The spiritual/religious experience has been basically the same in all epochs and cultures. It has always been an experience of oneness and belonging. William James described it as the sense of entering into union with something deeper and larger than oneself. The experience of people in all epochs and walks of life confirms that James was right: we are like islands on the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.

— Ervin Laszlo

There’s a universality to the human experience. Even prior to the spiritual, we’re driven and sustained by the same wishes, fears, hopes, anguish and ultimately need for meaning and beauty. We have the same biological needs for survival, and the same human drives for happiness, success, health and security.

Why is this important? Because our societies and our world are fragmented. We’re just not in it together. That’s troublesome because seven billion humans on one planet must cooperate.

While we’re all the same at a human level, with the substantial increase in human population, the pressure created on our planet, and decreasing resources all around, we’re a competing and selfish species. The world’s economy is competition-based as it is, and the numbers don’t allow for any kind of heart to enter our consideration.

We were taught to think thoughts like competition, struggle, sickness, finite resources, limitation, guilt, bad, death, scarcity, and loss. We were taught that things like grades, being good enough, money, and doing things the right way, are more important than love. We were taught that we’re separate from other people, that we have to compete to get a head, that we’re not quite good enough the way we are.

 

— Marianne Williamson

This doesn’t mean there aren’t any redeeming moments. It’s also not a comment on humanity’s goodness. The Dalai Lama has said, “Those who have little interest in spirituality shouldn’t think that human inner values don’t apply to you.” In the current state of the world and the environment, those “human inner values” must be inclusive of others. Whatever we do to share, cooperate, preserve and pollute less all boil down to one agreement: My survival is dependent on your survival. This agreement isn’t only between humans. It’s also between humans and other species.

No matter what country or continent we come from we are all basically the same human beings. We have the common human needs and concerns. We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering regardless of our race, religion, sex or political status.

 

— Dalai Lama

Those who actively embrace spirituality know that it’s inherent to life. It’s not an extra piece to life. Nothing needs to happen for life to be spiritual; it already is. What does need to happen is for individuals, populations, leaders, organizations and other groups of people to make this intrinsic truth conscious and embodied.

When that happens, spirituality blossoms not only to its full power, but all of its resources, aspects and qualities.

In that state, all excuses become null and void. We’re unable to ignore the call to cooperate, to put selfishness away for good. There’s an undeniable clarity. The unity of life takes hold of our awareness in a loving way and won’t let go. This means that every time we see suffering, notice an action or behavior that unbalances the world, or an insect on its back not able to turn over, we’re brought back to the moment, instead of callously walking by.

This moment is a moment of choice.

A spiritualized person doesn’t always make the right choice. They still have inner work to do. What they do have going for them is that moments collect again and again in a way that they can no longer be ignored. There’s a new consciousness, whereas without being spiritualized considering an insect may never even come into the heart-mind, not even register.

It may never register that the clothes we’re wearing are made by someone who also needs clothes on their back, how we consume and dispense what we consume affects the health of the planet, the worker picking our food also has children and wants to be free of suffering.

The bliss of ignorance is not nearly as enriching as the bliss of open, awake spirituality that’s aware and owned by the individual. This means that the individual takes responsibility for the prompts to action both in the inner and outer worlds.

However capable and skillful an individual may be, left alone, he or she will not survive. When we are sick or very young or very old, we must depend on the support of others. There is no significant division between us and other people, because our basic natures are the same. If we wish to ensure everyone’s peace and happiness we need to cultivate a healthy respect for the diversity of our peoples and cultures, founded on an understanding of this fundamental sameness of all human beings.

 

— Dalai Lama

Cooperation is engendered by the recognition that the family we’re born in is only one cell in a vast human family.

Related:

Manifesto of Peace: A prose poem

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What needs to happen can only happen if we show up both to make it happen and/or to receive what emerges. If we’re being helped by family or a friend, a therapist, healer or coach, that person can’t be effective unless we’re there in the same moment with them.  It begins and ends with us. We have to show up, before anyone else can for us or with us. Then we must stay, present with ourselves and our life.

There’s a space, not physical, a space in the psyche that’s full of power and the unmanifest. When we’re there, everything we need is there with us. It’s not an external location. It’s internal, and universal. The universe and our inner resources recognize when we ‘arrive’ and release the goods. The degree to which this happens depends of several factors.

One of the most important is our staying power. The initial willingness to show up must be supported by commitment. Commitment to the process, the relationship, our own integrity, and the intention that initiated our action. This may be seeking help, wanting to improve a relationship, career path, personal growth, healing, or spiritual development.

What increases staying power is patience, detachment, being enriched by each step, and a value system that doesn’t shortchange macro changes for immediate results.

If you have a spiritual practice in your life, you’re actually showing up for your life. — John Tarrant

Showing up on a consistent basis means we have to recognize any fears involved and make them conscious. Fear is what keeps us hidden and unavailable. One thing is guaranteed: being conscious means an inventory of all we are, a clear-eyed, detached observation.

We tend to avoid fear at all cost. Often our fears are unconscious. Becoming a conscious being means we at least identify the fear. Then something can be done.

Being present means our feelings are there with us. We’re self-aware and choosing not to be numb to whatever we’d rather not feel or have in mind. This is risky because making this choice involves possible pain, noticing unsavory traits, or we’re just not ready to put in the work.

Yet we want certain benefits. Happiness, health, success, fulfillment, inner peace. We have tickets to the symphony of life, but we still have to drive to the concert hall, take our seats and pay attention for the duration.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things. — Jack Kornfield

The more intimate we are with our inner life, the greater our chances to suffer less.

Showing up means we’re visible and that can be very scary. We must have the courage to be visible. Personal evolution and healing is a process of becoming more and more visible. Our work is to come forward without holding back our gifts, talents and creative uniqueness.

The authentic self is the soul made visible. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

If we show up, what we want has the opportunity to show up as well. If we’re absent, so is our aspiration. It’s not up to our aspirations to locate us. We must first locate ourselves. We have to be available so the coordinates are known.

When we source our life’s creations from our authentic self, there’s much less struggle, confusion and panic.

Once the coordinates are known life arranges to bring us the good and the beautiful.

It takes courage to live as your authentic self where what others see is who you are inside. — Don Shapiro

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Known simply as Devi or Divine Mother, she’s the supreme Being, as well as the essence form of every goddess. Devi pervades all of creation at microscopic levels. She’s the principal creatrix and the multifold variety of forms are all her expressions.

Divine Mother also lives in the human heart and permeates our cellular structure.

“The Great Goddess, known in India as Devi (literally “goddess”), has many guises. She is “Ma” the gentle and approachable mother. As Jaganmata, or Mother of the universe, she assumes cosmic proportions, destroying evil and addressing herself to the creation and dissolution of the worlds. She is worshiped by thousands of names that often reflect local customs and legends. She is one and she is many. She is celebrated in songs and poems.”

— from the Smithsonian exhibition, Devi: The Great Goddess

In honor of Mother’s Day, let’s consider the relationship between Mother Earth and Divine Mother. Nature is a mother in her fertility, creative power, ability to grow and nourish. Biological mothers are so vital, significant and beautiful. They are the embodiment of love. There are really no words to describe a mom.

At the same time, not including the Earth on Mother’s Day, and not bringing at least some devotion to Cosmic Mother is negligent and misplaced. We have to honor Earth and the Being from whom she emanates.

The void in which creation takes place is the Divine Feminine. This cannot be ignored.

The worship of the Divine in Nature is central to India’s wisdom teachings. The yogis clearly understood this.

Nature with her diamond-dazzling stars, the Milky Way, the flowers, birds, clouds, mountains, sky—the countless beauties of creation—is the Divine Mother.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

Devi is also a cosmic force. In her universal form she’s known as shakti (divine force or power). She destroys demonic forces that threaten world equilibrium, and creates, annihilates, and recreates the universe.

The yogis teach that there are five great elements (pancha mahabhutas), from the subtlest to the densest:

• Space or ether (akasha)
• air (vayu)
• fire (agni)
• water (apas)
• earth (prithivi)

All emanate from prakriti, the primal force, the cosmic womb.

The human body is composed of and related to these five elements, and each element connects to one of our five senses. The nose is related to earth; tongue to water; eyes to fire; skin to air; and ears to space.

Bones, internal organs, cartilage, nails, muscles, tendons, skin and hair are all solid and thus of the earth element.

Water is seen in the digestive juices and salivary glands. Also in mucus membranes, plasma and cytoplasm.

Fire is observable in the digestive system, and its source is the metabolism. Body temperature, digestion, vision and thinking are all aspects of the fire element.

Air is all the movements of the body, including muscles, pulsations of the heart, expansion and contraction of the lungs, and movements of the stomach wall and intestines, and the central nervous system.

Space manifests in the body as the spaces in the mouth, nose, GI and respiratory tracts, abdomen, thorax, capillaries, lymphatics, tissues and cells.

The connection between our body and its senses and the elements is the foundation of our relationship with the natural world. Nature and the environment are not external to us, neither alien nor hostile to us. They are an inseparable part of our existence, and they constitute our very bodies.

Furthermore, earth is the body of the Divine, being the densest of the elements. Without the earth element (and the Earth), human life is just not possible. Water is the source of life and its sustainer. Its use in agriculture and the development of civilizations, its form in rivers and oceans is vital in giving and sustaining life. Fire, which finds a giant expression in our sun is central to making life possible. Air manifests as Earth’s atmosphere, protecting us by regulating temperature and filtering excessive solar radiation. Ether is the subtlest element. There’s no place where it isn’t.

