Tales: The Heart is Where the Home is...

""The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the eye...by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him."

Black Elk

Our hearts pump blood. They have to, or there's no show, right? That's what hearts do, but that's not all they do.

Our heart is, in so many ways, at the very center of our lives. It is the seat of our emotions – we actually perceive feelings in, or through, our hearts. Our hearts sustain us, direct us, comfort us. Our heart is an accessible storehouse for our feelings. It's an inspiration through it's action. We don't beat our heart – it can beat without us. In short, our heart creates, forms, and maintains what constitutes the very core of our lives.

I switch to a collective possessive form referring to "our heart," because it's part of the consciousness we share, our collective consciousness. It's part of our shared intelligence, our Eternal, Universal, or Divine intelligence. People who don't share this concept, we perceive as being "heartless" – tragically disassociated from Love, from those aspects of human life that are the most fulfilling and rewarding. They are also most capable of violence. Of selfish and pointless destruction – or of simple pettiness, shortsightedness, and lack of empathy. It's not because they aren't thinking, more often it's because they're thinking too much. With their heads.

"The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad."

I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

"They say that they think with their heads," he replied.

"Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise.

"We think here," he said, indicating his heart.

Pueblo Indian, Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake) to Carl Jung,

from Memories, Dreams, Reflections

As with everything, to find a better way to think about it, we do need to think about it with our minds. It's a bit of a leap, because our minds often don't understand what our hearts are doing. In fact our hearts have (or should have) a kind of unassailable authority over our minds. We think we should do what our minds tell us to do, but we know we need to follow our heart. By this I don't mean our passions or cravings – not lust, or ambition – but the simple, intuitive intelligence that mysteriously arises from our heart.

As is the case with most mythical, mystical, intuitive, and indigenous knowledge, Science is slowly catching up –providing us with "real proof" of what's long been known to some to be the cognitive and controlling facilities of the heart. Unlike any other part of our bodies, the heart contains a similar intricate cellular structure as the brain; the same neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins, and support cells. The heart is directly linked to the brain, and can control it's electrical activity. Along with being able to independently learn, remember, feel, and sense, the heart can directly enable the brain to acquire certain perceptive abilities, to inspire types of thought, as well as determine our emotional experience.

Medical Science now agrees with "a thinking heart," a heart with a brain, or that is itself a different kind of brain that unites body, mind, and emotions. Exactly how it does this is a mystery to medical science, but for centuries it's been known in Hindu Bhakti Yoga, and Tantric tradition that the fourth heart chakra is the center in humans of the higher self's true intelligence; connection to the field of higher intelligence; the seat of Divine Consciousness; of healing, of compassion; of wish-fulfillment. The spirit brain. The true source of your life's authentic direction, free from all that messy karma our minds can make for us. Our head thinks about our self too much, our heart thinks of others first.

Listen to your heart, to our heart, and let it have the last word – after the barrage of words your mind thinks up. (Some of the worst things I've ever done I thought about a lot first - but I should have listened to my heart). Regard your head as just another (albeit important) extremity, packed with senses perfectly suited for the physical world. Consider your intellect as a ladder, used to transcend itself. But know your heart as the brain that connects you to The Eternal Intelligence that constitutes your true center. Let your heart do all the important thinking for you. It's where your home really is.

"Though the inner chamber of the heart is small, The Lord of both worlds gladly makes His home there."

Mahmud Shabestari

Check out this site for more information about Heart/Mind science!

Before the Lion thoroughly consumed Koko, cryptic paintings like this one from Arizona didn't hold much hope...

Tales: (3) The Maya of Media and Science

Here's the last of these three explorations of "Maya," inspired by this beautiful Logion:

"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas

Denial is ignorance, accepted as truth through the force of will. Our personal will, and our collective will.

Popular Media and Science justify and enforce this will, directing us away from the self examination that makes us face our collective truths, and psychically cornering us in the "The Way Things Are." They preoccupy us with good enough reasons for why things are like they are, why they have to be like they are. Much of Media and Science is created to diffuse truth and replace it with a designed objective, to sell an idea or product—turning the truth into an obstacle that needs to be suppressed, where it becomes, as stated in our Logion again: "That which will destroy you." We end up walking through a false world, looking for what's real. This is the Maya of Media and Science.

It may sound funny to call this Occultism, and to suggest that Media Operatives and Scientists are Occultists, but unfortunately, it works for a couple definitions of the word—in the sense of using supernatural or paranormal means- Media people know they are manipulating dark fears; and in the sense of it being only for the initiated—scientists and media people consort amongst one another to keep their stories straight. Scary secrets shared by a select few.

Popular Culture often harnesses the psychic energy of "that which would destroy you" as it's chief attraction. The Collective Ego is always on the lookout for something to prove that humans are not particularly Divine, that we don't measure up, and so there must be something that can fix it, something that can ameliorate our shortcomings. So Media constantly stimulates those hot buttons of judgement and comparison; Fear, and the pathology of self-enhancement, to get you to buy it:

My clothes are right. My Lifestyle is right. I have the right friends, the proper idols. My country is right. My religion is right. If you don't keep in line with these artificial demands, you won't measure up, or deserve material reward and the acknowledgment of others, which in reality can do nothing to assure happiness or fulfillment. You're made to fear that you might not even deserve Love unless you've achieved some standard—and we all know the truth—that Love is the only thing that really assures happiness and fulfillment.

These fears are heightened and kept malleable by the ever-increasing exposure to explicit violence, explicit selfishness, and explicit narcissism, without which, there would be practically nothing on television; or increasingly, at the movies, or on the radio either. In television's earlier years, human foibles were pointed out—often as a lesson. News programming reported events fairly objectively, but now media ruthlessly exploits human faults and fears, in all formats.

Television and film must be be watched very selectively to avoid these base, destructive energies; and the internet allows for content choice—but don't forget the greatest selectivity of all: Don't take part in it. And if you must, don't invest yourself in it spiritually.

Remember what Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message." If you are constantly carrying, sitting in front of, looking at, a device that keeps you constantly attached to a false world, it will be impossible to live an authentic life. If the forms of input you receive are superficial and fragmented and designed by people who don't have your best interests at heart, your life will be the same. Attachment to current media results in the collapse of your consciousness into a dark, selfish place.

In a generally (though not always) less intentional way, Science does the same thing by manipulating the agnosticism of the seeker. It's kind of like a religion whose dogma is always changing. It's a religion of logic, of data, of "empirical" observation, based solely on what our current senses and devices permit us to perceive and calculate. In the past, these means were limited, but Science was still very sure of itself, and it's description of the world. As means of observation improve, the world and being itself changes—according to Science.

Now, as evolving consciousness allows perception beyond our five senses (and is verified scientifically), and technology enables us to observe more and more of our (formerly invisible) nature of being, Science begins to resemble a dogma chasing a tale that Mysticism has been telling for a long, long time. And here's how that tale ends: 

 Everything is connected and interdependent; and, if we aren't willing to investigate the truth behind our being, and the motivations that suppress that truth, then "That will destroy us."

There is a form of Maya that can free us from the delusional limitations of the other (scary) three: We can switch to a Maya of inner experience and collective ecological sanity...The Maya of Nature. Turn off your mind, open your heart and your senses, and the truth will rise up out of the ruins of our false structures of ego—media and science.

The Universe is an awesome and beautiful mystery, activated by our shared Consciousness. If we bring forth that Universe that is within us—that we all share—then what we bring forth will save us.

Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor is due out early 2018, from Llewellyn Worldwide can be pre-ordered online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available everywhere – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!