"Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts."
---Marianne Williamson
"1. Honor your enemies. It is they who make you strong and wise. (But see #4.)
2. Define your own reality. Let no one tell you what to think, how to act, nor how you are supposed to feel.
3. The heart cannot be broken. Only the barriers that protect the heart from the pain of life can be broken. Although never sought, heartache can be seen as a deep opening of the heart.
4. Do not be kind. Honor the love you shared; be decent in all your actions, but recognize that in these circumstances, kindness is a lie.
5. Cut all energetic bonds between you. They can be used to manipulate you and hurt you further. If there is to be reconciliation, let it be from new material, not the re-engagement of the previous energies.
6. Think of yourself first for one full year; beginning right now.
7. Let go. Give up. Die. (But don't really kill yourself, please!) The earth will recycle you. Lay down on her and pour your pain into her. Envision yourself as a dead body. Let yourself be eaten by the beetles and worms and excreted as manure for the plants which are eaten by people like you. It all goes round, so let go. Let go of blame. Let go of shame. Let go of guilt.
8. Smile. Even if you don't feel like it. Smiling--the actual tightening of the muscles involved in making a smile--causes the release of feel-good chemicals (endorphins) in the brain. When in pain, remember, smiling is more effective than drinking or drugs."
---Susun Weed
"Realize now that when your heart breaks you have to fight like hell to make sure you are still alive… because you are, and that pain you feel is life. The confusion and fear? That is there to remind you that somewhere out there is something better, and that something is worth fighting for."
----Unknown
"Pain is important; how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it. "
---Audre Lorde
"I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all the we can be. A longing for what is real. "
---Anne Hillman
"Know that there's enough room for everyone to be passionate, creative and successful. In fact, there's more than room for everyone;there is a need for everyone."
---Marianne Williamson
“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”
---Rumi
"He knows that you can't force an understanding. You have to let it happen. It has to coalesce, not unlike love or pudding, he supposes. You stir and stir and watch the bubbles break the surface, you wait and keep the perfect heat underneath it and if you are very patient it finally, suddenly thickens up, silky shiny smooth as if to say, 'This is what I was always meant to be. Thank you for waiting. You may now lick the spoon'."
---Unknown
"You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it!"
---Sai Baba
"'Discipline' is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won't do it. But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience."
---Henepola Gunaratana
"The challenge of the path of joy is to create freedom. True joy comes from operating with Inner-Directedness and recognizing who you are."
---Unknown
Who AM I? What AM I all about? This past year has been a series of lessons in my authentic self. It started with learning how to ground. I met a man by happenstance who "came to me" in the form of a massage therapist/craniosacral worker. [I, of course, had to break the rules and try to get to know him personally. And I suppose I have to some degree. But, I can definately say it has not been easy.]
After the first session, the therapist adamently stated that I needed to work on grounding at least three times a day. I was tickled. The circumstance in which he connected to me in that session was my high cycle phase. I am sure my body was quite interesting to work with like that. [And startling!] My body is quite mystical, quite energetic during that type of phase.
Over the years, I have gotten used to my unusual body rhythms. Average human beings scarcely experience the kind of highs and lows I experience regularly. [My ex-boyfriend used to say I touched the gods!] And when I experience my highs, they often surface as hypomanic periods. In other words, I flit dit into heavenly zones of psychic awareness again and again.
For many years, I didn't understand that others could not relate to the speed ridden thoughts and feelings that I took for granted. I just knew I would skip from brainstorm to brainstorm and I thought people could follow along. I refer to this extreme rhythm as "quantum leap" thinking.
Eventually I sensed disparity between my mind and the minds other people. And so, in order to compensate for the odd kind of mental distances I would leap, I learned how to "leap and return to the original thought" so people could "get me." I would draw mental and verbal lines from the conclusions and the initial "visions" in order for the thoughts to be understandable to each by-stander.
[When I am seriously ill, I just keep skipping and skipping until nothing makes any sense. Sometimes I can create amazing thoughts/materializations during my manias---especially when I tear and save magazine pages that I "relate" to in some way. Usually, however, I just randomly flip from mental and/or emotional correlation to mental and/or emotional correlation creating a mass of confusing ideas and feelings. And my body becomes quite ill as well. For example, I cease to sleep. My organs have to work double time. My heart feels like it wants to explode.]
