Shai Tubali: Why We Need Heart Intelligence Now

Shai Tubali: But then there came, of course, a whisper from the heart. And the heart said, why don’t you leave me open? Let’s try just once, just once and see what happens. Perhaps it’s not as you think. It’s going to be.

Tami Simon: Welcome friends. In this episode of Insights at the Edge. My guest is Shai Tubali is a highly trained yogi, wisdom teacher, and a writer who has authored more than 20 books that skillfully combine yogic practices with psychology and philosophy, in service of inner transformation and the evolution of consciousness. holds a doctorate in the philosophy of religion from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. He’s originally from Israel and he’s now living in Portugal, which is where he’s joining us from. Shai, welcome.

Shai Tubali: Hello. Hello, Tami. I’m so delighted to be here with you.

Tami Simon: I truly think of you shy as a new friend, and I wanna share a little bit about how we met, which is a mutual friend of ours said, you should check out the work of Shai Tubali. So I did and I went online and I checked out some of your videos. And early in my search I found a video teaching on the Flexible Heart. And really got my attention because I realized that you were offering in this teaching on the flexible heart medicine that I feel is much needed at this time and that I sensed I need and that our community needs in order to deal with all of the heartbreak we’re experiencing and to feel. in the face of metabolizing that heartache.

So to begin, can you tell me a little bit about how you came to this specific articulation and teaching about the flexible heart?

Shai Tubali: Yeah. So first, first of all, it’s, um, I, I consider it a great privilege to be called your new friend. So, yes, well, let me start by, uh, saying that, um, I developed, uh, decades ago certain techniques for trauma transformation that, um, employ the power of consciousness to help people uproot trauma, not just heal it.

Not just improve their relationship with it, but to actually become so much bigger than the trauma that they feel capable of releasing it through their greatness of their own consciousness, their own true nature. So I’ve been teaching that kind of method for trauma healing. But then at a certain point, I met a a, a guided, a long seminar on trauma transformation.

And then I remember very well because I was listening to the processes across the room and people were guiding one another. And in these techniques, the door at a certain point, opens. People can just pass through it. There is no, nothing that binds them. Nothing that there, um, is a real reason not to, not to enter that kind of transcendent freedom.

Blissful freedom. And then I’ve noticed, I noticed that people, some people have that kind of reservation or reluctance to, to go through that door. And I started wondering how is it that some of the people are able to pass through the door? And some people have that kind of reluctance, especially when, uh, the traumas are comparable.

People have the very same experience around the very same age. So what is the factor? And of course there are, there can be several factors, but one of them is emotional flexibility and that I consider one of the greatest powers of heart intelligence, which I believe we are going to explore together. And emotional flexibility is something that is, is hardly discussed.

Usually people talk about mental flexibility, about cognitive adaptability, but then there is this dimension of how we can have this kind of preparedness, this readiness to say I let go to say I release. And there is only one dimension of intelligence that can do that for us, and that is the ripening of our own heart.

Are they, do they, because hearts, one of their greatest capacities is to be able to release, to liberate, to let go, to loosen attachments. So this is the point, the, that emotional flexibility is the one true condition of healing. And if we don’t have that, what happens is that we can, uh, circle forever in therapeutic processes, but never find the end.

And the thing is that when the heart is not ready to let go, this is because it is somewhat somehow invested in a i an identity building memory, which means that. I have a certain reason to freeze those memories, those narratives, those wounds, to keep them as a form of self, as a familiar self, even if that causes me great suffering.

So I loop around those memories forever. And then I can even participate in therapeutic sessions for 20, 30, 40 years. And still even at the age of 70, I will still cry over a certain memory, uh, as if it happened yesterday. So the question is how do we cultivate this kind of mental flexibility, uh, emotional flexibility, which I also consider a kind of youthfulness of the heart, because it’s a heart that doesn’t twinkle, doesn’t stiffen with time.

I’m sure that all of us can have this kind of access to the feeling within deep, within their chest. Whether their hearts have become wrinkled, whether their hearts have become, um, distorted or shaped by memories. Whether they have that kind of space of usefulness that allows them to truly move on, not to calcify around the shocks that we’ve been through.

Tami Simon: You know, it’s so interesting to me, Shai, that you’re talking about a kind of identity

Shai Tubali: Hmm.

Tami Simon: as part of what we hold onto. And I’ll tell you what I’m remembering, and maybe it’s because of all of your yogic training, but at one point when I was 50 years old, I celebrated my 50th birthday by hiking around Mount Kash.

And at one point, when you’re just circling around, this is a great mountain in Tibet that the yogis circumambulate over the course of several days. At one point you take a very valued item of clothing and you leave it on this huge pile of clothes. And I took, I can’t believe I’m sharing this story, but I want to, because it’s an example, not necessarily of a holding onto a trauma, but just holding on.