At the earliest stages of creation as ether moved it created air, which is ether in action. The movement of ether also caused friction, and this lead to heat and intense light (fire). Through the heat of fire, some parts of ether liquified and became water. Then there was solidification, forming the molecules of earth.

From earth all organic living bodies, including those in the vegetable kingdom such as herbs and grains, and those in the animal kingdom, including man, are created. Earth also contains the inorganic substances that compromise the mineral kingdom. Thus, out of the womb of the Five Elements all matter is born.

— Dr. Vasant Lad

Let’s consider the marvel of planet Earth. She is humanity’s home in the universe. Earth supports life. She’s made of the exact same matter as other planets in our solar system, was formed in the same period and went through the same steps. Yet Earth is the only one that supports life because she’s precisely at a temperate distance from the sun. This allows liquid to exist and temperature ranges aren’t extreme. Earth also has an atmosphere which allows the evolution of life. It’s the precise chemical composition to let life develop. And the Earth has water which according to biologists is the most essential factor for life to exist.

“The earth, so patient, so passionate, so forgiving, is our mother. You throw your garbage on her, you mine her depths, you pollute her with radioactive waste, but she does not react or retaliate. So patient and gentle is she, is our mother earth.”

 — Makarand Paranjape

Nowhere else in the entire unimaginable vastness of the known universe, do we currently know of another planetary body that’s as friendly as Earth is to the existence, propagation and sustenance of life. Earth grows all we need to eat and dazzles us with the marvelous beauty and variety of her forms. She grows all our grain, vegetables and fruits. She provides a stunning display of artistry and inspiration. We inhale her atmosphere’s oxygen. We hydrate our bodies with her water, which also helps us stay clean, and grows all our food. Earth’s water and soil grow all her multitudinous forms. Her gravitational pull allows us to build the massive infrastructures of civilization so that we can have these human lives and history.

The Latin for Divine Mother is mater, which is the root of the word ‘matter.’ Say mother out loud. Now say ma or amma.

It’s almost always the M-word: Mutter (German). Mère (French). Majka (Serbian). Mat (Russian). Madre (Spanish). Moder (Swedish). Máthair (Irish). Mataji (Hindi). Mama (Swahili). Mama (English).

Just as we have a biological mother, planet Earth is our mother; the solar system is our mother; the Milky Way galaxy is our mother; the Universe is our mother. The cosmos is our Mother.

Every Mother’s Day, let’s remember and acknowledge all our Mothers.

In Nature you behold the mother aspect of God, full of beauty, gentleness, tenderness, and kindness. The beauty in the world bespeaks the creative motherly instinct of God, and when we look upon all the good in Nature, we experience a feeling of tenderness within us — we can see and feel God as Mother in Nature.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

Wide Open Spaces
© Pamir Kiciman 2013

Too see more of Pamir’s nature photography for sale, please visit his artist site.

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Spirituality is as accessible and close to us as our breath.

Dictionary definitions while being limited, especially for this subject, can bring a lot of clarity.

According to Miriam-Webster online, ‘spirituality’ is “the quality or state of being spiritual.” Spiritual is then defined as, “of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit.” Finally, ‘spirit’ is described as, “an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms; the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person.”

Professor of psychology David N. Elkins, Ph.D., echoes this: “The word spirituality comes from the Latin root spiritus, which means ‘breath’—referring to the breath of life. It involves opening our hearts and cultivating our capacity to experience awe, reverence, and gratitude. It is the ability to see the sacred in the ordinary, to feel the poignancy of life, to know the passion of existence and to give ourselves over to that which is greater than ourselves.”

So far, we see that spirituality is inherent to life, to being alive, almost synonymous.

Despite this intrinsic link, so many people are at a loss about spirituality, or resist it forcefully. There are undeserved labels attached to it, taboos and judgments about it. This is odd considering how vital spirituality is to our existence and life in general.

Spirituality is the basis of our relationship with ourselves, others and life. It relates to our origin, self-discovery, our present, and our purpose in life. It’s the largest container in which all other aspects of ourselves exist. It also pervades the microcosm of our life.

There seems to be the perception that spirituality must be mystical or esoteric, somehow inaccessible or only for certain souls. Religion and the concept of ‘enlightenment’ have also played their part in alienating people.

Even big businesses like Google,  Aetna, Merck, General Mills—the list goes on—want the benefit of spiritual practices like meditation, but without the perceived stigma associated with it. It’s put into clinical terms and a corporate language is built around it.

Spirituality is simple and straightforward.

The true task of spiritual life is not found in faraway places or unusual states of consciousness; it is here in the present. It asks of us a welcoming spirit to greet all that life presents to us with a wise, respectful and kindly heart.

— Jack Kornfield

The world is made up of unique individuals living variegated lives. Yet, if basic motives, aspirations and wishes are examined, they all turn out to be spiritual. What does every single human being want and/or need?

• To be loved.
• To be healthy.
• To be safe.

All beings are just like you. — Dalai Lama

We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering regardless of our race, religion, sex or political status.

—Dalai Lama

Why?

Because there are only a few fundamentals we truly need and want. How is health spiritual? Please refer to How Spirituality and Health are Linked. Is feeling and being safe really spiritual? The only real security is in the abiding.

Paramahansa Yogananda points out that, “When tigers of worries, sickness, and death are chasing you, your only sanctuary is the inner temple of silence… a calm interior silence into which neither menacing worries nor even the crash of colliding worlds can intrude…”

Similarly, the Dalai Lama says, “The inner peace of an alert and calm mind are the source of real happiness and good health.”

Refer to this post about silence.

Love is surely spiritual. Not lustful or attached love, but a mother’s love or love of a cause, love for animals, love that heals, love that breaks boundaries and joins people together.

Love exists naturally. We don’t need to have any instructions. It arises all by itself and we feel it. Love is woven intricately into the fabric of life. At the same time, love requires our attention and thoughtfulness. Love’s deepening is a moment to moment cultivation.

— Pamir Kiciman, from Love’s Depth and Breadth

Spirituality has a cohesive, unifying effect on all aspects of our life and being by giving meaning and structure, and empowering us to live from a core of our deepest values.

In making spirituality conscious, i.e., aware and embodied moment to moment, we’re no longer isolated. We aren’t isolated as an ego, with only its little knowledgebase to get us through life. With an active spirituality, we’re able to dip into and rely on wisdom and compassion, and other meta-intelligences. We realize that we’re bigger than our brain, body and limited self.

When we discover this deeper sense of self we are freed from many of the fears that plague us unnecessarily. We discover a greater inner peace, an inner security that does not depend upon events or circumstances in the world around. As a result we become less self-centered, less needy of the other’s approval or recognition, less needy of collecting possessions and social status, and become happier, healthier and more loving people.

— Peter Russell

Why are we, as a society and as individuals, so afraid of spirituality? It’s intrinsic to life, its foundation, main driver, and arguably sweetest expression. Perhaps we can just keep it simple and remove the layers of confusion about spirituality.

When I use the word ‘spiritual’ I mean basic human good qualities.

— Dalai Lama

“Good qualities.” That’s nonthreatening. And clear. Who would turn down goodness?

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Personal healing  is precious. How deep it goes for you, and whoever it touches is merit enough. Stop and think for a minute. Just how far-reaching can healing be? Can it travel to the past? Can healing flow to future generations before they are here?

When you engage a healing process, your entire life is included. You may have recent or persistent symptoms that bring you to healing, but how did they get here? They got here from your life. Your entire life is healing, not only the symptoms you’re presenting with at the time. There may be a concentration on what’s most painful, what causes the most suffering, and while those are being addressed, the whole of you is being healed.

That’s how healing works. It heals the whole through the parts. All parts are linked to each other, and the whole. The whole is linked to other wholes.

You’re linked to your parents, and your children. That’s the shortest distance and most direct line of wholes that are connected to other wholes. Healing can indeed travel to the past, it’s called forgiveness. Healing can travel to the future, it’s called being responsible with your own healing now.

When you take care of your own healing, you journey to your parents and through them your complete lineage. Each generation passes on dynamics that need to be healed. There’s familial karma as well. It may sound daunting, but the power of healing is such that when one family member shows up for it, healing snowballs. Your mother and father live inside you. You’re a whole connected to these other wholes. When you find inner peace, so do the wholes connected to you in ever-widening circles.

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Just as physical traits, even propensity to certain diseases can be passed down the line, so do internal dynamics.  The only way to prevent generational wounding is to stand up and say, “This ends with me.” When you take that stand, healing becomes bidirectional. It reaches down into the past, and takes a foothold out in the future. It does this just with you working on yourself. And if you earnestly understand the solemnity of the opportunity, your ability to create healing in generations past and future broadens greatly.

You are the starting point for the next generation. You’re in a place of power to stem generational wounding. This not only helps you tremendously, it has an exponential benefit to those who come after you. These don’t even have to be your own children necessarily. What you heal within today, heals the same in society.

Just as the members of your lineage live within you, you live within your own children. If you don’t heal, then anything unhealed passed down generations continues to live in your progeny. Why let that happen when it can be prevented?

Through dedication to your own healing, you can ensure that your descendants inherit peace, empowerment, wisdom and compassion. Suffering is already inherent to living. So is the way out of it. There’s no good reason to compound inherent suffering with a familial or ethnic blueprint of painful tendencies.

You’re the gateway to the past and the model for the future. What you participate in today has a ripple effect in both directions. Be choosy and courageous. Be present and aware of where you stand. Be aware of the power you have to heal.

All tempest has,
like a navel,
a hole in its middle,
through which
a gull can fly,
in silence.

— 14th century Japanese, anonymous

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You may be thinking, “I don’t want anything to do with any kind of stress!” That’s understandable until you find out more about ‘positive’ stress.

Bad stress leads to distress which causes ill health and loss of productivity. The key to good health is to turn distress into good stress. Eustress encourages productivity and facilitates our actions.

There are three types of stress: Physical, psychological, and psychosocial.

1. Physical stress is any extreme in the environment such as very hot or cold temperatures.
2. Psychological stress stems from the way we feel about what is happening in our life, the attitudes we have and how we react to events and circumstances.
3. Psychosocial stress involves stress coming from interpersonal relationships, conflict with family members, partners, friends, neighbors and coworkers. It can also come from being isolated.

Anything we put effort and energy into involves eustress. This kind of stress keeps us motivated and excited about life. To varying degrees none of the types of stress listed above are avoidable. Any of these can distress us. At the same time, each can be an opportunity to experience eustress. Here are the differences between the two:

Eustress:

• Motivates, focuses energy
• Is short-term
• Is perceived as within our coping abilities
• Feels exciting
• Improves performance

Distress:

• Causes anxiety or concern
• Can be short- or long-term
• Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities
• Feels unpleasant
• Decreases performance
• Can lead to mental and physical problems

Stress is a leading factor in disease because it compromises the immune system and slows down its response. The way stress is perceived has much to do with how it affects a person. Perception can make all the difference between distress and eustress.

Stress is any challenge to homeostasis, with homeostasis being the state of internal balance. Even exercise causes a certain amount of stress, even though it’s healthy for us in the end. Similarly working on a project that’s meaningful involves stress, but because of the inherent satisfaction it’s enjoyable and exciting. Pregnancy and childbirth work in similar fashion.

Eustress is like peak performance. It’s the perfect balance of being focused, challenged, motivated, putting forth effort and having a satisfying end result. On one end we may be bored and apathetic. On the other end we may be overwhelmed and burnt out. Somewhere in the middle is an optimal point.

There are two types of stress, distress and eustress. Here are some ways in which we can reduce harmful stress:

• Have a game plan for personal aspirations. Reestablish priorities. Balance talents and goals, long and short-term goals.
• Be kind to yourself and do something nice for yourself everyday.
• Manage your time without making it a stressor in itself. Leave time for play, creativity, family and friends.
• Have a game plan for work and career. Be adaptable, inventive, ready for change and resourceful.
• Have a financial plan.
• Take non-work time away from home.
• Take care of your physical health.
• Ensure quality sleep.
• Eat a balanced diet.
• Exercise.
• Be socially connected.
• Share feelings.
• Keep a journal.
• Have one go-to person, a confidant.
• Have a pet.
• Learn to laugh with life and at yourself.
• Partake in quality entertainment.
• Trust in higher power. Have a spiritual orientation and draw support from it.

Below are some helpful quotes, and a video excerpt from a presentation of mine which talks about stress in more detail.

• Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.
  — Etty Hillesum

• There is more to life than increasing its speed. — Gandhi

• Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency. — Natalie Goldberg

• Stress is inner biofeedback, signaling you that frequencies are fighting within your system.
  — Sara Paddison
  

If the video doesn’t show in your email or feed reader, you can watch it here.

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Donate to this blog. Thank you!

The most fundamental commonality is that we are human beings living on and sharing the Earth, who have the very same needs and drives. We have symbiotic relationships with each other and the Earth.

In the quest for meaning and the discovery of how we connect to the whole and how the whole connects to us, a lot of people commit to a search of greater depth and broader significance. This truly becomes a quest, and we begin to keep the company of truth.

In Sanskrit satsang is a gathering of those interested in the core truth or reality of existence. This truth within itself becomes a community, the company we keep, and it informs and changes us. Then there’s the company of similar minds and hearts, the people who are on a convergent path as ourselves.

Satsang is derived from sat, meaning truth or reality, and sangha (“sang” is an abbreviated form of the word sangha), meaning a gathering or community united by a common understanding, values  and purpose.

While we’re working with terminology, sat in Sanskrit means truth, reality and/or ‘what is.’ Often it helps to understand when the opposite is known: Asat — opposite of sat: non-being, impermanent, false, unreal.

Sat — being, good, virtuous, chaste, the third word of the famous three words: om tat sat, refers to what is truly real, eternal and permanent, used to mean God or the soul.

Power is inherent in these words. There’s even more power in what they point to.

The word “community” has the meaning of “fellowship” in its origins. In this case, a fellowship of truth. Truth is strengthening and purifying. It clears the dross of living in a carbon-based form. Whether in solo practice, or a group setting when we sit, pray, meditate, intend, and share truth is multiplied.

Community derives its power from the conjoining of its seekers’ minds and hearts with truth, and each other. More multiplication at work.

A fellowship of practitioners. A sharing of truths common to life, nature and the cosmos.

In Buddhism, there are three “gems” that a Buddhist shows the greatest respect: the Buddha, the Dharma (the Buddha’s teaching), and the Sangha (the Buddha’s community). The Buddha knew that without community, the individual practitioner would face the hazards of the path unsupported and may not be able to continue, or fully develop.

Group practice creates a natural coherence. Meditation has been show to sync the two hemispheres of the brain, and also have the social and emotional benefit of feeling less isolated and separate. Whether it’s meditation or other spiritual practices, there’s an increase in compassion and understanding. Concentration and creativity improve. Meditation lowers blood pressure and reduces stress.

Meditating together increases the degree of Self-realization of each member of the group by the law of invisible vibratory exchange of group magnetism.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

While the brains of a group practicing together improve and change, let’s also remember heart energy. This previous post details the heart’s amazing capacities. Essentially, the heart is the most powerful generator of electromagnetic energy in the body, far exceeding the brain. The heart’s electromagnetic field also envelops every cell of the body, and extends out in all directions into the space around us.

The Greeks had a word for the heart’s ability to perceive meaning from the world: aisthesis… Aisthesis denotes the moment in which a flow life force, imbued with communications moves from one living organism to another. The word literally means “to breathe in.”

— Stephen Harrod Buhner

In community we breathe each other in. This begins by breathing ourselves in. We come to group practice from the foundation of solo practice. Group practice is an intensifier of solo practice. There we reflect and validate truth for each other. The truth is within us already. As we connect with it more and more and give it room to express in the world, we have to both protect and refine it. We have to broaden it and increase its reach.

Today, community is taking on added meaning and power in direct proportion to the escalation of our collective challenges in the world. The world has become literally smaller, not just in the way technology is erasing distance, but in the depletion of resources to sustain life. Thich Nhat Hanh has a penetrating and prescient take on our global status:

The next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community; a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth.

The whole of humanity as an enlightened being, living and making choices in enlightened ways!

The scale of our crises is such that we have a lot of ground to recover fast, and simultaneously stop exacerbating and/or creating new ones. Community is a powerful way to come together in shared purpose and intention for the greater good. Small groups of people have historically been agents of change, and this is needed now too.

The greater possibility of spiritual community is its intrinsic ability to mainstream the very idea of spiritual living, its values, vision, and special way of externalizing truth.

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1. Relationships (personal)
2. Spirituality

Romance is an essential ingredient of life. Without it, life is colorless and dull. This isn’t an attack on romance. Romanticism has given the world some of the greatest works of art, refining our aesthetic sense. It has also validated human emotion as way to enhance the experience of living.

Cultivating one’s romantic nature is not the same as ‘romanticizing’ something. When we romanticize, we can’t recognize what’s true anymore. Imagination, fantasy, love rituals all have a special place in the living of human life. Yet when we no longer know what’s true, all lines are blurred and we suffer because of the choices we make.

1. Relationships:

We all want to be loved, this is the natural order of things. Love is the true sustainer of life. We’re biologically programmed to seek, find and connect. When we do, we hope it’s magical and forever. It often isn’t. There are many reasons why. What’s going to be discussed here is how much pressure we put on a partner and vice versa, and the relationship itself to be the answer to everything for which we need an answer.

Relationships are part of being human. We’re gregarious creatures. We’re born out of a relationship and enter one in a family immediately. Relationship is all we know really. The one area that somehow doesn’t enter our life education is the relationship with ourselves.

This relationship is the basis of all others. It has to have certain levels of esteem, worth, acceptance, and love of the ‘self’ variety. These are non-negotiable touchstones. Entering a personal relationship without at least a plateau of inner wholeness is setting that relationship on a rocky foundation.

Only when we are comfortable with who we are can we truly function independently in a healthy way, can we truly function within a relationship.

— Patricia Fry

Sometimes one partner is less at peace with themselves, sometimes both. It’s valid for the relationship to be a place for one partner to lift the other, as long as the other partner takes on responsibility for themselves. If this dynamic reaches a state of diminishing returns, it’s no longer valid, healthy or functional. Often the partner with more peace within will justify and thus romanticize their role in helping their partner grow. If there’s little action from the partner being lifted, this eventually becomes an unsustainable situation and choices have to be made.

If both partners still have a lot of connecting with themselves to do, the relationship can quickly fill with resentments, anger, blame and unhappiness.

John Welwood explains succinctly and well what happens in relationships:

It’s important to recognize that all the emotional and psychological wounding we carry with us from the past is relational in nature: It has to do with not feeling fully loved. And it happened in our earliest relationships—with our caretakers—when our brain and body were totally soft and impressionable. As a result, the ego’s relational patterns have largely developed as protection schemes to insulate us from the vulnerable openness that love entails. In relationship the ego acts as a survival mechanism for getting needs met while fending off the threat of being hurt, manipulated, controlled, rejected, or abandoned in ways we were as a child. This is normal and totally understandable. Yet if it’s the main tenor of a relationship, it keeps us locked into complex strategies of defensiveness and control that undermine the possibility of deeper connection.

These are some of the ways that personal relationships are romanticized:

• That there’s an ideal person for us
• That this person will complete us
• That the high of new love will last
• That we can know a person in a blank amount of time
• That the parts we love of our partner is all there is to him/her
• That all parts of our partner are good
• That sex will always be great
• That we’ll always be close and bonded
• That we’ll never be lonely again
• That the relationship will make all our problems go away

It’s a relationship, not a magical balm. Sure, there are many upsides, as long it’s realized that we’re in a relationship with another human being who’s probably as broken as we are. We’re relational creatures, so it’s easy to have rosy expectations. If we only came into a pairing with awareness! Simple awareness that this person isn’t here to take care of our core contentment, that that’s up to us.

Our partner can add to our happiness, can draw it out when we’re sad, can bring us joy, but it’s a pouring into the fountain of joy that’s already there, not building the fountain for us.

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.

— Ramana Maharshi

This is the mistake we make isn’t it? Seeking outside of us what is inside. We also put happiness into the future. It’s on hold until we reach, have, accomplish this, this and this.

When it comes to love, it’s better to be love and see who and what takes its form in our life. If we grieve lack of love, love can’t enter.

Being love is a quest. It begins with learning to love ourselves without holding back. Depending on our wounds, this can be tricky, but it’s essential. It’s balanced, humble love. Simple self-appreciation and validation. It’s not ‘diva’ love. It’s not to pump up ego. It’s there to help us become whole.

Loving ourselves is all kinds of good. It also eventually leads to empowerment. Living from an empowered place is a correlate of happiness and integrity.

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.

— Barbara De Angelis

Romanticizing Spirituality will be posted later…

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Romantic feelings, while inspiring, are notoriously fickle. — John Welwood

He’s referring to the romance found in intimate relationships, but it also applies to spirituality, and the notions we have of such relationships.

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.  — Leo F. Buscaglia

It’s very easy to romanticize spirituality. It happens over and over again to many, many people. This is true especially for the novice. Spirituality promises peace, relief, happiness, healing, strength, and it delivers on these and more. What the new (as well as experienced) practitioner often doesn’t realize is that none of the benefits of spirituality are promised as a pouring in from the outside. Similarly no benefits are available without personal responsibility.

Spirituality is an inner orientation and it uncovers the peace, healing and happiness that are already there.

Each of us has these two forces at work inside us: an embryonic wisdom that wants to blossom from the depths of our being, and the imprisoning weight of our karmic patterns. From birth to death, these two forces are always at work, and our lives hang in the balance. Since human nature always contains these two sides, our journey involves working with both.

— John Welwood

There’s bliss in spirituality, but the path isn’t all blissful. It’s not always smooth and harmonious. It’s not made for avoidance. It’s not a shortcut or bypass. There’s traffic and dirty dishes, horrid emotions and physical aches. That’s existence.

Bliss is incredibly seductive. If it’s there as a result of being real with oneself, a fountain found under our debris, bliss is a gift. If it’s there as an attachment or vehicle for avoidance, it’s no different than any other addiction.

We ourselves must walk the path. — Buddha

This is where spirituality is romanticized. We think just because we have teachings and are dedicated, we get a free pass. Spirituality works wonderfully as long as we realize that it’s a process and not a forgone conclusion.

There’s also quite a bit of misinterpretation of the actual teachings. Spirituality predominantly emphasizes goodness, love, kindness, forgiveness, giving, compassion, and rightly so. Where would the world be without the counterbalance of these?!

However, these are not romantic notions. They are not meant to be practiced to our own detriment. We can be kind to a coworker, but we can also speak up when needed. We can forgive someone who keeps hurting us, but we don’t have to stay with them.

When spiritual teachings are put into practice at our own expense, they lose all power and effectiveness.

Where we really get into hot water is when romanticized spirituality is carried over into any committed relationship.

Relationships are a huge subject. We spend our entire life interacting in familial, intimate, social, and work relationships. This focuses on one major area:

• Having a partner who isn’t actively pursuing their spirituality

A disclaimer: Spirituality can be many things. Here it is the active, conscious, daily, practice-based application of teachings.

If a partner claims their spirituality is ‘something’ else, that may be valid as long as it helps them show up in openness and harmony, from a place of growth and accountability so that the relationship is enriched.

Most often it’s the case that the partner simply doesn’t have a spiritual orientation to life.

This is a hard subject to write about. There’s no hierarchy, no ‘better than.’ Only an accounting of what many are living with and the pitfalls of such situations.

Practice-based teachings have a time factor. It’s not any different than committing to a workout routine, or whatever suits a person. The difference kicks in when the non-practicing partner questions the value of one’s sacred time. Questions begin about its value, contribution to the household, time away from the relationship, and most importantly there’s no understanding as to ‘why.’

This creates a rift. It can’t be spun. It can’t be rationalized. The rift then widens because spirituality taken to heart shifts one’s worldview in radical ways.

The practicing partner is left with a couple of choices:

1. Compromise and/or miss practice time, reducing quality of life
2. Negotiate practice time, but live with a growing sense of disconnection

Neither is so great.

The practicing partner wants to be loyal to the teachings, wants to behave in the right way, to give their partner love, understanding, support and encouragement. This is part of the practice after all. And s/he has more resources to be giving. But there’s an inherent trap.

Being a couple can’t be one-sided. It’s engineered for equality and sharing.

Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes.

— Patricia Fry

It’s understood that no one is whole in the full sense of the word. We’re all healing many wounds, consciously or not. And there’s the rub. While one person is working on themselves and the relationship, the other is perhaps at a standstill. Unawakened healing and growth can be detrimentally slow, if it activates at all.

Only one partner growing within themselves is a sure recipe for growing apart. The growth container of only one partner cannot forever hold and carry the other partner. It’s bound to self-destruct.

There’s a slow poison that seeps into the relationship. It creates tension, walking on eggshells around each other, and mutual resentment. It saps the peace out of one’s practice, and undercuts the couple’s bond.

True spiritual teachings tend to be aspirational. They are expansive, inclusive and inspire us. Ironically this leads to easy misinterpretation. Teachings aren’t meant to be used to make excuses to ourselves about our partner. They aren’t meant to create more self-deception.

We must learn to love wisely.

I will no longer allow anyone to manipulate my mind and control my life in the name of love.

— Miguel Ruiz

to be continued

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Ki in Japanese kanji

If you’re intent on walking a spiritual path, making time for practice is a common hurdle. Practice is the only way transformative spiritual teachings help improve human experience. There is just no way around it. Often people claim to be practicing ‘in-the-moment’ while going through the day. Of course this is entirely possible and encouraged. You may be aware of certain spiritual qualities and make them part of your daily interactions. You may be a naturally kind person and let this carry over into your day. The world is a better place for that.

Applying yourself in this way usually falls short when it comes to any kind of spiritual depth and power, garnering of wisdom and compassion, or personal healing. General points about ensuring daily spiritual practice happens were covered in How to Fit Spiritual Practices into Daily Life Routines.

This post will look at Level I and II Reiki practices specifically. These are the practices that I teach in my Reiki classes as outlined here. They are based on the way Usui Sensei formulated his teachings as a spiritual way of living, without limiting them to hands-on practices only, or some variety of a healing modality.

Reiki Meditation:

Hikari no Kokyu-ho (Breathing Light): Level I practice that matches well with ‘classic’ meditation methods from other time-honored traditions.

Gassho Kokyu-ho (Breathing Light through Hands): Level I practice that works with universal ki in a more specific manner.

Hatsurei-ho (Enhanced Breathing Light): Level II practice that’s comprehensive and powerful enough to serve as one’s lifelong meditation method.

The average sitting time for any of these Reiki meditations is only 20 minutes. Classically two sitting times are recommended for any meditation method, one in the morning and one in the evening. Even one sitting will work wonders. With Reiki there are some other choices as seen below. Regardless, 20 minutes is doable in anyone’s day. If isn’t, you have to take a serious look as to why.

Hands-on-self Reiki:

This is Reiki’s whole-person self-care, wellness and healing method. About 30 minutes each time is fine for a routine practice. It’s important to remember not to self-treat only when feeling unwell, but maintain a weekly routine. Occasional longer sessions are recommended.

One option with Reiki as mentioned above is to practice one of the meditations in the morning, and self-treat in the early evening as way to transition from the workday, and stay healthy. Also remember that this application of Reiki heals you and keeps you in balance emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Added-value Reiki practices:

Kenyoku-ho (Vibrational harmony): This method is given in Level I and stays with the practitioner for the duration of his/her life. It literally takes seconds to practice. It’s a throughout-the-day companion to keep you positive and energized.

Nentatsu-ho (Intention fulfillment): Level I practice that graduates to Level II with some changes, designed to work powerful magic in the subconscious and unconscious. 5-7 minutes for each application.

There’s a repertoire of practices in Reiki, which means there are more than listed here. Meditating the Reiki way, and giving yourself Reiki with your own hands are the only core practices that require regularity. These can be completed in about one hour or less each day.

One hour compared to many, many more hours if you were going to a therapist, a physician, a specialist, getting medical tests, certain medical treatments or surgery, attending a support group, etc. (These are all valid by the way, just much more costly in terms of time and money.)

Whenever someone you know needs help and healing, giving them Reiki is also encouraged. This experience is actually a two-way blessing and thus very efficient.

Once a practitioner completes Level II, it becomes possible to also work with some primordial forces and truths that govern life, nature, and the cosmos. During the learning curve, these may add a little time to your practice, but eventually time is compressed because of the power and depth this particular knowledge brings to the practitioner’s understanding and ability.

Plus, you’re able to utilize such wonderful methods as Reiki Distant Healing with these specific teachings.

The time lengths given here are minimums and are to be used as a guideline. Great benefit will still come. Longer and deeper practice times are always a good idea. Whenever possible, and also by making it possible, ease into a timeless experience of your spiritual life.

Find out more:

Reiki Primer with audio and PDF

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Madeline Wikler

Meditation, healing practices, silence and stillness, being in nature are all efficiency engines. When we give ourselves quality attention and replenish our body, mind and soul we’re happier, lighter, clearer and sharper. After including spiritual practices, we approach everything else in our day with calmness, nonattachment, and contentment.

As a result whatever the day holds doesn’t seem insurmountable, and when we’re in the thick of it, because there’s a foundation of peace and clarity, we operate at greater efficiency and often produce more in less time. It also gives us a healthy perspective that ‘producing more,’ or ‘doing’ at the cost of being aren’t what culture and society have elevated these to be; that they can be harmful and counterproductive.

The basic truth is that spiritual practices make us leaner and freer so we can go about our days in spaciousness and without pressure.

Yet the clock is a reality. It’s not a big reality, but it’s there. In making time for our spiritual life some ideas from standard time management can helpful.

1. Track activities: Keep a log for 3 or 7 days of ALL activities, however small. Learn where time goes.
2. Identify time-wasters or useless distractions: Be honest when reviewing this log.
3. Change behaviors: Say no to nonessentials. Only continue activities from the log that have real value.

While there may be 24 hours of clock time and it may seem rigid, there are ways to create time as well. Friterring time away makes less of it available, and we certainly do that. If we can ‘lose’ time, we can also ‘create’ it.

All of this is ultimately connected to our values and how we want to live. If our values are clear and strong, and we know them clearly, then there isn’t even a question of finding the time to meditate. We just meditate.

You have to make room in your heart and in your life for the things that matter. It is not enough to dream. The dreaming comes easy. You have to do things. You have to make choices.

— Jamie Tworkowski

There are many recent studies that show meditation’s effectiveness in developing concentration and mental clarity, elevating mood, removing stress, and energizing the human organism. Meditation helps us listen and relate better. It opens up the mind to creative solutions and frees us from mental ruts.

Meditation is not the only spiritual practice there is. The mental and physical states seen in meditation are very similar to what other spiritual practices encourage as well.

Without stress, we simply function better. With concentration and clarity daily tasks and work projects could take less time. We may also enjoy them more. If we’re calm and listen well, it will probably improve work and family relationships.

Spiritual practices are to be single-tasked. There’s some debate as to whether multi-tasking is really even productive in a workday, but it happens and can come in handy. When it comes to our quiet time however, it must be single-focused. This is the only way that the precious gifts and benefits of spiritual ‘time’ can positively impact our lives.

It’s called ‘practice’ because all of us are in process with spirituality. There isn’t a culmination point with spirituality anyhow, and essentially we’re all babies on the path. So we have to practice. This bears results, not that we’re practicing for results.

We practice to uncover the natural spirituality we carry inside us and let it flow into our entire life, into its every detail.

Practice itself has some defaults. Single-tasking it is probably the most important. What this means is that we have a solid routine for the duration of at least 20 minutes, once or twice a day. It doesn’t matter if this is meditation, prayer, self-healing or a form of spiritual movement.

These 20 minutes periods are regular, everyday is best, or 75% of a seven day week. With this foundation, other choices are become available. Need extra sleep one morning? Skip. Add extra time in the evening or note it missed and restart the next day. Traveling somewhere special and want to use all your time sightseeing? Again, skip or reduce the time. The same applies when we’re sick.

The point is that with a solid and regular practice under our belt, we’re able to move through these times gracefully. There’s also continuity, in the sense that the day is dotted with moments where we’re able to activate a practice. These spot practices are effective and helpful, but usually only when we have a strong routine at home.

The other factor to consider is that just as we may need to skip sometimes (as long as this doesn’t become a too-easy excuse), we can be on the lookout for longer stretches to deepen our practices. There may be a 2-hour window on a weekend, an opportunity to go on retreat somewhere beautiful, or practice silence on a day off.

Nature also provides sanctuary, one that we don’t utilize enough.

How you slice up your time also reflects how you identify yourself.

— Iris Sangiuliano

Related:

Breakout of Calendar Time

Breakout of Clock Time

Of Clocks and Calendars

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Reiki is a teaching that accesses innate wisdom and intelligence, as well as compassion, which propel a vision of one’s own potential.

© Pamir Kiciman 2005

A basic understanding of Reiki is that it balances or rebalances a person on all levels: physically, psychologically and spiritually.

Reiki fosters self-communication and inquiry in an open and non-critical way. It replaces any negative self-dialogue with a solution-seeking patience and wisdom. Wisdom and compassion go hand in hand. Compassion for self and others creates the spaciousness for wisdom to reveal itself. And wisdom encourages compassion because it’s the healthy choice to make.

Wisdom is both the wisdom of the ages, and innate intelligence: the intelligence of our body, mind and spirit. There’s a tremendous intelligence that directs the body. Emotional intelligence is present more than we give ourselves credit, and can be learned too. The brain is actually highly plastic and can develop in new ways even after we think we’re set in your ways. And the greatest intelligence we have is spiritual, which is inborn and can also be developed to a high degree.

Reiki helps us find and develop the potential of a self-healing personality or psychology that is waiting to be activated under any and all of our symptoms.

Reiki brings about balance, but it doesn’t stop there. Balance also means acknowledging and addressing all parts of our makeup: the physical, the psychological and the spiritual, for we are not one or the other, but all three integrated as a holistic organism.

This is where the spiritual and thus healing power of Reiki really shines, for healing means to make whole. Reiki initially brings wholeness and balance to all parts of us. The cumulative presence of Reiki, however, is a much more profound and lasting experience.

Reiki facilitates an internal spiritual opening, without dictating what that is for each individual. This spiritual opening is substantial and lasting.

Cross-culturally and from all time periods, every authentic spiritual teaching that’s been part of humanity’s heritage has always included a set of methodologies. Reiki is one such teaching. These teachings are commonly known as wisdom traditions, or teachings of perennial wisdom.

A teaching of perennial wisdom includes ethical and moral dos and don’ts; a central cosmology explaining creation, the universe, life and humanity’s place in it; other subtle truths; and practices to give the practitioner access to this knowledge and wisdom.

The beauty and efficacy of practice-based spirituality is that it allows the practitioner to personally experience the benefits of spiritual health. Without practice the benefits of harmony, peace, meaning, empowerment and wellness remain merely theoretical and a sterile intellectual exercise.

What Reiki reveals is that there’s a pure awareness which is not based on thoughts and emotions. This awareness isn’t only intelligent, it is Intelligence. When spiritual awareness is cultivated as an ongoing inquiry, the degree of attachment to bad news, worry and fear is not as strong. The locus of our identity becomes much broader, more inclusive; there are greater possibilities and the ability to engage these possibilities.

When there’s clinging to thoughts and emotions that are either self-generated or in response to external stimuli and information, our wisdom and intelligence become trapped and unavailable. So does our potential and the range of available possibilities.

What works better is to move from a reaction to a response, and also move from contraction to spaciousness. Being in reactive mode keeps stress hormones cycling through our system which leads to burnout and more serious complications. Being contracted means we’re in shut-down mode; we’re unavailable to ourselves and our inner resources are unavailable to us.

If already involved with Reiki, this reactivity usually doesn’t take place. If not involved with Reiki, then Reiki can bring us into responsive mode and engender spaciousness. Reiki also empowers us to find and take seriously our substantial inner resources, one of which is the potential of healing.

Healing is not only a potential but it’s also potent. And healing isn’t limited to the disappearance of symptoms. Healing happens despite symptoms and even while symptoms persist. One of the major contributions of Reiki to serious illness is its ability to increase our capacity for healing.

We live in a results-oriented, largely black and white world. Reiki spirituality (healing) helps change our orientation to an abiding view, a view that outlasts a disease or even a lifetime.

Health is a dynamic state. It’s a state that involves all parts of us physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually.

Healing is nonlinear and holistic. It doesn’t follow a straight-line trajectory and considers all components of existence. It includes all the tangibles, as well as everything about us that can’t be measured or tabulated.

Healing is a subjective experience. Forgiveness can’t be measured but it happens. The joy children or grandchildren bring can’t be measured but it’s there. Finding meaning in a sunset or poem can’t be measured but it’s still enriching. Resilience can’t be measured but human history is full of its evidence.

Reiki boosts our physical, psychological and spiritual capacities.

To learn more, please visit:

Reiki Training

Reiki Primer with audio and PDF

What is Reiki?

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We also don’t listen because our mind and senses are too full already. Not fulfilled, but full of ‘noise.’ Nothing else can get in.

And if we do listen it’s through many filters. Filters of expecting, judgment, superiority or inferiority, hurts and wounds, or politeness with a dismissal already aimed. The filter may be anticipating, hoping, or planning too.

We also don’t listen because we don’t care enough.

It’s an unfortunate paradox that in an age when technology is supposed to help us communicate better, we’re experiencing a poverty of connection and intimacy.

A solution exists. As with many solutions, it begins with our inner life. True listening only occurs if we’re inwardly silent and attentive. This silence isn’t ordinary silence. It’s not only the silence of not talking. It’s a cultivated silence, which means we spend quality time being quiet. Not only being quiet in meditation and other practices, or carrying the quiet these create with us, but creating space for voluntary silence.

Voluntary silence is a lifestyle choice. It doesn’t mean we retire from society and become a modern hermit, although retreats deepen the well of silence within us. It simply means we recognize the need to rest our senses from the onslaught of information, advertising and digital noise.

The trouble is that silence is uncomfortable initially. And it stays that way unless we’re willing to cross the threshold. Even one step across the threshold and we’re encouraged by the benefits of silence, benefits that multiply as we remain in the quiet regularly.

Silence is where we learn to listen, where we learn to see. — Joan Halifax

Just as there’s a direct relationship between silence and true listening, there’s also a direct link between silence and peace. Silence is inherently peaceful. The sound of wind, chimes, birds or water doesn’t break silence. Certain music doesn’t either. Silence isn’t necessarily the absence of sound, although certain sounds are obviously disharmonious.

The silence where peace resides is an internal orientation. Peace feeds silence, and silence feeds peace. The more committed we are to active cultivation of silence, the more readily peace is available. The more we access peace, the more comfortable we are with silence.

Dipping into peace and silence regularly leads to being able to listen from openness. Our reactions are quieted and insightful listening can occur. This begins with listening to ourselves, our own mental machinations and emotional ups and downs. As we sort out our various ‘knots’ and dilemmas, peace increases.

[…] we can’t really listen to others until we learn to listen, exquisitely listen, and TO ABIDE by our own heart.

— Gail Sher

The same principles apply when it comes to our relationship with others. It’s difficult to receive someone else without filters set in place by lifelong habits of busyness. As a result, communication is doomed from the start.

One solution is to spend time in quiet reflection:

• To feel how we want to treat ourselves and be treated by others.
• To remember that all human beings wish to be pain-free, happy, and not go hungry.
• To sense if we care as much if others get their needs met as we do our own.
• To feel what need of ours prevents agreement with another person.

Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone.

— Rachel Naomi Remen

As individuals we’re also part of systems, and the reflections above can be helpful in group situations as well. We may be a part of many ‘systems’: a company, civic or nonprofit organization, a club, a hobby community, religious or ethnic group, and others.

In any of these group communications, we can implement the following:

• Request someone to do something, rather than demand it.
• State what we prefer someone to do (positive), instead of what don’t want them to do (negative).
• Before taking a position on someone’s opinions or statements, hone in on what they are feeling.

None of this is possible without true listening, which itself isn’t possible without the cultivation of silence. We can’t listen to others, if we’re not hearing ourselves deeply first. Our inner noise is quieted as we take the lead of insights arriving in silence. Outer noise is quieted as we establish time away from it. Then when we face a person or a group, we’re prepared and responsive from a place of peace.

Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.

— Rachel Naomi Remen

Related:

Listening

Listening to others

More on listening

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Spirituality has consistently promoted a gradated worldview; from the subtle to the dense, from the invisible to the visible. Take the subtle soul. It’s immaterial, intangible, and invisible yet it infuses music, art, poetry, love, food, and even the world as Anima Mundi. The soul becomes visible through the body and human expression. It’s also very present in Nature and animates the planet with its multitudinous life forms.

Spirituality has also consistently had a nested model of reality; body, mind and soul in its simplest expression. The body houses both mind and soul. Body and mind are inert without the soul. The soul is subtle and invisible, yet it’s the most expansive ‘container’ bringing all the elements and aspects of human existence into a whole. Body and mind are functions of the soul.

The gradated and nested models of reality work hand-in-hand and apply to more extensive interconnections. For instance, an individual exists in a family, which is within society, which is within a geographic location, within a nation in the world, which is on a planet of natural and cosmic forces that allow life and habitation.

Putting it altogether, it could look like this:

PERSON: Body, Mind, Soul » ENVIRONMENT: Family, Social, Nature/Planet Earth » Solar system » Milky Way » Cosmos » The Divine.

Before moving on, let’s reiterate some of the material in a related post, How Spirituality and Health are Linked. Here’s how Richard Harmer, PhD summarizes it:

Spirituality is a universal phenomenon. It doesn’t matter where in the world you live or what “tribe” you are a part of; you can be assured that spirituality will be a part of the psychological and social fabric of your immediate world. Why? Humans have a strong will toward meaning. Extensive psychological research suggests that spirituality makes human life more vibrant. Further, spirituality provides us with a sense of morality and ethics and allows us to find a sense of peace in the face of life’s trials and tribulations. In fact, spirituality is central to being and becoming a healthy and well-adjusted human being.

The nested view of health:

It’s not surprising that there are correlations between spiritual models of reality and human health. Health can’t be found only through the health of the physical body. As Elliot Dacher, MD puts it, “We grow up learning that we aren’t healthy unless our body is sound, our physiological markers are normal, and we aren’t at risk for disease…”

Health is dependent on a network of factors and influences. Family, community, culture, and environment are examples. Within these there are other important determinants.

In other words, health is not a single ‘container.’ It’s supported by containers within containers. Monica Sharma, MD’s approach exemplifies this:

In addressing HIV-AIDS, I have worked in places such as South Africa, Ethiopia, India, and the United States…We know, of course, that HIV-AIDS is about a virus. But the problem is really not about a virus… What patterns in a society cause women or those living with HIV to be stigmatized? What patterns in the administration create obstacles to the funds flowing? What are the patterns that cause NGOs not to collaborate?

Health is a series of interrelationships. Environmental factors, socioeconomic class, local food sources all contribute to good health or prove to be detrimental. There are connections between iron deficiency and lead poisoning; insecticide use and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; income disparity and asthma.

There’s a global aspect to health as well:

With the connectivity we have in today’s world, with the globalization of the planet, whatever we do in one part of the world – whether in the United States or in India, for example – affects every other part of the world. We live in an interdependent world.

— Monica Sharma, MD

We share the planet’s water, air and soil. Health concerns are common to all of humanity, just like all other concerns we have living on an overpopulated and largely industry- and technology-driven world. Human health is interrelated with the health of the planet. Which solutions we implement when and how remains to be seen. One thing remains certain. Our common bonds run deeper than may at first appear.

Elliott Dacher, MD explains that the ancient Greeks called well-being “eudaimonia, or human flourishing.” Common bonds are real, as Dacher further articulates:

In ancient Greek tradition, human flourishing is called the true, the good, and the beautiful—an unchanging knowledge of the truth of life, the goodness of heart, and the beauty of existence. In the Christian tradition, it’s called divine love and agape. In the Buddhist tradition, it is called wisdom and compassion. The Hindus call it satchidananda—awareness, knowledge, bliss. The Oriental tradition refers to it as the tao. Life lived in our deepest self has many names, but it is one. It is the flourishing of our deepest nature. It is the perfection of health. It is the capacity to sustain an optimal and stable well-being through all our adversities.

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1. Medicine’s interest in spirituality
2. What is spirituality and spiritual health
3. Spiritual dimension of health
4. Health benefits of spirituality

Medicine’s interest in spirituality

If ‘health’ is understood as healing, then spirituality has traditionally always been part of being healthy and well. Traditional healers, medicine people, or shamans were a community’s health experts, and their practices were based on the spiritual dimension of life. Healing and spirit were inseparable then, and this truth holds today.

Even in the early stages of allopathic, Western medicine body and spirit were linked for several generations. With the advent of the ‘enlightenment’ and scientific eras, and later the dominance of medical technology, this link was removed from medicine.

In recent times, however, medicine has once again started considering that spirituality may play a bigger role in the healing process.

Over the past two decades a transition has been occurring in the healthcare industry; people are starting to express an interest in healing again.  Of course, when we are discuss healing we are referring to it with its old English derivative, “the make whole,” acknowledging that healing cannot occur without recognizing it as a spiritual process.

— Eileen E. Morrison

According to recent surveys, 59% of British medical schools and 90% of US medical schools have courses or content on spirituality and health.

Only one medical school had a formal course in spirituality and medicine in 1992.  Today, more than one hundred medical schools are teachings such courses.

—  Christine M. Puchalski, MD

© Zack Darling

What is spirituality and spiritual health?

