The Secret Heart Center

Balancing Head Knowledge via the Neck     

So many enlightening teachings on the so-called ‘spiritual path’ can forever remain on the level of intellectual curiosities. There, on the vast, tiny shelves of grey, they gather dust.

It is in the nature of head knowledge to pose as real, and to pose as important, in this way.  Ornaments on the mantelpiece. Badges of assurance: “Yes, I’m not ignorant.”

We cannot read the same book twice, just as we cannot step into the same stream twice. The water flows on, and it’s a brand new stream each time. It’s a new person who enters the stream too. The second time we read a book, something unexpected is lost. The surprise is lost. We notice new things, perhaps things that we missed completely the first time, and it is not really the same book.

We eventually forget those words, and years later someone discovers the same thing, and full of the flush of insight, that person tells us about their remarkable discovery. How wonderful! Who knew? Where was this knowledge hiding? The very same little book has forever changed their life.

We consult the dusty mental archives, remember most of it, or the general outline, perhaps, and smile, and nod. We have already forgotten.

Where was that knowledge hiding? Why does it not make us light up anymore? Now it is only a pale reflection. Once it fired our own spirit, just as it has so clearly done in theirs. Now it is like watching the same movie over again – it loses all of the freshness and impact. It is a dead thing. Just a statue; not alive at all.

The words, the knowledge, the facts – they serve very little purpose, except to inadvertently feed our own personal misconceptions about the difference between ‘being’ and knowledge. The head goes on accumulating – indefinitely, it would seem. Mentally, we are already fossils. In the dimension of being, we remain awkward pre-teens.

Meanwhile the heart center gets no attention. It patiently watches, passing no judgement either way. It is essentially disinterested. Another book? Another master? Another school of thought? Why not! The more the merrier. One more lovely flower that will bloom, and then wither.

We imagine that somehow all this theoretical knowledge will sink down into our hearts, into our bones – and refresh and remake our lives. And sink it does – like countless bits of matter sinking slowly to the bottom of the pond, where it slowly joins with the mud.

The heart remains unaffected.

The great teachers know this all too well. They see so many people come to sit at their feet and listen, but those same people go away again, and remain essentially unchanged. The teacher talks, and explains, and points to the simple, eternal truths that are there for all to see. His eyes are clear. He can separate what is important from what is not important. He sifts the fine and subtle from the gross and mundane. The student gathers facts, and later, the student forgets all those facts – but something…

Something beyond the words seeps through.

This is a direct transmission, from heart to heart.

The Secret of the Heart

When true ‘spirituality’ is finally born in a person’s heart, we cannot even call it ‘spirituality.’ The moment we give it any kind of name, or definition, or boundary, it’s a lie. “Finding God” is a misnomer, at best. It’s more like being knocked on the head, or maybe even a sneaky sucker punch, or waking, sober, in a strange place after a night out drinking.

Please understand, respected reader, that I am gridlocked by the words that you are now reading. They jam up the pearl highway of truth on either side, for miles in both directions. These sentences are all clever little lies, each word is a lie, and if you imagine that they could possibly contain the truth, you are mistaken, and I think you know this already, somewhere in your marrow.

There! With that confession out in the open, I can continue with a clear conscience.

In order for these words to have any effect on your own heart at all, you may want to imagine the ‘real me’ as I sit here typing. See me in your mind’s eye. A void for a head, a short beard, two skinny arms, connected to a heart, hands, ending in fingers, typing. There’s a cigarette dangling from my mouth, coffee steaming by my right hand, and a wry smile on my face, as I attempt the impossible – revealing, in word form, the secret of the heart.

What delightful literary nonsense! Ha ha. Perhaps this picture will encourage something of the heart-to-heart transmission, but then again, perhaps not. All I can do is express it in some way.

When real, cutting insight finally reaches the heart center, people go slightly mad.

In fact, they become sane, but to other ‘normal’ people it seems like the opposite. Something wild, untamed, natural, ancient, and unexpected arises. Something unpredictable. It is from another realm, subject to a different degree of law, and yet, perfectly at home in everyday reality.

When it happens, their eyes catch fire. It’s impossible to fake. Their faces shine. They go beyond, yet remain at home. Currents of inner energy that were blocked up and stagnant suddenly begin to flow again. The mind zings with knowing – but strangely, not with dead knowledge. The difference between understanding and pure knowledge becomes crystal clear. All the ‘secrets’ of existence suddenly seem so dam obvious, and paradoxically, they seem utterly impossible to speak. We grasp for words like “love,” “spirit,” “the divine” or “heart,” but those poor words are quite inadequate. They are beggars, scam artists, and conmen.

