In the last installment I presented just a few examples of knowledge that science has gained that indicates the heart is not only a pumping organ, but also a center for the assimilation of information. These few were chosen to allow a mental picture to help bridge the gap between concept and experience. Im well aware of the dangers of leaping to conclusions based on just a few facts.

Were not allusions to heart-consciousness so much a part of all cultures, however, this information would not have the implications it does. But when you tally the list of people from all walks of life throughout all ages who have spoken about working with this seat of consciousness, and then learn that there is empirical evidence to support that your heart also conducts brain-like activity, the only thing left to do is to test it against your own experience.

Spend a little time with the concepts that have been presented here. Now, find a place to relax and think/feel back to times when, instead of experiencing the moment as if looking through the windows of your eyes, you felt the seat of your consciousness to be in your chest. Can you recall times when, instead of logically working through the steps of A + B E x F = G, you simply knew (some people express it as in your gut) what direction to head, thing to do, emotion to express or answer to declare?

Most of us dont have to think back any further than the last time we were in love. Do you recall how tuned-in you felt to the other person? Was this based on a linear thought process, or embrace a sequence of events that rapidly moved from sensing to feeling to interpreting to acting with hardly a moment or worry in the interim?

Can you recall moments when moving in synch with that special other meant such clichs as reading her like a book, and anticipating his every need? Of course, we all know it can go deeper than this. For example, connection as a force has no spatial or time limitations. I recall a number of times when my mother, in the midst of, usually something to do with the kitchen and dinner now that I think of it, would clutch her chest and, exclaiming something like I need to call Anne! (her sister), pick up the phone only to hear Annes voice rather than a dial tone.

Perhaps a more effective memory jog would be to go to a time after you spent, for example, a rapturous weekend with a lover. To what degree did you actually, consciously have to move away from that guiding feeling in your chest and, literally, back in to your brain?

What did the transition back into your brain-consciousness feel like in your relation to the world? Another way of saying this is, metaphorically, how many times did you find you stopping yourself from hugging someone at the water cooler because you thought better of it?

Lets go back a little further to when you were discovering this world for the first time, as a child. Can you recall, not the experience of wonder but being a part of that wonder? Can you recall a time when everything was speaking to you (and you did not hold back answering!)?

Unfortunately, some of us have to go back further than others to re-connect with this way of being. Most of us, in fact, were socialized at a very early age to distrust our heartfelt impressions, disregard the things we knew in favor of things we could prove, and control our unbridled emotions rather than express ourselves as was appropriate and then move on to new realizations.

Ironically enough, memories that often stand out are those where, amidst living the experience of being totally connected with the moment, there is a form of rebuke from an adult, basically communicating something like, Get down to Earth!

And we do. We do get down to Earth quite quickly because the dominant culture teaches us what is acceptable and what is not. Those that dont learn these ways (and there will be more on this) are most often ostracized and punished.

The reason I bring all this up is that Im here to re-mind you that at one time this way of looking at the world lived inside you, so it must be there at all times, especially now.

For now, all I ask is that you allow the possibility that you have more than one center of consciousness in your body, that you are capable of accessing it again, and that you can strengthen your ability to apply it to, yes, even this practical world!

The seed that Im hoping to plant is that you simply become curious about relating to the world through the consciousness of your heart and become willing to exercise the muscles that you have that help you use it along with your brain.

In the next installment, Ill be talking about heart-consciousness and the indigenous way of being.