Spirituality is essentially indefinable, but there are some common elements that are helpful in understanding it:

• Having a relationship with a universal power greater than oneself
• An orientation of how one fits into the grand scheme of life
• A way of having meaning and purpose in life
• Having a set of values to live by
• A sense of interconnectedness with all forms of life
• Learning how to embody love, peace, and joy
• Sharing care and compassion with one’s planetary family

If one sincerely includes the above points, it can be safely said that one’s spirituality is healthy. Of course spirituality isn’t static. It’s ongoing and ever-developing. There’s no end point to it; one doesn’t arrive at some ideal spiritual state and remain there perpetually. Spirituality is to be engaged every day, every moment. There are valleys and heights, fertile as well as dry times. Spirituality is a matter of first recognizing it as foundational to life and one’s being, cultivating it so it becomes solidly established, and deepening it so that one’s life sources from a spiritual ground no matter what’s happening in the moment.

Spiritual dimension of health

Spirituality acts as a unifier of the other dimensions of health, integrating them and bringing them to a whole. These other aspects of health are: physical, psychological, and social. Spirituality empowers all dimensions of health, and provides continuity between each aspect.

Spirituality fuels the will to live by helping one find, implement and deepen a purpose and meaning in life. Sometimes this is centered around family, or humanitarian work or professional work.

Since spirituality by its very nature transcends the individual, it naturally establishes a common bond with other people, all forms of life, nature and the cosmos. This in a nutshell is altruism, which in turn enables one to follow a set of ethical values, and these values improve a person’s life.

Health benefits of spirituality

Having a sound spirituality through regular spiritual practice tends to improve coping skills; fosters optimism and hope; promotes healthy behavior; reduces worry and anxiety; keeps depression at bay; and encourages relaxation and stress relief.

People with a deep sense of spirituality have reported:

• Less use of medical services
• Less minor illness
• Complete recovery from minor illness
• Emotional resiliency even in terminal illnesses
• Lower fear of death
• Positive death expectations
• Low discomfort
• Decreased loneliness
• Better attitudinal adjustment

Spirituality helps a person reframe illness or crisis in a positive way, leading to personal growth and spiritual development.

The technological advances of the past century tended to change the focus of medicine from a caring, service oriented model to a technological, cure-oriented model. Technology has led to phenomenal advances in medicine and has given us the ability to prolong life. However, in the past few decades physicians have attempted to balance their care by reclaiming medicine’s more spiritual roots, recognizing that until modern times spirituality was often linked with health care. Spiritual or compassionate care involves serving the whole person—the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. Such service is inherently a spiritual activity.

— Christina M. Puchalski, MD

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• A wound is any kind of hurt that leaves an imprint in the psyche.
• Once a hurt becomes a wound it lives in the psyche, taking on a life of its own.
• It also bleeds into areas of our life not directly related to the wound.
• It colors our feelings and thoughts, and determines our behavior.
• Depending on the depth of a wound, it can substantially mark our life and become its central characteristic.
• Even a small hurt could become a wound, if it’s not attended to.

Our wounds introduce us to suffering. It may be counterintuitive, but suffering is a fact of life. We suffer on all layers of being: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Suffering is not without purpose. It teaches us about life (since it’s part of life), and about ourselves. It holds up a mirror in which we can truly see ourselves.

One of the biggest pitfalls of being wounded is pretending that we’re not! We’re very good at maintaining a veneer of normalcy. Even if we’re functional, we may still be carrying around deep wounds. Our functionality is usually dismantled piece by piece unless we tend to our wounds.

We usually pull away from pain. We cringe and want to shut it off immediately. We go to great lengths to just not feel suffering. We bury it or build a wall around it. This never works because the pain has important information it wants to communicate to us, and it needs room to breathe so it can change and not be painful anymore. Rather than suffocating it, putting suffering in an enclosure of any kind only intensifies it and makes it louder. The wound has nowhere to go if we wall it up or bury it.

We feel we can’t be open with our suffering because it feels too much to bear; too much shame is involved; we don’t want to fall apart; we have a false image of being strong, etc. Essentially we’re afraid of being vulnerable. We don’t realize how truly strong vulnerability is. We close our heart in the mistaken belief that it’s the only way to survive, to preserve and protect ourselves. The trouble with this is that when we close to one thing, we close to many other things. Closing to our pain also closes us to joy.

The problem is — and I learned this from the research — that you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff. Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, here’s disappointment. I don’t want to feel these. I’m going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin… You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.

— Brené Brown (Research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.)

The only way our heart is ever going to feel better is if it’s open and stays open.

In an open state a whole lot more information is available to us. Good information increases available choices. Having a variety of responses is to our advantage. Normally with an ongoing wound, we’re in reactive mode. We lash out, clamp down, or numb out. Not only does this do nothing for us, it exacerbates our already troubled emotions. There are no solutions or respite in a closed and reactive mode of living.

An open system is a responsive system. A response works with the situation. Reacting agitates a situation.

Realistically, since we will all suffer many losses, we need better, more evolved and astute ways of approaching sorrow and emotional pain. We need to be more conscious about the ways our losses can help us become wiser and more spiritually evolved; we also need to be more sensitive to and aware of other people’s pain and suffering.

— Lama Surya Das

Wounds are inherent to life. So are joys. They are part of a whole. To be wholehearted is to not shrink from wounds, and to be willing to receive joy. We must resonate with both. When we resonate, i.e., feel, listen and respond to a wound, it leads to joy as healing happens. When we resonate with joy, we become and remain open. Being open, our hearts are full.

Related:

Is Your Heart a Walled Garden?

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There are really only two choices we have once wounding occurs.

1. Open to it.
2. Close to it.

The norm is to close to it. This is the well-worn path. We think this will prevent us feeling the pain there. Keeping it secret means others won’t know. We can bypass it and keep moving. As long as we maintain composure, we will be fine.

This mode of thinking is erroneous. If our heart is wounded and we wall it up, the wound has nowhere to go.

Let’s address what a ‘wound’ is before continuing. A wound is a trauma or hurt that has left a ‘scar’.

Physically we understand how this happens and what it is. Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually it’s much less clear. The wounds our psyche carries are stumbling blocks, confusing and diminishing us in so many ways.

It’s important to realize that the hurt or trauma doesn’t need to be ‘big’ to leave its mark. The normal thinking is: My life’s been fairly normal, nothing disastrous has happened to me, I have a good family and friends, I must be okay.

The truth is birth leads to wounding. This can’t be avoided, nor should it be. Being born into the world comes with suffering. Whether it’s big or small, suffering is inherent to life.

Suffering is the shadow of divine light, and its embedded divinity inspires the ultimate harmony.

— T. Byram Karasu

The light always permeates. If our heart is walled in, there will be unneeded friction. What’s walled in is often minimized. We have a way of taking pain for granted that ends up hurting us even more. Rather than feel pain, we hide it. It’s easier to be numb when the pain is put away. But it doesn’t go away. Little woundings accumulate because they’re not acknowledged and processed. These add up to big woundings. Actual large woundings don’t even have a chance if the little ones aren’t handled.

We have to form the habit of noticing hurt as it occurs and not put bricks around it. We also have to sit with the hurt, be with the hurt. This is perhaps more important than even noticing the hurt, because eventually the hurt will demand notice. That’s why suffering and brickwork don’t go well together! We can hide pain all we want, build all kinds of structures over and around it, its going to find ways to get your attention, and tenaciously. This is so for our own good.

A lot of scarring can actually be prevented by our advocacy for ourselves regarding the hurts life has in store. This means being and remaining open. It means bringing down the walls we’ve raised around our wounded heart, to let the light of healing enter. We can protect our heart better by opening it. The more we defend our heart, the more we have to defend it. Let’s open it instead. Then we can place appropriate boundaries.

If you let your heart be moved, be open to the risk and the adventure of feelings, letting them work through to completion, you will change.  Tears turn into smiles, anger into embraces.

— Gabrielle Roth

Keeping our suffering locked away gives it no breathing room to be transformed. It also gives us too much familiarity with it, familiarity without distance. We become embroiled with our wounds and this kind of familiarity leads to the notion that the hurt is ours: “This pain belongs to me. It’s mine.”

We’re responsible for how we respond to life’s unsavory offerings, but these hurts aren’t personal. When pain is personalized, it becomes much more solid and real to us. We believe it belongs.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

We can’t make suffering our biography. We’re vaster than our biography, and even within the scope of it we’re multifaceted, with many other strong storylines that are enriched by wounds, but not defined by them.

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Research from HeartMath tells us that the heart:

1. Is the most powerful generator of electromagnetic energy in the body.
2. The magnetic field produced by the heart is more the 5000 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain.
3. The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain.
4. The heart’s electromagnetic field not only envelops every cell of the body, but also extends out in all directions into the space around us.

In fact, a large percentage (60-65) of the heart’s cells are neural cells. This means they are exactly the same kind as those found in the brain, and function in exactly the same ways.

The heart has it own intrinsic nervous system that operates and processes information independently of the brain. The heart communicates with the brain and the body in four ways:

1. Neurological communication (nervous system)
2. Biophysical communication (pulse wave)
3. Biochemical communication (hormones)
4. Energetic communication (electromagnetic fields)

The heart communicates with the brain in ways that significantly affect how we perceive and react to the world. The heart and the brain ‘talk’ to one another — and together they ‘talk’ with the body. The heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.

