Thinking with your heart

Originally posted by pai mei
As Columbus wrote of the Arawak (before murdering and enslaving them), "They are so ingenuous and free with all they have, that no one would believe it who has not seen it... Of anything they possess, if it be asked of them, they never say no; on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their hearts went with it...


Ascent of Humanity

[edit on 21-7-2009 by pai mei]

A very wise view on HOW humans should live.

People like me, being born and educated in a Western, so called ´civilized´ country, have often forgotten HOW to listen to their hearts. Because we were brought up with the idea of using our intellect, our mind or in other words our heads.

I often thought about this and after my own life struggles I think (yes here I go!) Western Countries have lost even more contact with Earth then others who live more with and in Nature.
We have lost the bond with Earth-Nature because we forgot to listen to our Hearts. Instead we started to listen to our heads, our minds, that are full of ego and self/centerted thoughts.

When we speak we automaticly us our minds (IQ) instead of our Hearts (EQ). Although I am trying for many years to skip my mind to start, it does start to think on warp speed quite often.

Am working hard to let the ego-ideas go and listen more to my heart.

You know what is funny? Since I can remember my Heart and Mind have been in conflict with each other. It took a lot to succeed to bring some balance between them.

Over the last few years, I let my ´gut´ guide me, try to think with my heart and close my ears for all that neverending humming that comes from the head

It aint always easy but its so worth it!!


“The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”
- Jacques Benigne Bossuel


[edit on 7/21/2009 by Melyanna Tengwesta]

I think, as with most things, the best option is a balance of heart and mind.

These romantic notions about how great it is not to want anything is sickening really.

I bet those tribes will never figure out air conditioning, or ice cubes, or any reason to be on the other side of town like now man!

"Wanting" has been the carrot in front of our donkey (Reasoning ability) in the west. Meanwhile the "natives" would still be in the stoneage, thinking with their hearts, feeling just fine, I'm sure, without any western influence.

Thinking with the heart

Now, there's true wisdom. Most of mankind is losing the way to true happiness because we have set for ourselves unattainable goals.

Perfect safety is not available as long as we live and breathe, and yet we bind ourselves with so many shackles that we are afraid of everything.

There is no amount of wealth sufficient to satisfy our lust for more.

We are not content with the fruits of nature as they are and require them to be ever more perfect. (Montsanto and factory farms)

We cannot trust our neighbours and avoid them.

We take questionable scientific findings and apply them to populations not for our benefit, but for profit.

People connive with their minds and ignore the truths their own hearts tell them. They muddy their thinking with greed, deadening the small voice inside their chest that tells them what is harmful and instead do what is easiest and most profitable.

They tell themselves that no-one will know and forget that they will know. They will know it in their hearts and regret each and every wrong they did in some future day.

I know. I've been through that mill and have earned my pain. After 62 years of learning that lesson, I've finally come to that place where old memories come back to leer at the stupidity played out in my youth.

It took a great man to finally open my eyes and heart. His name is William Commanda, is 95 years old, and wisdom flows from his heart like a river. You cannot be in his gaze and stay unchanged. You cannot listen to him speak and not be enthralled.

It was also William Commanda who told me that wisdom comes from the heart and that cunning comes from the mind and that we need BOTH to survive.

Great thread.

[edit on 21/7/09 by masqua]

Originally posted by TreadUpon
These romantic notions about how great it is not to want anything is sickening really.

Very strange statement.. "sickening"

One can of course creatively create for the sake of creating and reap a harvest in the process, but without being attached to want and need and unending desire which leads to all suffering, sin and destruction.

And it's also true that the thing's we judge most harshly are projections from our sick self.

You really ought to take a good hard look within.. see where that statement came from.

The heart does indeed think. It is the seat of Conscience in the human body. That soundless voice of rightness that forbids any thought or act which varies from what it knows to be right.

3 men in ten are followers of life
3 men in ten are followers of death
there are those that follow others thoughts they also number 3 in ten,
Misfortune and Death will find them
He who has learned not to "want",
"to follow his heart"
"not his mind",
can travel without fear from the rhinoceros
nor from the tiger
for the rhinoceros can find no place to pitch his horn,
nor the tiger to inflict his claws,
nor is there anyplace for a weapon to wound
And Death can find no place to enter!
Tao 50

my turn:

"Siddhartha had one single goal- to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow- to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought- that was his goal.”

-Hesse

[edit on 21-7-2009 by djr33222]

Originally posted by monkcaw
To say one should "Follow their heart" evokes romantic notions of meaning and clarity as if the solution to our distressing lives is revealed by simply living by what our heart wants. And this is all well and good as long as heart wants what is good.

But I don't see the heart as a kind master. It lies, wanders, distracts, deludes, blinds, hungers... It too must be bridled otherwise these passions would rule and toss us this way and that. We'd be nothing more than large children. Children, too, live by their heart and have you ever wondered why we never need to teach them to be selfish, violent or deceptive?

