Longing is natural to us as humans. It is a mysterious gift hidden within each and every heart, although, until we are initiated into it’s mysteries, we may not feel it as a gift. It may feel more like a thorn or an un-healable wound. Longing is different, deeper in some way, at least for me, from wanting, desiring, or needing. It feels like it comes from my soul rather than my humanness. You may have a different experience of your longing…take a moment to reflect here, to feel your longing if it is present.
I have vivid memories of longing for my mother as a very young child. She had sent me to live with an aunt and uncle when I was less than three years old, and I never returned to her and my older sister, although I did visit them. As I got older, more aware of my situation, I would lie in my bed at night longing for her, for a sense of family. My little girl body ached with the longing that was always accompanied by deep sobbing and tears. After I started in St. Joseph’s Catholic School at six years old, I learned of the Blessed Mother and my longing shifted to Her and I became very devotional. I prayed, said rosaries, and made shrines to Her, begged Her with all of my heart to fulfill my longing to be with my mother, to be back with my family.
In those days in Catholic School, we were told many amazing stories about Mary, Jesus and the saints and their astounding miracles, healings, and extraordinary encounters with the numinous. These stories quickened my longing and shifted it to longing for the Mystery, longing to be touched, inflamed by the Mystery. I became very devoted to the Mystery from that time on, the forms and images of it shifting through the years.
Over my lifetime I have longed for various things: a sense of family, relationship, marriage, children, my own healing, a way to give and to serve, peace of mind and help for others, depending on where I was in my life’s journey and my spiritual awakening process. I have also longed for good chocolate when there was none around or for things to be different when I wasn’t happy with what is. For me, longing and devotion became interwoven and now I can’t feel any difference when I truly focus on the longing, no matter what the original object of it.
Longing can feel like a fire in the heart, a throbbing, endless ache, a bottomless chasm waiting to be filled. Sometimes the physical sensations of longing are very intense, very deep. Longing can appear as a subtle whisper, a feather lightly grazing our heart, or it can become a fierce burning in its insistence, especially when whom or what we long for appears to be, or truly is, unattainable.
We typically tend to focus our attention on the object of our longing, which could be a person, the holy, a physical object, an experience—the possibilities are endless. Even while longing seems so utterly rooted in our human relationships, the source of our longing is spiritual. Carl Jung wrote that our primary human instinct is ‘religious’ – from the Latin religio: to bind back to the source. Longing, no matter how it appears or what object we fixate our longing upon, has at the core of it the longing to go back to our Source, to the numinous.
So even while our longings may be attached to outer things, objects, at the core is the longing for contact with the Mystery, the Divine Beloved, Spirit. Mystics have known forever that it is through our longing that the Beloved calls to us, and longing is one of the ways that we call to the Beloved. This is so often reflected in our human love relationships.
In the secular world of conditioned mind and personality, we naturally focus on the objects of our longing rather than the longing itself. Doing Samyama has taught me to take my focus of attention away from the object, whatever it is, and place it into the longing itself.
Focused attention on the longing, in our heart, breathing into it, inviting it to be as big, as deep and intense as it needs to be, not thinking about or attending to the object of the longing, can open us to direct experience of the Mystery, the Silence within. It also bring a sustaining level of deep fulfillment that nothing on the outer level ever can. For me, diving into my longing when it arises, giving myself fully to feeling it directly, as I just described, is like going to a sacred spring of the clearest, most thirst-quenching water.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Love Dogs
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
In a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express is the return message.”
In a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
Draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs
No one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
-Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.
~Rumi
Our longing guards our mystery.
~Francis Bacon
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Message from the Hopi Elders
This was recently sent to me... see where it takes you.
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell people that THIS is the hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore,
Push off into the river.
Keep our eyes open,
And our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally,
Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey
Comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the One's we've been waiting for.
The EldersOraibi, ArizonaHopi Nation
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell people that THIS is the hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore,
Push off into the river.
Keep our eyes open,
And our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally,
Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey
Comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the One's we've been waiting for.
The EldersOraibi, ArizonaHopi Nation
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
What Do Our Hearts Have to Do with 2012?
There is so much talk about 2012 and shifting consciousness, and in the midst of the most astounding de-construction of life as we have known it. Some think 2012 will be another anti-climactic re-run of the milennium. Yet here we are, the ground of our lives is shaking and shifting, we can see and we are being affected by what is going on in the collective field, not to mention what may be de-constructing in our own lives, inner and outer. We are the collective field, we are participants as well as sacred witnesses. We are part of the holographic universe—what’s happening ‘out there’ is also happening within each of us, and what occurs within our own hearts affects what goes on ‘out there.’
