Your  Heart  Song

from

Where  There  Is  Vision,  People  Flourish

John Gray   November 3, 2002

Where there is nothing credible to trust, fear abounds. We could all confidently say that there is a lot of fear in and among human beings, and that’s been pretty much the case all along. We may try to assuage our fears, diminish our fears, or forget our fears, but fear abounds. It’s not actually true that there’s nothing credible to trust, but it may seem that way if we don’t see what is credible to trust. 

I never noticed before recently that the words “scared” and “sacred” are formed of the same letters. Likewise, “reactive” and “creative” are formed of the same letters. You just move the “c” around in both cases. The words differ only by a way of seeing. The choices we make about what we see and how we see make all the difference. How do you see things? How do you receive what comes to you? Scared or sacred? Reactive or creative? Just move the “see” around.

In our personal circumstances, which may feel like but aren’t really global events, it’s not what happens that matters so much—it’s how we handle what happens. After all, most of the time we don’t dictate what happens. Things happen! But we are always fully in charge and responsible for what we do about what happens: how we behave, how we express ourselves. This does not mean that we’re meant to be simply reactors to circumstances, waiting for things to occur and then coping with them or, perhaps ideally, dealing with them in a right attitude. No, we human beings are made in the image and likeness of God and are intended to have vision.

Vision—defined as the ability to see in the darkness. Vision—the ability to see where and how different factors and energies will converge in the future. Vision. Human beings are intended to have vision—sensitivity to the precursors of form. It is what Martin Cecil, spiritual leader to many, used to call heavenly consciousness: awareness of the factors and energies that are emerging, before they appear in visible form.

Saying this, I’m not suggesting that we’re supposed to be clairvoyant, seeing the future before it occurs—not the details, anyway, not the forms that are going to appear. But the direction and the flow of things and how things are going—yes! we are intended to have vision of that kind. When we do, we’re poised, we’re balanced, we’re ready; we’re not thrown by what occurs but are in place to receive it and manage it wisely. We need not see the details of something coming, because we’re ready, because our internal state is poised, balanced, and we have a feel for how things are unfolding.

In consciousness, we’re positioned ahead of forms which are emerging. After all, as creator beings, made in the image and likeness of the Creator, we are accommodating the process of creation, which is to say we are providing the means by which creation occurs, by which invisible essences emerge. Invisible essences determine the forms of the future. Poise, balance and equanimity are hallmarks of heavenly consciousness, or of real vision.

This is very different from coping. Coping has to do with circumstances which have already formed, and it’s terribly stressful to be behind or under circumstances. When this happens, it’s because we failed to pay attention and things got pretty material while we weren’t looking. When we opened our eyes, maybe we found ourselves underneath a circumstance—and it was heavy! Then, next, out come our habitual coping strategies. But what’s really required is simply the restoration of our own vision, so that we regain our poise and our equanimity. Do that, and suddenly the circumstances which seemed large and burdensome and could scarcely be coped with, look differently—not the way they appeared when we were underneath them, anyway. Perspective changes considerably when we are on top of things rather than beneath them.

We’re meant to be light on our feet, able to move with the flow of things, and to be comfortable in the process. Resistance to change is an almost universal human reaction. Could that be, at least in part, because human beings imagine the ultimate noble coping behavior is to stand rock still in the face of the gale? Actually, we’re never really stuck still in that sense. We live on a planet that is not only revolving on its axis but circling around our sun, and the sun is in turn part of a larger system which is in motion. Like it or not, nothing is standing still. In fact, stability, poise, equanimity, are products of motion, not of being stuck in one place. If our own sense of security and safety is wrapped up in being grounded and rooted and all that, we’re going to get pushed around by the next storm that comes by, and only hope we can cope. But if we’re light on our feet, we have a sense of how things are going and flowing, then we can move and dance with whatever comes along. Like I said, this doesn’t suggest that we know in advance, like a psychic, what’s going to unfold. No, we don’t know the forms of things. But nothing is a big surprise, and everything is a small delight.

Being totally caught by surprise is not natural to a human being with eyes open. And where there is vision, there is welcome, not coping. We welcome what comes along, even if we don’t see every little detail, and how we’re going to be affected, and how everything else will play out. No. It’s all okay because I’m okay. If I have vision, if I’m poised and balanced and have my eyes open, then I receive what comes in an attitude of welcome. If we receive what comes in an attitude of welcome, we’re never caught being a victim of our circumstances. We’re aware that our own consciousness provides focus for the motive energy of spirit within the circumstances as they are. That’s being creative, not reactive. The choices we make about how we see things makes all the difference. Just move the “see” around!

