On Speaking from Heart Space

I am a man of words, in fact, one of the things I value most in this world is speech, communication, and the phono-aesthetics of words. If I could devote myself to the mastery of a single skill it would surely be the spoken word. It is the man in me, the philosopher, the poet, the libra, the humanoid, to observe something beyond comprehension and to foolishly attempt to describe it. To commit this error is like caging a butterfly with the intent of understanding its whimsical patterns of flight. Once you try to rationalize something, to concretely describe an abstract concept, you are diminishing it, you’re stunting its growth. And the only way to allow for it to evolve and reveal to you a  broader scope of its grandeur would be to erase all notions of understanding and free it from the bondage of explanation. For example: If I understood love in the same way I concretely understood it about a year ago, I’d be miserable. But through trials and tribulations I was able to deconstruct this concrete notion of what love is or should be thus opening myself up to a broader perspective of all that it CAN be.

Muhammad said, “Don’t theorize about essence!” All speculations are just more layers of covering. Human beings love coverings!

I am a man of words, in fact, my passion for words and tendency to let them flow through me unrestrained has gotten me into a bit of trouble in the past. This is due to the fact that I’d been known to speak from a variety of seemingly mutually exclusive places letting each of my imbalanced ‘Chakras’ influence my speech at different times. However, it seemed that all things effortlessly aligned and conflict melted away whenever I had spoken from my heart. What I’m trying to communicate today is this: Regardless of whether you’re speaking from a higher or lower place, allowing your words to filter through your heart is always important because it adds a sense of attachment, accountability, and genuineness to your words.

But how could this be exactly? I mean, it has always been easy for me to understand how speaking from the lower Chakras may cause conflict, but what harm could possibly be done in speaking from higher Chakras when our Crown is associated with our connection to the divine and our Third Eye is associated with our wisdom and intuition? The answer is simple: It’s because our humanity resides in our hearts, our capacity for empathy, our ability to connect with another human being and determine what is appropriate to say and what we must withhold at any given moment.

I once knew a guy, our exchanges were quite frequent so we were definitely acquaintances. But a large factor as to why our acquaintance never sprouted into a true friendship was his detachment from our interactions. He certainly only expressed kindness towards me but there was always a lack of genuineness that I couldn’t quite explain. I see now that the problem was that he had clearly taken on a role in our relationship that we hadn’t mutually agreed upon: The Guru.

He saw every word I said as an opportunity to proselytize, swiftly responding with a piece of spiritual advice. I swear I never really learned a thing about who he was as an individual because it was all veiled behind his unyielding attempts to communicate his spiritual wisdom to me. He was so adamant in trying to funnel his every observation through his third eye via crown that it became impersonal, there was no real involvement in his words (No Heart Chakra) they were just abstractions.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

James 2:14-26

And this is the Guru Complex that we have! We speak to look wise but the wisdom is not from our hearts, it’s in a book, it’s just empty words dying to be repeated. Not to say that this man didn’t put in work but, from my observations, he failed to open his heart to the needs and wisdom of other people and conditions outside of his own. By elevating himself to the role of teacher, he had placed himself in a hierarchy above a countless amount of individuals that he could have also learned from. Once you think you’ve found all the answers, who will you listen to? How will you learn?

But back to myself! ME! Because making this blog post entirely impersonal would defeat the purpose now, wouldn’t it? I’ve made similar mistakes with the ones nearest and dearest to my heart! Forgive me! I’ve watched somebody love me with so much emotion and attachment and wondered to myself, “She loves me so physically. But how deep is her love for me, spiritually?” I saw her in the depths of despair and said, “You need to stop being so consumed by your emotions and try to step back and take a deeper look at the spiritual root of these issues!” Once, I thought I’d found all the answers. Who will you listen to Edward? How will you learn? And then I became her and understood. And then I died.

My friends, a word from a Spiritual Guru (ahem, myself): Sometimes people just need a shoulder to cry on, they don’t need a spiritual perspective. Sometimes people just need to be understood, they don’t need to understand things differently in order to make their own lives easier. Sometimes people just need to be loved and consoled, in a silence that speaks a hundred thousand lifetimes of words. Sometimes speaking through your heart space means not saying a word at all. Because most times your heart speaks gently enough to be heard yet loudly enough to be impactful. Jah!

Is Spirituality the new Religion? Lord, Take the Wheel!

We all operate and find identity through labeling ourselves in different ways and with each label comes a different interpretation for the roles that we are supposed to play when placing ourselves into these different categories. Each label (ie: sister, brother, daughter, son, wife, husband, lover, companion, friend, mother, father) carries a different personal/social obligation that we must abide by in order to adequately fit that role. However, what seems to complicate things is the way that each of these labels is open to interpretation and how two people may have conflicting perspectives on how one should fulfill each station (boyfriend, friend). Alternately, some labels seem to have very rigid structures that become so deeply embedded into our social fabric that the definition becomes universal and the role cannot be adequately fulfilled unless you adhere to this fixed guideline (Republican, Christian).

