. A good question to ask yourself is what is this space that is aware of all of my thoughts? An even simpler way to put it would be to focus on the consciousness that is prior to thought. In this way we are turning our awareness in on itself. When we start becoming aware of this space in which everything arises we begin transcending the mind and thought. It is in this space of empty mind that allows us to hear what our heart is saying.
The only way to not suffer in life is to live in unison with your heart’s desires. Living from the perspective of the mind is a sure way to always suffer. The suffering can vary in degree, but ultimately we will always feel like something is missing if we don’t let the heart speak.
I am still very new to this shift and only experience it from time to time. What helps me is to really focus my consciousness and attention in to my heart and body. I don’t try to push thoughts away or anything because that is just another way of focusing on them. Thought storms can come but the key is to always know that you are the awareness that they arise in. You are not your thoughts. Thoughts are impersonal and don’t belong to you. Much like emotions we can let them come and let them go.
Our observing has nothing to do with thoughts. It is simply just experiencing the silent yet very present and alive awareness that is always there.
Focus on that silence within and see how close you can get to it. Maybe at times you will feel merged with this silence and in unison with it. If this happens there will be no separation between you and your true ‘Self’. You will know this is the case when you hear very clearly what your heart and your body are asking for. Sometimes, your body may be asking you to just sit down and be. Other times it will be asking you for a strenuous run or work out. Maybe your heart and body will propel you to become more involved in life, or they could ask you to take a break from it all for a period of time. Maybe, your heart will ask you to do something very scary like change careers or to let go of a relationship. Or maybe, it will just ask for something seemingly mundane like picking up a yoga practice, going for a walk in nature, finding more time to be by yourself or altering your diet.
You never know what your heart and body will ask for and really that is the beauty of it. The mind likes to tell you that you shouldn’t trust your heart because it is afraid of not knowing. The mind always needs to know. But if you choose to follow your heart you will never truly know, you can only trust.
We can get so infatuated with the mind and the thoughts it produces that we go completely unconscious and lose sight of what and who we really are, which is pure consciousness. At our essence we are One with all of existence. The mind likes to drive us in to separation so it can retain a dominance over us. This is especially a tendency of those of us who are really attached to our intellects, like myself. Letting go of the intellect and of thought is a daunting but necessary task if we are to ever deepen our realizations and come in to a harmonious existence where love and peace radiate through us.
When I come back in to experiencing life through the spacious openness of being united with all there is my breathing feels lighter and more complete. Nature is more alive. People seem less closed off and distant. Life just feels whole. I just sink in to the experience. I am not taken anywhere else by my mind.
The tendency on days like today is to say, “wow, I am really awake to it all right now.” But the truth is, all of us are always awake within, it is just our choices to identify with our unconscious thoughts and conditioning that keeps us from always experiencing this innate state of being. But today, I feel the unconditional love of existence itself flowing through me. Just doing the dishes feels divine.