When the massage therapist spoke earnestly to me about grounding, I was inspired. I don't know why. I just felt like one of my "magic buttons" was depressed. Suddenly, without warning, I heard the sound of my inner self bellowing forth. I was awakened to a need of mine, and I reached to fill it. I instantly affiliated my mind with many, many parts of myself. And I felt a strong desire to ground.
It was a funny night. I remember "flying" through my session, enamored by the power of the man who worked upon my musculoskeletal system. Minute after minute I watched my body from above the table. Simultaneously, I, also, saw the universe through my mind's eye. I enjoyed the visions I had, and I equated each of them to the therapist's inquiry to work with my Highest Self. It was very thrilling. I wanted more! And so I went for more.
I created a book on grounding so that I could further understand the process.
Step by step I began to sense my ability to ground. For nearly a decade, I felt like I was at the mercy of my crazy mind. I knew very little hope. I felt trapped in my despair. Within weeks, I learned I had so much empowerment to "remain" on planet earth [to remain in my health-conscious self]. I discovered a method to manage the racing thoughts. I gained a new perspective regarding my diagnosis (At that time as well, I, ironically [or maybe not], briefly acquired a new physician that changed all my meds around.) of Bipolar Disorder. And, I was given an intangible gift that said to me, "You can do this! This is completely different than you think it is. Trust me. Trust me."
And so I trusted the voice of the gift. I believed things could be very different. And they have been.
With the grounding ability, came my sense of authentic self. This new self had been growing in me for a few years. Grounding enabled it to manifest liberally. I felt strongly that I could be all that I wanted to be. The chakra system aligned up my spinal column. I was becoming the wholeness I read about and desired with all of my heart.
Obviously, this has been a process---a journey. But knowing my ground, I realize that every moment in the process has been needed and necessary. The pain I have lived with and suffered through has become a reasonable aspect of living. And that gives me great amounts of comfort.
People rarely recognize their place, their important influence in others' lives. My friend the massage therapist just went to work one day. He did his job. That was it. But for me, that day was life changing. And that was a massage appointment for goodness sake! Yet, that evening, I felt and knew something I never imagined existed. I found a new path; one that would lead me into dazzling discoveries within my own body-mind.
Similarly, I worked in a cardiac intensive care waiting room a few years ago. I learned during that experience, that if I smiled, I could turn somebody's whole life around. This is my life's desire...to be a part of the glory of our life Source..daily. To share in the breath of the universe's soul. I want to feel the gratitude of living each and every second I walk upon this earth. Because I long deep within to live as I have always been meant to live! I am a Divine child. I want to believe it. I AM the spirit of God incarnate and true. Each piece of me was created from That which I worship---That which I know. My body-mind is full of mysteries. I cherish each one. I desire to awaken the farthest recesses of my heart. There is the Truth that calls each one of us day after day after day. There is everlasting, unconditional Love.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
"Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing." ---Abraham.Hicks
"Every man is a channel through which heaven floweth."
---Ralph Waldo Emerson
"You are not creating through action, therefore effort and energy and time are irrelevant. You are creating vibrationally through energy which gives you huge leverage. So you could create hundreds of things simultaneously because you did the Step 1 - the asking - incrementally.
You didn't just today set forth all of those things in motion. You've been setting them in motion, they've been evolving, they've been expanding and now you have done Step 1 - you've already asked.
Step 2...source has already answered that, so everything's already lined up and in place. So your work is to pick anything from among that that delights you, give it your attention, not because it needs your attention but because it feels good to give it your attention. Use it as your excuse to come into alignment with who you are and when you are in alignment with who you are, all of those things that you have already put over there in vibrational escrow begin expanding, evolving.
You do not have to orchestrate the path through which things unfold. It's all tended to at a broader level.You just have to get out of the way so that you can see the opportunities as they come."
---Abraham-Hicks
"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our or other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open."
---Shakti Gawain
"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: 'Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win...channel your energy. Focus."
---Carl Lewis
"Goals help you channel your energy into action."
---Les Brown
"If you dam a river it stagnates. Running water is beautiful water. So be a channel."
---English Proverb
"Become one with the person, then heal yourself." ---Dr. Eric Pearl
I am slowly learning about the body, the ego, the being, and God. Two weekends ago I attended a course called, Energetic Transformations. I was, of course, enraptured with much of it. The course was an opening to wholeness. It was a place to connect me with healing---for myself and for others.
