Our Heart is Your Home

"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 im-portant) 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!

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Love and Rattlesnakes: An Important Message From The [Animal] Kingdom of God

Life can be a lot like juggling cats, very challenging, rather complicated, and a little dangerous. I'm not much of a juggler, but I love cats. (Especially our miracle-cat, Max.) And if you want to grow, you've got to give it your best. It's like that acronym for God – Grow Or Die. It doesn't mean you really die (none of us really do); it means you just never really live.

When I think of human evolution, I think of spiritual evolution. What other kind of evolution is there for us now – the A.I. singularity? Cranial input jacks? Our thumbs getting very pointy from years of texting? That would make picking your nose a lot easier, too.

We say,  "He behaves like an animal,"  when we describe someone who's motivated by ego gratification (unconsciousness) rather than by spiritual growth, but that's got it absolutely backwards. Animals behave just fine on their own. They live in a state of grace in being, in "God's Kingdom." They're constantly showing us how to do it – especially the animals that have grown spiritually alongside each of us, the ones that aid and direct our lives. They are our karma partners.

There was an elderly woman named Dottie, who lived next to us up on the Upper Delaware. She'd spent years and years by the river, and knew that world very well. After her husband died, as her closest companion there was a six-foot black bull snake with whom she shared that stretch of riverbank. It may sound a little strange to you, but it wouldn't at all to an Indian or a mystic. They sat together for years. He was the old woman's protector. One stormy night, I (terrified) had to save him from some deer netting I'd put up myself, and was amazed by his willingness, extraordinary power, and real, pure beauty.

After Dottie passed, a resentful daughter-in-law killed the great snake. Since that day, the area has been visited by increased numbers of timber rattlesnakes, likewise beautiful in their own right, but certainly not cozy compañeros. The men of the area – "real"  men –  beer-drinkin,'  meat-eatin' men who hunt and kill animals just for fun, and because "they like the way they taste," have had a field day killing rattlers since (a crime). 

I had to stop such a killing just the other day, and my manly scaredy-pants neighbor said, "Just wait 'til he comes to get you. You saw him ready to strike. He's not your friend, he wants to kill you!" I had to point out to him that he doesn't want to kill you, you want to kill him. Getting ready to strike isn't an attack mode for a rattlesnake, it's a defensive position. Humans have massacred rattlers in numbers that have put them on the Endangered List, not the other way around.

Perhaps I'm preaching to the converted here again, but maybe not when I say this:  Our spiritual evolution requires us to absolutely respect the divinity of all living things. Many of us intuitively glean this lesson from the role our pets play in our lives – that they are our link to The Divine Source of Being, our evolution, if you like. Then we can extend this grace to the animals we unconsciously, indirectly kill and eat; and stop doing that. If we don't, we can only grow so much. Our evolution stagnates, locked in this world of blood and bone and ego.

What difference can it really make in your life, to stop [killing and] eating animals? It's hard to describe exactly, but it's a lot like Love (which is what it is) – you can't put it into words very well, except to say that it's wonderful. It's liberating. It brings presence and meaning to Life in a way that you'd never have imagined it would. It's really living, consciously – and sharing the grace that animals know by nature.

Then we might extend it even further, out past the whales and wild dolphins, the great elephants, and zebras and koalas and all the cute fuzzies, on to all those not-so-cuddlies – like rattlesnakes, and dare I say, even crocodiles. Then we can stop all the needless killing, and begin to live.

My wife is Sue Pike, The Animal Talker®, and yesterday not long after we received the bad news that our eighteen-and-a-half-year-old shaman-cat, Max, has incurable cancer and won't be with us (in this form) much longer, she did a meditation to channel a message from the animals for a radio show she does each month. Maybe you'll forgive my pontificating up to now, because this is the real pay-off to this whole post...it's what the animals said to her:

When you are frustrated, allow and accept our Love. When you are sad, love us. When times are hard, love us. When your heart feels closed, allow and accept our Love.

We're always here for you. Call on us as pets and friends to connect you to The Divine, and allow it. Their Love is pure, learn from it. If no animal is in the household, visit one and feel their Love and connection to The Divine. Then Buffalo came in and said:

No one can topple your authentic self. Remember to be grateful for all that you have.

Goat said: Keep walking step-by-step towards your goals. Love each other on the journey.

Then all the animals said: We are more than our bodies. You are too. Please keep our Earth clean. We love you.

Of course, Max has always said those things to us, he is, after all, a shaman-cat, and our karma partner, now and always. But I imagine that when all the animals say that to us, that includes the rattlesnakes.

 "I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior, but we are after all a mere part of the Creation...The elements and the animals, and the birds, they live in a state of grace. They are absolute, they can do no wrong. It is only we, the two-leggeds, that can do this.  And when we do this to our brothers, then we do the worst in the eyes of the Creator."

                                   Oren Lyons, to the United Nations  (1977

Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor, which can be purchased on this page or online, along with the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond – or ask for them at your local bookstore!

An Excerpt About Love...

Love rules…an edited excerpt of the chapter "Love is the Medium, the Small, and the Large" from How to Survive Life (and Death), Conari Press. 

