Note 13: Journey from Head to heart

21 notes for Meditators: Answers for Questions you never asked!

Note 13: Journey from Head to Heart

In normal unconscious living, we always tend to verbalize whatever we see, hear or taste. This verbalization is one of the first roadblocks meditators have to overcome. Today let’s talk about a stage where emotions overtake thoughts and ways to respond to such situations.

I have always reiterated time and again that Meditation is all about watching your thoughts and is about present moment awareness. Meditators’ first challenge is always to overcome constant verbalization of everything. Let me give you an example. If you walk into a park and see a beautiful rose then you start verbalizing first in your mind that this is rose and this is red color and so on. We have been trained thru our education to verbalize everything. Very rarely we just watch something without language.

After some time meditators notice that continuous chattering of thoughts has come down. At some stage, there is a significant shift happens in awareness of the Meditators. This is a very important progressive change in the life of a Meditator. Meditators instead of verbalizing everything, start feeling emotions. To explain it further let me go back to the “Rose” analogy. If you are watching a rose with present moment awareness then instead of verbalizing the rose in your head, you will feel tremendous joy, love in your heart. This is the first recognition that your awareness has moved from head to heart.

Suddenly you will notice at this stage that you are facing a range of emotions. When you see a sunset: your heart is filled with joy, When you listen to music: you feel like dancing, you watch kids and you feel like playing. For the first time, you will notice that life can be a moment without language.

What is the challenge at this stage?

The challenge at this stage is Meditators get overwhelmed. They find it really hard to put up with the rainbow of emotions. At first, they become so overwhelmed that they stop talking. Most of the family members begin to feel that you are not interested in talking. But it is not the case- you are just enjoying language-less moments. At this stage, you feel less and less need for language. Unless you have something to say strongly you are rarely interested in saying anything. For the first time, you will also notice that whenever you say something it carries so much weight and awareness that you rarely have to repeat yourself. The challenge here is to balance between language and silence

What can you do?

The lesson here is silence and trust. You have to trust the silence of the language and language-less vibrancy of the emotions. Couple of things you need to watch out for. The first one is that some meditators become so overwhelmed at this stage they start translating their emotions into thoughts. This is joy, this is happiness so on. The entire purpose is defeated if you start translating the energy of emotions into language. you have to feel and feel it with awareness.

With negative or positive, with any emotion, use this, and there will be a great change in you. If the emotion is negative, you will be freed of it by being aware that it is within you. If the emotion is positive, you will become the emotion itself. If it is joy, you will become joy. If it is anger, the anger will dissolve.

Note to help:

Walking meditation can be a big help here. Walk-in a park or take a walk on a street with awareness. Watch your mind for verbalization every time you see something on the street. Be it objects, people, colors, smell… etc. Bring your awareness to your heart while walking. Slowly you will realize you can just be: without any language. Meditation is nothing but unconditional, non-judgmental, language-less awareness of the present moment.

~love….Sureshg

Sureshg is the founder of Breathwork India. If you have any doubts , feel free to write in comments or if you have personal or professional question then do use our contact details page to write to him.