To an identity formation. I took my very cool green jacket that made me feel like, know the greatest, you know, badass skate rat kind of person. And I dropped this green jacket and it was really hard to do it, to leave it on the side of the mountain. So what I wanna know is what enables us to be flexible to leave, leave things behind, to move from one place to another, to leave a relationship, to let ourselves go through griefs of all kinds terrible griefs sometime, and move through what’s the capacity that helps us move through and let go.

Shai Tubali: That’s a, a wonderful question and yes, keeping in mind this, uh, story of how you had that, that kind of empowering moment or readiness.

Tami Simon: And I’m sharing it because it’s not even a trauma, it’s just all of the letting goes that we go through in our life that

Shai Tubali: Yes.

Tami Simon: requires of us.

Shai Tubali: Yes. So again, that is the question of, uh, of first of all, how mature our heart is. And this is a, a, a whole process of development. Uh, I think that sometimes we’re, we don’t think of the hearts in terms of evolution. And we need to understand that there is a, a certain identity of the heart. That when it is, let’s say, in a contracted state, it prefers to wrap itself around a victim identity, a victim identity that is, uh, wounded, that clings to the wound, that clings to the bruises that, uh, prefers to tell a life story of someone in need rather than someone that can function as a source or that can experience inner whole.

This is where the process of, uh, of the evolution of the heart needs, uh, can take place. And, and it’s actually a whole variety of practices and intentions that one needs to make. But it’s, first of all, it starts with a kind of readiness to be free and to start imagining oneself free from the narrative, free from the story.

And to also sense this kind of space between you and the narrative. What is it that is holding onto understanding that kind of interest, this kind of investment, and why it is that we’re, we’ve become so rigid, why is it that we. That we hold onto that grief, to that anger. Why do we need to replay the, the very same scenes?

So this is extremely important because that’s a moment of sincerity. It’s the, it’s the, this kind of feast that, that holds on to the story. And it’s not because of the story in itself. The story in itself wants to be let go of, you see, I always think of, uh, of memories as, uh, as ghosts. We all see ghosts in films where they literally, uh, wander around and look for, uh, the moment that they could be released.

Memories want to be released. They want to be released from our group, so we hold onto them. They don’t have power over us. They don’t have, uh, some kind of o objective, um, um, energy that, that sustains them. They thrive on let’s say our own clinging, our own need to,to sustain them, to nurture them so we can remain ourselves.

Now, the leap that, uh, that awaits us is the leap from wounded, broken to whole and to independent at the level of, of our emotional world, which means that when we are able to grow, and this is a little a question of the chicken and the egg. What starts first, if I have even small glimpses into the wonderful state in which my heart is whole, complete, able to experiences, un cause emotions, able to tap into its own sources of love, its own resources of joy, of um, of abundance, then it has a greater power to be flexible, but also flexibility helps us to move to that kind of wholeness.

Tami Simon: You know, it’s interesting Shai, because I’ll often hear wisdom teachers talk about entering a space of awareness and not investing in any thinking process or narrative. Uh, a kind of mental

Shai Tubali: Hmm.

Tami Simon: But I don’t. and this is why I’ve picked up so much on this point in your work, hear people talk about that at the level the heart,

Shai Tubali: Um,

Tami Simon: that space for heart experience, which isn’t necessarily even verbal. so there’s a sense of, well, this is, this is how I’m feeling.

Shai Tubali: yes,

Tami Simon: not something to just let pass through. So I wonder if you can take us into that nonverbal realm of where the heart is attached and what the space of the heart is like and feels like.

Shai Tubali: yes, yes. That is, uh, a, a beautiful invitation. And I would like to, to start by, by inviting everyone to, to consider this because most of us have had that kind of moment at least once in our lives. Um, and that is a moment when. First of all, we knew something without doubt. We knew something without explaining.

There was no reasoning process. We just knew it. We knew it. And we say, I know it in my heart. That’s clear to me. And then to begin to ask ourselves, well, what did it feel like? That moment when I tapped into this kind of felt certainty, certainty without rigidity, certainty, without dogma, and even deeper what truth was my heart reminded of here in that moment.

Because those moments, they connect me to a certain greater truth. Truth that is greater than that moment of knowing. And that is the heart’s capacity to know. And another invitation, because I want us to, to begin to have a, uh, an intimate feeling of that, that think of the moments of feel. Remember those moments when you watch the film or engaged in a conversation or read a book and you started to cry or you had tears in your eyes because you’ve been strangely, so touched by something that is not your sadness.

