Richard has recently published a series of articles for Yoga Magazine. In this one he explains how entering the silent space that yoga practice fosters within you enables you to hear the intelligence of your own Heart easier! 

Alongside being a yoga teacher I’m also an acupuncturist and while the relationship of the theoretical paradigms of yoga and Chinese medicine can sometimes take a bit of working out, I’ve found some incredible benefits in the way that Chinese Medicine allows a framework for describing the textures of the inner experience such as those experienced during yoga and meditation practice.

One of my favourite notions is that the heart is the quietest voice, the quietest whisper of any of the streams of thought that you experience in your mind. I love this understanding and it’s had a huge impact on my life, as trying to sort out the various layers of thoughts in the mind can be a minefield at the best of times, but what I noticed from early on in my yoga practice, particularly during meditation and deep relaxation is that the landscape of my mind would change and I’d often be left with less ‘layers’ of thoughts, or sometimes just one internal voice.

Over time I began to trust that this layer of thought somehow made more sense to me as a creative intelligence than some of the more ‘superficial’ layers of thoughts that also take residence in my mind. I mean, if you’re not going to listen to what you experience while in a profound healing state then what are you going to listen to?

Initially listening to this inner voice wasn’t always easy, as sometimes there would be a big disparity between what it was trying to tell me and what my more ‘everyday’ conscious mind would be trying to calculate, compute or work out.

However I started to notice and realise that the conscious mind that I often experience during waking hours is full of cultural and societal value judgements, rationalisations and beliefs that often get in the way of what the unique creative intelligence of the universe itself is trying to tell you and guide you. When we deeply, consciously relax like we do at the end of a class or during meditation, then you are essentially consciously visiting aspects of the mind that often sit in the subconscious, perhaps which you only usually grasp by catching a snippet of a dream or what we call moments of ‘intuition’ (inner tuition!) - and we know how we can ruminate on the significance of those. You are essentially starting to build a bridge, in a rudimentary sense, between the left and right side of the brain, between your conscious mind and your sensory awareness, where a deeper intelligence lies.

This is incredibly important, as what I also notice is that generally during waking hours alongside all the value judgements outlined above we can also be in moderate states of fight or flight, ‘survival mode’ and be ‘outcome driven’ – doing the things we feel we need to do to keep us safe and secure, and with all the modern pitfalls of stress this can be quite an exaggerated state! The problem in this state of mind is that we are neither particularly receptive to the external senses around us – thus not particularly enjoying our journey in life, but also cut off from our inner senses too!

This creates a state of decision making I call ‘external navigation’ where we are making choices from the value judgements and rationalisations, rather than ‘internal navigation’ where we are living our life from our creative promptings from within.

My realisation is that the Heart contains our creative blueprint, it’s the vessel that our Soul – which is connected to a much wider intelligence then the smaller mind can ever grasp - sits within, and is what ultimately guides us, so we need to be able to hear it, and you can’t when you are busy in survival mode.

I started to pay much more attention to and live from the visions and intelligence I experienced within, from the big decisions to the small ones – from where to live, to who to call, what to write, basically whatever came to me! And as noted earlier, sometimes that deeper wisdom can be juxtaposed to the conscious mind - I remember on one occasion, I had a choice of several options of where to move house, and my conscious mind had created an entire fabric of reason why I should take one option, only for that to be obliterated when I visited my subconscious and saw a vision of what the better choice would be!

This reminds me also of when we are children we are often told to follow our dreams, but when we get older we become jaded and push them away somewhere in favour of a more ‘logical’ approach. Now I’m not saying to be reckless, I’m just encouraging you to start to listen much more deeply to what you experience when you relax or meditate.

We also often have this fantastic notion that there is a goal with meditation to achieve the expanded state of emptiness and at times bypass all other layers of your being, but my experience is that when you go inside, your body-mind also takes the opportunity to tell you things you need to hear! And when you act positively on them, bringing yourself back into harmony with the world around you, then the mind becomes quieter anyway.

And this is also how we build the wisdom from our practice. You notice that the mind is also lighter when you make choices in accordance with the Heart promptings - we also identify in Chinese Medicine the Heart is ultimately the ‘supreme controller’ of your being, and all other aspects of yourself ‘work’ for your Heart to manifest your destiny.

To summarise the mechanics of what happens here, the asanas and techniques harmonise discordant aspects of your nervous system which in turn starts to harmonise the mind, and then when you put the Heart back in command, it then exerts an even greater influence over the other organs helping you feel even clearer and also nicely increasing your Heart electromagnetic field at the same time to give you a great radiance and charisma too!

So next time you enter meditation or deep relaxation then do listen out for that quietest whisper!

Richard Brook is a facilitator at Moinhos Velhos, holistic expert and founder of Creative Wellness. His new book, Understanding Human Nature: A User’s Guide to Life, is published by Matador, priced at £12.99.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information please feel free to visit Richard's site, or of course book on a programme and come and meet him in person!