Tobin is a professor in the University of West Georgia’s Humanistic, Transpersonal and Critical Psychology program, and co-founder of the ChildSpirit Institute, a non-profit educational and research hub exploring and nurturing the spirituality of children and adults. His work explores human consciousness at the nexus of spirituality, psychology, and education. His recent books include: The Four Virtues, The Integrative Mind: Transformative Education for a World on Fire, Spiritual Knowing, From Information to Transformation: Education for the Evolution of Consciousness, Transpersonal Knowing: Exploring the Horizon of Consciousness, and The Secret Spiritual World of Children.



Tobin-Hart.jpg

Tobin Hart

How we know - part 1

<h4></h4>
 TOBIN HART is a
 humanistic transpersonal psychologist, professor in the University of West
 Georgia’s Humanistic, Transpersonal and Critical Psychology program, and
 co-founder of the ChildSpirit Institute. In this three-part
 series, he is interviewed by
 VICTOR KANNAN,
 Director of the Heartfulness Institute USA, and in part 2 they focus on
 Tobin’s book, The Four Virtues, and especially presence, wisdom and
 the heart.
</h4>


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />



 Q: So, Tobin, in your book you basically talk about presence, heart, wisdom
 and creation as four virtues. In each of these, you also add and talk about
 other things. For example, in presence, you talk about the beautiful, the
 sensing, the focusing, the witnessing, and the opening.



 Can we dig a little bit deeper into this one particular virtue of presence?
 And then see how that is perhaps the most important starting point in one’s
 life?



 TH: Presence, for
 example, really tracks with beauty. So the extent to which we’re present to
 another or present to the world, is the extent to which the world opens to us.
 And in that opening, we find and hear things (and people) as beautiful. To
 really sit with and see somebody beyond their persona and beyond their
 actions, we find that they have this incredible quality of luminosity. We get
 the sense of feeling a soul. What comes out of that is often a sense of love
 and a sense of beauty.



 Sure. In the West, the most enduring depiction of the good life is captured
 with the words “the good, the true and the beautiful.” So, for me, I was
 surprised to see those tracked with each of these things that you mentioned,
 and we’ll add another one, too.



 I have a friend who was on a mission to be with people on death row, years
 ago. Those people had committed horrific crimes, there was really little doubt
 of that. At some point my friend stopped trying to preach anything, convert
 anyone, or change anything. Instead, he simply was present to these inmates,
 listening to them to see who they were. What really surprised him was that
 when he really allowed himself to lose his own agenda and just be with each
 person, their soul poured out and their beauty was revealed. It shocked him
 how much he felt love for them, despite what they had done. In his being
 present for them, they were able to be present for themselves and begin to
 feel a glimpse of their own divinity. This is how he described it. It’s magic
 in some way.



 It’s so simple, yet we come in with an agenda that we’re trying to get
 something from this encounter rather than being there, and we lose something.
 While an agenda can be a good motivator, a good starting point, it can also
 cover deeper experience – whether that is to get my walk in today, my 10,000
 steps, or whatever else it is. It’s a good motivator but we can lose the
 opportunity of presence if we don’t leave the goal behind and be present in
 what we’re doing. If we can’t suspend the surface goal or agenda, whether it’s
 meeting a death row inmate or going for a walk, beauty stays in the
 background. It’s not there in the same way.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="576"
 height="428"
 alt=""
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/how_we_know_part2_2_b144f71bc0.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T14:25:20.835Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: So presence is to be present to the extent that we can appreciate the
 other.



 TH: I think that
 appreciation is both an outcome and also a portal – to lead with curiosity and
 to move into contact with the other to see who they are. It’s what Martin
 Buber would call an “I–thou” relationship, and through it appreciation emerges
 organically.



 Q: So the quality of time spent in the encounter is one way to look at
 presence, right?



 TH: Yes, I think
 quality is the right word for this. I remember one time when my wife had to go
 out of the country. I had our two little kids and my work, and I was also
 filling in for some of her work. I was overwhelmed. I remember the first night
 putting the kids to bed and sort of shouting with frustration, “Okay, just go
 to sleep now!”



 I was overwhelmed, and after realizing the energy I was giving out, I
 basically said to myself, “Oh, this is awful. I love my kids. I love chance,
 but The extent to which we’re present to another or present to the world, is
 the extent to which the world opens to us. And in that opening, we find and
 hear things (and people) as beautiful. INNERVIEWI’m hating this. So what can I
 drop away? What’s really the priority here?” I hadn’t let go of my
 self-imposed agenda of “I want to get this done this week. I want to finish
 that.” I finally calculated what I absolutely had to take care of during that
 week, and just let everything else go. I ended up having the most glorious
 week with my kids. I fell more deeply in love with them than ever before. As
 you said, it was the quality of time spent and a change in commitment and
 priority.