Many people try to avoid labels in order to dodge the obligation that comes with them, “We’re just dating, it’s not like we’re in a relationship.” Others opt to use certain labels in place of others in order to maintain a certain distance “ie: father in place of dad (or sperm donor if you really want to drive the point home.)” The point is that we can’t escape labels or the pressure that comes with falling under one. For some, this creates an environment to thrive in, while for others this is a source of great anxiety and isolation.

For me, it has been a combination of both: First, in trying to find out how I fit into each of my primary god-given labels (black, male), remaining vigilant in avoiding the seedy influence of American culture. While, at the same time, working on comfortably defining my self-proclaimed labels (friend, boyfriend, etc.) trying to be respectful yet vigilant, once again, in filtering through the pressures and expectations being projected onto me by friends and lovers who have defined their roles differently.

Overall I try to avoid labels because, as Soren Kierkegaard had put it, “Once you label me, you negate me.” Because, whether or not I define myself in the same way as what you have yourself perceived a label to mean, you will undoubtedly assume that I fit your definition. This is a game that I will avoid at all costs. And this brings me to the specific point of this blog post, a label that I’m somewhat averse to placing upon myself: Spirituality. Ah but yes, of course!

Spirituality, to me, is like a new religion that avoids the label much like I avoid being called boyfriend by my lover (I jest!). But in all seriousness, in my time of running a business, vending at spiritual events, attending yoga, and working in health and wellness, I have encountered a vast array of self-proclaimed spiritualists and, more often than not, it is a clear role that they have undertaken to display in one way or another. I’ve discovered that with this label comes a whole host of rituals, like any religion: Do you do yoga? Do you meditate? Are you vegan? Do you study sacred geometry? Do you wear gemstones? And collectively this comes to define your level of commitment to becoming enlightened. This is all wonderful and lovely and each one of these are great tools for connecting with the deeper self but not necessarily as essential as the spiritual community has made them out to be.

Not to be dramatic but, as the quote goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And what all of this outward spirituality seems to have done is create a visible standard for what it is to be spiritual. A loose but very clear definition that has embraced many in its relative universality but also isolated many others. I’m gearin’ up folks hold onto your socks!

And as I stood there at my booth, high noon, barefoot, a fifty-something woman dressed like a ballerina waving a wand over me and whispering blessings in the secret language of fairies, there was one single thought that stood out in my mind, “What the hell am I doing here?” I was on this path trying to integrate myself into the spiritual community in order to deepen my own spirituality, but instead I found a dozen examples of what I did not want to become. Thus was my greatest mistake, a mistake that many of us are making, a mistake that’s driving many of us away from our spiritual nature: Trying to define our spirituality through factors outside of ourselves. Again, “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground” but, in actuality, there is a way for each and every one of us! So why do we look to others for direction? Why do we attempt to translate the language of our own soul through another’s interpretation? Isn’t that what religion does?

Every single one of us is a spiritual being having a human experience and regardless of how many veils separate any one of us from this realization, the same rings true for all. Therefore, we can all find ourselves at varying stages along a spiritual path.

I once had a friend with a manner so vile, his tongue constantly poised to release slanderous venom toward any unsuspecting victim, who with every breath in his lungs denied any spiritual ideas or affiliations (unlikely friend, I know). But, while sharing space with this friend I was able to reach a deeper understanding of the great pain that lived within his heart and accounted for his abrasive manner. And hidden like a pearl in his core, muffled by layers and layers of past trauma, karma, resentment, grudge, self hate, aggression, etc. existed this warm glow of spirituality; His soul was pure, like that of a child’s. He would isolate himself for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time on a trail immersed within the beauty of nature, having some of the deepest most profoundly spiritual experiences that a vast majority of us never put ourselves in the position to experience for ourselves. And although he would be the first to disagree, in my eyes he was immensely spiritual, he was just denying his own spirit because he found himself at odds with the labels that others had put on spirituality. But there was a certain beauty to this as well, the artless sophistication of his atheism, a blind passenger driven by spirit, while us, the spiritualists, stand at the helm pleading to our spirit for guidance.