I was diagnosed with a chronic illness 16 years ago. I have spent my adult life trying to contend with the diagnosis and the disease. It has not been easy. Many times it has been relatively deadly.
When I was 21, after two back to back hospitalizations, I was handed a prescription drug, I was told to never cease taking the pills or things would get worse, and I was informed that having children would probably never be an option.
Years later, when I was 27, I had become very wrapped up in the charismatic Christian Church. God was my answer for everything. I urgently sought Him to find myself and to escape doom and gloom.
As I lived through that phase of my life, I must have heard people say I was possessed at least a dozen times. In addition, I must have heard as many times if not more that I just needed faith to overcome my illness. It was so troubling, and altogether, too influential for a young woman just grappling to understand her broken body-mind. What did I really know about anything at that point in the game of life?
Driven by my passions for God, love, healing and evangelism, I went overseas to do missionary work. My faith soared!!! However, my meds got all messed up in the translation between countries; my new doctor knew little to nothing about Bipolar Disorder; I, also, knew little about my diagnosis; the East-West time difference dinked my circadian rhythms; and I got very sick and was hospitalized.
Like 1992, that time frame radically shifted my paradigm. When I returned to the United States, I was holding onto my life by a thread. For quite awhile, I tried to maintain my focus on "God as everything;" and then finally...I just let go. The "everything" module was too heavy for me. I had become very fragile in both body and mind. There was nothing that I could consciously do to retain my faith. I tried and tried. In the end, the frayed "silver cord" snapped. I lost MY life. I lost MY world. I just began to float.
I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I was nearly on empty. I stopped praying. I stopped believing. And I just WAS. It was then that I met a man filled with beautifully dark thoughts and feelings. He was a great poet. A spirit of the night. His name was Chris. Without thought, my heart swelled and I "blew him a breath of fresh air." He latched onto it and onto me. We instantly became one in every way I knew how. We became one in every way he knew how. [That is saying A LOT!!!]
We lived FOR one another for quite sometime. My illness sky-rocketed as we "shared" a life. Our relationship came apart from the constant strain of our "togetherness" orientation. We needed to part, and so, we did. It was desperately hard.
Yet, despite our heart-wrenching, emotional break up, I know that everything I now study, I first learned from him. He was gifted in many ways. He was self made and very inspirational. He hadn't known safety/security since he was four years old. As a result, he showed me paths I never knew existed. [His genius stemmed from his ability to reinvent himself as necessary. He was (is) a phoenix that rose again and again from the ashes.] I am very thankful for him to this day.
I suppose it is quite interesting that I now work to know myself in order to know God. My being is a channel for the God force called Love. My heart disperses the love into the various parts of me and then pours it out into the surrounding universe. It is our unique hearts that are the vessels that foster our ability to give and receive. We all have the capacity to love fully and completely. Many times, however, we are unaware of such capacity. Perhaps we were educated to disbelieve in ourselves, or perhaps something more aggressive such as abuse is responsible for the unawareness.
Chris and I's break up taught me the importance of loving myself first. I, literally, almost had to die to realize the everlasting aspect of my Highest Self. Chris and I's relationship showed me that God is inside and outside my body-mind all at once. It is a funny thing. I had a head knowledge of the inside-outside thing, but it took the experience of denying that which is within to enable me to understand the power of God's omnipresent being.
I opened many new doors after the break with Chris. I was hungry. I didn't know for what. A friend introduced me to yoga. The first class I took was about four years ago. I heard the word, Namaste. I did not repeat the word initially. I had no idea what I was saying, and I still held SOME of my Christian ideologies fairly firmly. My teacher---that I really loved---noticed I wasn't saying anything. She explained Namaste meant, "The Divine in Me Worships the Divine in You" (I have since heard slight variations).
I felt deeply connected to the phrase the first time my teacher explained its meaning. While many Christians would keel over and die at such a statement, I felt whole. It was as though the cascading Holy Spirit in the shape of a descending dove re-entered my heart and grew into the personification of God, Jesus Christ, sitting upon the throne in the holiest of holies [right next to God the Father]. It was astoundingly beautiful! It was masterfully powerful. I felt one with the Almighty. And that oneness was filled with the most sublime and humble feeling love.
My heart was the place of complete reverence. Diety was perfect. Diety was a graceful given. Each person IS Divine within. WOW!!!
