The Glimpse Beyond
Understanding God and the Heart’s Role
The Glimpse Beyond: Understanding God and the Heart’s Role
When we talk about God, about understanding the divine, we’ve got to be real with ourselves—we’re not dealing with something simple. It’s big, it’s complex, and no matter how much we stretch our minds, we’re only getting a small piece of the puzzle. We’re limited, not just by our physical world, but by how we think, how we feel, and what we’ve been taught to believe. It’s like standing on the shore, looking out at an ocean you know you could never swim across. You see the water, but you can’t even begin to fathom its depth.
Here’s the truth: we live in this three-dimensional world, a world where we can touch, see, and measure things. But God? God is more than that. We get glimpses—small, brief, fleeting—but we’re working within our limits. We’re here, and God exists in dimensions beyond anything we can fully grasp.
It’s like we’re walking through downtown Chicago on a warm summer night. You feel the energy, the life, but even with the city around you, you know there’s more going on beneath the surface. That’s how it is with God—we catch the vibe, but we can’t comprehend the full extent.
Metaphysics and the Layers of Reality
Philosophers, mystics, and folks who’ve spent lifetimes contemplating the mysteries of life, they all tell us the same thing: this reality we’re living in? It’s just one layer. People like Plato had that cave allegory, where folks were chained up, only able to see shadows on the wall. Those shadows were their reality. But what they didn’t realize was that outside the cave, there was a whole world they couldn’t even imagine. That’s where we’re at right now—living in this world, feeling the hustle, but knowing, deep down, that there’s something bigger out there. A higher dimension we’re just peeking into.
In our three-dimensional existence, we’re like those folks in the cave. We can see pieces of the divine, but we’re still confined by what we know and understand. To really get it, to really know God, we’d have to elevate beyond this plane. And that’s a journey, not just of the mind, but of the soul.
You know how in the city, you’ve got different levels of the streets? Lower Wacker Drive is right underneath the hustle of the upper streets, and while it’s part of the same city, it’s a whole different experience. That’s how these layers of existence are—different levels of reality stacked on top of each other. We’re just on one level, trying to understand what’s going on above and below us. And to do that, to move through those levels, we need more than just our brains. We need our hearts.
The Heart as the Key
Here’s where it gets real. The heart is our way into understanding God, into touching that higher reality. You see, the mind is analytical, it’s great for figuring things out, but it’s got limits. The heart, though? That’s where the magic happens.
In the Black church, you hear this all the time—God is love. And if God is love, that means the heart is where God lives in us. You don’t have to be a theologian to feel that. You ever been sitting on the porch, watching the sunset over the lake, or standing on the block, looking up at the skyline, and felt something bigger than yourself? That’s the heart at work. That’s your connection to the divine.
In Christianity, Jesus talks about the pure in heart seeing God. He’s not talking about seeing God like you’d see someone walking down the street—He means understanding God, experiencing God. And in Sufi Islam, they say something similar: the heart is where we experience divine truth. The Sufi mystic Rumi said, “Close both eyes to see with the other eye.” That other eye is the third eye, engaged by opening the heart—it’s our way of seeing beyond what our physical eyes can perceive.
Philosophically, it’s like the heart is the bridge between what we can think and what we can truly know. It’s the place where knowledge becomes experience. The mind tries to understand God, but the heart? The heart just knows.
Elevating Our Consciousness
Now, what does it mean to elevate? It’s about growing beyond what we know, stepping out of the limitations that keep us from seeing the bigger picture. We hear it in spiritual teachings, whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or even those ancient African traditions that remind us we’re connected to something greater.
Take the concept of enlightenment—whether it’s reaching nirvana in Buddhism or achieving moksha in Hinduism, it’s about waking up to a higher level of consciousness. It’s about seeing things for what they really are. But this isn’t just reserved for spiritual gurus or monks on mountaintops—it’s something we all can access, right here, in our everyday lives.
When we quiet the noise—whether that’s the constant grind of work, the distractions of social media, or even our own doubts—and open our hearts, we start to feel that connection. That’s when the glimpses of God become more frequent, more real. It’s not always dramatic, but it’s those small, sacred moments—walking along the lake, the sound of jazz spilling out of a club on the South Side, the smile of a loved one—that remind us there’s something bigger at play.
It’s About the Journey
Understanding God isn’t about reaching a final destination. It’s not like catching the L (elevated train) at one stop and getting off at the last station. It’s an ongoing journey, a constant evolution. Every day we’re given the chance to peek a little further into the next dimension, to understand a little more, and most importantly, to elevate ourselves.
And the heart is the key to all of it. While the mind tries to make sense of God, the heart invites us to experience God. It’s not about intellectual knowledge, but about feeling the divine in the everyday moments that make up our lives.
We may not ever fully grasp God’s fullness in this life. But that’s okay. It’s the journey that matters—the growth, the elevation, the glimpses. Those glimpses? They’re the sparks that light up the path ahead, pulling us toward something greater than we could ever fully understand with our minds alone.
So, keep pushing. Keep growing. Keep elevating. The heart will lead the way.