Your heart center is one of the most amazing creations you could ever believe. It can literally lead you to a place within yourself and the universe that you simply did not know existed. Those are tall words, I know, but it is true. I am not talking syrupy sweetness, but a connection to a force that will leave you without words. In fact, for some who have experienced the profundity of a heart opening they can be left feeling at odd ends in a world like ours. I did.
But what it showed me was something so revolutionary that I was dumbfounded. When this event took place the first time, I was as I usually am with things like this; observing carefully. I don’t know what it is, perhaps it is the acceleration in consciousness that does this, but it seems as though I am operating on multiple channels at once. That might sound a bit hard to wrap your head around, but I have observed that when we shift focus from our normal way of being a LOT can be experienced in a VERY short period of time. As if time is slowed down even as it flows at normal speed. Perhaps as though some part of me steps out of ordinary earthly time and can spend a lot of “time” observing what is taking place. And what have I found?
I have found that these heart openings, which some call union with the divine, are a matter of our choice. This is not a mental choice that we make, but a deep fundamental one, and as a result is less about thinking as it is with feeling. And for me, it was like being taken by the divine. The only way this could have happened the way it did was that I had had enough experiences with my own inner yin or divine feminine. The level of receptivity and willingness to take something within myself is something that quite honestly was not part of my functional framework as a male. Wasn’t I the initiating energy? Well yes. But there is way more to these experiences than that. Without the receptive inward flowing energy of the feminine I don’t know I would have been able to feel this in the way I did.
But it was a choice. Something inside of me just opened up. Completely. In one case I was skimming a book online about Nondual Saivism called The Triadic Heart Of Siva. What was so interesting was that right after I had the first opening in a spontaneous way, the book went on to begin to describe openings of the heart, something I had never heard of before. It was as though in that moment something in me anticipated this and then experienced it. It is as though something was telling me I didn’t need a book to tell me how this was done. This repeated itself later the same day. The physical result was that I felt my body arch upward and my head flew back uncontrollably. It was such a powerful feeling I could not help but react in this way. This is not something I would call a kriya (involuntary movement) in the typical sense, but is itself a natural response we all seem to have when experiencing such powerful flows of divine energy.
the first initiation into these heart openings happened early one morning when a being came into my room who announced that his name was Sandalphon and that he was a Seraphim. He reached into my heart center and pulled out what felt like a body….a body without bones. Yes, I know, that is kind of weird. However, the feeling was incredibly vivid, which helped to highlight what then took place, which was that a major clearing had taken place in my body. All through my upper torso I felt a sense of clarity and lack of clutter. I had a distinct sensation of two spots in my upper lungs that felt as though something had been pulled away. It was tender. The tender spot was at my back near my shoulder blades. I was told by this being that he was going to take this dark mass of energy and show it to “Source.”
Over the course of a few days this being showed up again and explained that he had been my protector, showing me an image of himself as he appeared to me over 20 years ago during a time when I was seeing him a lot during efforts I was making at the time to project consciousness from my body. I was at the time wanting to experience this with the thought that in so doing I could conquer fear of death. It seemed like a reasonable thing, like how the Tibetans have their Book Of the Dead to help prepare for life beyond the physical body. If you know me, you know that I have never been one to go in for angels. But here he was, showing up as unusually tall, stooping in order to stand in my bedroom. When I went online to type in his name, he was described as one of the tallest of the angels.
It would turn out that there is an account, nearly identical to my own that was written by a Christian mystic who lived in the 1500’s by the name of St. Teresa of Avila who had an experience with an angel who pulled her insides out of her while she was on fire with a “great love of God.” This angel took an arrow tipped in gold fire and plunged it into her heart whereupon he pulled out something that felt like her insides. Exactly! But only ONE account? Is that all?
Heart openings put us in touch with our native ability to connect with the divine at a level that is difficult to even put into words. It is so singular an experience it is hard to square with anything else. I think if I was able to connect into that kind of energy on a more continual basis, I think that my process of inner cleansing would be so much the faster. But maybe the point is to catalyze us with these singular experiences to show us how we, as humans, can touch upon so much more.
So how? Surrender. A deep state of surrender that is complete and total. To do this requires that you let go of all fear, all resistance. Once this is overcome or released, little stands in the way. It is I think also the result of a deep desire to reconnect with this lost part of ourselves. It seems to require a willingness that goes from toe to crown, and something in you just opens up. The feeling in the heart is one of unusual expansiveness. The feeling I had in the back of my mind was “really? I am opening up THAT MUCH?” Yes. That much.
In the last few days I have been out with family kayaking one of the oldest rivers in the world that happens to snake its way through our region of the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies. So old, this river runs from south to north, a river whose bed was established long before the earth shifted its physical axis. We are kind of proud of her. And so it was that as my daughter and I stood skipping stones in the river I found a rock shaped perfectly into a heart. It reminded me of another event where every stone I picked up was heart shaped. The message then as now is that love is the single most important thing, and when we can go beyond the things that serve to limit us, what is left is without limit. Our concept of love also changes in the process. All of the little loves in our life….love of our job, family, hobbies, and more are like subsets of a larger canopy overarching all of these other perfectly valid forms of love…..a kind of BIG LOVE that is waiting for each and every one of us.
Waking The Infinite 