A running question throughout my years of counseling others is “Is it ever possible to know with certainty a) what to do, and b) who to do it with?” Today we revisit some of the many themes related to these questions.

How we deal with these questions conditions our experience and our potential, since our lives depend on our ability to know the right thing to do at the right time. That’s one gift that combining Astrology with our Spiritual practice gives us.

It is human not to know much with any certainty at all. That’s because we live in an ever-changing world, and none of us was ever given an operations manual when we were children. We mainly do the best we can with what we have hoping that we’ll “get it right” and find happiness instead of misery.

Every single one of us longs for certainty. We want to know we’re “doing the right thing,” whether who to love and how to love them, which way to point our ship of destiny so we know we are on our path to genuine fulfillment, or which professions are ours to claim and master. This naturally leads us to question how can we know with certainty if someone or something presenting itself is right for us, whether in business, pleasure, or lifework.

It is proverbial that throughout the years we are told to use our mind, but follow our hearts. What does this mean? What is the heart? How can we know what our heart is telling us?

The heart is the crystal at the core of our Being. Our physical heart pumps our Life essence and our vitality. However, our Spiritual heart is the door to the Soul. If our eyes are the windows of our Soul, the heart shows us and the world what we love and what we are willing to commit to.

We know a Soul commitment when we see it and feel it. We do not say we are into something or someone "wholeheartedly" if we aren't, and it is obvious to us and others when this is true and when it’s not. Our heart’s knowing is deeper than the evaluations of our minds, which without the heart's commitment only lead us to uncertainty.

So why do our minds, when devoid of heart, lead us in circles of difficulty? How can we use our mind wisely in our attempt to find certainty? What is the nature of the mind?

Our mind has several components which when undisciplined are always in constant motion. It operates through sequence and selection, and while giving us valuable knowledge, also quite often leads us to errors due to its own ignorance and assumptions, as well as factors beyond the mind's ability to perceive ahead of time.

Some of this is because the mind only knows what it knows, and even when fed more information, as often as not our minds lead us to erroneous conclusions through associating things that aren't necessarily related. The mind is a house of mirrors, and we must learn how to perceive the correct images versus the false ones.

Another very powerful component of our mind that often leads us into problems with people and situations is the part we know as kama manas, or "desire mind." This is a very strong blend of impulse and raw emotion, and more powerful than our reason. That is why we can always reason out a desire. Our desires are also stronger than our intellect, which is why we may know something "intellectually," but will still follow our desires until we find ourselves in a proverbial ditch.

The mind will always wonder about things, since desire is unstable. Because the mind wanders through many different sensations and desires, it never can achieve a complete satisfaction of knowing much about much. That’s why we sometimes feel lost while wondering about whatever catches our perception.

If we really want to know something, listening to our hearts with intense concentration is far more accurate than our mental speculations. Our hearts can lead us to a sense of what is, rather than wondering about anything. Our desire mind is a very powerful thing, and if we would live a fulfilled life we must bring it under the gentle, wise, and loving control of our heart expressing our Higher Self and/or Soul the best we're able.

So how can we do this so we can know with certainty whether someone or something is right for us? Again, we must learn to listen to a deeper, inner knowing, our “inner tuition.” We cultivate learning how to recognize our heart's knowing through learning to listen to the "voice of the silence" within us. It requires concentration and a degree of diligence, but once the pattern is created it becomes more natural over time.

This is why going deeply into silent spaces through any form of meditation can train us to recognize subtleties we never knew before, but will know forever after. If we would know deeply, we must we willing to go deeply into whatever we're trying to know.

Knowing our heart’s Soul wisdom takes patience and a degree of discipline, even when it seems to flash in an instant. Knowing at our deepest levels is slow and steady compared with the desire mind's eternal restlessness. However, if we pay attention as we move through our unique learning process, we cultivate an ability to listen to the "straight-knowledge" of the heart using the mind and perceptions as useful guides. As long as we are diligent, paying attention to subtle and obvious lessons and choices, we will catch glimpses of knowing at the deepest levels of our Being.

The mind learns by being fed various experiences so it can get more information. The trick is not to get distracted by the information and forget to keep the heart as our guide, since mind without heart only leads to uncertainty.

Learning to listen to the heart is a long term discipline, and the heart is a muscle which grows through exercise. As we practice this, we do often find ourselves dealing with difficulty in our interactions and in the public realm while still feeling uncertain. That's because it's a process. The more we learn, the more we're able to quicken dealing with old karmas while simultaneously learning how to know true friends, allies, partners, and ourselves.

Falling into error in our relationships and choices is only a problem if we don't learn from our minor mistakes and instead let them lead us to major problems. Getting free of old karmas and the problems stemming from karma involves learning to use our minds in an intelligent way. Our mind, if we train it to pay attention, becomes a tool we can use to know needed information so that our heart can use to evaluate what is true and what is not true about what confronts us. By knowing the heart's truth, we learn to recognize how to be, what to do, and who to be with.

Uncertainty is of the mind, impulse of the feelings, instinct of the body, but the Heart knows through its own intuitive accuracy. Intuition is “direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of reasoning processes.” It is direct and immediate apprehension of a thing.

That's why it's better to cultivate intuition rather than other abilities based on instinct or feelings. Psychic hunches are often unreliable, but true intuition is never wrong. Intuition uses mind to analyze what presents itself, and chooses to act or not act based in the heart's knowledge.

Inner tuition is a tool that when fully functioning, never leads us to error and always leads us to be Lovingly Wise and Wisely Loving. As a bonus, since it is a quality of our heart expression, we also experience a deeper compassion, or "fellow feeling" toward others as well as our own process.

Eventually the uncertainty we previously experienced fades into an ability to tap a deep inner knowing. This leads to contentment with one's Higher Destiny in whatever unique form it takes. Then we'll know what to do and who to do it with.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

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