Something that your heart bypassed, your brain immediately recognizing, this is true, this is meaningful, this is real. So. What did it feel like? That moment we need to, to peer into such moments to be able to, you can call, you can say, to excavate that kind of tremendous power because it may start as just glimpses of knowing, but then, uh, the more conscious you become of that kind of special heart activity, the bigger or the more intense that becomes.

So here it, it is, we need to distinguish thinking from knowing they. We don’t have that kind of distinction clearly enough in our world. And that’s, uh, very unfortunate. And the first thing that we, we can recognize, our heart can recognize is that thinking and knowing they sound very different. I love, uh, the name sounds true because I think it’s, uh, it’s in a way you capture the whole thing because knowing sounds true, it’s something, it’s like a reverberation, it’s like an echo, it’s a resonance.

So on the one hand we have brain intelligence. Brain intelligence. Well, it’s linear. First of all. You always need a step by step understanding. It’s dualistic, it thrives on opposites. It’s for and against it. It gathers information to make judgment. It evaluates whether it’s good or bad. It categorizes, it gives everything labels.

So it’s all about creating structure, creating order, put everything into order, analyzing. And we need that greatly. I hope that sometimes, uh, uh, you know, when I teach, I feel that people, they want to only lean on heart intelligence or that kind of felt intelligence. And I feel that this is very limited because we’re not supposed to, uh, to eliminate that kind of, of servant effective servant.

On the other hand, we have heart intelligence and heart intelligence. First of all, the way we experienced. Knowing when I know something, first of all, it is whole. It’s, I know I don’t need to re a process of reasoning. I don’t know even how I got there. I just know it’s complete, it’s immediate. And I also recognize it’s something, I remember Plato called it Soul Remembrance.

It’s not something that I learned. I didn’t read it in books. It’s something that, or even if I read it in the book, I can, I, my heart recognizes that what is written in the book is true. So it’s more like a, a, a remembrance and it always has something to do with what is real, what truly matters, what is, uh, meaningful.

It comes as this kind of flood of, of thoughtlessness, and it’s also visceral, which means that our body is involved in it. Unlike thinking, thinking is, feels very cut off, very, uh, separate from the other activities. So it’s like our body whispers, yes, we feel aligned. It’s like it’s a, it’s a, a certain, uh, understanding that feels that, uh, makes, gets us closer to the heart of the cosmos.

We feel intimate with reality.

So that is the quality of, of also quiet permanence because it’s something that is not one of another, uh, transient. Uh, passing a superficial thought. It feels like something that, that works beneath our thinking,

Tami Simon: You, you referenced the thinking process as a servant,

Shai Tubali: right?

Tami Simon: so I think. interesting because I, I don’t think necessarily people see it that way. It’s more the master in our thought dominated world that we’re serving with all of our activities. So what does that mean for thinking to be a servant of heart knowing?

Shai Tubali: Yes. Um, well, we can give, uh, an example of, uh, of decision making because decision making is, uh, is very known to be a, a very excruciating process for many of us because we lean so heavily on thought process, we. Appoint our thinking master of our being, and then we ex expect it, first of all, to know what’s true, what’s real, what truly matters, what, uh, could, uh, uh, further, uh, evolve us, what can, uh, bring us closer to the meaning of our lives.

And this is, is just impossible. Our poor thinking process is helpless, powerless, doesn’t know what we want from it. So it’s when I aim to decide in a way that that is aligned with, with the heart as leader. First of all, sometimes people, when they are told to decide through the heart, uh, they are advised to follow the heart.

Or just do what feels right. And this is not what heart intelligence is all about, because that can easily be an impulse, an urge, some kind of an instinct or even a fear or, uh, or self protection. So it’s not about what it, I feel like what feels right. It first of all, um, looks into the, my motivation. Why am I doing this?

It’s not so much about consequences. Now thinking is always about consequences. It’s about calculating outcomes, the best outcomes. So here, the, the mind, the heart pulls back and, and brings the mind into, uh, servitude. When it says, well, no, first of all, let’s, let’s go into the motivation. Let’s ask whether this choice, uh, will contribute to my inner evolution, whether that decision could, um, evoke this sense of wonderful alignment so that the path will, uh, truly place me more deeply in service to life.

So the question is, does this feel aligned with truth, with service, with ma? What matters? So the role of thinking here for decision making is to gather all the information, to gather all the, all the, uh, knowledge that we need and all the right judgment about the situation. And we need that. But all that eventually is just, uh, like, uh, an.

Administrative work. Someone that provides, uh, all the, all the right documents for their final judge to, to make that kind of final listening act. And that’s a whole different thing. So you, you do it informed by your brain, but not based on what your brain suggests, because well, what your brain suggests is, is subjected always to the realm of opposites and therefore doubt.