The heart of man is what the title of this blog speaks about when it says the Energy of our Source. As we open ourselves to the Divine within each of us, we open our hearts to love. Yes, you can reach outside yourself to find and know God. He is, afterall, everywhere. He knows how different we all are. He knows our individual needs and desires. But, speaking from my own personal experience, the most direct and constant route to God is going inside myself, determining what is love and what it is not, and then living that love as fully as possible. I still use Christ as the model for love. In my mind, He is the most perfect personfication of Love. You, however, may know another model much better. A model that is more comfortable for you. It is of no matter. Any which way you look at it, Love is God. Believe that and a world "resembling" heaven is at your footsteps.
If we wake each day to the knowing of love, we will grow immeasurably. I no longer believe in the apocalyptic Revelation in the Protestant text. Rather, I believe in God's eternal love. He alone is constant.
Each new day I get closer and closer to an understanding that mankind was designed to be completely cherished. I know it can be difficult sometimes to see that or to feel it. But, as I study the examples of love throughout history, I become more sure that man has distorted God's Word. [OSHO in a discussion regarding Tantra said that the priest and the politician have created a world free of holistic and sensual love. Their creations empower their own agendas, and at the same time, disempower the natural inclinations of man. As a result, man becomes dependent on the priest and the politician. {How powerful is that???} Man divorces himself from his own body---his temple.] Just as the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Christian Bible distorted God's messages because of their own wants, I believe the "concept of love" has been pulled and pushed and dissected until it is no longer easily visible or tangible to the average human being.
To me, nothing is higher than love. And, I believe, love is encapsulated in each man's being. It is unfortunate that people are caught up in rules, regulations and dogmas. [I have certainly been there!!!] If you look into the eyes of a newborn, you will know love in its purest form. People are drawn to the "innocence" of children. But more importantly, people instinctively sense the power of God in the newborn's countenance. There is little distance between God and a baby.
We all grow out of our most natural love for God as we age. We become an individual and we know solitude. This is all good. It is part of the Divine plan. But, it is, also, the Divine plan for each of us to choose God's love. For some it takes a lifetime. For others, who knows. I have only experienced my own story. And I am just beginning to really understand that!
I have struggled with my life quite a bit. I scarcely felt God in my life from 17-21. I was angry. I felt abandoned to my crazy home life. I found the Christian Church deplorable. I went hog wild (well, not really, but I sure thought I did).
When I discovered my chronic illness in 1992, I returned to the Church as a zealot. I was terrified. I felt wicked and sinful. In my mind, I NEEDED to repent like wild fire. As I hyper-focused on God every minute that passed, I rarely felt the grave depressions I once had known throughout high school and college. Depressions that would foster suicidal ideations and actions. Yet, I, also, failed to notice the frequent dramatic "highs" known as hypo-mania. The charismatic church helped me to see each "high" as a mystical moment. And, I suppose it was. [After many years, I have finally come to realize that every ounce of my being---"Bipolar diagnosis" aspect and all---is a valid experience of who I AM.]
The last few years of my life, I have explored the chakra system as means to better health. Chakras are not integral aspects of religions. However, they are spiritual centers; and, some religions recognize them and use them to practice their traditions. Chakras are energy vortices. They are metaphysical wheels that run up and down the energetic spinal column and allow the flow of energy . There are minor chakras involving the nadis and meridians.
Through the chakra system, I have come to realize the natural flow of energy. My youthful experiences caused my first three chakras to be damaged. [I had no clue!!!] As a result, I had a tendency to "hang out" in my top two chakras (the crown and the third eye). The crown is the spiritual gateway. The third eye is heavily connected to the mind's eye.
Growing up, I did not like to be grounded because my experiences with "grounding" felt dangerous and scary. Really, though, nothing could be further from the truth. The first chakra is the chakra that relates safety and security. It is the energy center that identifies one with his/her family of origin. If one is grounded, one can manifest one's desires and beliefs. If one is not grounded, all sorts of negative consequences can befall the body. We are meant to be grounded to the earth so that the power of the planet can run through us and move out to the universe in a healthy, positive manner. Earth and sky are one just as we are one with the universe. The energy of the universe is the energy we are to use daily. If we do not absorb from the universal supply, we will experience problems as well.