But the common bond that we share is the fact that we ALL know EXACTLY how to be spiritual, it is in the beauty of what we love, we just don’t know how to define it for ourselves which either puts us on a fevered pursuit for ways in which we can become more spiritual or drives us away from embracing it altogether, I’ve done both! But now I’ve defined my terms and concluded that I don’t want to have to wear all white sustainable clothing, become vegan, eliminate my ego, do yoga, meditate, say namaste, resist consumerism, understand how the planetary alignment affects my everyday life, not tell dirty jokes, and not listen to ‘The Chronic 2001’. And I don’t think you have to keep on acting like you’re not an uptight, self-centered, egomaniac just because you abide by these guidelines, it’s only holding you back. At any given moment each one of us has hundreds of veils that we must remove before we have reached any level of awareness. My point is: You are NOT going to get to the delicious tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop with only 3 licks ya dig?

You have learnt so much
And read a thousand books.
Have you ever read your Self?
You have gone to mosque and temple.
Have you ever visited your soul?
You are busy fighting Satan.
Have you ever fought your
Ill intentions?
You have reached into the skies,
But you have failed to reach
What’s in your heart!

Bulleh Shah

Finite and Infinite Lovers: Changing the Game of Love

by Gary Z McGee | Read more

“True love is the complete victory of the particular over the general, and the unconditional over the conditional.” – Naseem Nicholas Taleb

We are all scientists, trying to make sense of the love inside us. Most things exist along a rollercoaster ride of degrees. So it is also with love. Our definitions of love are not as black and white as we’d like them to be, they’re ambiguously gray and often imprecise. The border around our idea of love is mostly an illusion, permeable and ever-changing; more like a horizon than a boundary. There are, after all, over seven billion of us on this planet, and we each have our own unique psycho-physiological perception of what love means.

Demanding that the universe adhere to our definition of love is one of our greatest human fallacies. It’s as if we’re asking the universe to stand still so that we can be certain about our love in order to justify our definition of it. But the universe is not designed to match our expectations. Neither should it be pigeonholed into our finite definitions. Like David Deutsch said: “If you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite, and the finite is parochial. The best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat.” And so our explanations of love should not be limited by fiat, lest it be ruled by the misconception and expectation of others.

This article will introduce a new way of seeing the game of love through the – sometimes contrasting and sometimes overlapping – perception of finite and infinite conceptualization. In the game of love, as within the game of life, we sometimes perceive with big mind (big-picture thinking), and we sometimes perceive with small mind (small-picture thinking). When we confront love using the former disposition, we are assuming the role of the infinite lover archetype. When we confront love using the latter disposition, we are assuming the role of the finite lover archetype. We all move, through varying degrees, between both extremes. And that’s okay. There will always be room for improvement and there will always be lessons to glean from them both. Like Shakespeare said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Finite and Infinite Lovers

“Deep inside us there is a self-loathing that prevents us from living wholly in the moment, from living life to the full. We cannot truly love or be loved until the insect-like carapace is cut open by the agonizing process of initiation. Until we reach this point we don’t know what life is meant to be like.” –Mark Booth

Gertrude Stein defined love as “the skillful audacity required to share an inner life.” Indeed, love is both real and faux-ami. Its mysterious hypocrisy and exhilarating bouleversements are a part of its underlying essence, and it’s just not love if it doesn’t act itself out as such. Like Victor Hugo said, “love is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.” Infinite jest aside, in order to be able to share this “inner life” with others one must first come to terms with it for themselves.

One must first discover some reason (some meaning within the meaninglessness) for their unreasonable love. Solving the dependency paradigm is one way to go about doing this, but another way is to use the power of archetypes, like the way James P. Carse did with his concept of Finite and Infinite Players.

The finite & infinite lover concept works within the same paradigm as the finite and infinite player concept: the infinite game of life. Where a finite lover loves conditionally, an Infinite lover loves unconditionally. Where a finite lover loves in order to keep their comfort zone intact, an infinite lover loves in order to stretch their comfort zone. A finite lover is possessive, obsessive, needy, pleasure-seeking, restricted, and dependent (or codependent). An infinite lover is non-possessive, admiring, not needing, pleasure-giving, free, and independent (or interdependent).

A finite lover succumbs to the preexisting cultural dictates of love, whereas a finite lover liberates themselves from such dictates in order for love to evolve. Where a finite lover is jealous, an infinite lover practices compersion. For a finite lover love is profane. For an infinite lover love is sacred. Finite love is about possession. Infinite love is about appreciation. Finite love gives into the illusion of satiation, and always requires gratification, which generates anxiety and hostility.

Infinite love is never sated, but doesn’t require gratification, and generates little anxiety or hostility. Infinite lovers are in love with love itself. Finite lovers are in love with the expectation of what love can bring them.

Self-pity is poison for an infinite lover, while it seems to be the lifeblood of a finite lover. For the infinite lover, love is sacred when it is unconditional; it is profane when it is conditional. Where a finite lover seeks power and control over love, an infinite lover releases control and seeks the power within love. Where a finite lover seeks invulnerability through love, an infinite lover seeks vulnerability within love. Where a finite lover loves with ego and expectation, an infinite lover loves with neither ego nor expectation for anything in return.

