Heart-knowing & detaching from intellect and learning

Spiritual insight and progress doesn't come through knowing ABOUT but from knowing IN.

When we quieten the mind, and let go learning and arguments, we can truly listen to our heart which is where God speaks to us.

.BREATH-MANTRA

Breathing-in: I listen and

Breathing-out: I let go all learning

It seems that this understanding was taught in many traditions and down through the ages as these quotations show;

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. Lao Tzu
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You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. Franz Kafka
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…Where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that. Meister Eckhart

Relating to God Directly
We often confuse spiritual knowledge with spiritual attainment. Spirituality is not a matter of knowing scriptures and engaging in philosophical discussions. It is a matter of heart culture, of unmeasurable strength. Mahatma Gandhi
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By love He may be gotten and holden, but by thought and understanding, never. Cloud of Unknowing
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Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate. Huang

 Po

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There is also the Zen story of the professor who visited a Zen master but talked and talked and talked.  The Zen master  poured tea without stopping all over the cup, the tray the table until the professor said "Look what you are doing."  The master then told him that he could show the professor nothing until he had emptied himself!

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When a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge..... CXXV  Gleanings Baha'u'llah

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