“Where there is no vision the people perish.” And where there is vision, people flourish. Without vision, in the sense of the ability to see in the darkness, to perceive the flow of invisible energies and how they will converge in the future—without vision, we feel lost and afraid. But with vision, we see the circumstances of our lives and of our world are all there to be welcomed. And how we greet something entirely changes how we experience it. If we wish something weren’t happening, for example, what kind of an experience do we create for ourselves? A psychologist might say that the adult response to something we wish wasn’t happening is to just accept that it’s a fact and cope with it. But the spiritual adult approach would be to realize that what’s happening is part of a larger outworking of factors, and we have a part to play—our creativity, our own sacredness brought into play—in causing what’s outworking through ourselves and human beings everywhere to be creative rather than reactive, and to be sacred rather than scared.

What would you do, if you weren’t afraid to do it? That’s a good question for introspection. Fear prevents us from doing things that otherwise the inner motive energies of our lives would have us do. Our risk-taking—I don’t mean craziness—but our wonderfully venturesome natures spring from the places in ourselves where there’s no fear. In those places we know it is safe to go with the flow of life. The flow leads to unknown destinations, and that’s great too. We’re explorers; we’re helping create something that’s never been before. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Being scared obscures the sacred, and being reactive blinds us to the creative. People who are otherwise intelligent get themselves into positions this way, by reacting, where they cannot see any other way to go. Then of course all the mental faculties of rationalization are brought in to back their viewpoint, even if it’s wrong. Being reactive to circumstances is stressful. Stress itself isn’t an event; it’s the result of reaction to an event. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

When we’re not afraid, we’re naturally more aware of the larger processes of life that we’re part of. Our hearts are at rest. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” [John 14:27]  Prayer has to do with the state of our hearts. I heard a wonderful definition of prayer recently: “Prayer is a heart song which comes to the lips without mental editing.” Prayer is the longing of our hearts, not the mental words we might wrap around that longing or the meaning we might attribute to it, but a willingness to be internally uninhibited enough to let that heart song emerge. That’s prayer. Prayer is a creative act. It’s an entirely false concept that prayer is about a lowly, destitute supplicant asking for a handout from a distant, all-powerful being. We’re not beggars on the streets of life.

We are creator beings, made in the image and likeness of God. Our prayers, our heart songs, are rightly among the ways God creates. We participate in creating a future that is not yet in form by our prayers, by the longings of our hearts, whether we’re conscious of those longings or the tones of those heart songs, or not. At times when we’re unafraid, hearts untroubled, at peace, filled full, that is when our heart songs express without reservation or editing, and the music fills us. We’re fulfilled. Heart song music resounds and expresses on out into our worlds, and it creates a garden around us, and nourishes it and keeps it.

“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.” Whatever is abundant in our hearts, whatever we give home to in our hearts—these are the things that influence the directions of our life experiences in the most profound ways. We go in the directions of our deepest heart longings, really, whether we know that or admit that or not. That’s why I often ask myself and others the question, “What matters most?” What do you really care about? What is your passion? Asking such questions is a way to get in touch with your heart song. And what is that heart song? What is that prayer? In my experience it’s the way the divine puts in its most initial appearance in human form on its way into the world.

May the circumstances of our lives unfold in the flow of that heart song. And, add heart song to heart song to heart song to heart song, and what have we? A choir of many voices with a magnificently moving sound. Magnify further yet, and it’s the power that creates the whole world anew.

So what do we see when we’re not afraid, when we don’t harbor fear in our hearts? Immediately our heart song fills from the inside out, and its most basic and deepest essence is love. When you’re right in yourself, when all is well inside, all is well with the world too. There’s nothing to cope with. Things are as they are. The question is—What am I going to do about it? When you’re really right in yourself, it’s easy to express your love to the world, to love other people.

Being who we really are, our heart songs resound loudly. People whose heart songs are sounding are attractive to others. People like to be around those kinds of people. It’s not because they necessarily have the wisest things to say or great insights or revelations. No, it’s because they’re in the flow of life, and we’re in the flow of life together, and that’s exciting. That’s passionate, that’s fun!

So, scared or sacred? Reactive or creative? It’s just a matter of where the “see” is. What do we see? What’s our vision? Do we see in the darkness? You can walk around your home in the dark because you know it, right? You don’t have to literally see much in the darkness. You get around anyway. Well, this is our world, after all. When we’re quiet and at peace in ourselves, we know every inch of it. You can walk through your life without fear of anything. It’s all familiar. It is, after all, our creation.

“Prayer is a heart song which comes to the lips without mental editing.” Our prayers are the innermost ways that we become aware of the kind of future we’re creating. We may know with assurance that according to our prayers, according to our heart songs, so will our life experiences flow. Let’s find out every day what we do when we’re not afraid, by doing it—by doing it. Choose the sacred rather than the scared, and the creative rather than the reactive. And being, then, in the midst of and a bit ahead of circumstances rather than beneath them or behind them, light on our feet, what a difference! When you’re looking, eyes open, you see other people who are also looking and have their eyes open. We find many special colleagues when we’re looking, even in the dark. We know them and they know us because our heart songs closely resonate. These are our people, and where there is vision, the people flourish.