So that is very far from knowing, and that is why we are so, I think we are so confused and overthinking because we always try to make decisions and to know what’s right based on an opposite based, uh, kind of, uh, judgment. So whatever we say that is true can also be untrue tomorrow. Whatever we say, um, that is, is right, can be, can be completely wrong.

So that is

one example.

Tami Simon: You know, Shai, there’s so much I want to talk to you about, and I hesitate to go here, but I am going to go here, which is you have up at, at my request, an outline of a potential new book

Shai Tubali: Yes.

Tami Simon: the intelligence of the heart, the Hidden Wisdom of the Heart, and you have a section towards the end of the book on the heart in our time and heart knowing in relationship with, okay, I’m gonna say it, ai, and you write in a world governed by ai, rediscovering the heart is not sentimentality, but resistance keeping alive, a form of wisdom that no machine can clone.

Shai Tubali: Yes,

Tami Simon: And so briefly, ’cause as I said, there’s a lot I want to talk to you about if you can. Put this in the framework of what we’re talking about in terms of thinking and knowing and heart knowing as resistance to being taken over by machine knowing.

Shai Tubali: yes, yes. Uh, that’s, uh, actually a topic that occupies my mind and heart very much because I think that, uh, that, uh, as much as, uh, uh, ai, um, in a way challenges our definition or understanding of what, uh, of our uniqueness or our role in on earth. It is, it can also be a wonderful opportunity to ask very important questions and perhaps also to be pushed into the discovery of heart intelligence.

So here exactly, you are pointing to, to the very same problem that AI is a continuation of the same problem or of a thinking centered world. So we have a world that is, that makes all judgments that the orient itself based on thinking and there comes AI as a continuation of that kind of thinking process.

Now of course, ai, no matter what people may project on it, has no knowing capacity. It actually doesn’t even have thinking capacity. AI doesn’t think it simulates, it imitates thinking. So then we have thinking as what the Mystic Krishna Muhi called the intelligence of knowledge. It’s it’s intelligence that is rooted in knowledge and we discover something astonishing that I find actually pretty frightening.

We discover that it is this kind of intelligence can be imitated and probably in the future perfectly imitated and exceeded. So our thinking capacity is completely transferable to computers and to machines. Thinking is simply symbols, representations. Things, words idea, uh, symbols or concepts that represent reality and that AI can do so wonderfully.

It can mimic our memory, memorization, information, gathering even our creativity patterns. And then in such a world, first of all, we can ask, so what, what is so human about us? Or what makes us human in a way that is well non, uh, mechanical or like, it’s not like machines. And we also understand that, uh, as long as we rely on thinking, our world would look as it looks right now, like a completely messy polarized, uh, culture and society that is doomed to move in, to remain in a groove.

So the boundary between us and, and. AI becomes thinner with every day. And if we rely only on thinking at a certain point, uh, we will be as machine-like as AI is human-like. So this is the, the distinction that we need to make because we’ve associated intelligence with knowledge and with thinking, but what machines cannot do, and if we don’t cultivate it, we will, uh, lose that kind of distinction.

Machines cannot imitate the texture of the real. They cannot bring us that kind of, of aroma, the fragrance of the real. And for when we want to be in touch with the real, it’s only hard intelligence. It’s only hard knowing that, uh. It becomes, uh, the true kind of intelligence because first of all, it is completely untouched by thinking.

We just described what thinking is. AI cannot, uh, lay its hands. It’s a virtual digital, hands on it. It’s non-verbal. It’s non-conceptual. It’s it’s remembrance, it’s deep feeling, and it’s an insight of the entire being. So it involves our entire nervous system, our body, and it’s reverberating. And AI certainly doesn’t reverberate, it doesn’t have frequency.

So in, in an ideal world, AI would function as our thinking partner. Not that it can think again, but as our thinking partner. That it helps us, uh, um, stimulate our thinking capacity. But we would feel that it is utterly different from intelligence, that it has nothing to do with intelligence because we’ve cultivated our heart knowing and our heart intelligence to the extent that when we finally get to engage with ai, it looks so well, nothing, just like, just like thinking that is only a servant, never a master.

And it’s true that I call it resistance. It’s a form of loving resistance. Of course. It’s, uh, the heart doesn’t know resistance, uh, in terms of violence and polarization or uss versus them, but it is resistance in the sense that rediscovering the heart is, uh, for me. The way you, we, we say we are not going to be machine-like we are going to be to maintain our humanness, but it’s not something that is just there for us to celebrate.

It’s something that we have to tap into, uh, and bring, uh, to the surface.

Tami Simon: In the to our conversation, Shai, I called you a new friend

Shai Tubali: Yes.

