Only the Heart Sees Clearly All That's Essential in Life

“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Humans tend to be overly rational. Maybe we’re trying to prove that we aren’t really monkeys; or maybe we do have an innate need for factual, rational proof of most everything; or maybe we’re simply avoiding the emotional messiness of the heart by spending so much time in our heads.

Whatever the cause, we believe that we can only see rationally with our eyes and only understand rationally with our brains. We believe our hearts are false to us and irrational. After all, we like to say that love did us wrong, or let us down, and so we often refuse to trust our feelings. We easily sweep our feelings under the carpet and rarely do we find time to shake that carpet out.

Well, today’s the day: Grab that emotional carpet and shake it hard. It’s filled with an abundance of heart wisdom. And Antoine de Saint-Exupery was exactly right: Only the heart sees what is essential in life. The mind cannot know God or truth on the same deep level that the heart can. We may see or encounter God by reading sacred texts or spiritual books, but we can only really know God in and through our hearts.

The eyes see a word, or a flower, or a human face; the mind interprets or judges what has been seen on a physical level; but the heart sees below the level of the physical. The heart can transform what the eyes see when we allow ourselves to trust it. We can then look into the eyes of another, see through to their soul, and see God within them through our hearts. Our hearts dance in the realm of the spiritual and unite with our souls. The heart then knows God beyond our need for any rational proof. Love resides in our hearts, not within our heads; and love, in its purest form, is God.

Through the eyes of the heart we see truth. For example, we can often see beyond the mask of a person who is frequently bitter and mean-spirited by seeing them with the eyes of our hearts. The heart sees that below their tough surface is a frightened child. We can then see that this person has many old emotional wounds that they have never faced. In seeing this with our hearts, we develop compassion for them and we are able to love them despite their wounded places. We learn the beauty of empathy as we come to better understand why they are so bitter, angry and defensive. And we can treat them with the proper kindness they need as opposed to engaging in fights with them. Through the eyes of our hearts, we can see them as deserving of love, and by giving them love we reunite them with God as well as with ourselves.

Day light enables the eyes to see. Love enables the heart to see. Love is brighter than day light could ever hope to be. Let’s love set our hearts alive with the clearest vision that we, as humans, can have—Heart vision. It allows our souls to shine.

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