A loosely defined self thrives in a populous gray-padded cell filled with neurons flying this way and that like levitating ballerinas on methamphetamines. Somewhere amidst the neuron storm, the loosely defined self recognizes itself to be an individual “I”. This individual “I” is also known as the ego, the contracted or trapped sense of self. We could also say the ego is “little mind”. For the purpose of simplifying things, I will refer to the ego as “little mind” for the rest of this entry.
And here is what I think about the little mind:
The little mind likes to think, strategize, ponder, prattle on and on, gossip, and, in general, rule the roost. What a rabble-rouser, despot, swindler, and smarmy king the little mind is. What a haughty prince. It positions itself atop the great edifice of the body, the cephalic region, and looks down upon everything below it like some kind of reclusive, snooty wizard who thinks he is better than everyone else. Of course, this is the small self in the small room of cloistered consciousness. There isn’t too much square-footage to play around with. The snooty wizard is getting upset because someone locked him inside the room with very little space. It feels as though he has been locked in a dark closet. The wizard blames and smites the rest of the body for this.
In reality, the little mind is not trapped inside a striated hunk of gray matter galvanized by electrical impulses. Assuming so would be kind of like assuming the mysterious character in Plato’s cave analogy is destined to watch the dance of shadows for myriad eons. The character at any time can realize he or she is watching a fiction on the dank wall of the cave by simply turning around to see the Sun of Truth. Likewise, the little mind that forages for a concrete identity in the neuron storm can equate itself with the fluxing process it is apart of, and, by doing so, it can simply disentangle itself from its own fiction.
But this ‘unzipping’ or ‘disentanglement’ of the little mind is easier said than done. The kernel of consciousness it has made for itself is difficult to dissolve in the acid-bath of the Truth. The wizard is hard to coax out of the cloistered room, even though you have told him he has the key, and even though you have told him you didn’t lock him up there. This is why something else is needed to free the perturbed bird from the cage. Something else that exists in the body needs to come to the rescue. Unmistakably, this something else is the heart.
The heart is not only a type of pumping mechanism for the body. This view is myopic. If it were just a pumping mechanism for the body, it wouldn’t be where the nectar of love dwells. If it were just a pump, it would be just like a forgettable car part, or some cog in the body’s self-perpetuating wheel of mechanical happenings. Oddly enough, this “pumping mechanism” view of the heart comes from the skewed abstractions of reductionistic science, or, stated another way, “little mind science”. The view comes from the character watching the shadow dance in Plato’s cave. In reality, the heart is something that greatly exceeds the “pumping mechanism” appellation. The heart is a source of intelligence, soul, and energy.
In siddha metaphysics, the heart is viewed as an intelligent organ that acts as a conduit for spiritual light. Inside this spiritual organ exists the “amrita nadi,” an energy that is awakened through equanimity and sadhana. The amrita, or nectar, is eventually channeled up through an “S”-shaped passageway in the body and is released through the top of the head. From here the energy fuses with a universal intelligence that gave birth to it. So, in a sense, the universal intelligence plants a mustard seed in the heart of each of us. Through practice, conscious attention, and wisdom, the mustard seed eventually turns into a clambering energy that kisses God.
But the siddhas aren’t the only ones who have latched onto the “heart as spiritual organ” idea. Now the eastern metaphysical viewpoint of our occult anatomy is being corroborated by modern research. Thanks to the pioneering work being done at the HeartMath Institute and by the philosophical maverick Joseph Chilton Pearce, there is now abundant evidence to suggest that the heart is a brain. The heart is filled with neurons much like the brain inside the skull. These neurons in the heart also create electrical charges and relay information. This brain in the heart is also connected to the old mammalian sector of the Mecca in the head. It is intimately connected with the hippocampus and the amygdala, or the emotional processing units of the skull-brain. In the words of Joseph Chilton Pearce himself:
“The heart is neurally connected with every facet of the body and brain but has no neural complex for making judgments. The ability to qualify experience and judge the value of an event is assigned to the heart’s servant, the brain in our head.”
As well as being neurally connected with the body in a non-judgmental, non-egoic way, the heart-brain also creates an electromagnetic field that correlates with the environment. This electromagnetic field can best be described as a toroidal shape. In other words, the field is shaped like a big doughnut. This toroidal field relates to the environment and the little mind in subtle and crucial ways. Before a signal is processed in the skull-brain, the heart picks it up and it enters the lively, non-judgmental swirl of the electromagnetic field. From here the signal travels to the ancient sectors of the brain, the instinctual areas of the gray-padded cell. Eventually the signal reaches the intellect and it turns into a concept, or song lyric, or revelation, or a full-on harangue about politics. Ideally, the signal is turned into something passionately creative, truthful, endearing, and mystical by the brain. But sometimes the gift from the heart-field is squandered or altogether nullified by a mind divided against itself. Sometimes the student would rather shy away from the master and play the truant. Sometimes the bird gets locked in the cage.
The best thing that can happen right now is this: we all recognize this relational, natural, and informational heart-field as the guru. It is what can free the little mind from its own gobbledygook. If everyone recognized this non-judgmental field we have at our disposal, nuclear disarmament would be a true possibility. In the non-judgmental space of the love-toroid, there would be no terrorists, no one hunting down the terrorists, nothing inferior, and nothing superior. There would only be what is. Then the wizard will get his key. Then the cave dweller will move away from the play of deceptive shadows.
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