Even with the millions of lives that have come and gone through the ages the one thing that doesn't change is the condition of the human heart. And even though a tribe doesn't have a word for "want" I assure you they want nonetheless.

The heart only wants what is good. If it 'wants' anything else, it's not the heart you're thinking from. This post is a good example of head/heart confusion. No offence intended, but your attempt to dissect the heart has ensured a bleeding logic. Selfishness and deception are life-long tenants of the mind. The heart does not merely refer to our 'emotions', but the higher self, which focuses on the essentials of life and benevolence.



[edit on 21-7-2009 by VergeofObscene]

Im sure that the idea of thinking with your heart is a sort of metaphor but we simple closed minded people must point out that is not possible to think with your heart.

Originally posted by monkcaw
But I don't see the heart as a kind master. It lies, wanders, distracts, deludes, blinds, hungers... It too must be bridled otherwise these passions would rule and toss us this way and that. We'd be nothing more than large children. Children, too, live by their heart and have you ever wondered why we never need to teach them to be selfish, violent or deceptive?

These things sound like 'head' not 'heart' lol.

Great post OP

I agree that there are parts of the brain in the heart,... but also that these parts are in 'all' our internal organs. There is an interesting book called 'secret life of plants'. A section of the book talks about how the author had communication with his 'spleen'.

I would suggest a way to start thinking with your heart is to practice meditation, a way to start 'controling' the mind ,,, the wild animal that it is!... and when you make decisions about various things....start to 'ask' the heart questions like "what would you do in this situation?"...

Also... next time you feel ill, or have hurt yourself... practise breathing 'love' into the place that is hurt... or your whole body. You just silently say 'love' as you breath out.. and imagine that love and healing energy flowing through your body... or towards the 'pain' spot.

... this really works..

reply to post by MrGummyPants


Care to elaborate for "us" close minded people.

reply to post by MrGummyPants


Well, if you are aware that it's a metaphor, you're either trying to be funny (and imo, failing), or you are contributing spam posts... the meaning and intent of the OP was clear...

Sometimes, very rarely, I'm so content just to go outside and watch the sunrise. But now that you mention, I do kinda feel self-centered into thinking I 'need' when it's really I 'want'. The only thing we all need is a place with no bugs, soap, oxygen, food, and antibiotics. Everything else I forfeit. We can all survive like that if we chose to. I wish I could travel back in a time where Indians roamed free, after all, I am upon their land. It was always their land.

But you know, unless the whole world went with this movement, then all of those trying to maintain that thoughtful atmosphere would be at the mercy of the cruel and hated world that all of us are destined to live in. Perhaps it's too late to feel that inner child that likes digging her toes in the sand but that doesn't mean we can't teach out kids that. Love what you have, take nothing for granted.

Be proud, we are human. And our histories with the world are not the greatest of all mammals, but one human cannot be judged by the decisions of another. We all have the capability to make better decisions, we just have to try... and like you said, 'Think with your Heart.' We live because it beats.

Think what organ has something to do with emotion and feelings. Is it not your heart that control your emotion and feelings? The heart is manly the cause in the way of someone thinks. Even though it has nothing to do with thinking. Also, your brain can influence your heart. Which is mostly cause from outside influence.

reply to post by monkcaw


Try to find that book "The Continuum Concept" . What you will find there : children (people in general) are not inherently flawed, evil greedy, stupid and so on. They are not "antisocial" and in need of an "education". The author of the book spent a few years with the Yequana from Venezuela. Children there are never beaten or yelled at. The same was true for any other children living in tribes.
How do they become good members of the tribe ? Independent and free humans ? Why don't they become spoiled and unable to do anything by themselves ? Amazing isn't it ?

Because people are not by their nature "antisocial". They are social beings. When young they need to be accepted unconditionally by those around. Only then they can go around exploring and gain self trust, then because they are social beings they like to be with the tribe and do what everybody does. (that does not mean they are not independent)

Our "continuum" is broken trough "education". We learn that we are "evil" and need "molding". There is nothing wrong with learning new things. But "formal education", same as "formal religion" is evil. It teaches people to "think with their heads". You can learn all you want and still be a part of the universe, not an outsider trying to "control" it :
Molding Minds

Some captured settlers found what they were looking for (unconsciously) and they never wanted to return :

---------------------------------------

"Observing a prisoner exchange between the Iroquois and the French in upper New York in 1699, Cadwallader Colden is blunt: “ notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the Pains possible to carry Home the French, that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. “Nor, he has to admit, is this merely a reflection on the quality of French colonial life, “for the English had as much Difficulty” in persuading their redeemed to come home, despite what Colden would claim were the obvious superiority of English ways:

No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, cloathed and taught, yet, I think, there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of Living. And, he concludes, what he says of this particular prisoner exchange “has been found true on many other Occasions.”