The place that we felt was the center of our life begins to sink downwards, towards our toes. Simultaneously, we feel life rising up from the ground, up through the coccyx, up along the spine. It becomes unclear who is experiencing the experience. There is nobody at home to take notes.

Somewhere along the spine, close to the physical heart organ, something begins to open, like a lotus in due season. If we are sensitive, we can feel it, almost, but not quite, as a physical sensation. It feels like falling in love, only much, much more intense. It has the same unexpected power of heart, and a similar flavor, but untainted by the need for another. It is pure. Clear. Single, and infinite. It’s right here – nowhere else. It is quite obvious, or at least, it should be obvious, and the real mystery is how we could have missed it in the first place.

It can become so intensely beautiful that it overwhelms the senses completely. It is so good, so penetratingly lovely, that it becomes painful. One feels like a cave bat suddenly in full sunshine, or a fish out of water. One wants to hide, but where? All is revealed. All is light. All is radiant wisdom, in love.

Perhaps this is why the Bible says that no man can look upon the face of god and live. I cannot say for sure. I only know that this experience blew my head apart, opened me up, turned me right side up, opened my heart, and I longed for a repeat of the ecstasy for many years afterwards. At first I thought I was dying, or going insane.

I’ve come to know that many spiritual seekers have had such a glimpse, some far more intense than others. Perhaps this is your path too. For many, it would seem, this is when the ‘search’ really begins.

It seems that many will go through the phases and throes of awakening, sometimes for many years. There is an initial, physical change. There are waves of emotional changes. Wisdom springs up like weeds. There is a time to hermit, and seek out a safe cave somewhere, far from other people. There is a time for expanding the mind – many books eaten up, devoured, unlocked, many teachers heard and understood. There is a time for ripening, and a time for the search to come to an end.

The secret remains in the heart, pure and unaffected by our journey.

There it lives, and that is home, forever. It needs no teachings, no journeys, no words, no forms of any kind. It is the wellspring of self. It has no bottom.

This powerhouse of love seems to sit in the middle, right where mind, body and emotion meet. We can approach it from these roads.

The mind can recognize its companion, down at the other end of the tunnel of the neck. It can go there for clarity and respite. It can take a holiday down there. It can rest easy there, like a finally-played-out and game-weary child in the arms of a wise and caring parent.

The emotions can find their true home there. Their pivot of wise balance. Many times our fears, our regrets, our missions in life, our goals and ambitions – these appear as knots in the spine, around the heart and neck, leading to the head, where the problem is compounded. Rodney Laing wrote a beautiful and cryptic little book called Knots where he attempts to describe the impossible games our minds play with our emotions and our bodies – and it’s a good word, as words go – the effects become like impossible ‘knots’ in our minds, in our spinal muscles. The effects seep into our cells.

The body finds healing in the heart, in that place of spontaneous, unplanned acceptance and gratitude for existence. It rests, and recovers, and renews itself.

Mind, body and emotion come home, and join, and we become whole again. ‘Spirituality’ is an unnecessary afterthought, because all is as it should be. There is only this – only this.

This is when it becomes clear to some of us that what is needed is an equal balance between knowledge and being.

Yes, there is a secondary place for book knowledge. It helps the mind find a good enough reason to give the reigns back to the heart. It helps build trust, or at least, confound the mind so utterly that it gives up control.

The dimension of being, in other words, the heart center, is equally, if not more important. This comes through living, and interacting on this plane, and through doing – not thinking. When we are faced with something that baffles the mind, we often discover that the answer lies in the feeling of love.

Why isn’t the remedy working? Love. The heart is closed. Forgotten. Asleep. Not engaged in the healing or mourning process.

What is the real truth of the matter? Love. We can see that there are relative truths, and eternal truths, and we know, without knowing how we know.

What is the best way to awaken, and stay awake? Love. It creates  a standing wave, a rebound effect, a mirror for existence in every situation. The universe begins to reciprocate a new energy – it is faithful that way – what we project, we get back. Love.

Why is life so hard? Love reveals that it is exactly as ‘hard’ as we want it to be.

Any question, any dilemma, any dead end – becomes resolved in this way. Sometimes the resolution happens when we simply stop regurgitating our thoughts, and we become silent. Sometimes an obvious, down-to-earth solution just presents itself.

This is the power of the heart center. Look for your home there, if you like, whenever you’re done reading and thinking!

So much peace and love.