The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (6 page)

But how often have you thought, after making a rational decision—whether or not it worked out—
If only I’d listened to my heart
? Have you ever found at least one reason not to do what your heart told you to do for fear of someone else’s reaction? Or come up with excuses not to do what deep down in your heart you want to do most? When we ignore the heart’s messages, we bury our dreams and extinguish our inner fire.

 PAULO COELHO

I know a lot of people who are “dead.” But they walk, they talk, they watch television. They work hard sometimes, but somehow this spark of divine energy is lost. It’s not that it is lost forever. This child that you have in your soul can always say hello again and provoke this spark to manifest itself. But these people renounce the fact that they have dreams. They lose contact with the dream. A person who is disconnected from his or her heart is not living.

When you are completely out of touch with your heart, you feel uncomfortable, as if you are living on the surface, missing out on something. Whenever you are disillusioned or frustrated, ask your heart to connect you to your deepest emotions—they are the spark of divine energy that is so vital to living with purpose.

Paulo Coelho

 MICHAEL BECKWITH

There’s an intelligence within the heart that is far bigger than our figuring out the mind.

Even though you may unconsciously follow your heart’s promptings, you may not generally be aware of them. To become conscious of your heart’s intelligence, simply open to your heart and listen for its inner voice.

 PAULO COELHO

Don’t lose hope. God finds three, four ways to kick your head and say, “Come on! Don’t forget your purpose in life!” Give a chance to your dream. You are not going to regret it. I am not saying that you’re not going to suffer. I am not saying that you are not going to be defeated. I’m saying you’re not going to regret.

Your heart communicates to you the meaning
in
your life and
of
your life. It connects you to a greater source of knowing, to which you cannot gain access with your mind. Philosopher Blaise Pascal could not have put it better when he said, “The heart has its reasons that reason doesn’t know.”

Steve Jobs, cofounder and CEO of Apple, considered the heart to be the source of inspiration and fulfillment. He ascribed his achievements directly to the power of the heart: “The only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like with any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Through your heart, you understand your greatest desire and passion, and through the heart you find the spontaneity and creativity to break through the everyday restrictions on your life and imagination—to live fully engaged. When you open to your heart, your entire world changes—it opens up around you. You see yourself as part of a friendly universe, one that is full of possibility, one that is generating and regenerating a positive energy.

 DEEPAK CHOPRA

Getting in touch with your heart is like plugging into that universal consciousness or spirit. Your heart is a little computer that plugs into the cosmic computer where everything is inseparably one.

Your heart allows you to link up to an enormous server: the universe. That server is omnipresent, even when your own connection has a glitch. When you are logged on to the energy of the universe, you gain access to the bigger picture, the interconnectedness of your life with the lives of others. Your heart knows what will make you happy.

 NEALE DONALD WALSCH

If I could offer a piece of advice to all people, and especially to young people, it would be this: Use your heart. Forget your mind. Your mind will just simply wrap you up in your story, in your imagination, in your idea, usually your worst idea about things. But your heart knows the truth. Listen to your heart, and you can’t go wrong. You won’t.

Your heart sees your life as if it is following the course of a river—from the source down to the sea—whereas your mind cannot look beyond the next bend. Your mind is busy with a thicket of immediate concerns and short-term goals that can block your view of your larger purpose. Your mind keeps you rowing along, stroke after stroke, your back to where you’re heading, so that you see where you’ve been only after you’ve already gone past. So, when you hit a snag or need to change course, you get frustrated.

But when you open to your heart, you discover that your heart knew what your mind was too preoccupied to notice—there were rapids ahead and you had to be prepared. Open to your heart. Its higher consciousness will whisper to you, warning you of signs of turbulence. It will speak to you through intuition, not reason.

 PAULO COELHO