Benjamin Franklin was even more pointed: When an Indian child is raised in white civilization, he remarks, the civilizing somehow does not stick, and at the first opportunity he will go back to his red relations, from whence there is no hope whatever of redeeming him. But when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and have lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness toprevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the firstgood Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.


There was always the great woods, and the life to be lived within it was, Crevecoeur admits, “singularly captivating,” perhaps even superior to that so boasted of by the transplanted Europeans. For, as many knew to their rueful amazement, “thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those aborigines having from choice become Europeans!”

Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

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"When confronted with the awesome power of civilization whose first representatives are parents, teachers, priests (and, later on, police officers, legislators and bosses) the child faces, psychologically, the same situation as its tribal ancestors, namely, conform to the dictates of civilization or die. The helplessness of childhood makes the threat of bodily harm or loss of love, which is used by the parents and others to enforce civilized morality and civilized education, a traumatic experience. The developing little person becomes afraid to express its own tribal nature. There is much fear that lies at the bottom of becoming a civilized adult. "

The Machine in our Heads--Glenn Parton

------------------

"All the causes of boredom are permutations of the interior wound of separation. Aside from the impoverishment of our reality, we are uncomfortable doing nothing because of the relentless anxiety that dominates modern life. This in turn arises from the paradigm of competition that underlies our socioeconomic structures, which (as I will explain in Chapter Four) is written into our conception of self. Second, we desire constant stimulation and entertainment because in their absence, we are left alone with ourselves with nothing to distract us from the pain of the wound of separation. Finally, technology contributes directly to boredom by bombarding us with a constant barrage of intense stimuli, habituating our brains to a high level of stimulation. When it is removed, we suffer withdrawal. We are addicted to the artificial human realm we have created with technology. Now we are condemned to maintain it."

From Separation to Boredom - Ascent of Humanity

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. "


"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. "

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. "

Albert Einstein

Some quotes from native Americans (site with music) ,and thanks for all the flags
www.greatdreams.com...




[edit on 22-7-2009 by pai mei]

We have brains, and therefore head thoughts, for a reason. The problem isn't thinking with our heads - that in itself is not a bad thing. The problem is thinking *ONLY* with our heads, not listening to our hearts.

What is needed is a balance between the two, thinking coldly and rationally when needed, thinking emotionally when appropriate. There's a time for both. Learning to use both together is wisdom. IMNSHO, anyway.

Cool thread.

I had never heard that about there being neurons in the heart, although I know there is a very complex "second nervous system" in the STOMACH. That's why "gut feelings" and "butterflies in the stomach" are such a reality...seems to connect to emotion in some fundamental way.

Thinking with the heart...hmm...well, to my mind this calls up concepts of PRIMAL INTUITION and INSTINCT that mankind has largely lost due to overdevelopment of the frontal lobes. I think our massive brains, while being a very effective survival tool to date, have "pushed underground" some of the more primal and instinctive aspects of mental life, which has created psychospiritual unhealthiness on a mass level in modern life. To regain "thinking with the heart," we have to consciously train ourselves somehow to re-connect with this aspect of ourselves. There are many ways to do this, from Jungian analysis to Zen Buddhism to taking the time to REALLY gaze at the sky and appreciate it...it is within our reach but its not easy.


"When the Great Way is forgotten,
talk of "goodness" and "piety" appears.
When the body's natural intelligence declines,
striving for "cleverness" and "knowledge" step forth...

...The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it resembles the Great Way.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity."

-Tao Te Ching, 6th century BC

Another point...a number of anthropologists who have worked with the most "primitive" hunter-gatherer societies have frequently remarked on the prevelence of "group consciousness" among these people...almost uncanny feats of telepathy and empathy. This is most clearly exhibited during tribal mass rituals but can also be seen in hunting and shamanic activities...such people often attach a great importance to DREAMS...some believe they can communicate with animal spirits in dreams and call forth animals to be hunted.

I know that when I go into deep nature I can actually feel my mind UNFOLD and EXPAND to fill the silence. It is a very real feeling, as if my perception stretches and expands along both horizontal and vertical axes... extremely powerful; living in a big city I don't realize how "closed off" and small my consciousness is unless I escape to the wilderness.

[edit on 7/22/09 by silent thunder]

You are a very wise person. You are obviously a seeker, and are clearly humble. You also communicate with far more grace than I, and you have a whole perspective. That grace and whole perspective are perfect combinations for bringing love into this world. This world needs more people with some of your general qualities, and I think more are being added everyday.

I am not humble at all I got 40 flags I rule !

"Lord of the Rings". What is shown there : Gandalf and Galadriel refused to take the ring. Even if they meant "good" they knew they would be trapped under it's spell and destroy the world. And themselves.

www.ascentofhumanity.com...

www.survival-international.org...




[edit on 22-7-2009 by pai mei]