 Q: So how do you recognize that you are not present, even though you’re
 physically there? What are the tools and techniques that we can use to
 recognize and remedy the patterns of non-engaging presence?



 TH: I think one of
 the most powerful ways is through the body. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for
 example, says that if you change how you think about something, it will change
 how you feel. Other folks have gone a different way, for example, Eugene
 Gendlin created something called Focusing. He discovered that in psychotherapy
 it wasn’t simply insight, but also a felt sense that helps make change and
 growth happen. We know insight is helpful, but it’s not the same thing as when
 you have a felt sense, that is, a bodily sense of meaning. That’s when change
 actually happens in therapy, for example. It becomes embodied.



 One of the trailheads toward presence is to increase embodiment; increase
 awareness of subtle cues in our heart, in our mouth, and in our gut. For
 example, we know that the enteric nervous system (the gut brain) is full of
 neuropeptides and their receptor sites. We used to think they were only in the
 brain. We understand that they’re involved with thinking. We discovered in the
 ’80s that they’re also in the gut and throughout the body. So the whole body
 is this thinking, feeling being. Even to make a distinction between thought
 and feeling is very difficult. This felt sense is our constant available
 touchstone to check in to see how present we are, and what we’re present to.



 For example, if I say, “Wow, something isn’t right,” and “I feel a little
 tension in my abdomen, what’s that about?”, that’s the trailhead to follow so
 that I can be present to myself in order to be present to something else.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 The extent to which we’re present to 
 another or present to the world, is the extent to which the world opens to us. And in that opening, we find and hear things (and people) as beautiful.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Other times, things come from the outside; we’re grabbed by beauty, or by
 something unexpected. Toward the end of his life, after he had had a couple of
 heart attacks, Maslow had what he called plateau experiences, instead of peak
 experience. He began to talk about presence. He said that in that state you
 get stabbed by things, by babies, by flowers, by beautiful things, and just
 the very act of living. It’s this idea that the outside creates this real
 resonance if we’re open to it in some way.



 Q: So, that’s where he probably says that beauty kills, right?



 TH: Kills the
 separate Self. Yes.



 Q: You also talk about the heart. You assigned the beautiful to presence,
 the good to the heart, and the true to wisdom. The heart is also a place of
 enormous duality and emotion, right?


TH: Yes.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 width="500"
 height="450"
 alt=""
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/how_we_know_part2_3_bfa13b7c1c.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T14:27:24.958Z"

 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: So both pain and suffering as well as good and kindness are all in the
 heart. How do you feel the heart through the duality of emotion? I ask this
 because most of us are trying to avoid pain and seek pleasure. How do we
 make sure that the heart – either as an instrument or as an organ of feeling
 – can navigate through these dualities and also become either a tool or an
 indicator for how we are leading our lives?



 When you mentioned connecting as part of the heart, if I take “the good”
 with the connection, how do we connect to the good, while also recognizing
 the connection to the bad and the impact of that?



 TH: That’s a big
 question, isn’t it?



 What I see is that the heart is not discriminant. It’s here just to feel and
 to love. It’s about compassion, it’s about empathy. It’s about connecting.
 This may be a more limited notion than your use of the word “heart” or
 “heartfulness.” But for me, to be in the world, and to feel it in some way,
 are essential to bringing wisdom into this life. We can only do that by first
 really encountering the heart as fully as we can. Then we have a chance not to
 be consumed by feelings, but to be able to be with them in a way that is
 transformative.



 In the United States, we have this thing called “life, liberty and the pursuit
 of happiness.” It’s a mixed bag, right? These days we have an expectation that
 if we’re not happy, if we’re not doing something that we’re happy about,
 something’s wrong with us. So it becomes a value. That’s an imposition. It can
 really throw us off course. People indulge in moments of pleasure, for
 example, to find happiness, or they try to make a lot of money to find
 happiness. I would say that, instead of that pursuit of happiness, the goal is
 the pursuit of fullness in some way. We all want to feel good rather than
 jealous; we want to feel playful rather than overly serious. But putting
 feelings into Remarkable people have an undercurrent of joy, even an
 undercurrent of equanimity, even when they’re in the midst of darkness and
 despair. They may be desperately sad, but still there’s something else that
 they tap into or stand in. It’s a place of rest. It’s a place of
 steadiness.categories of good versus bad, which is a fashion these days in
 psychology, really sets us up for an oppositional adversarial relationship to
 ourselves. I would argue that we’ve created an opponent, and the opponent is
 us. So, instead, the question might be, “How can I have a sense of welcoming
 them all?”



