This is Part 19 of a series on vision. You can read previous installments here:
Part 1. Part 2. Part3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12. Part 13. Part 14. Part 15. Part 16. Part 17. Part 18.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in The Little Prince
As discussed previously, what we see with our eyes isn’t real. The process of seeing is a collaboration between the eyes and the mind, and the mind deceives us.
Despite the fact that we know the mind’s capability to delude us, we continue to spend so much time in the realm of what we can see with our eyes. We look for answers and examples, direction and evidence. Something that will guide us and reassure us that we are on the right path.
All of these things we seek just muddy the waters. Our minds fill with too many voices and stories, creating confusion, filling us with self-doubt, and leaving us to try to figure everything out.
When our plans don’t fulfill us, or when we run into obstacles, we may feel lost, disappointed, or disillusioned.
This is all a function of the mind.
Yet we stay in the mind because it feels safe in the mind. Because this is how our culture conditions us. Because leaving the mind to go into the heart is scary.
Just look at the language we use: to go out of your mind is to be crazy, foolish.
And yet, if we want to see clearly we must close our eyes and get out of our minds and into our hearts.
Clarity of vision comes from the heart. It comes in that sacred space where everything expands, where the boundaries of the self dissolve into the whole, where we feel the connection and oneness with all beings.
In the heart space, my vision is unclouded by fears and doubts. In the heart space there is nothing to “figure out.” There are no voices competing for authority in the stillness of the heart space.
The heart doesn’t lie. It doesn’t tell stories. It doesn’t ask questions. The heart doesn’t have an agenda. It doesn’t seek proof or evidence or examples. That’s all the function of the ego, the mind.
The truest, clearest, deepest, and richest vision of all is the vision of the heart.
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