A finite lover looks for themselves within the love of another, where an infinite lover finds themselves in order to love another. A finite lover seeks to twist love to fit an agenda. An infinite lover twists the love within themselves in order to escape all agendas. Like Thomas Merton said, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

Letting love go

“Drop the idea that attachment and love is one thing. They are enemies. It is attachment that destroys all love. If you feed, if you nourish attachment, love will be destroyed; if you feed and nourish love, attachment will fall away by itself. They are not one; they are two separate entities, and antagonistic to each other.” – Osho

I’ve often said that the key to happiness in this life is the ability to love, the ability to let love, and the ability to let love go. Healthy detachment is similar to letting love go. It doesn’t mean we let go of Love itself (just like detachment doesn’t mean we abandon attachment itself) – not at all. It means we are letting go of the ego aspect of love (or the ego aspect of attachment).

We are letting go of the codependence, and the need to cling to an agenda. It’s not like we let go of love and then forget about it. Not at all, it’s more like we are saying goodbye to permanence and embracing impermanence. Like proud parents who are sad that their child has left home, but who are open to the possibility of their return and embrace the inevitability that they will change.

In practicing detachment, love itself is never abandoned, nor is it forgotten. It is, in all ways appreciated and treasured for the learning experience that it provided. Only the needy, codependent, ego side of love – that’s filled with unhealthy expectations and cultural predispositions about the way love should be – is abandoned; so that we can be truly present to the “continual flux” of our emotional states in relation with the similarly changing emotional states of others. Like David McRaney said, “You can’t improve the things you love if you never allow them to be imperfect.”

Finite lovers love with hope. Infinite lovers love despite hope. Finite lovers are hopeful (and sometimes even hopefool) romantics, and thus always displeased. Infinite lovers are hopeless romantics, and thus always enchanted. Like Walter Benjamin said, “The only way of loving a person is to love them without hope.” Try not to confuse attachment with love like finite lovers do. Attachment is about fear and dependency. Love is about courage and vulnerability. Attachment is about codependence and ego-verification.

Love is about interdependence and soul-authentication. The secret of love is vulnerability, and the secret of vulnerability is courage. Love is not supposed to be something owned and clung to, or even hoped for, but something lived through and then let go of. An infinite lover makes the art of letting go a daily discipline. Like Siddhārtha Gautama said, “In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?”

Sacred Love (agape)

“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person–without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.” –Osho

Love shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s ability to let it be free. Free love is agape love. Agape love is the ability to love unconditionally, treating all things, including relationships, in a sacred way. It’s both a tending to, as well as a letting go of, love itself. Tending to love and leaving love alone are not contradictory strategies. They both work fine, and they blend well. In any relationship, indeed in life itself, it’s a good idea to try some of both, in different areas, so that each is a control for the other. Love must not obsessively attach and it must not obsessively detach, but it must do both if it would live forever. For infinite lovers it is not enough to just be (finite love), they must will themselves into a disclosure of being (infinite love). From this existential unveiling unfolds the transition from just being (and thinking you deserve love) to truly living (and learning to be Love).

In the bigger picture, war is two “rights” obliterating their rights; Love is two “wrongs” obliging their wrongs. A finite lover is stuck in a paradigm of “what love should be” to the extent that they cannot oblige the “wrongs” of others, which leads inevitably to an obliteration of equal rights. An infinite lover, on the other hand, always practices the counterintuitive ability of obliging the “wrongs” of others through compassion and understanding so as to maintain equal rights. If love is a battlefield, then the infinite lover is the one telling everyone to put their guns down.

Finite lovers cannot put their guns down because they are wrapped up in their love to such an extent that they cannot see the love of others. An infinite lover consciously practices amor fati: love of fate. While a finite lover unconsciously fumbles around with ignes fatui: fool’s fire. For the infinite lover, life is about coming back to what one has as their bedrock, their own unique capacity to love.

From this place one can transcend any amount of pain, anger, hate, and rage, and even transform it into a gift for others to learn from. Where the finite lover fears honest communication, the infinite lover embraces it. Like Khalil Gibran said, “Between what is said and not meant and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” At the end of the day, we all have the energy of infinite love inside us. Some of us are simply more aware of it than others. Those who are more aware, tend to be purer infinite lovers. Those who are less aware, tend to be merely finite lovers. As with all things awareness is the key, and nothing is certain.

But infinite lovers want to know, as David Whyte did, “if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have read, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.” The place where the gods speak of God is the House of Love. It is there where the greatest sages of history wish to guide you. Indeed, it’s the place where Rumi advised, “Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there.”