Tami Simon: you said, you know, thank you so much. And what I realize is that what I feel is a heart. Resonance, if you will. When I’m with you, I feel it. So you could say, sounds true, feels true. There’s this, and, and you point out when people are centered in their heart, it’s palpable.

Shai Tubali: Yeah.

Tami Simon: I feel that in you and it, it makes me, you know, wanna, uh, touch your garment and be near you and talk with you and call you friend. So I wonder if you

Shai Tubali: Uh,

Tami Simon: share a bit about that, this feeling quality that we can sense in another, and, uh, just how significant that is.

Shai Tubali: yes, because when, um, we even recognize new friends, there is, uh, I think one of, uh, the most common experiences that, uh, that, uh, spiritually aware, conscious people have is that kind of, uh, of recognition of one another in the form of remembrance. It’s not, uh, it’s this kind of effortless state in which we, our mind is, uh, can, uh, remove the Armour of suspicion.

Because it simply recognizes this kind of, um, of familiarity, uh, at the soul level. So, and it is something that, uh, that I thi I find very astonishing because we always have that kind of, uh, uh, these kinds of feelings and still, we, I think we, uh, don’t consider them so, uh, meaningful, more like, uh, helpful intuitions, but the, these are still not what, uh, uh, uh, what becomes our guide, our the, that thing that recognizes what’s true, what’s meaningful, what’s real.

What can evolve us? Take us to our world next step in our heart evolution. Our soul evolution. And this is, by the way, what I ask all the time, because for me, this is, you mention that kind of, that book vision and I have been led by this strange child’s question for years. How can this be that we all have that extremely palpable experience of the heart?

We all share that and we all speak of negatively about, uh, I don’t know if something sits on my heart or I, I feel something with a heavy heart or I. Lose heart or I have a change of heart, or I have, of course, uh, I experience a heartbreak. So when I have all those, all those, uh, feelings that I immediately associate with what’s going on with in my chest, how can it be that there is nothing there or that we have been taught and conditioned to find nothing there?

And this is the point when we begin to, to allow that kind of feeling, space it grows. And one thing that I’ve experienced as a teacher has been that whenever I speak of the heart. People begin to feel it. So immediately it’s like the, the, the heart energy field is awakened in massive ways. And interestingly, very often people experience it as painful and painful.

Not because it is, uh, arousing some kind of traumatic response, but painful because it’s as if the heart is breaking open. It’s like a genie coming out of the lamp after a thousand years in the dark. And I feel that, that that kind of pain is the heart starting to stretch and, uh, reclaiming its space in the world, reclaiming its space in, in, within our being, but also reclaiming its space as, uh, as a universal essence as the heart of creation.

So if we allow that and we don’t, um, become intimidated by this kind of, uh, of heart pain heartache, then we are, we can slowly, uh, pass that threshold to find the greatness of our heart and really the heart that is the, of course, the door to perhaps not, of course, the door to, to love, which is what all souls, uh, are thirsty for, even when they don’t know that when we are flooded with the presence of love, we are finally, finally, uh, a thousand years.

Uh, thirst is quenched. And we suddenly realized this is exactly part of that remembrance. Suddenly we realized, oh, that was what I’ve been thirsty for. That was what I was searching for. And, uh, to, we need to follow that heartbreak in order to find that kind of wholeness of the heart. Then greatness of the heart, then universality of the heart.

Tami Simon: Shy. I know you’ve done so much work in writing on subtle body anatomy on the chakras, and I wonder if you could take us in, if you will, to the subtle body of the heart, the chakra of the heart, and what we find there that is helpful to us. Show us the map.

Shai Tubali: Yes, yes. Well as, uh, as in all maps, uh, of saddle anatomy, they can be looked at from different perspectives. So I will choose one, I will choose my favorite if I may. Uh, that is, that is, uh, uh, something that already appeared, uh, around 2,500 years ago in, uh, the pan shots when they speak of a term I love so much.

And that is the inner cave, the inner cave of the heart. And they, uh, frequently, uh, speak about that, that kind of mysterious, uh, experience of the inner cave. And I think the inner cave is one of the most important keys to, uh, to heart intelligence because as far as the inner cave is concerned, that kind of, uh, of inner most territory, it’s like the inner sanctum of the heart.

There are three layers of the heart, and I think we’ve come to, uh, to experience our heart only through, uh, the first two layers. And that’s why, by the way, we tend to guard it. We feel that it is fragile. We feel that these too vulnerable to be shown, let alone become the leader of our being. And this is why we simply, uh, are unable to, to release that kind of heart intelligence.

