The Heart

"I felt in need of pilgrimage
So I sat still for three days and
God came to me

Only in the Heart can one experience the divine presence of Truth.
When the flower opens the bees will come.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
Think about it carefully.
There you have a solid place for your feet.

Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this:
just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are."

Kabir

Recently one of my teachers shared this poem by Kabir, a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. The Heart holds a prominently special place in yoga and in meditation as a gateway into the inner sanctum.

We think we have to go far away places to have the experience of what we truly are but Kabir says that we just have to sit still for some time. For some it takes three days, do you think that's too long? try years or a lifetime, or lifetimes. It really does not matter because you want to be there when the flower opens, when the Heart opens up to you so you can dive into it.

For this we are being asked to stand firmly in the unknown, in seemingly nothingness. The mind does not like that so it goes in pursuit of other things in other places but Kabir invites us to think about it carefully and to not go somewhere else. As solid and real as the things we seek after seem to be they are imaginary in the sense of what we think they actually are and what they can give us.

As we stand in the Heart again and again we come to experience what we truly are which is the Truth. The Truth is that which is always present, that which supports everything, that in which this whole universe exists, all of it. Nothing is excluded. It is the thread that holds everything together.

It all starts by entering the body through our yoga practice and by learning to sit still for some time every day.