The Blossoming Heart

Understanding the impact that our external conditions have on our internal development

Think of the heart as a flower and place it in an environment that helps it blossom.

We can sometimes come across people who are able to inspire us just by us being in their presence. These meetings are confusing in some ways because they may be, phenomenally speaking, exactly the same as many other meetings we have had in our lives with other people and yet the final outcome of such a meeting is so very different from those other instances. The profound effect that this type of encounter has on us often results in us trying to dig deeper into the reasons why this particular encounter has had such a significant impact upon us.

An analogy we can use to help us to be able to perceive the reasons why in a much simpler context is to think of the human being as a plant. We can imagine that the ultimate manifestation of this plant, the culmination of its existence if you like, is for it to flower. This is because the plant flowering means that it has reached the point in its development where it is able to give birth to the next generation. Also, for our purposes here, we can imagine that the flower of the plant is the most vibrant, colourful and interesting part of the plant. All of the energy and purpose of that plant is devoted to it flowering.

If we then consider the ‘flowering of the plant’ within the context of the human being as a plant, we can try to imagine what the human ‘plant’ flowering would represent. In other words, what can we imagine each of the culminations of our existence to be? It helps us greatly to consider that the reason why our encounters with these individuals has such a significant impact on us is precisely because these individuals are, in most cases, fully ‘flowering plants’. What does this mean though in practical terms.