There is no 'out there' and there is no 'then'--it's all here now. We are literally in a cosmic shift—an astronomical shift of the planet on its axis, as well as a shift of consciousness like no others witnessed by anyone alive on the planet now. Some say it began in 1987 with the Harmonic Convergence. I am just beginning to read up on what people are saying about 2012, and find i am most interested in the facts, the astronomical facts, the information about world ages that can be verified geologically, and also the ancient prophecies made and left to us by people who lived through the last shift of a world age. They left information for us and it's up to us to look at it and make choices about how we are going to go through this transition from one world age to another. Astrology tells us we are moving from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age. What does that mean? What is 2012? We are the ones at the cutting edge now, we are in the front row of what is unfolding. We are the ones to choose how we go through this death/birth on a personal and a collective level.
We are passing through the end of a world age, called a yuga in the Hindu tradition, and we are witnessing the de-construction and dissolution of old forms and structures in the outer world, as well as within ourselves and our own lives. In august 1936, Edgar Cayce, from one of his trance states said, “…there is a shifting of the pole. Or a new cycle begins.” The Maya and other Meso-American people have predicted this, with the Mayan calendar being a very clear physical ‘map’ of this event.
There is much chaos and fear in the collective planetary field, in the U.S., and perhaps in our own lives and hearts, as the ground we have known shakes with the tremors of big change and dissolution of the known. We are being affected by the economic crises, climate changes, natural disasters, the crisis in food production and famine, wars around the world, political and racial divisiveness in our own country and the world, the extinction of precious animals and sea life, diseases for which there are no cures, stress on our immune systems by so many toxins, the health care crisis, greed, deceit by government officials, inhumane acts, violence in our schools, churches and towns. The list seems endless, solutions can seem overwhelming or impossible, and yet, something else is happening, too, something really amazing, powerful, and quantumly unimaginable.
Our own lives may be turning upside down and inside out in ways we never imagined. These difficult times are forcing the realization that we are all inter-connected, we are each in the holographic food chain, affected by and affecting everything else. The Hindus call this cycle of darkness the Kali Yuga, and in their calculations it is actually short-lived compared to previous cycles. Some have called it a time of great purification, which is one way of looking at this stunning display of shadow and evil run amok.
Before shadow can be transmuted, it has to be revealed, seen and met, whether it’s collective or personal. What’s ‘out there’ is in here, too. How do we meet all of this in our own lives? How do we deal with our personal stuff and our participation, our contribution, to the hologram? To meet it with fear adds to the chaos. We can meet it from the Heart with compassion, gratitude, love, and tenderness, for ourselves as well as for others. Wise and holy people of all traditions are consistently saying that the way to meet what is happening, the way to find real solutions that serve all of humanity and the planet, is to open our Hearts, to learn to meet it with Heart. Love is the Medicine. Big Love.
The challenge and the opportunity for us is to access this Big Love. To do so requires that we be present to each moment, to each arising within our Heart, whatever it is, the holy or the horrible. We are called to meet our own shadow, the unwelcomed, unwanted, unloved parts of ourselves, the ‘me’ that we have hidden or denied, as well as the fears, anxieties, terrors, grief, and the breakdown of life as we have known it, from the Heart.
Heart is the magical vessel, the temple within, where the power of transmutation of shadow lies. It is also the portal to peace and non-dual awareness, wisdom, compassionate action, spaciousness, Silence. This can be directly experienced no matter what is happening in our lives or in the world. Peace and presence are a phenomenal contribution to the planetary hologram.
This is not fairy dust, as the Heart is truly an alchemical vessel, as many of us have experienced directly with Samyama over the last 16 years. It is also an unusual organ in our body with its own ‘brain’, its own neuronal circuitry and capacity to make decisions separate from what the brain thinks. The heart communicates with the brain neurologically, biochemically, biophysically, and energetically. You can read about this in The Heart Math Solution by Doc Childre and Howard Martin. Their studies show that when many people create a collective field of coherence we join with the field of the earth to create a great change that sustains life in our bodies and on the earth. Emotions like gratitude, appreciation, love, and compassion create coherence and alleviate the stress waves moving through the earth.
Those of us practicing Samyama have also experienced how the peace and spaciousness that we experience through Samyama visibly affects our families, friends, and even our work situations. Many have reported distinct changes in the energy and feeling of a stress-filled meeting or have seen a personal situation shift from intense upset to peace and reconciliation when they have gone into their Hearts with Samyama right there in the moment. Gregg Braden, in The Divine Matrix, talks about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, who found that large groups of people meditating could activate a shift of consciousness in large populations. He wrote:
“In 1972, 24 cities in the U.S. with populations over 10,000 experienced meaningful changes in their communities when as few as one percent (100 people) participated in the studies. Those involved used specific meditation techniques to create the inner experiences of peace that were mirrored in the world around them. This is called the ‘Maharishi Effect’ in honor of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who stated that when one percent of a population practiced the methods of meditation that he offered, there would be a reduction in violence and crime for that population.” Braden goes on to state that ‘the minimum number of people required to ‘jump start’ a change in consciousness is the square root of 1% of a population”.
