ROSALIND PEARMAIN speaks of the attitude of softness, the world of the senses—of hard and soft, force and forcelessness, warmth and cold—and how we harken to a more profound and beautiful world at the core of our being through the heart.
We are living in a time of hardening edges, of ever harsher decisions affecting millions of our fellow human beings.
On the other hand, Babuji stressed from the very origins of Heartfulness that it was fundamentally based on a forceless force—on softness.
Another Heartfulness Guide. Chariji, often reminded us of the strength of a tiny plant root in breaking up rocks:
“What is this miracle, you see, that the softest thing can penetrate the deepest, hardest substance known? Whereas a hard thing can only up a hard thing. Can you break water by bashing it with a crowbar?
“It was a tremendous risk that the Masters took, Lalaji and Babuji. Because it’s like building a house of butter and then asking the people who come in to have torches in their hands. The whole thing would melt. But they had this almost nonsensical stupid faith, that a soft thing can never be broken.
“And we have also, in our fairy tales, that when the wind blew, all the hard trees which would not bend were just blown down, and the soft things which were willing to bend, bent almost to the Earth, recovered. It is the soft which wins the battle always. Not the hard, you see; the hard is broken. It survives until it meets something harder than itself. But the soft, nothing in the universe can break it. Nothing in the universe can destroy it.”
Our journey in forceless force
It seems that as human beings our souls choose to inhabit a specific existence in time and space as it unfolds on our planet and in relation to all creation.
So we find ourselves inhabiting a field of feeling unique to each. Is it woven from DNA and patternings that have been transferred into this lifetime? This field of feeling has many layers and dimensions and knots that we perceive through different sensory gateways. They could be in terms of color or light, density and heaviness, warmth and cold, sound, or as qualities of touch. With the help of a being who is attuned to subtlest dimensions, we can harken to a more profound and beautiful world that is ours at the core, and long to return to this original part of creation.
The core of this sensibility is in the organ of the heart which integrates energetic information from the nervous system, from the organs, from viscera, from the brain, from soul. Furthermore our heart can be seen as a kind of organ of sensibility and perception whose intelligence can refine throughout life as it links with the capacity of the mind to focus awareness with the array of feeling at the most subtle levels.
In this vein, then, our existence is a field of vibratory exchange with environment, with all sentient life forms, with human beings. This vibratory array is like a glimmering or a shimmering, sometimes soothing sometimes discordant, similar to the domain of music.
It seems to me that the spiritual journey can bring us closer and deeper to the source of all manifestation of life, as a sound of love resonating through all creation. It is potentially experienced by us in layers of a kind of infinite softness that absorbs and transforms and brings everything into a larger field of connectivity which can keep expanding and softening as it moves towards a steady flow of coherence that can integrate increasing complexities within evolving life.
It seems to me that the spiritual journey
can bring us closer and deeper to the source of all
manifestation of life, as a sound of love resonating
through all creation.
Heartfulness gives us a resource emanating from the most profound and subtle level of vibration; the very original stir, in which to be reminded through a silent soft intimation felt within the heart of our source. This awakens our dormant longing to be dissolved into this field, and resonate in harmony with a nameless and marvelous ultimate. It is in the service of coherence, beauty, truth, and infinite love that we feel our longings for this return to our origin. Our individual journey is shaped by our intrinsic uniqueness and the kinds of samskaras and tendencies that need to be dissolved and reconciled with this core longing.
Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL
Rosalind Pearmain
Rosalind lives in Abingdon near Oxford, UK, and has worked with groups of all ages during her working life. She has always been interested in how we can change and transform. In recent years she has been teaching psychotherapy and qualit... Read More