If as long as we keep the heart closed and guarded, we can never actually experience that kind of intelligence alive. So the first layer is the most superficial one and is the closest to the chest to, sorry, to the skin. This is also that part of, of the heart that is most vulnerable, truly because it is in constant relations with the world.

You can now say, right now we are ba bathing in, in a hot space. So that’s gorgeous. And, uh, and there is this, uh, shared joy. But suppose you say something insulting all of a sudden that, uh, that disrupts the, the, the energy field, or I say something and, and that immediately creates a certain contraction. So that’s an, an, the immediate, the part that immediately reacts to stimuli.

It closes and it opens, of course, as long as our heart is still, uh, in a contracted state, or that it is, uh, only gradually, slowly opening. So that is the part that engages with the world, but, and it is completely fluctuating. Uh, often. And because it is so vulnerable and so reactive, we keep it, uh, we try to create a wall just, uh, uh, at the front of our chest.

So when people say something or when something happens to us, we have that kind of field, a secret. This never works. We hope that it works. It’s a failed strategy of our brain, our thinking. And uh, and if we’ve looked into that very honestly, we would discover that it, it is a failed strategy. Now then if you, uh, pierce, uh, more deeply into the chest here, really, uh, midway between the two breasts at the lower sternum, you pierce, uh, into the chest, and then you discover the inner world of the heart and the inner world of the heart is where.

We have our deep seated impressions, the deep seated impressions that have, uh, consolidated our deeper relationship with the world. So it’s our, uh, trauma driven response, our, uh, identity of self-worth, and, uh, our ability to love our relationship with the deepest themes of the heart. And this is where when we begin to take responsibility for our pain in the heart, we are willing and ready to resolve those things.

We stop, uh, blaming the world for our fluctuating, superficial, uh, skin, um, layer of the heart. And we begin to, uh, to look into the reasons. To how we, uh, evaluate ourselves, how capable we are of acknowledging others and, uh, loosening, uh, the intensity of our expectations, all that. So these two are pretty common, but what is the secret of the heart is that inner cave and the inner cave is, as it is called, is hidden and it is usually inaccessible.

And that is really what is called the heart chakra. The heart chakra is the seat of the heart where, uh, the true heart intelligence and true heart consciousness reside. And when we are able to penetrate that, we have a soul awakening and we have this kind of. Of knowing of what’s real and what’s false, and we are able to let go of attachments because we, we, uh, learn, we are able to devote ourselves to what’s real, to what’s to what’s indestructible.

That’s why in Tibetan Buddhism, in tantric, uh, Tibetan, uh, tantric Buddhism, they, they talk about the indestructible drop of the heart. So this is, it’s like, uh, it begins as a drop, but it really contains the entire universality of the heart.

Tami Simon: In terms of contacting this cave of

Shai Tubali: Yes.

Tami Simon: dropping my attention into it and finding it. Now, this is a kind of literal level question here, in a way, Shai, am I looking more inside to the left, to the right, a specific place? Am I looking for something tiny? Something dark, but luminous? What? Help, help me and our listeners find the cave.

Shai Tubali: yes, yes, yes. That’s wonderful. Yes. Uh, um, the cave, first of all, cannot be accessed by will. You have to, in a way, when you pierce, uh, through your chest at that point, first of all, it’s at, it’s at the very center. It’s located in the, what is called the central channel, or in Hinduism, the Una. And so it is in a deep, within the straight channel that, uh, is just.

In front of our spine, physical spine. So when we begin to access it, we have to somehow let go. It’s as if we are drawn into it, we fall into it. It’s a form of surrender. We fall into the depth of our heart. Now this starts as a, as a kind of a small source of light. It’s like it’s described as a lamp and for a good reason, because it is like a flicker.

You have to, to go into that kind of darkness and then to begin to sense that there is, first of all, a source of radiance. And second, there is a, something that is completely unaffected by all the super more superficial layers of the heart. So it’s hidden and it’s also transcendent. It’s untouched Now, if you begin to meditate on that point, and at the beginning in traditions, it is rightfully described as a, as a, a sesame like seed.

It is so tiny, but if you begin to meditate on it, there is a tremendous and, uh, and actually quite secret, uh, uh, practice called Clear Light in Tantric Buddhism. And they beautifully de describe, I love it, how, uh, we allow from that seat of the heart, we allow blue flames to, to spread, consume the entire known universe, then consume our entire body, and then consume our entire subtle body until all the remains is that point, point of read.

Then we begin to meditate on it. If we meditate on it with, uh, sincere attention, at a certain point it begins to spread and expand. And that is when it reveals what it is, it is our heart is as big as the universe.

Tami Simon: Shai, circling back to the beginning of our conversation, I talked about bringing together and I think something that you have a gift to be able to help us do

Shai Tubali: Hmm.