As I have begun to learn how to ground successfully, I am starting to recognize the subtle distinctions of the energy body and what it can do if it is healthy. I can refine my health as I understand what I am feeling and experiencing. As I accurately sense myself, I will know how to rectify blocked, closed, or hyper chakras. It is exciting and empowering.
If we run the universal energy up and down our chakra system, our ability to perceive and know love is vastly improved. The heart chakra is the central chakra. It guides the energies of the universe into the feeling and knowing of love. The fourth chakra connects us to everyone and everyone to us. Imagine what occurs if this energy is blocked, closed or hyper active.
Many hyper-spiritual people do not understand how problematic their beliefs and actions are for their bodies. Often people ask to transcend pain and difficulty. This is not healthy for the body. Instead, it is important to allow the body to work through pain and difficulty. The body will remain grounded. the pain will be diminished one bit at a time. Skipping chakra centers can open the body to various forms of decay and/or illness. The body is meant to operate as a whole unit. I have been learning this lesson slowly but surely. To learn more about the chakras, read Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith.
My focus is love. In order to do this effectively, I must make my body health a practice. The body is a temple. It houses the God within. Each person on the planet has access to the God within. There is nothing super spiritual that must be attained in order to locate "the door" to God. One need only be aware of his/her options and then go within. A love that is unimaginable awaits us all. Don't believe those who speak about fear and finality. God is infinite. You, also, are infinite. Believe in your power to know, feel and give love. You are the House of the Great Shepherd. He loses no one, because all are His. Always!
As I learn what loving IS, I reach out to your heart and invite you in. You are my focal point. You are love.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson
"You are not creating through action, therefore effort and energy and time are irrelevant. You are creating vibrationally through energy which gives you huge leverage. So you could create hundreds of things simultaneously because you did the Step 1 - the asking - incrementally.
You didn't just today set forth all of those things in motion. You've been setting them in motion, they've been evolving, they've been expanding and now you have done Step 1 - you've already asked.
Step 2...source has already answered that, so everything's already lined up and in place. So your work is to pick anything from among that that delights you, give it your attention, not because it needs your attention but because it feels good to give it your attention. Use it as your excuse to come into alignment with who you are and when you are in alignment with who you are, all of those things that you have already put over there in vibrational escrow begin expanding, evolving.
You do not have to orchestrate the path through which things unfold. It's all tended to at a broader level.You just have to get out of the way so that you can see the opportunities as they come."
---Abraham-Hicks
"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our or other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open."
---Shakti Gawain
"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: 'Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win...channel your energy. Focus."
---Carl Lewis
"Goals help you channel your energy into action."
---Les Brown
"If you dam a river it stagnates. Running water is beautiful water. So be a channel."
---English Proverb
"Become one with the person, then heal yourself." ---Dr. Eric Pearl
I am slowly learning about the body, the ego, the being, and God. Two weekends ago I attended a course called, Energetic Transformations. I was, of course, enraptured with much of it. The course was an opening to wholeness. It was a place to connect me with healing---for myself and for others.
I was diagnosed with a chronic illness 16 years ago. I have spent my adult life trying to contend with the diagnosis and the disease. It has not been easy. Many times it has been relatively deadly.
When I was 21, after two back to back hospitalizations, I was handed a prescription drug, I was told to never cease taking the pills or things would get worse, and I was informed that having children would probably never be an option.
Years later, when I was 27, I had become very wrapped up in the charismatic Christian Church. God was my answer for everything. I urgently sought Him to find myself and to escape doom and gloom.
As I lived through that phase of my life, I must have heard people say I was possessed at least a dozen times. In addition, I must have heard as many times if not more that I just needed faith to overcome my illness. It was so troubling, and altogether, too influential for a young woman just grappling to understand her broken body-mind. What did I really know about anything at that point in the game of life?
Driven by my passions for God, love, healing and evangelism, I went overseas to do missionary work. My faith soared!!! However, my meds got all messed up in the translation between countries; my new doctor knew little to nothing about Bipolar Disorder; I, also, knew little about my diagnosis; the East-West time difference dinked my circadian rhythms; and I got very sick and was hospitalized.
Like 1992, that time frame radically shifted my paradigm. When I returned to the United States, I was holding onto my life by a thread. For quite awhile, I tried to maintain my focus on "God as everything;" and then finally...I just let go. The "everything" module was too heavy for me. I had become very fragile in both body and mind. There was nothing that I could consciously do to retain my faith. I tried and tried. In the end, the frayed "silver cord" snapped. I lost MY life. I lost MY world. I just began to float.
I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I was nearly on empty. I stopped praying. I stopped believing. And I just WAS. It was then that I met a man filled with beautifully dark thoughts and feelings. He was a great poet. A spirit of the night. His name was Chris. Without thought, my heart swelled and I "blew him a breath of fresh air." He latched onto it and onto me. We instantly became one in every way I knew how. We became one in every way he knew how. [That is saying A LOT!!!]
We lived FOR one another for quite sometime. My illness sky-rocketed as we "shared" a life. Our relationship came apart from the constant strain of our "togetherness" orientation. We needed to part, and so, we did. It was desperately hard.
Yet, despite our heart-wrenching, emotional break up, I know that everything I now study, I first learned from him. He was gifted in many ways. He was self made and very inspirational. He hadn't known safety/security since he was four years old. As a result, he showed me paths I never knew existed. [His genius stemmed from his ability to reinvent himself as necessary. He was (is) a phoenix that rose again and again from the ashes.] I am very thankful for him to this day.
I suppose it is quite interesting that I now work to know myself in order to know God. My being is a channel for the God force called Love. My heart disperses the love into the various parts of me and then pours it out into the surrounding universe. It is our unique hearts that are the vessels that foster our ability to give and receive. We all have the capacity to love fully and completely. Many times, however, we are unaware of such capacity. Perhaps we were educated to disbelieve in ourselves, or perhaps something more aggressive such as abuse is responsible for the unawareness.
Chris and I's break up taught me the importance of loving myself first. I, literally, almost had to die to realize the everlasting aspect of my Highest Self. Chris and I's relationship showed me that God is inside and outside my body-mind all at once. It is a funny thing. I had a head knowledge of the inside-outside thing, but it took the experience of denying that which is within to enable me to understand the power of God's omnipresent being.
I opened many new doors after the break with Chris. I was hungry. I didn't know for what. A friend introduced me to yoga. The first class I took was about four years ago. I heard the word, Namaste. I did not repeat the word initially. I had no idea what I was saying, and I still held SOME of my Christian ideologies fairly firmly. My teacher---that I really loved---noticed I wasn't saying anything. She explained Namaste meant, "The Divine in Me Worships the Divine in You" (I have since heard slight variations).
I felt deeply connected to the phrase the first time my teacher explained its meaning. While many Christians would keel over and die at such a statement, I felt whole. It was as though the cascading Holy Spirit in the shape of a descending dove re-entered my heart and grew into the personification of God, Jesus Christ, sitting upon the throne in the holiest of holies [right next to God the Father]. It was astoundingly beautiful! It was masterfully powerful. I felt one with the Almighty. And that oneness was filled with the most sublime and humble feeling love.
My heart was the place of complete reverence. Diety was perfect. Diety was a graceful given. Each person IS Divine within. WOW!!!
The heart of man is what the title of this blog speaks about when it says the Energy of our Source. As we open ourselves to the Divine within each of us, we open our hearts to love. Yes, you can reach outside yourself to find and know God. He is, afterall, everywhere. He knows how different we all are. He knows our individual needs and desires. But, speaking from my own personal experience, the most direct and constant route to God is going inside myself, determining what is love and what it is not, and then living that love as fully as possible. I still use Christ as the model for love. In my mind, He is the most perfect personfication of Love. You, however, may know another model much better. A model that is more comfortable for you. It is of no matter. Any which way you look at it, Love is God. Believe that and a world "resembling" heaven is at your footsteps.
If we wake each day to the knowing of love, we will grow immeasurably. I no longer believe in the apocalyptic Revelation in the Protestant text. Rather, I believe in God's eternal love. He alone is constant.
Each new day I get closer and closer to an understanding that mankind was designed to be completely cherished. I know it can be difficult sometimes to see that or to feel it. But, as I study the examples of love throughout history, I become more sure that man has distorted God's Word. [OSHO in a discussion regarding Tantra said that the priest and the politician have created a world free of holistic and sensual love. Their creations empower their own agendas, and at the same time, disempower the natural inclinations of man. As a result, man becomes dependent on the priest and the politician. {How powerful is that???} Man divorces himself from his own body---his temple.] Just as the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Christian Bible distorted God's messages because of their own wants, I believe the "concept of love" has been pulled and pushed and dissected until it is no longer easily visible or tangible to the average human being.
