Dear friends,
There are some who claim the conscious mind is your enemy. That we need to live in Spirit and heart feeling to really understand ourselves. Still others claim the heart gets wrapped up in emotion and takes us down the wrong path time after time. Both are true… but neither is wholly true. I thought to explore this question a bit.
The mind is a tool. And a darned good one, I might add! But it needs to be used as a tool, and, as they say, we need to be sure we are using “the right tool for the right job.”
Suppose you were a carpenter. As it happened you were overly fond of your hammer. A neighbor asks you to help him change the light bulbs on his outdoor Christmas tree. Were you to say, “Happy to help. Let me grab my hammer”, you might find the request for help speedily retracted. The problem, of course, is not that there is anything at all wrong with hammers, nor that light bulbs present a particular challenge. You are just not selecting the right tool for the job.
The mind has abilities that ought to be used as a servant to your life. I myself would never start a complicated tech job without consulting a manual or online tutorial. It is a rare person who can fix a car using intuition alone! But leading a life based on reasonable deductions and analysis may not lead us where we want to go.
Yes, the heart gets swayed by emotion and is thus equally likely to lead us astray. But it is often the better tool, and clearly so when used properly. Both Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein credited intuition as the one personal quality that led to their remarkable success.
To purify the heart we must quiet it. Emotion is always about you: your desires, your wants, your fears, your worries, etc. Pure heart feeling is never about you: it just is. If you have a stake in a particular outcome the heart is troubled and anxious, and not likely to hear Spirit’s gentle whispers. That still voice within would be drowned out by the static of emotion stemming from self-concern.
Once the intuitive understanding and perception arrives, it is fine for the mind to consider calmly the various elements involved. If you get guidance to jump into the pool, it is quite fine to check to see if it has water in it! After all, both Einstein and Jobs were both mentally astute (to say the least!) and did not shy away from the hard work of analysis. But the real flashes of genius came through direct insight, not through spreadsheets and deductive reasoning. I can say that for myself, all of the greatest wonders and blessings in my life have come through listening to that quiet voice within. Yet my multi-page linked spreadsheets and penchant for analytical thinking have always been a key member of my tool belt.
May we each calm the heart and be open to hearing that quiet voice of Spirit that knows much more than we can imagine. May we keep the mind as a servant rather than a master.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the Gang at East West