The Heart Has a Reason that the Mind Knows Not

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky”, Rumi

“Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue. If knowledge of mysteries comes after emptiness of mind, that is illumination of heart”, Rumi

Rumi born 1207, died 1273 was a Sufi mystic and poet who was born of Persian parents in Afghanistan. He looms large in both Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. He was a devoted Muslim, and an Islamic scholar. His particular path involved drawing closer to God (Allah) through the purification of the inner self. His techniques involved reflecting and remembering the Divine through meditative chants, songs, and even dance. His works influenced other great Persian poets like Hafiz and Omar Khayyam. 

Rumi was, and is, a sublime Teacher…and a Teacher of the Sublime. Underlying his vast and complex tangle of works is a clear and cogent metaphysical understanding. All the laws of the physical world can come to be seen as perfectly balanced and manifest to us when our heart-consciousness has progressed to allow us to transcend our egoic tendencies. 

His “heart-consciousness” is not an understanding based upon our own personal love proclivities, but rather that loving perspective that obtains to our awareness when we open to the Divine Loving Wisdom that is ever-present in our HeartMind. 

Quote after Rumi-quote shares the Way of the Heart: 

“Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction”. 

“There is a candle in your heart ready to be kindled. There is a void in the soul ready to be filled.”

“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”

How can the wisdom teachings of a time over 750 years ago light the fires of our times? Rumi was not a proto-New Age Teacher spouting platitudes and aphorisms that were solely designed to give us hope in troubled times. He was a disciplined task master of Soul-training for those ready to take on the truly difficult challenges of being human. 

His was a personal lineage of Islamic teachers and scholars, and he laid the way for others (often in the Sufi tradition) to follow. I can imagine if he were alive today also offering to those interested, a pathway to travel that rocky and thorn-filled road of the human experience with an open mind and a truly open heart. Are you ready to follow that Path? Does its Light beckon to you? 

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of… We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.” (Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, from his work “Pensees”). Pascal was a mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher. He was hardly known as someone given to moody passions of extreme sentimentalism. Yet he recognized that we can only come to know Truth by combining reason and rationality with the Heart (and Spirituality). His was an integrative intelligence and Path, not dissimilar to that of Rumi. His approach did not oppose the Mind and the Heart but was based in their integrative and complimentary Wisdoms.

On the very eve of this New Age of A.I., where do you stand in combining analysis with heartfulness? Do you dare to use both your intuitive and creative tools as well as your calculators? Do you spend as much time enjoying the right hemisphere of your brain as much as utilizing the logical tools of your left? Perhaps most importantly, are you ready to open-up that internal software called “HeartMind”? This approach does not dance back and forth between the hemispheres but rather employs the Whole Brain…all of the time.

This is the central premise and Core Teaching of CenterPoint-working from an integrated foundation that equally combines Love and Truth, Logic and Compassion. The synthesis we seek already exists…why spend a lifetime (or more) trying to find ways to combine what already exists?

The natural question then becomes: “O.K., so how do we do that”? To begin, there is no doing? If the premise is that it already exists, then the approach of trying to find it truly begs the question. So again, “THEN WHAT”? (Notice how the voice gets louder and more demanding as I use all caps). There seems to be a natural resistance to simply Being. In such an active, A-type world, “not doing” either makes no sense or it is a giving in to laziness. 

Of course you can’t do “not doing”. That simply does not compute…But wait, isn’t “Peace” something we at least have some passing interest in attaining or enjoying? So, logically, if doing-ness does not in itself bring peace, then what does? (Try doing “nothing”).  The answer, as always, is actually quite close at hand. 

One ancient Yogic practice of engaging both the heart and mind uses a hand gesture known as the Uttarabodhi Mudra. (Mudras are the Hindu system of using hand positions for desired alignments). This particular version starts with the basic prayer position of the hands close to the chest- hands joined together all pointed upward. Then, let the middle fingers, ring fingers, and pinky fingers all interconnect- one to another so that they move to a horizontal position grabbing the knuckles. Keep the index fingers pointed skyward and then let the thumbs move (still connected) downward toward the floor. This specific shape creates an energetic circuit that stimulates the cardiac area and calms an overactive mind. “Hands-on” spirituality, as it were. This works best with closed eyes, deep breaths and imagining yourself in some peaceful environment- forest, mountain, seaside etc.

Practice this with the affirmation- “I am a child of God, loved unconditionally. Wherever God is I am, wherever I am, God is”.

Finally, consider those times in your life when you experienced the integration of your heart and your mind…Write them down and light and candle of gratitude, and then, like the protagonist in Oliver Twist: “Please sir, I want some more”.

Blog by John Krysko 7.23.26