 Rumi has a wonderful poem that many people know as “The Guest House.”
 Essentially he says to welcome all feelings, “a joy, a depression, a
 meanness,” and then, “The dark thought, the shame, the malice”… invite them
 in. Be grateful for whoever comes, for each has been sent as a guide from
 beyond.” They’re just feelings. They’re just here, leading us somewhere, to
 pay attention, inviting us to be present with them, welcoming them all, rather
 than having prejudice for one or another. There’s a s sense of, “Ah, okay,
 what do you have to show me? Can I be with that?”



 What this implies is that there’s another order of awareness and capacity to
 be with this and have equanimity, balance and even joy in this. Usually the
 way we define happiness is that we feel happy when something good happens,
 whereas the etymological meaning of the word “joy” is an exaltation of spirit.
 Joy means an exaltation of spirit.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 Remarkable people have an undercurrent of joy, even an undercurrent
 of equanimity, even when they’re in the midst of darkness and despair.
 They may be desperately sad, but still there’s something else
 that they tap into or stand in. It’s a place of rest. It’s
 a place of steadiness.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 So remarkable people have an undercurrent of joy, even an undercurrent of
 equanimity, even when they’re in the midst of darkness and despair. They may
 be desperately sad, but still there’s something else that they tap into or
 stand in. It’s a place of rest. It’s a place of steadiness. It’s a place of
 clarity that says, “Yes, yes, this human world is indeed about all these ups
 and downs, this roller coaster ride, and it’s so easy to fall down any one of
 these holes, pleasure or pain. But from this other position, we can see that
 it’s bigger than that.” We see that fundamentally there’s the possibility of
 equanimity and joy.



 Q: Nice. So, this is wisdom, right? Is it something we can cultivate or are
 we born with it?



 TH: Well in Zen,
 they tell us to have a beginner’s mind. In the Book of Matthew in the Bible,
 the instructions are to turn and become like a little child; only then shall
 you enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So there’s something about this presence of
 being that seems to be tied to wisdom.



 Wisdom doesn’t come through calculation. It doesn’t come through shrewdness.
 Those things may be intelligence and they may be really useful for life, but I
 would argue that wisdom comes from something else. It comes from being in
 rapport with the mystery of reality.



 We can recognize that it involves a couple of different things. For example,
 Aquinas, who’s influential in Western spiritual thought, said that wisdom
 involves what he called “the virtue of gnome,” which means higher discernment
 or seeing into the heart of something. There is some way that the mind of a
 child sometimes sees into the heart of something, or can instantly grasp the
 emotional reality. If somebody is in pain, even though they are denying it,
 the child gets it; they see something present. Rather than shrewdness or
 calculation, it involves a capacity, a willingness and an ability to enter in
 with wonder, with radical openness, seeing from a greater height, seeing into
 the heart of something.



 Can we cultivate it? Well, cultivating heart and cultivating presence lead to
 this. One of my favorite things about wisdom is the capacity for possibility.
 Often, our minds construct things in a certain way, because our family and our
 culture construct things in a certain way. We believe that this is the way it
 is. But wisdom really believes in the possibility of all things. It’s this
 radical ability to step beyond the frame we’re in to see it from a greater
 height from within the heart.



 Sometimes great spiritual guides, great discoverers, inventors, and others
 have these moments. We’re so conditioned by our surroundings, by our
 worldview, by our family, and by our experience, that it’s hard to leave the
 gravitational pull of that conditioning in order to get another point of view.
 And yet wisdom engenders and enables another possibility; always another
 possibility.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

How we know - part 2

<h4
 id="h-tobin-hart-is-a-humanistic-transpersonal-psychologist-professor-in-the-university-of-west-georgia-s-humanistic-transpersonal-and-critical-psychology-program-and-co-founder-of-the-childspirit-institute-in-the-final-part-of-this-series-in-which-he-is-interviewed-by-victor-kannan-director-of-the-heartfulness-institute-usa-tobin-speaks-about-the-intersection-of-western-psychology-and-spirituality-in-particular-the-importance-of-presence-imagination-wisdom-love-compassion-purity-and-overcoming-spiritual-bypassing">
 TOBIN HART is
 a humanistic transpersonal psychologist, professor in the University of West
 Georgia’s Humanistic, Transpersonal and Critical Psychology program, and
 co-founder of the ChildSpirit Institute. In the final part of this series,
 in which he is interviewed by
 VICTOR KANNAN,
 Director of the Heartfulness Institute USA, Tobin speaks about the
 intersection of western psychology and spirituality, in particular the
 importance of presence, imagination, wisdom, love, compassion, purity, and
 overcoming spiritual bypassing.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: When you talk about possibility, would faith be part of
 wisdom?



 TH:
 Yes, in this
 sense my favorite definition of faith is a suspension of disbelief. So, rather
 than believe in something, there is another important quality or capacity we
 call imagination. One of the powerful allies for wisdom and possibility is
 imagination. Can we conceive of another way? And can we act “as if ” for a
 bit? Can we hold open possibility for long enough? Imagination is a bridge
 between the known and the unknown. From psychology, we know our minds are so
 powerfully conditioned to see things, to perceive in a way, and to believe in
 a way. If we can imagine another way, suddenly we can free ourselves. That’s
 also part of what I think wisdom is about – to free ourselves.



 Q: So faith is also a bridge between the known and the unknown.
 



 TH: Exactly. Yes.



 Q: So imagination is the bridge between the known and the
 unknown.
 


TH: Yes.


 Q: Wisdom is also a bridge between perhaps the known and the
 unknown at
 this point in time, in a way that they seem to share in the quality of each
 other.
 



 TH: Yes,
 absolutely. Really, I think with all the things we are talking about, if you
 go deep enough into any one of them it opens to all the others. Wisdom
 involves some other things too. It involves cultivating clarity and seeking
 guidance. Different capacities serve us. For example, how do we find wise
 guides? From our interiority, from our inspiration, from a dialogue with a
 good book, with our children, with our loved ones in general, and, ultimately,
 with any circumstance, we’re looking for signs.



 The indigenous cultures often read signs, such as the flight of a bird or
 something that crosses our path. It’s fascinating to say, “Wow, okay, what
 does that do for me? Why does it resonate?” Rather than making any ontological
 claims about somebody sending this bird to me, it’s instead, “What is that
 about? What does it trigger or open? How can I dialogue with this? What does
 it make me think of ?” So we’re always available for guidance, and it’s always
 available to us.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/how_we_know_part3_2_335e423034.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T15:33:53.688Z" />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: And that is not possible if we are not present. In the wisdom
 category,
 you talk about discernment, and also about the child’s ability to directly
 perceive things.


TH: Exactly.


 Q: In your book, you mention a tool called SAM, the Spirituality
 Assessment
 Matrix. So, if I were to say to myself, “Hey, I want to become wiser, I want
 to be able to perceive things better,” then what type of assessment should I
 give myself?



 TH: You’re
 referring to the instrument we made. It’s just a series of questions to ask
 yourself. It’s for self-reflection when folks look for help, direction and
 guidance to develop their psycho-spiritual potential. I think it’s very
 difficult to do the spiritual life without simultaneously doing the
 psychological, and the psychological without the spiritual. SAM was designed
 to give a self-assessment about what your strengths are already, and what
 might be some specific trailheads for growth.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 How do we find wise guides? From our interiority, from our
 inspiration, from a dialogue with a good book, with our
 children, with our loved ones in general, and, ultimately, with any
 circumstance, we’re looking for signs.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 For example, you might discover that you have this incredibly big heart,
 compassion and empathy, but you may not have a strong capacity for, say,
 discernment. Another person might have a lot of presence, being really aware
 and awake, and yet not have what is the fourth direction – they have not found
 their voice. They haven’t yet found their creative expression in the world.



 Maybe your capacity for love and compassion overrides any discernment. So
 anytime you see something or someone in need, you give to them automatically
 but end up feeling drained, sometimes even like a doormat. You might justify
 it further by saying, “Well, what I’ve given hasn’t helped, but at least I’ve
 given it to them.” You may even feel like a martyr in some way, suffering as
 you give. Yet, I would argue that to give without a very organic joy is
 problematic. It misses the point really. I think when folks give freely from
 their hearts, there is this incredible expansion, and the whole world is
 enriched by it. So, in this particular case, it might be that one needs to
 practice or develop the capacity for discernment, maybe even more
 particularly, self-assertion. Practicing when to say no, and when to say yes,
 and when to be particular in what and how to give. For example, rather than
 giving cash to someone who has trouble with drugs, you give meals instead.
 That’s where the heart really joins with wisdom so that we can serve one
 another.



 Q: You’re talking about a different dimension of all this
 working together,
 right? For example, we can be compassionate, but if we don’t have joy, we
 reach empathy-fatigue. If we are compassionate but don’t have wisdom, then
 we don’t know when to stop, or how much to give, or what to give?



 I feel it all works together, and that leads me to the idea of
 evolution of
 consciousness. At the end of the day, all these elements of love, wisdom
 etc., are in the consciousness of a person. The joy you speak about is when
 the evolution of consciousness, expansion of consciousness, and purity of
 consciousness reach a level where joy is possible.



 TH: When I think
 about purity of consciousness, I think that this is the notion of oneness;
 ultimately, things are all one. The notion of maya alludes to this.
 At this level of perception or awareness, things are illusory in relation to
 the ultimate, where there is oneness of all things. That’s what I think of
 when I think of purity of consciousness.



 The evolution of consciousness is tricky, because one could argue that
 consciousness doesn’t evolve. It’s just what it is, always. It’s pure. So, in
 my mind, the idea of evolution of consciousness is about how each of us, as
 individuals, and as a community of humanity, can really develop our presence,
 our love, our wisdom, and our creativity, in order to come closer to that
 greater mystery.



 I think that’s what we’re about in our own very, very particular ways.
 Sometimes it can be tricky, because it’s easy for folks who are very earnest
 and very advanced to do spiritual by passing. That is, they take that ultimate
 perspective of oneness and dismiss the reality of their personhood, the need
 for differentiation and discernment.



 The sentiment might be, “If all is oneness, then I need to love everything. So
 let me treat everything accordingly.” Yet the reality is that there’s some
 things that you don’t love. So there’s denial, there’s repression. What we
 know is this: What we resist will persist, and it will come back to haunt us.
 It’s what Carl Jung talked about as the shadow. Jung talked about the whole
 process of individuation. The process of evolution of individual consciousness
 is about “shadow work.”


It’s about owning those parts of ourselves that we don’t want to see.


 William James says that the things we value most are at the mercy of the
 things we value least. That’s particularly true about ourselves, right? So,
 that’s where this trick is. I think we’re limited, but let’s accept that, and
 see how we engage with and move through it rather than deny and bypass. This
 is our work towards expanding consciousness.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 When I think about purity of consciousness, I think that
 this is the
 notion of oneness; ultimately, things are all one. The notion of
 maya alludes to this. At this level of perception or awareness,
 things are illusory in relation to the ultimate, where there is
 oneness of all things.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Spiritual bypassing is a real problem with earnest and honest spiritual
 seekers. That’s why the psychological and the spiritual have to go together
 every step of the way. To move spiritually, you have to work through, or in
 some way disentangle, the psychological structures that have kept you at a
 certain level. For example, we see great spiritual guides, people who really
 are remarkable in many respects, who are also abusing people. They haven’t
 done sufficient psychological work. On the other hand, we know lots of people
 who are brilliant intellectually and great personalities, but in some way
 don’t have the spiritual capacity or vision to really have the fullness of
 potential.



 Q: I want to go a little bit deeper into spiritual bypassing. I
 think this
 has been introduced through different terminologies. For example, in
 Heartfulness, the first Guide says that we have not even taken the first
 step in spirituality until we have improved our character. He makes a big
 distinction between character formation and spiritual achievement. To me, it
 is spiritual bypassing if you are not focusing on improving your
 character.



 Can you talk a little bit more about this, maybe giving one or
 two
 examples? That way, people can really understand that the very spiritual
 practice they are doing can be counterproductive if they do not increase
 their level of awareness of some of those shadows or blind spots.



 TH: Yes, sure.
 There is a simple everyday one, and that is practicing to be fully loving.
 Imagine you go to pick up your car from a repair shop. You’re having a muffler
 replaced, and they quoted you $60 but it turns out to be $600.



 You decide, “Boy, this person must need the money more than I do. From a
 heartful place I’m just going to give it to them.” And yet, there’s another
 part of you that says, “I think I’ve just been swindled. I think I’ve just
 been cheated,” but you make a decision not to address that. You swallow it.
 Rather than being assertive (not aggressive) and saying, “Look, you told me
 this. We had a contract, and you didn’t call me to tell me that something
 changed with the contract.”



