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!

Changes, Reflections, Meditations, Progressions.

Happy(belated)New Year ya’ll! Good news, I’ve made it and so have you, give yourself a pat on the back. Remember how last year I promised to become an avid blogger? That promise still stands, some things just need a little time, am-I-right? Anyways, enough jibber jabber, I apologize I just never know how to ease into these things but I’ve got a lot to reflect on tonight, a lot of flowing thoughts that haven’t been aired out:

My friends, a word of wisdom that may only come with experience, there will come a time in each of our lives where somebody comes along and adds such bright vividness, a certain depth of color that we had never known possible until being graced with their presence. It’s as if our senses become magnified in their company, their life force adding intensity to our experience. And like drunken lovers we indulge our senses, we satisfy our cravings feasting on each others presence, our laughter emanating from a deeper place beyond our being, water like wine to our lips, food the nectar of gods, touch like a soft flow of electricity, our vision obscured, a warm pulsating blur, we drown within ourselves always lost somewhere inside one another…

But the divine tragedy is the fact that sometimes, just as quickly as we had become drunk off the wine of our ecstasy, we awaken from a life of illusion, sober, in a pit of despair which oddly looks a lot like disrepair. Lord! and that lush palette that we had once used to paint our picturesque landscapes is half replaced with different shades of gray. So that our previously bright outlook is dulled, the vivid life force drained from it like a rose plucked at the prime of its beauty withered at the windowsill. Have Mercy!

So what do we do? After a healthy dose of wallowing, we begin to work with the colors we have at our disposal (the ones that we’ve always had, that always seemed good enough until we met this one person). We struggle, trying to replicate the colors that had been taken away, combining our own blues and yellows seeing if we can bring back that vibrant green that once composed our grassy hillsides. And only after much trial and error do we discover that we can never succeed in duplicating the colors that another person brings into our life, because their palette is as unique as their fingerprint. So we must give up on trying to recreate the past, trying to retrace our footsteps and replay our fleeting memories, we must give up on wishing that we could go back and pick apart the days and rearrange the moments in another way in order to achieve a better outcome. We must accept that this IS the ONLY outcome, this is part of the divine lesson. An interlude, from Rumi:

The grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling
So my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy.
Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing
“I cannot bear any more anguish, any more cruelty”
The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears: “I am not working in ignorance
You can deny me if you want, you have every excuse,
But it is I who am the Master of this Work.
And when through my Passion you reach Perfection,
You will never be done praising my name.”

There are two immediate lessons that can be learned here:

1.) There is much beauty in the world and love is abundant, inexhaustible, and always available if you open your heart to it. Everybody brings their own palette and with compromise, respect, and understanding your exchanges always have the potential of creating masterpieces. Imagine an artist that only creates duplicates of their one major work. Do not compare people to others, friends to friends, lovers to lovers, respect that each person brings a unique and equally valuable experience and opportunity to learn and grow in new areas. Every new person is an opportunity to apply your knowledge and growth from past relationships, it anything hold tightly to these unique fragments of the past.

2.) To be cliche, the truest and deepest form of contentment comes from oneself, from within. Your palette alone is diverse enough to create the most awe inspiring masterpieces ever to be beheld by your own eyes, it is all in your own perception. When you learn to align yourself with your highest ideal of self the universes resources become more readily available for you to achieve your highest good. Partnerships are wonderful and if they are ideal they help to align you with the divine but this union can also be achieved directly. There is no shame in any path you may choose to find love, contentment, and a deeper connection, just understand that no matter what you think the motive is behind this pursuit, it is always about achieving union with the divine.

So move aside Eckhart Tolle, I’m writing a book today! I know I’ve been talking about this for a while now but it’s been about a year since I took the first steps towards moving on from my loss and walking the path towards “manhood” or a deeper maturity and self realization. That relationship was the catalyst for many polarized things:

I learned how to be destroyed and how to be renewed, about impermanence and permanence, consequence and karma, strength and weakness, understanding and compassion, gratitude and acknowledgment, confidence and humility, how to love myself and others, how to forgive the unforgivable, how to forget the unforgettable, how to persevere, how god works in mysterious ways, and how sometimes we cleanse ourselves through the gentle purification of water and other times we must be like the moth to the flame.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott