As I approached the house, I heard the tune whistled of a little song coming from the upper window. I did not know anything yet, but I listened. The tune stirred my memory and some dormant recollections came to the fore. The music was banal but the whistling was wonderfully sweet, with soft and pleasing notes, unusually pure, as happy and as natural as the song of birds. I stood and listened, enchanted, and at the same time strangely moved without having any kind of accompanying thoughts.
The mind thinks of the self as separate, the heart knows better. As one great Indian master, Sri Nisargatta, put it, "The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it."
In undertaking a spiritual life, what matters is simple: WE MUST MAKE CERTAIN THAT OUR PATH IS CONNECTED WITH OUR HEART... Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts... When we ask, "Am I following a path with heart?" we discover that no one can define for us exactly what our path should be. Instead, we must allow the mystery and beauty of this question to resonate within our being. Then somewhere within us an answer will come and understanding will arise. If we are still and listen deeply, even for a moment, we will know if we are following a path with heart.