 That’s human life. If you’re conflict avoidant, which a lot of us are,
 particularly if we’re trying to be in our heart, this will just rile you up.
 You may wake up at night with it, but rationalize to yourself that, “No, I did
 the right thing.” This is a very simple example, but it’s at that level that
 the tension of the spiritual and the psychological is manifested day in and
 day out.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/how_we_know_part3_3_a698f7976d.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T16:59:32.636Z" />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 In my mind, the idea of evolution of consciousness is
 about how each
 of us, as individuals, and as a community of humanity, can
 really develop our presence, our love, our wisdom, and our creativity,
 in order to come closer to that greater mystery.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Another category of spiritual bypassing comes when we might have had some
 experience, some powerful awakening of sorts. So, we’ve had some ecstasy, some
 vision, or some profound sense of love, and we really seek to be with that, to
 live with that. Yet spiritual experiences can also be a trap. We become so
 attached to them that everything else falls to the wayside. People then pursue
 the experience, seeking another high, essentially, and it becomes an
 addiction. Rather than the profound event being a source of development and
 growth, it now actually becomes an anchor that holds us back. We may become
 fixated rather than curious, and this is keeping us from being present in any
 situation. Also, the ego may assume that this special moment means that we’re
 special and fuel ego-inflation, which works against spiritual growth.



 There are other sorts of issues when we have experiences. I think there are
 three general steps we might go through:



 In terms of overarching questions, the first step is, “What happened? What
 does this mean?” whether it’s a near death experience, or a great moment in
 meditation, or whatever. So, we’re trying to figure it out, to ground it in
 understanding and meaning so that we can get our bearings.



 The next stage, as a question, is: “What am I to do?” That might mean, “How do
 I need to readjust my life and redirect my efforts in light of what I now
 know?”



 The last step takes the integration still further: “How am I to be? What is
 the life that flows from and through this?” We could say this has more to do
 with being than doing.



 Q: So what’s the end goal of all this? What’s the ultimate
 purpose of life
 and living, walking and exercising? Another way to put it is: How do we
 derive meaning from all these activities and aspirations?



 TH: Well, I think
 the point of life is to live it. Pretty simple. And I do like that it’s a
 mystery. How do we engage the mystery in a way that feels fulfilling? I think
 that we basically have some internal felt sense, a barometer or an invisible
 hand on our shoulder, and it’s directing us in some way. I don’t know how it
 works. I think we’ll leave that as a mystery. But I do think that we have this
 opportunity of our life in the Earth school. The job is to do a couple things,
 that is, to see what it is that is ours to give and what it is ours to learn.
 In some ways, I would say that’s the definition of a calling.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/how_we_know_part3_4_779fe76d73.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T17:02:16.281Z" />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: In Heartfulness we say that we are connected with the Source.
 It’s even
 a logical hypothesis, because we all have come from some place, so there is
 a source for everything – not only the source of creation, but also the
 source of sustenance, and so on. So, if we are part of that which is created
 and is being sustained, then there is a connection to the Source.



 So the hypothesis is about how I establish a connection with the
 Source and
 what does it mean? How does it feel, and what does the journey look like?
 One idea in terms of the purpose of life, or meaning of life, is basically
 to be cognizant of this connection and the nature of our journey towards the
 Source. What are the benefits of that journey, the progressive, feel-good
 aspect, in a very tangible way, in a real way, not in an assumed way? In a
 way where you’re marching the trail of reality, where whatever you see is
 real and authentic. Then you become more and more one with it.



 I’m going to send you a book called The Heartfulness
 Way, written
 by Daaji, our Guide, where he tries to explain everything as rationally as
 possible. But at the same time, there is only so much that the rational mind
 can grasp. It is in keeping with the wonder, the curiosity and the
 observation out there that we extend our knowledge from what we can know
 logically to what we can know with wonder.



 TH: I’ve recently
 read some of Daaji’s writings and really appreciate them. His writings are
 beautifully coherent and down-to-earth. It is very contemporary, not as in
 trends, not even as a translation, but as a very sane and spiritual depiction
 relevant for today. I feel the kinship.



 Q: You want to share anything else, Tobin?



 TH: I’ve
 appreciated your incisive and big questions. It’s been nice to talk with
 somebody who’s really knowledgeable and smart about it.



 Q: Thank you, Tobin. I hope this conversation further adds to
 our
 understanding of psychology and spirituality as a whole study of humanity.
 Thank you so very much.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">Interview by VICTOR KANNAN</h4>

<hr />

Tobin Hart

Explore