The Heart is Primary in Perception
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be touched - they must be felt with the heart."
-Helen Keller
Lately the way I perceive the world has been changing significantly. These changes in perception and feeling were the main reason I really dove into spirituality as they allowed me to comprehend the world more fully, to look at the bigger picture. These last few days I've noticed an ability to open up to this new type of perception much more easily than in the past.
The change in perception seems to be a key point in spirituality, seeing things in a different light. Rather than relying on vision and thought as the primary ways of taking in the world, feeling and knowing are the direction I've been taking my perception. Honestly, as amazing as it is, sometimes it's uncomfortable, I'll get odd feelings or get in a funk of some kind.
The concept I like to use for a model of the world is similar to CGI, like in video games or movies. When creating CGI or a video game, the base 3d shape is molded first. Then, on top of that, all of the visual effects and sound effects are placed in various layers and textures. This limits us to two senses basically, sight and hearing.
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."
-H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Real life has much more to offer. Each organ seems to be able to pick up certain aspects of our environment and selves. The different vibrations of light waves, sounds waves, the vibration of external objects, and chemical vibrations are all picked up by our sense organs. In Chinese medicine and other ancient teachings, they even go as far as saying and our internal organs are picking up other information, thus gut feelings and the like.
So what about the heart?
I like to think of the heart as the unifying organ, the place where everything comes together. For one, it is the source of our own vibration, even in a physical sense our heartbeat is a vibration, just look at an ECG. But the heart isn't just putting out a pulse, it's receiving them too. Everything is sending vibrations that the heart can pick up, including our other organs. So rather than focusing on our hearing or our sight or our smell we can let go and take everything in at once.
Just be open to experience.
I personally used to have a very closed off heart, rarely able to even feel my heartbeat because I was so tense physically and mentally. I was more concerned with thinking than feeling. After a lot of internal work I am now starting to really notice this type of perceiving through the heart, and it's really beautiful. I highly suggest feeling it out, even thoughts.
I'd love to hear all your experiences with perception in the comments. Sometimes it's hard to describe, perception is one thing most of us take for granted, and I think growing up some of us believe everyone is perceiving relatively the same. IN recent years I've disproved this to myself and now I always wonder how other people are seeing the world. Sometimes you can tell by how they act and hold themselves, sometimes not.
Thanks for reading!
My friend there are many things and many truths within this world that can never be fully explained or indeed taught. They exist in the moment and the feeling, the knowing and the wisdom .. and they exist outside the perceptual awareness of the vast majority of people. But, this is changing, can you feel it? I know that you can .. one day the dam will break and it will sweep aside the last vestiges of the old world and the meek (not the weak) really will inherit the earth. That can be difficult to comprehend within a day, a week .. hell even a human lifetime, but the cycle is going to come full circle and what was will be again.
We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now... but it will grow again... like the trees.
Chief Joseph .. Nez Perce
Not only can I feel it, I can see it too, so many people are discussing these topics, sometimes in ways I can relate, and sometimes in their own ways. It goes counter to a lot of the negative energy in the world.
I think we will see a type of conflictless change coming soon, I know I'm starting to experience it in my own life. Basically I think Christ consciousness is coming, and what that entails is simply perceiving things in truth and watching them transform.
Great comment, loved the quote
This is a great post, thank you! I've been experiencing a kind of shift from trying to force my perceptions and appraisal of things in general from a mental place to a more intuitive heart-felt place. The result has felt like a lot of saved energy as well as choices and appreciations that are closer to what's best for who I feel I am. I wish I had read this earlier! The best exercise I've found for cultivating this "heart intuition" has been Tai Chi- I'm doing a series on it in my blog, feel free to check it out if it sounds interesting. Best!
Awesome, I will have to check that out. I think I already implement some of the concepts behind tai chi in my personal yoga practice, but I could definitely use more knowledge in the area, I also have studied a little bit of the work by Mantak Chia which also involves chi using sexual energy.
I personally don't do well with too much structure in my practice, but I will be checking out your articles and upvoting the new ones, next time you write one please stop by since I haven't been checking my feed as frequently and probably need to cut back on the number of people I follow, I really wish we could sort our feed.
Thanks for the kind words, I feel like there is a mass spiritual movement happening and it's really cool to see everyone's different experience and perspectives!
Great post. I appreciate you capturing the scary aspect of mindfulness.. Oftentimes, right after I feel most "out of body" and therefore most aware I also walk away a bit confused and uncertain. It leaves me feeling both refreshed and a little scared, most likely from lack of control. In the end, I know that that's the point of mindfulness - that level of awareness - but man, it's not easy at first!
Agree here, it's a challenge in itself to stay calm when those changes happen, instinctually I try to grab hold immediately, and the mind obliges.
Haha I know, I still struggle with it, fear runs deep but these last few weeks I've been doing much better.
Thanks for stopping by, I gotta see what you've been up to
I guess I m feeling it to be a case of simple observation at the moment. Nothing more than this, observing. Like if I touch the river I become wet -tainted by the wetness, as it were.
The looking, the knowing I am this presence, and returning to this as the thoughts become accustomed to do so - and so the apparent momentum increases.
(popped down to the smoke to see Tony Parson..looking very frail, but still sharp as a razor)
Great words as per.
I feel sort of the same, it's hard to use words though, like it is observation, but it's so much more at the same time. Like I am the observation or I am my surroundings that I observe.
Never knew about tony parson, any good books or just speaking?
TY
That was a really interesting read... I have recently been opening myself up to mindfulness... I have not given it a proper go yet, but I have read some material and downloaded some apps, so hope to give it a go soon.. I do tend to follow my gut instinct, but my mind always makes me question decisions and second guess them after I have made them..
That's great, one piece of advice I like from Adyashanti is to let everything be as it is, simple yet effective form of mindfulness, once that happens awareness increases because you aren't busy trying to control or wishing for some kind of change to happen.
The mind is hard to stop listening to or to even change the direction from negative to positive. Keep with a good practice and you will get results, guided meditations and apps are a good start. I personally like listening to guys like adya, rupert spira, and mooji, that's what I used to do at work all the time.
Thanks for dropping by the blog again!
Another well written post, there truly is something to the “feelings of the body” like you pointed out, gut feeling, his heart wasn’t in it, and so on. Same thing with deja vu, thee is a lot we don’t know about our bodies that we could learn more about.
Ya, the body is really mysterious, it seems to run itself, not like I'm thinking about how to beat my heart. There is a lot more to the world than we know, first I was interested in history, but even in this day and age we know so little.
TY