..............................................................................................apologies to Jawlensky

All the most difficult and damaging parts of life originate in the conditions created by an absence of Love. On the grand scale of things, without the selfish and exploitative parts of human nature that create so many problems for the planet and it's inhabitants, there would only be the beautiful flow and support and creation of Love. Everyone would get along and want for nothing.

That wouldn't be such a bad world, would it? For everyone to take care of everyone else. In fact, I believe it's the actual goal we all share in "the end."

Here's something interestingly scientific: Did you know that medical science has now determined that our hearts, unlike any other part of the body, contain a complex cellular structure similar to our brain? The same neurons, neurotransmitters, support cells, and so forth. In fact, our heart is directly linked to our brain, and along with being able to independently learn, remember, feel, and sense, our heart can enable our brain to perceive certain things, to inspire types of thoughts, and to determine our emotional experience.

And what do you think constitutes the energy of the heart? The language of the heart? It's the medium...the small, and the very, very largest of all "invisible" energies.

In fact, before moving on to your next undertaking (pardon the expression), it might help you to realize that you are adrift in, surrounded by, and have always been swimming in an invisible river - a virtual ocean of Love. It's easy not to see it. We tend to keep our heads above the surface, our hearts are always down in it.

So the main job of life is simply to eliminate the obstacles that prevent our perception of Love; the free flow of Love into us, out of us, through us, and around us. But it's not so simple, is it? We need to strip down our ideas about the world, and especially about ourself, to learn to swim naked in this river of love, and become one within this medium, this beautiful dimension that can carry us through this life, and beyond. And who among us, I ask, doesn't like to swim naked...especially where we're in the dark?

Put aside your reservations (and inhibitions) for a moment, if you will, and let's go swimming. Here's how:

Since Love is all understanding and acceptance, naturally it's what allows everything to become beautiful as it possibly can be in our perception. When we open our heart, and accept everything and everyone as they are, simply and without judging or comparing, we're briefly granted the ability to really see the sometimes heart-breaking beauty of life's constant struggle to return to Love.

When we open ourselves to the current of Love, we can find ourselves within it, and realize that we actually live there. We recognize that in that flow of Love, everyone and everything, even what seems terrible to us, is being what they need to be, doing what they need to do - for their expression and evolution, and so, for ours too. Instantly within that moment, absolute tolerance and acceptance becomes literally a "no-brainer."

When we open our heart and use it like we would use our brain to look at the world, only with this filter of loving compassion up front, everything and everyone becomes okay just the way they are. And in fact, as absolutely beautiful as Love allows them to be (sometimes a little sadly beautiful) in their own right.

Each person takes on the wonderful quality of themselves, bumps and all. They might be crazy, God bless 'em, but they're amazing nonetheless. Everyone you've ever known becomes kind of perfect. Everything that has ever happened, or will happen in your life, and in the world, is fine as it is (like it or not), because it needs to be that way in order to change and connect back to the flow of Love. Back to the place where Love will carry you too.

If you try your best to become Love, you'll find you never have to worry about who you are, what you look like, what you have (or don't have), what you've done (or haven't done)...you just won't need to worry about your outsides ever again. Your insides will be your outsides.

...and there goes the swimsuit.

Stop struggling against the current (if you are), and head downstream. Let go of all those internal obstacles to Love; let go of all those petty external details (and they all are). Strip down your mind and allow the mysterious and wonderful flow of Love to carry you home, dressed only as yourself.


The book, "How To Survive Life (and Death)," is available from Conari Press, or at all major booksellers––but ask for it from your local bookshop. Read about this and much more in the new book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor available now from Llewellyn Worldwide

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!

Tales: A Letter for You

Tales of the Koko Lion: Rock Visitors

Here's the rock, and where the deer were...

"The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. Both heaven and earth are contained in that space...for the whole universe dwells within our heart."

Chandogya Upanishad, 8.1

One day, Koko was sitting on the rock in the river, chanting the sacred word OM. It seemed a little corny, sure. But it was working. He said the word over and over, from his root and his heart and his throat. His eyes were a little bit completely closed, though he was beginning to see things quite clearly, in a different way. After a while, he felt a presence, and cracked his eyes slightly to look. There, on the bank just across from the rock, were three young, curious deer -just five or six feet away. The young leader looked like: Is there room on the rock for me? I'd like to step across. There wasn't enough room on the rock, but in their hearts, there was all the space in a thousand universes.

Have you ever heard of The Unified Field Theory? Physicists have been working on it for a hundred years, at least. But there's one major ingredient that they keep leaving out of their formulae: Consciousness. The deer, the river, even the breeze on Koko's face (even Koko), are drifting particles, realizing their material forms in and out of wave phases. Some things just are, formed out of our shared consciousness. Some things are just for you, formed from the energy of your heart, which is like a giant light-energy top, spinning in the middle of your being. In fact you could say, it is you.

Live from your heart. Release all the expectations you have for the things you want. You're getting everything you need already. You don't have to go any where else to be where you want to be. Or try this: get on the bus, go across town, sit in a new cafe, open your heart, and be half way around the world, in the most beautiful and romantic place you've ever wanted to be. Covet what you already have.

"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.

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

from Memories, Dreams, Reflections

""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