Think about that. The more people involved, the more change is possible. I personally have witnessed extraordinary shifts of field consciousness in groups I have facilitated ever since Samyama came on board as my central practice. Truth and clear-seeing become more accessible when we are not in our heads, and can 'listen' and take action from our Hearts. The impossible becomes possible in ways we cannot imagine. When we bring Heart Presence to any situation, miracles can happen. Anything is possible.
There is no 'out there' and there is no 'then'--it's all here now. We are literally in a cosmic shift—an astronomical shift of the planet on its axis, as well as a shift of consciousness like no others witnessed by anyone alive on the planet now. Some say it began in 1987 with the Harmonic Convergence. I am just beginning to read up on what people are saying about 2012, and find i am most interested in the facts, the astronomical facts, the information about world ages that can be verified geologically, and also the ancient prophecies made and left to us by people who lived through the last shift of a world age. They left information for us and it's up to us to look at it and make choices about how we are going to go through this transition from one world age to another. Astrology tells us we are moving from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age. What does that mean? What is 2012? We are the ones at the cutting edge now, we are in the front row of what is unfolding. We are the ones to choose how we go through this death/birth on a personal and a collective level.
We are passing through the end of a world age, called a yuga in the Hindu tradition, and we are witnessing the de-construction and dissolution of old forms and structures in the outer world, as well as within ourselves and our own lives. In august 1936, Edgar Cayce, from one of his trance states said, “…there is a shifting of the pole. Or a new cycle begins.” The Maya and other Meso-American people have predicted this, with the Mayan calendar being a very clear physical ‘map’ of this event.
There is much chaos and fear in the collective planetary field, in the U.S., and perhaps in our own lives and hearts, as the ground we have known shakes with the tremors of big change and dissolution of the known. We are being affected by the economic crises, climate changes, natural disasters, the crisis in food production and famine, wars around the world, political and racial divisiveness in our own country and the world, the extinction of precious animals and sea life, diseases for which there are no cures, stress on our immune systems by so many toxins, the health care crisis, greed, deceit by government officials, inhumane acts, violence in our schools, churches and towns. The list seems endless, solutions can seem overwhelming or impossible, and yet, something else is happening, too, something really amazing, powerful, and quantumly unimaginable.
Our own lives may be turning upside down and inside out in ways we never imagined. These difficult times are forcing the realization that we are all inter-connected, we are each in the holographic food chain, affected by and affecting everything else. The Hindus call this cycle of darkness the Kali Yuga, and in their calculations it is actually short-lived compared to previous cycles. Some have called it a time of great purification, which is one way of looking at this stunning display of shadow and evil run amok.
Before shadow can be transmuted, it has to be revealed, seen and met, whether it’s collective or personal. What’s ‘out there’ is in here, too. How do we meet all of this in our own lives? How do we deal with our personal stuff and our participation, our contribution, to the hologram? To meet it with fear adds to the chaos. We can meet it from the Heart with compassion, gratitude, love, and tenderness, for ourselves as well as for others. Wise and holy people of all traditions are consistently saying that the way to meet what is happening, the way to find real solutions that serve all of humanity and the planet, is to open our Hearts, to learn to meet it with Heart. Love is the Medicine. Big Love.
The challenge and the opportunity for us is to access this Big Love. To do so requires that we be present to each moment, to each arising within our Heart, whatever it is, the holy or the horrible. We are called to meet our own shadow, the unwelcomed, unwanted, unloved parts of ourselves, the ‘me’ that we have hidden or denied, as well as the fears, anxieties, terrors, grief, and the breakdown of life as we have known it, from the Heart.
Heart is the magical vessel, the temple within, where the power of transmutation of shadow lies. It is also the portal to peace and non-dual awareness, wisdom, compassionate action, spaciousness, Silence. This can be directly experienced no matter what is happening in our lives or in the world. Peace and presence are a phenomenal contribution to the planetary hologram.
This is not fairy dust, as the Heart is truly an alchemical vessel, as many of us have experienced directly with Samyama over the last 16 years. It is also an unusual organ in our body with its own ‘brain’, its own neuronal circuitry and capacity to make decisions separate from what the brain thinks. The heart communicates with the brain neurologically, biochemically, biophysically, and energetically. You can read about this in The Heart Math Solution by Doc Childre and Howard Martin. Their studies show that when many people create a collective field of coherence we join with the field of the earth to create a great change that sustains life in our bodies and on the earth. Emotions like gratitude, appreciation, love, and compassion create coherence and alleviate the stress waves moving through the earth.
