Matthew 13:1–16, Hardened Hearts, Open Hearts

Verses 14–15: (Lamsa translation) “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah who said, Hearing you will hear, but you will not understand; and seeing you will see, but you will not know. For the heart of this people has become hardened, and their ears hear heavily, and their eyes are dull; so that they cannot see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts; let them return, and I will heal them.”

(The New Covenant translation) “For the heart of this people has become calloused and with their ears they hear poorly and their eyes are closed, otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears and with their heart understand and turn and I would heal them.”

When perplexed disciples of Jesus asked why the crowd did not understand what he said, he attributed their inability to see and hear the true meaning to their hardened or calloused hearts. He was indirectly stating an open heart is the key to hearing, seeing, and understanding the invisible realm.

The masses to which Jesus spoke experienced his story as a literal occurrence; they missed the greater meaning and wisdom in what he was saying. The nonliteral, symbolic realm was beyond the people’s ability because they were not open to it.

An open heart allows us to have eyes and ears to see and hear that which is beyond the physical senses. Our chi or life force connects us to the invisible realm of the Divine Essence with every breath. The Genesis story tells us that God breathed life into Adam Kadmon, humanity. The Ruach, the breath of God, flows through each of us with every breath we take. God’s Spirit is always with us. Our hearts have to be open to know this. Truths appear to us all the time, as spiritual energy is always present.

Literalism, materialism, and the god of rational thought have trained us to dismiss our experiences of God Within. We feel the Divine Presence but quickly talk ourselves out of it because it is unique to us.

We tend to have a closed heart to the personal stories of our lives. Yet, each of our experiences contains kernels of God’s Wisdom flowing into human experience. The early Christians knew the truth of Jesus’ saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is among you.” They felt the living Christ Within as they opened their hearts, their subconscious selves, to see and hear beyond the physical, literal realm.

We most often experience our heart or subconscious self as the nonrational, sensing, intuiting, and emoting function of our psyche or soul. The subconscious self or energetic heart gathers all we experience—the sensations, perceptions, emotions, intuitions, feelings, and thoughts—in our body-mind. The energies gathered in these psychic contents fuel and shape what we feel in our body-mind at any given moment. Our first point of contact to God Within is our felt experiences. We must be open-hearted to our own nature if we are to have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Inner Reflection
Where and how are you open-hearted? Where and how are you hard-hearted? Where do you struggle to see the larger truths and the point of connection to God Within?

Consider what you might know in your body-mind that you dismiss out of hard-heartedness towards yourself. Set sacred intention to open your heart to know the essence of God’s Spirit as it flows through you with every breath. Practice receiving the truths of your own inner knowing as God Within is at the core of every felt experience.


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