Heart (by feralkat)

A new post from our wonderful, feralkat!!



Heart

The heart can understand what the mind contemplates. The feeling of having an “open heart” is a recognition of the true essence of the moment. The heart can also close, and then the mind begins to construe thoughts that actually carry consciousness farther away from truth. You know how it feels, rumination in your belly, you know how it has a sense of urgency, it is like a veil over the truth the heart knows. When you feel the truth of your heart, your sense of awareness opens, and becomes boundless, becomes gentler, and any sense of deficiency is dissolved while filling up the spaces where the questioning mind leaves traces. Being is never made smaller when mind rules, only the idea that being is smaller impersonates truth. Behind that is the vastness of space and the realm of heart.

If the sense of yourself becomes contracted, smaller, limited, incomplete, you can feel that way and be led by those feelings. But when you feel the fullness of the heart it is like viewing a reality so vast that it stops thinking for a time and there is stillness, quiet, peace. The truth of what exists here and now.

If you know your heart, it will tell you by it’s movement whether a truth you are experiencing is erroneous. If you hold onto an erroneous idea, your sense of who you are will align with that idea as long as the idea is held. Ideas can enhance perception or limit it, but ideas closely aligned with truth are larger, exist beyond the constraints of one small mind.

The simple fact of existence is both routine and profoundly mysterious. Heart is there throughout, either expanding or contracting in a subtle sense that is felt through changes in both physical and spiritual being. You know when something touches your heart, you also know when something stimulates your mind. If you accept that you are perfect just as you are, the heart will expand and relax, if you listen to an inner dialogue that tells you that your being isn’t “good enough” the heart will close, and if you ask yourself, you will find you know exactly what that means.

Who “I” am is always changing, shifting, like the inhalation and exhalation of breath. A sense of neutral ground which neither expands nor contracts will not effect the heart, it is like no-mans-land. Open-hearted feeling need not be judged. It is appropriate to experience your heart opening when you touch upon a profound truth, it is also appropriate to experience your heart closing when you touch upon a limiting concept.

The heart is true in an instant, with no constraints on its sensibility, it will always reveal where truth resonates. If you tell your heart something that is true, it will respond, likewise if you tell your heart something that is not true, such as telling yourself you are inadequate or whatever, it will contract respectively. Judging is a way of dealing with the uncomfortable, and it is not a fault but rather a learned response to holes in your background, upbringing, education. Even positive judgments reflect the idea that we are limited, while the truth itself is unlimited. What really is important becomes evident, it depends on where you are coming from. For example, if you spent a good deal of life focused on thoughts and ideas, then when you experience true emotion it may feel like an awakening. In contrast, if you have been practicing meditation techniques for example, then the emotions such as anger or joy or whatever, can seem to be a contraction rather than an expansion. It is important to know where you are, and you can know by just looking, seeing, feeling, recognizing. No one but you can have your individual perspective, no one can duplicate your essence, just like no one can sleep or eat for you. (except your mama when you are an embryo/fetus). You can trust your heart. It is always accurate, and can show you how true any choice you make is, like whether to come or go, whether to buy that item or not, whether to eat another helping or not, whether to make friends or relationships with another or not.

Adding to this, is the store of unconsciously strongly held beliefs about yourself, about the state of existence, about values, etc. They create a perpetual motion that is pervasive. That’s why moments of clarity seem so rare, What can you do about it? Nothing, it is what it is, the most and best you can do is to embrace it. To have compassion, and to accept the grace of being.

feralkat