The Ego Is A Lonely Hunter: How To Reveal The Magic Of Your Heart.
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Magic, if it is to be found anywhere at all, must be simply revealed.
It shows up routinely as the unexplained and obvious fact that everything has worked out so far, and as the unanswered question: How could this have happened?
Here in my body, for 60 years I’ve pretty easily managed to eat more than I should, breathe, drink, sleep, party, weep, etc. I’ve been hurt and healed. I got beat and I’ve beaten. I’ve fallen many times from different heights, both physically and psychologically, and survived to tell about it.
If I didn’t know that we all without exception will die, I would be able to entertain my immortality. How did the particles, the quarks, atoms and molecules manage to organize in such a way to keep me in this conscious continuum for so long, or for that matter, at all… ever? And, why?
I’ll probably never know the answer to these fundamental questions. At least not through the usual process of inquiry using the equipment we commonly employ for problem-solving.
The logical mind sees the unexplained benevolence of the Universe as either miracle or unbelievable (not possible!) or coincidence, and there have been too many gifts in my 60 years on the planet to call my continued presence here on earth coincidence. I’ve been playing the odds and winning, over and over and over.
Unbelievable… not possible… yet here I am. So what’s left?
Miracle.
Some will say I’ve given up trying to gain an intellectual understanding too quickly. Maybe so, but I’ve found something much more satisfying to occupy my mind and fill the need to understand. Without drugs. Without numbing the pain of separation and anxiety.
In fact, the clearer my head, the more I’m able to truly reap the benefits of my new skillset.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And equally, the mind and ego need to understand, to make sense of phenomena for the purpose of continued survival. And thank you very much, Mind! I’ve done just great. But for true and bottomless existential satisfaction, a different tool and different processes must be implemented.
The Heart…
The heart is not a lonely hunter if the mind is allowed to rest long enough to allow the heart’s more subtle yet hugely potent medicine to work. The heart’s voice needs to be cultivated like any skill needs to be practiced. Perhaps it wasn’t always so, but look around in this world and you see that the heart is not running things.
So we need to practice heart skills. It begins with me, and with you, individually and together.
For me and my atheistic mind, this has become something I now call spiritual practice. It took a long time to realize that this is what I’ve been doing. Hindsight is 20/20.
I called it practicing my music, honing my chops, evolving reflexes that would serve me as I improvise a melody or chord progression. I came to it as a musician. You might come to it trying to be the best at parenting your children or being the best you can at whatever you do, day to day.
Through the mundane is a thread you weave with, and all along the way your heart beats, lungs pump, and your mind strategizes.
I found myself using my musical skills to uplift. I wasn’t happy playing music unless it was moving people toward a greater lightness of being. I played in church bands though I refused to accept Christ as my savior. I played Hindu chants and Sufi Zikr, and never believed in gods, goddesses, fairies, angels or any of that stuff. I still don’t.
I’m fond of saying that Belief in God is an oxymoron. Belief doesn’t allow for an alive experience, and if I’m to entertain the existence of God, one of my criteria is that I can’t pin it down, define it, or concretize it at all. Can’t believe it. God has got to be unbelievable. You can’t know it through the mind. If you do, it’s not God, I say.
Chanting in Sanskrit entrains the mind to the heart’s vibration. I don’t know how it works, and if I’m to move closer to something that I can’t know with the mind… God… I don’t want to know how I got there. I don’t want to believe it, I just want it to work.
Chanting the myriad names we’ve given God works. As I said, I came to it through my musicianship, by accident. A coincidence.
The heart is not lonely. The mind and ego just need practice to allow the heart’s voice to be heard. Chanting is a song of the heart. So we give the mind something to do while we sing this heart song. Kirtan. The mind can learn these new strange words and melodies, and though perhaps skeptical at first, it’s relatively happy with any job.
As the heart song gets refined in its expression, the mind sees progress and is pleased serving a successful agenda. It spirals, and just gets better and better.
*****
Rick Franz has been playing and touring with some of the world’s most well known kirtan wallas for many years. He started leading kirtan three years ago during a self-imposed ‘walkabout’ which he continues to this day. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, he brings an eclectic, developed musical style, along with a quirky, irreverently reverent sense of humor and a lot of heart. Visit Rick at A Muse In Grace for a taste of Kirtan and his 2015 Tour West dates.
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