A truly intelligent person is acutely aware of the limitations of that intelligence. They know, on some level, that intelligence is a filter through which one observes the world. In a way it just arranges and rearranges the objects of the world it sees, with the help of a handful of moral axioms; it doesn't extend that world, except through extrapolation or conjecture, which it is all too willing to do. To extend your world, and enter the next stage, a leap of faith is required. This is only possible if you are prepared to make sacrifices – to abandon those parts of your life that no longer make sense or no longer bring the rewards they once did, because to make that leap of faith requires energy and courage and it needs to be made with the totality of your being – nothing half-hearted about it. Problems with progress are always the product of a double-weighted mind and heart. If you are double-weighted – in two minds – then you are not giving yourself a fighting chance. The next stage can only be tackled with more focus and commitment than the last one.
The world of the heart is largely invisible. Internal. So the only way to gain entry is through faith. Your teacher can give you technical instruction, but unless your heart already knows you're bound to get it all wrong. Finding out what your heart knows is why we work – quietening down sufficiently to let it really speak – not jumping to conclusions – realising that heart world is never set or defined – it has an infinity of form and texture because it is constantly being stimulated from within and from without – it is never a closed system. Hearts open and embrace – this is their function – they make connexions all of the time. Faith and belief are just opening to the possibilities within the heart world. You must believe in God before he can reveal himself to you. The same is true of your teacher and of the teaching. When you are in their presence you must absolutely have 100% faith – no doubts – no quibbles – everything you are being presented with is perfect. Faith is the price of admission, and it is the one thing the calculating, conditional mind is suspicious of – it just cannot make any leap of faith – it requires proof before it can proceed. My teacher has often said of students locked in their rationality, “Clear head, confused heart.” Far better to be the other way round. A clever rational person often learns from experience that if they take a chance and abandon their rational structures for a moment then experimental “accidents” can happen which help them forward. But not forward into heart – just forward into the acquisition of new facts to help them formulate broader models for the reality they generally operate alongside.
The best way to develop heart is to use it – to love. Deus caritas est*. There should be a handful of good strong relationships in your life which are getting deeper and stronger the more you work on heart. One of these relationships, hopefully the most important, is the one with the work and with destiny. You give yourself to your relationships, unconditionally. The more you can give yourself to the work – relax into it – the more the heart will gradually blossom and take you forwards. Without this unconditional giving the mind is always grasping for pointers, whether they be feelings or clever insights or interesting avenues you see opening up, and progress becomes the mind leading the heart. If the heart is leading then there is no possibility of you thinking, “Oh, this is interesting, I think I'll investigate,” or, “Wow, this feels amazing!” or “Gosh, there's a principle in here somewhere,” because when the heart leads there is a settled and ruthless knowledge that anything interesting is always happening beyond your senses and beyond your understanding and beyond your imagination. Is all you can do is not get in the way of the natural process. This requires humility, connectedness, and above all belief. The constant process of opening and entering is belief. The embrace is the compassion – drawing the world into your heart so that you can heal it and properly fulfill your function as a living part of creation.
The world of the heart is largely invisible. Internal. So the only way to gain entry is through faith. Your teacher can give you technical instruction, but unless your heart already knows you're bound to get it all wrong. Finding out what your heart knows is why we work – quietening down sufficiently to let it really speak – not jumping to conclusions – realising that heart world is never set or defined – it has an infinity of form and texture because it is constantly being stimulated from within and from without – it is never a closed system. Hearts open and embrace – this is their function – they make connexions all of the time. Faith and belief are just opening to the possibilities within the heart world. You must believe in God before he can reveal himself to you. The same is true of your teacher and of the teaching. When you are in their presence you must absolutely have 100% faith – no doubts – no quibbles – everything you are being presented with is perfect. Faith is the price of admission, and it is the one thing the calculating, conditional mind is suspicious of – it just cannot make any leap of faith – it requires proof before it can proceed. My teacher has often said of students locked in their rationality, “Clear head, confused heart.” Far better to be the other way round. A clever rational person often learns from experience that if they take a chance and abandon their rational structures for a moment then experimental “accidents” can happen which help them forward. But not forward into heart – just forward into the acquisition of new facts to help them formulate broader models for the reality they generally operate alongside.
The best way to develop heart is to use it – to love. Deus caritas est*. There should be a handful of good strong relationships in your life which are getting deeper and stronger the more you work on heart. One of these relationships, hopefully the most important, is the one with the work and with destiny. You give yourself to your relationships, unconditionally. The more you can give yourself to the work – relax into it – the more the heart will gradually blossom and take you forwards. Without this unconditional giving the mind is always grasping for pointers, whether they be feelings or clever insights or interesting avenues you see opening up, and progress becomes the mind leading the heart. If the heart is leading then there is no possibility of you thinking, “Oh, this is interesting, I think I'll investigate,” or, “Wow, this feels amazing!” or “Gosh, there's a principle in here somewhere,” because when the heart leads there is a settled and ruthless knowledge that anything interesting is always happening beyond your senses and beyond your understanding and beyond your imagination. Is all you can do is not get in the way of the natural process. This requires humility, connectedness, and above all belief. The constant process of opening and entering is belief. The embrace is the compassion – drawing the world into your heart so that you can heal it and properly fulfill your function as a living part of creation.
*Deus caritas est, et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo manet.
"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
This biblical quote opens the Pope's recent encyclical letter.
1 comment
I have a real problem with this rationality and god bit. The whole spiritual search movement is full of people who have absolute faith in a lot of stuff that is just not true. If you've ever watched any of Derren Brown's programmes you can see how easy it is to get these types of people to think they are experiencing supernatural powers. But they're not, it's just their minds that are moving their bodies.
We talk about how we live in a rational age - but it seems like most of the population believe in superstititous stuff - astrology, ghosts, corn circles. These people have taken the leap of faith, but they're basing their lives around stuff that probably isn't really relevant to the problems in their lives and generally isn't true. My masseuse told me her wrist joints were bad because of planatary influences. Well maybe she overstrained herself through working 12 hour days. The reflexologist I went to was obsessed with corn circles. The whole alternative medicine and spirituality field is full of this delusion.
Humans have great capacity to delude themselves. God has 'revealed' himself to millions of people around the world who have shown him their faith. Most of them are believing in dangerous and delusional crap.
I'm not denying the energy world. I have experienced it and events that many would describe as supernatural. What I object to strongly is the baggage attached as described above. I can't see anything wrong with the principle that if something is true then it should work irrespective of whether you believe in it. To me that is the starting point. That doesn't necessarily involve having to go into the underlying proof in a 'Mr Logic' (of Viz fame) way.
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