The mind needs the clarity of the heart to reveal itself and what then manifests is the unlimited heart.
In many views, our heart is the driving force behind positive emotions, such as joy, love and compassion. It seems that these positive emotions are movements of an outgoing, radiating nature, centrifugal.
The emotion is therefore like a flow from within, sometimes caused by inner touch. This touch seems a paradox: you are emotionally touched and upset. The impulse for positively experienced emotion can take you away, even to tears. This is usually experienced as something positive, because the source, your heart, sends an honest message. Yet the cause of emotion can be a great inner movement, the basis of which is not always welcome to us, for example when we say ‘my heart wept’. The emotion, the inner movement can be uncomfortable because it lacks balance and overwhelms. When the heart’s frequency of consciousness increases, the heart may not be able to process it and start to lack clarity, or it may not be able to maintain clarity and then ask, pray, for a balanced heart: ‘Give me a pure heart.’
This increase may have been inspired by the action of the Christ energy to which the word applies:
Do not let your hearts be troubled. [1]
With negative emotions, such as anger, fear, melancholy, temper or jealousy, that lack of clarity of the heart is even further away from a situation of equilibrium.
Emotions, psychological movement energies, can therefore seriously hinder clarity of heart (but also of head). And with that René Descartes’ idea claire et distinct prematurely closing for consciousness. Emotion in terms of energy is making an effort and in Dutch ‘moeite’ [effort] has the same letters as ’emotie’ [emotion]. Spinoza also indicated that there are many ‘affections’ that can keep people from enlightenment, from clarity of consciousness (Ethics). [2]
The big question is whether we as humans can strive for the clarity of the heart: can we make an effort to enter that state of consciousness? And if that is not possible, as Laozi also indicates in the Daodejing [3]: which faculty of the heart, which heart potential do we skip?
Gnostics speak of the possibility of ‘thinking’ of the heart, becoming aware of the clarity of the heart atom. Frankness. And letting that heart work, so not so much trying to work on it yourself. Furthermore, thinking, real thinking, is usually associated with the head, with brain activity.
It seems absurd that this activity of the heart-thinking should be caused by just one atom. And that is why ‘thinking with the heart’ is often regarded as a mythical and at most mystical event, a ‘so to speak’. People forget that the heart, which is clear and has no unwanted, ‘lower’ emotions, is connected to the mind. Our mind is not insensitive and is a source of inner strength.
The mind needs the clarity of the heart to reveal itself and what then manifests is the unlimited heart. The thinking of that unlimited heart is not unbridled, but unambiguous and pure in nature, it is an unsuspected mindset. It does not shoot in all directions like an uncontrolled fire, it does not give astral energy to demons. It is a balanced astral fire, a miracle that can stimulate our soul to the activity for which it was intended from the origin. In Eastern wisdom, thinking is also equated with the soul. That balanced soul fire recreates the mind so that we can truly think with the heart.
It would of course be wonderful if a naturally sublime desire could immediately raise up the manas, the Son of God, in our system, the microcosm. After all, a holy deep desire seems to be the only condition for regeneration, for the resurrection of the spirit man. However, the clarity of the heart precedes that desire. And that means that love, wisdom and intuition in their coherence form the basis, that a fundamental gnostic insight forms the open gate for the effectiveness of that wonderful desire.
Wisdom and intuition then ensure that love does not turn into personally focused charity, where ‘the best intentions’ actually pull us into a lower energy field. Wisdom and intuition thus guarantee the clarity of the heart, so that demons cannot benefit as fellow-eater from the love energy that is freely spread in the world. This way no ‘roses’ are thrown to donkeys. The fiery heart, radiating in clarity, always retains the mark of gentleness, does not hurt anyone’s feelings, does not force a fellow human being to do things that he or she would not freely choose.
The source of clarity is silence. A clear, spontaneous and sincere heart breathes in the tranquility and silence of the origin. Gnostics speak of the Silent Silence, the Living Silence, the higher aeon. The well-known comparison for this is the lake, which is without ripples and acts like a transparent mirror, so that the bottom becomes visible and the radiation from the jewel on the bottom can sparkle through.
The clear thinking of that heart that is not moved is unambiguous and wants to reach the head as an inner impulse, whereby the fear of being ‘tempted’ by the world can arise, as the Daodejing also indicates. However, if guided by wisdom and intuition and filled with the love that surpasses all understanding, the mild fiery energy can reach the head, without disturbing the clarity of the heart, then a special activity of that head can break ground in our system. It is about the pinealis becoming active in the head sanctuary, nourished from the mind. Spinoza describes this as the clarity of Reason, which can arise when the affections are more or less in a dormant state. Then the clear thinking of the heart can unite (‘becoming one’) with the head sanctuary nourished by the pure mind, so that from the duality of heart and head a current activity arises that ignites the spirit fire. Desire and joy go together with wisdom and love, whereby the inner process is continued with fire. It is the fire ether that plays a central role in this, the fifth ether, which determines the functioning of the spirit. The clarity of the heart and the clarity of the head then celebrate the celebration of the rose, which ultimately turns gold. Consciousness reaches the level of an apparently unnatural unity, thanks to the basic action that begins in the heart. Clarity generates understanding.
He who understands is free
are short, powerful words of Spinoza.
The German philosopher Hegel needed a longer sentence to indicate the same concept when he wrote:
To understand Reason as a rose in the cross of the present and thus to rejoice in it, that reasonable insight is the reconciliation with reality, which philosophy provides to those who have the inner urge to understand…[4]
To understand Reason as a rose in the cross of the present, for which there is a more than current necessity, the basis of the clarity of the heart is indispensable. Reconciliation with reality actually seems an impossible task, because our senses perceive struggle, war, atrocities and suffering in the world. Without lying away the misery of this, it is important to realize that our senses perceive very limitedly, according to some only 0.05% of that reality. It is intuition as a new faculty that can rise above it in the power of love and ignores the binding power of the five senses. The precious starting point of the clarity of the heart enables revelation of the intuition, so that we can breathe in freedom, unity and love, the trinity of the divine all-revelation.
Sources:
[1] John 14:1
[2] Ethica, Spinoza,
[3] Daodejing, Laozi
[4] Phánomenology of Spirit Hegel