Tami Simon: indestructible nature of our heart heartbreak at our time. How do you see these two in the same moment, if you will, of our experience?

How does it, how does the alchemy, if you will work for you, and how can you help us?

Shai Tubali: Are we speaking about, uh, the reality of the world that we encounter or

Tami Simon: it could be the reality of the world. It could be what’s happening with friends of ours. It could be our own health crisis.

yes, yes, yes,

we can begin with, with the state of the world because I think that that many experience, this kind of, uh, of immense pain that is sometimes, uh, uh, unbearable. And of course it reflects, uh, the pain that exists universally in us, but perhaps it is, it is nowadays amplified. Especially, I think because our sensitivity has increased, uh, and for, and beautifully so, so I think the most important thing is to be able, sometimes people ask me, what is the one thing that could develop the heart and to, and make it, uh, truly open?

Shai Tubali: Because that is the biggest question. How, because everyone’s hearts can sometimes open in safe environments. But how could I reach that glorious feeling of that my heart can be safely open without conditions that it doesn’t need, say a safe environment. That is where the heart is truly great. And my answer is always one in this regard.

And that is keep it if you learn to keep it exactly when you want to close it the most. That is how the heart learns to remain open. Because the point is we, when we begin to experience our heart, uh, bleeding our hearts in pain, we immediately close them. We say, I don’t want to feel that pain, that pain is far too much, or we transform that pain into a greater polarization, greater us versus, versus them.

We transform it into anger, into hatred, and so we find some kind of release relief from that pain. For me, the heart of the Buddha is not only neutrally open, but it is also, it is the heart that has bled and has remained open with the pain. Held this pain with compassion and didn’t move away, didn’t try to reduce it.

And this is, this has been also my own direct experience because that and similar experiences is exactly what led me to commit myself to, to heart intelligence. One day, one night I realized, well, I have a choice. I can now because the pain is too great. This is exactly when it’s time to hate, be unforgiving, uh, be conditional and, and protect myself.

But then there came, of course, a whisper from the heart. And the heart said, why don’t you leave me open? Let’s try just once, just once and see what happens. Perhaps it’s not as you think. It’s going to be. And at that moment there was an explosion, an explosion of love, an explosion of indestructible love.

So love revealed itself as something that is invincible and heart openness revealed itself as something that is actually unbreakable. So it’s all upside down. It’s the very opposite of what we think. And that of course requires some, some trust, but also daring to one time to say, this time I’m not going to close my heart.

Let’s see what, when I keep it luminous ready end, I don’t use that wall strategy I’m going to to keep it facing the world. And, and a allowing that stream of pain. Until it transforms. And the all streams of pain transform o only into one thing. And that is love. So heart.

Tami Simon: let me ask you

Shai Tubali: Yes. Yes,

Tami Simon: you said there was an explosion.

Shai Tubali: yes.

Tami Simon: Can you, can you tell me what happened? Like, were you exploding for an hour, for a minute? Like what act, what was the actual explosion?

Shai Tubali: Well, I would say that, uh, that, uh, the gate, the gate of the heart, which is perhaps can be described, I think, uh, sometimes, uh, I don’t want to use religious terms, but, uh, as the, the kingdom of heaven in that, the sense of the, that kind of unconditional love that washes away all pain, that forgives everything that, uh, that is eternal.

Uh, because it, it, it can contain everything because it’s bigger than everything because love. Is bigger than everything. So it was, uh, an explosion that, uh, uh, began and then it, uh, lasted for several hours. But the point is, is the transformation that followed because any explosion must eventually end. But what, uh, remains is that kind of indestructible heart knowing that when it remains open, that is the time when it is, uh, least breakable.

What, what is open cannot be shattered.

Tami Simon: to this point, I, uh, I pulled a quote from your writing.

Shai Tubali: Yes,

Tami Simon: we wall off the heart, the more fragile we become.

Shai Tubali: yes.

Tami Simon: I, I thought about that in terms of our time and how I’ve noticed a lot of people feel very fragile. Uh, their nervous systems are fragile. Their level

Shai Tubali: Yes.

Tami Simon: makes them fragile. They report feeling ungrounded.

They’re, you know, people are like, yeah, I’m really fragile. And I thought, huh, I wonder how much there could be a connection with an unwillingness to feel the pain of our time, which as you mentioned at the collective level,

Shai Tubali: Yeah.

Tami Simon: so great. There’s so much suffering and it’s broadcast in

Shai Tubali: Yes,

Tami Simon: all the

Shai Tubali: yes,

Tami Simon: and how it’s actually making us more fragile when what we need is this tremendous indomitable strength. And, uh, I wonder if you can about that as we end about the strength of heart intelligence during this particular time we’re in.