— HeartMath research

What this translates to is that when we cultivate and generate positive feelings, the signals the heart sends to the brain are changed. In turn the brain perceives differently, and our feelings improve. This is significant as it is. It’s also significant spiritually. Many, many spiritual truths conveyed by a variety of teachings have been telling us the same:

Our traits—the way we relate to the world and to our own mind—are the result of the accumulation of countless thoughts and emotions. By transforming the content of these thoughts and emotions, nurturing wholesome states of mind—such as altruistic love and compassion—and using antidotes against afflictive states of mind—such as animosity, obsession, and envy—we can gradually change our way of being, in the same way we usually acquire new skills.

— Matthieu Ricard

Mental and feeling qualities are often clustered. Wisdom and compassion go hand in hand, as does love and healing. Fear clusters with resistance, and lack of empathy with selfishness. What lives together, grows together (remember the constant loop between the heart and the brain). Negative or suffering-causing human qualities can be transformed and wholesome ones can be cultivated and established.

“Heart-based living empowers co-creation with others for the benefit of all and can create rapid, positive global change.” — Doc Childre

The whole picture is yet more intricate and revealing:

The neural connections to the brain from the heart cannot be turned off; information is always flowing between two. The heart is, in fact, directly wired into the central nervous system and brain, interconnected with the amygdala, thalamus, hippocampus, and cortex. These four brain centers are primarily concerned with

1. emotional memories and processing;
2. sensory experience;
3. memory, spatial relationships, and the extraction of meaning from sensory inputs from the environment; and
4. problem solving, reasoning, and learning….

The heart, which possesses the same kind of neurons as the brain, stores memories. These memories affect consciousness and behavior, how we perceive the world. They most often have to do with specific emotional experiences and the meaning embedded within them. The more intense the emotional experience, the more likely it will be stored by the heart as memory.

— Stephen Harrod Buhner

Because the heart stores memories and because it stores the ones with greater emotional charge more readily, the opening and healing of the heart takes on new meaning and significance. If the brain is plastic, i.e., malleable the heart is ‘openable.’ An open heart is not clustered with resentments, dramas and darkness. It lets light in, the light of understanding, forgiveness, and love. The heart can be moved, it can be persuaded to leave its entrenched position.

Opening the heart is an act of courage. Courage comes before healing and love nourishes courage. We have to occupy our heart wholly and unequivocally. This tells the rest of our body and being that a new harmony is being established. Since the heart’s energy is global (it radiates out and beyond), once the heart heals, the human heals.

An open heart breathes. Each breath exchanges vital meaning with its host, and its natural and social environment. The heart receives, perceives and also informs other hearts. An open heart has an affirming relationship with Life and enriches all aspects being.

All healing is first a healing of the heart. — Carl Townsend

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There are many practical applications of Reiki that come in very handy in daily living. Apart from Reiki’s core features, benefits and practices, its given daily uses and the ways in which the practitioner can be creative with challenges that come up, all make Reiki a powerful and wonderful accompaniment to life. Reiki isn’t relegated only to one’s spirituality, although it certainly shines there.

To illustrate, here’s a Reiki story I recently received from one of the practitioners I’ve trained:

One of the lawyers at the office called me last week to ask me to help him get ready for trial and sit at trial with him in a very complicated case coming to trial Monday. I embarked on the task as I had just put into the Universe a couple of month ago that I was a bit bored working from home and I wished I could do something more mentally challenging, at least on sporadic basis. So needless to say, I knew this was coming.

I am not going to get into the details of how complicated this case is as I am still learning them and I will be working all weekend. But I can tell you that I was warned that the client is a very difficult person to say the least… extremely problematic and confrontational which makes it much worse as he just speaks his mind, even when advised otherwise by his lawyer. Two lawyers have already withdrawn from the case for this reason.

We had mediation today and I met him and his partner for the first time so I prepared myself emotionally and spiritually. Needless to say, upon our meeting I began to silently REIKI him. I also spoke to him and I explained that he needed to be calm, regardless what opposing counsel said and that I was going to hold his hand through the process.

I Reiki’d him through the process and although the case did not resolve and we are starting trial on Monday, he did not even move. He was calm, he was positive and extremely cooperative.

To my surprise, I just got an email from the lawyer sent by the client literally thanking him for getting me involved in the case, and the fact that I will be at the trial makes him feel very calm and positive, and that he can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel regardless of the outcome.

Is this amazing Pamir? I am so GRATEFUL that I can make a difference in someone’s life. And in turn I want to thank you.

— B.R., Miami, Florida

Yes, it’s amazing and it also isn’t. This is a naturally available result with Reiki. What’s worth mentioning is that such uses of Reiki often require extra intention, focus, presence and awareness, and equanimity from us as practitioners. It’s straightforward to practice Reiki at home in silence. It isn’t so straightforward in the hustle and bustle of life, or in contentious situations.

The Reiki Stories Project is open to anyone who’s had a significant experience with Reiki, as a recipient and/or practitioner. All the previous stories in the collection are from practitioners I’ve trained, but anyone can submit a story using the contact form here. You can find previous stories here. This one will be at the top so scroll down to see the others.

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In Asian languages, the word for ‘mind’ and the word for ‘heart’ are the same word. So when we hear the word ‘mindfulness,’ we have to inwardly also hear ‘heartfulness’ in order to grasp it even as a concept, and especially as a way of being. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The heart in this case isn’t the physical organ of the heart. It’s a wonderful organ and much more than a ‘pump’ as it’s been understood by medicine for the longest time.

The Heart is a vital space of our being. It’s central to our human expression on Earth and our spirituality both here and beyond. The Heart is a space of loving in the divine sense, and intuiting in the deepest sense.

In the Heart space we’re able to embrace life in all its permutations and remain open. If we’ve settled into the vastness of Heart space, little, dark emotions don’t cling. We still feel them, and this is important acknowledgment, but like the sky which isn’t limited by clouds, the Heart breathes air and gives us context and perspective.

Every time someone throws their emotions at you it is a test for you to see if you can maintain the love within you that is the core essence of your being. — Anthousa Helena

The Heart breathes living spiritual resources such as:

• love
• understanding
• relatedness
• compassion
• mercy
• joy
• courage
• strength
• power

It’s a rich field, wide-ranging and fruitful.

May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Awakening can only really happen in the Heart. The Heart has the kind of specialized intelligence and refinement to utterly transform us. We don’t really change our mind on the very important things; we change our Heart.

An understanding dawns in Heart that’s real. The mind goes through changes too but often it’s hesitant, indecisive, muddy or it vacillates. It can become stable, there’s that opportunity, but usually not on its own. The mind is also not limited to the cognitive functions of the brain. That’s the most common association, but mind belongs to realms other than our egoic existence in a physical world. Certainly there’s a mind in the cranium. There’s also a mind that’s timeless and nonlocal.

People pursue spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is attained through the heart. What do I mean by the heart? Is it the nervous center in the midst of the breast, the small piece of flesh that doctors call the heart? No, the definition of the heart is that it is the depth of the mind, the mind being the surface of the heart. That in us which feels is the heart, that which thinks is the mind. It is the same thing which thinks and feels, but the direction is different: feeling comes from the depth, thought from the surface.

— Hazrat Inayat Khan

Let’s look into what the Sufi master is saying above. Firstly it upends our individual and societal notion that a thought-first approach to life is the most wise. It also puts into proper perspective the truth that we can’t divorce feeling from thought. Notice it’s “feeling” and not emotion. (Learn more about this here.) And feeling and thought are essentially the same; only the depth is different.

We may have a thought about what to have for breakfast without much consequence if it doesn’t come from a great depth. The same isn’t true when considering the great questions and choices of life. It’s especially challenging when we deny the spiritual dimension of life, or attempt to connect with our spirituality without feeling, with only a dry, mental reasoning.

Thought divorced from feeling is a recipe for all the ills we currently witness in society. It’s a unsavory recipe for own lives as well. This recipe leaves out a key ingredient: The input of the Heart.

In the spiritual traditions of India, as elsewhere, the ‘heart’ refers not so much to the physical organ as to a psychospiritual structure corresponding to the heart muscle on the material plane. This spiritual heart is celebrated by yogins and mystics as the seat of the transcendental Self. It is called hrid, hridaya, or hrit-padma (‘heart lotus’). It is often referred to as the secret ‘cave’ (guha) in which the yogin must restrain his mind.

— Georg Feurstein

The Heart space is an entirely human experience. Every layer of our human experience is lived in the Heart space. The emotional heart is where we sense, hold and process emotions that accompany the act of living and interpersonal relationships. While emotions are valuable and bring a richness to our existence, this is also the origin of our wounding in most cases. Whether our wounds are big or small, being circumscribed by emotions is to remain unawakened to the greater field that’s available.

The organ of the heart is a huge part of our physical lives. Its physiological function can be seen as life itself. And currently there are major developments in measuring and understanding the heart’s electromagnetic power and benefits (click to learn more).

The ‘spiritual’ Heart is the field which gives both the physical and emotional heart a home. Its greatest power is as a standalone field of consciousness. When our emotional lives heal, a gateway opens to the actual Heart, the portal that’s patiently there for us, ready to gift the greatest treasures of the spiritual life. This is where the resources listed above reside and where we can both engage and embody them. The Heart is both beyond and here. It’s timeless and in time; practical and eternal.

It’s highly recommended that you also read this previous post: Awareness: Journey into the Heart-Mind.

When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be. When the heart opens, everything matters, and this world and the next become one and the same.

— Roger Housden

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