To me, nothing is higher than love. And, I believe, love is encapsulated in each man's being. It is unfortunate that people are caught up in rules, regulations and dogmas. [I have certainly been there!!!] If you look into the eyes of a newborn, you will know love in its purest form. People are drawn to the "innocence" of children. But more importantly, people instinctively sense the power of God in the newborn's countenance. There is little distance between God and a baby.
We all grow out of our most natural love for God as we age. We become an individual and we know solitude. This is all good. It is part of the Divine plan. But, it is, also, the Divine plan for each of us to choose God's love. For some it takes a lifetime. For others, who knows. I have only experienced my own story. And I am just beginning to really understand that!
I have struggled with my life quite a bit. I scarcely felt God in my life from 17-21. I was angry. I felt abandoned to my crazy home life. I found the Christian Church deplorable. I went hog wild (well, not really, but I sure thought I did).
When I discovered my chronic illness in 1992, I returned to the Church as a zealot. I was terrified. I felt wicked and sinful. In my mind, I NEEDED to repent like wild fire. As I hyper-focused on God every minute that passed, I rarely felt the grave depressions I once had known throughout high school and college. Depressions that would foster suicidal ideations and actions. Yet, I, also, failed to notice the frequent dramatic "highs" known as hypo-mania. The charismatic church helped me to see each "high" as a mystical moment. And, I suppose it was. [After many years, I have finally come to realize that every ounce of my being---"Bipolar diagnosis" aspect and all---is a valid experience of who I AM.]
The last few years of my life, I have explored the chakra system as means to better health. Chakras are not integral aspects of religions. However, they are spiritual centers; and, some religions recognize them and use them to practice their traditions. Chakras are energy vortices. They are metaphysical wheels that run up and down the energetic spinal column and allow the flow of energy . There are minor chakras involving the nadis and meridians.
Through the chakra system, I have come to realize the natural flow of energy. My youthful experiences caused my first three chakras to be damaged. [I had no clue!!!] As a result, I had a tendency to "hang out" in my top two chakras (the crown and the third eye). The crown is the spiritual gateway. The third eye is heavily connected to the mind's eye.
Growing up, I did not like to be grounded because my experiences with "grounding" felt dangerous and scary. Really, though, nothing could be further from the truth. The first chakra is the chakra that relates safety and security. It is the energy center that identifies one with his/her family of origin. If one is grounded, one can manifest one's desires and beliefs. If one is not grounded, all sorts of negative consequences can befall the body. We are meant to be grounded to the earth so that the power of the planet can run through us and move out to the universe in a healthy, positive manner. Earth and sky are one just as we are one with the universe. The energy of the universe is the energy we are to use daily. If we do not absorb from the universal supply, we will experience problems as well.
As I have begun to learn how to ground successfully, I am starting to recognize the subtle distinctions of the energy body and what it can do if it is healthy. I can refine my health as I understand what I am feeling and experiencing. As I accurately sense myself, I will know how to rectify blocked, closed, or hyper chakras. It is exciting and empowering.
If we run the universal energy up and down our chakra system, our ability to perceive and know love is vastly improved. The heart chakra is the central chakra. It guides the energies of the universe into the feeling and knowing of love. The fourth chakra connects us to everyone and everyone to us. Imagine what occurs if this energy is blocked, closed or hyper active.
Many hyper-spiritual people do not understand how problematic their beliefs and actions are for their bodies. Often people ask to transcend pain and difficulty. This is not healthy for the body. Instead, it is important to allow the body to work through pain and difficulty. The body will remain grounded. the pain will be diminished one bit at a time. Skipping chakra centers can open the body to various forms of decay and/or illness. The body is meant to operate as a whole unit. I have been learning this lesson slowly but surely. To learn more about the chakras, read Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith.
My focus is love. In order to do this effectively, I must make my body health a practice. The body is a temple. It houses the God within. Each person on the planet has access to the God within. There is nothing super spiritual that must be attained in order to locate "the door" to God. One need only be aware of his/her options and then go within. A love that is unimaginable awaits us all. Don't believe those who speak about fear and finality. God is infinite. You, also, are infinite. Believe in your power to know, feel and give love. You are the House of the Great Shepherd. He loses no one, because all are His. Always!
As I learn what loving IS, I reach out to your heart and invite you in. You are my focal point. You are love.
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