Shai Tubali: yes, yes, yes. Gladly. Because I think, uh, that is, uh. Very important point. What you are making that,

Tami Simon: this point that people experience themselves as more fragile than ever, as unable to contain the pain and, and extreme as extremely overwhelmed. Now, now, uh, I say that,

Shai Tubali: that the heart is our greatest source of power. And that, uh, uh, it’s only, it’s actually because we don’t try to make ourselves, uh, immune to, to suffering or to pain.

Uh, we are able to stand and to in front of it, to face it and to also transform it, uh, through the power of love. Now, perhaps, uh, we could end with. I thing that I know that, uh, that, uh, has also touched you, if I may say, uh, and that is, and because I think that is a very meaningful, I wouldn’t call it thought experiment, because it’s really, I call it life experiment.

It’s how I test, uh, uh, how able I am to, to love this life unconditionally, even when it’s painful and while it’s painful. And to, to embrace that pain as well, because that is exactly the key. And there is a, a life experiment, uh, given to us by a German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzche. And he said he, he, I think this, uh, almost, uh, uh, drove him crazy.

I’m not talking about the, the, the eventual, uh, brain, uh, condition that he had. But he felt that one night a demon came to him. He translated it into a thought experiment. A demon came to him at night, in the middle of the night and whispered this life that you now experience this lifetime, as you know it, with all its pains, it’s all afflictions, it’s uh, it’s misery, it’s confusions, it’s beauty, it’s joys.

This life is going to repeat itself forever. You are imagine sometimes when we think about a whole lifetime, it’s abstract, but let’s think about a day or even a day that was particularly traumatic or difficult to us. And then Nietzsche says he was challenged by the demon to relive that lifetime again and again and again.

It to always return. That’s what he called the eternal recurrence. So it’s like a cycle, the very opposite of the Buddhas, uh, get off the wheel kind of psych, uh, uh, of freedom of liberation teaching. And then he asked, and because the Buddhas teaching could somehow appeal to that part of us that wants to say no, that wants to flee.

But Nietzche, he really, uh, cornered that kind of wish. And he said, would you say yes? Would you agree to experience this kind of life again and again without escape, without even ability to change, to alter the, the path? Only, of course, your approach, your, and your approach is that of willingness, of that, of embrace.

And I think that if I’m able to say, yes, I’m finally rooted in Earth, I’m finally firmly here. And there is only one organ of intelligence that can say that. Yes. And that is the heart thinking cannot do that because all it relies on is that hope for the better future, for a different life, for an alternative universe, for a should be, could be universe, but the heart can remain open in that, in that pain and, and embrace that kind of contract with life.

And then I feel there is a sense of indestructibility that keeps me not, uh, free from pain, but uh, free from resistance and freedom from resistance is freedom from suffering.

Tami Simon: Shai, when I took this thought experiment of this moment, could happen again again and again. The way it became instructive to me was that I thought, I’m gonna handle this well instead of poorly. Like I was thinking of handling it poorly, like bitching or blaming someone or I don’t know. You know, having some kind of inner tantrum, something like that.

Inside, instead of having an inner tantrum, I’m gonna act graciously and lovingly and virtuously ’cause I’m gonna have to experience it again. And if I’m gonna have to do it again, I definitely don’t wanna make this sticky situation worse. I wanna make it better. Is that, do you think, uh, part of what you’re saying, if we take on this eternal recurrence as a teaching.

Shai Tubali: Yes, yes. That is one implication, and it’s, it’s beautiful. Uh, it’s self responsibility. It’s because we are, I’m realized that, uh, I realized that, that I live, I am within this life. I’m inside this life. I’m not that thought hovering over this life, looking from the outside, judging, evaluating, and always harboring that hope that I could escape it, because I feel that it’s not just, uh, on the individual level, but as humanity, we still haven’t chosen this life.

We still haven’t chosen this earth, and I feel for, for this reason, we still haven’t taken that kind of responsibility for making that truly our home. So I feel that there, there is a, a certain unconscious resistance. That has made us either to want to flee as spiritual beings or to simply appropriate this, uh, uh, this world and, uh, and treat it brutally and, uh, just, uh, and never thinking about the future, never thinking about consequences.

So I think it’s the heart making peace with this world, with this life, with this earth, with this body. It’s, it can be also the beginning of true self responsibility.

Tami Simon: Beautiful note to end on heart making as our responsibility shy. Thank you so much. You are dare I say it, I will a teacher for our time.

Shai Tubali: Mm-hmm.

Tami Simon: Thank you so very much Shai Tubali here on Insights at the Edge. Thanks for being with us.

Shai Tubali: Thank you.