Those of us practicing Samyama have also experienced how the peace and spaciousness that we experience through Samyama visibly affects our families, friends, and even our work situations. Many have reported distinct changes in the energy and feeling of a stress-filled meeting or have seen a personal situation shift from intense upset to peace and reconciliation when they have gone into their Hearts with Samyama right there in the moment. Gregg Braden, in The Divine Matrix, talks about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, who found that large groups of people meditating could activate a shift of consciousness in large populations. He wrote:
“In 1972, 24 cities in the U.S. with populations over 10,000 experienced meaningful changes in their communities when as few as one percent (100 people) participated in the studies. Those involved used specific meditation techniques to create the inner experiences of peace that were mirrored in the world around them. This is called the ‘Maharishi Effect’ in honor of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who stated that when one percent of a population practiced the methods of meditation that he offered, there would be a reduction in violence and crime for that population.” Braden goes on to state that ‘the minimum number of people required to ‘jump start’ a change in consciousness is the square root of 1% of a population”.
Think about that. The more people involved, the more change is possible. I personally have witnessed extraordinary shifts of field consciousness in groups I have facilitated ever since Samyama came on board as my central practice. Truth and clear-seeing become more accessible when we are not in our heads, and can 'listen' and take action from our Hearts. The impossible becomes possible in ways we cannot imagine. When we bring Heart Presence to any situation, miracles can happen. Anything is possible.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
What Is Samyama?
According to the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, 'samyama' is a technical term which describes the three-fold process by which the true nature of an object is known.
For me, Samyama has been and continues to be, the most radical spiritual practice i have ever done in that it shifted the center of my awareness from my mind to my heart and eventually became a way of being in life, rather than a practice to do. My devotion to Samyama came about as I experienced radical healings, awakening consciousness, and profound Silence. As I was guided to use it in my sessions with psychotherapy clients and students, I witnessed their extraordinary healings and openings to the Silence.
The practice of Samyama (I didn't know it had a name at the time) dropped into my morning meditation one day after 20 or so years of meditating, and I followed the guidance to direct my attention to my heart and keep it there while I felt what was there. I still remember that first experience: I was feeling a lot of grief and I had to work to keep bringing my attention back to my heart. My mind wanted to go over the story, understand, interpret, and analyze, but the guidance was so clear that I was to keep coming back to focus in my heart on the feeling.
The Inner Witness appeared and as I focused into my heart and felt my grief deeply, I noticed that the longer I stayed focused and present to my grief, it began to dissolve. I felt the shift in my body as well. I could hardly believe it so I sat in meditation again that day, focused on what I was feeling in my heart, and the same thing happened. I was going through a very big change in my life at the time, so there were many deep and intense feelings arising. I did the practice whenever I felt emotional pain, not just when I sat to meditate. Before long, I was trying it out when I felt happy or joyful or peaceful. It didn't seem to matter what I felt, the practice brought me into direct experience of whatever it was and taught me what it was to be fully present to my own heart, my own self. I became fascinated with the process and jumped into it fully, having always been in love with the structure of experience and consciousness.
I came to understand that I was not in a 'spiritual bypass' as I was feeling every bit of feeling, and sometimes layers of feelings would be revealed. Increasingly, I was less drawn to what my mind had to say about what was going on. What was happening in my heart was far more interesting! I didn't know that this was an ancient spiritual practice, or that it had a name, until a few months later I 'happened' to be reading the Patanjali Sutras and there it was. I was amazed. The practice was called samyama and the sutra said it had three stages or steps to it. There was nothing said about focusing attention into the heart.
If the sutras said samyama was a process to discover the true nature of an object, then what could be discovered about my heart, the heart?
I came to realize that the Heart is a very powerful and mysterious portal to the Silence, to direct unitive experience, to opening to love, to being love and all of its expressions, as well as a vessel for alchemizing and transmuting all that appears to be obstacles to human love and Big Love. Samyama led me to embrace my broken human heart which then opened my awareness to the Great Heart, the Heart of all Hearts, which for me is the altar for the deepest surrender and devotion I have ever experienced.
For me, Samyama has been and continues to be, the most radical spiritual practice i have ever done in that it shifted the center of my awareness from my mind to my heart and eventually became a way of being in life, rather than a practice to do. My devotion to Samyama came about as I experienced radical healings, awakening consciousness, and profound Silence. As I was guided to use it in my sessions with psychotherapy clients and students, I witnessed their extraordinary healings and openings to the Silence.
The practice of Samyama (I didn't know it had a name at the time) dropped into my morning meditation one day after 20 or so years of meditating, and I followed the guidance to direct my attention to my heart and keep it there while I felt what was there. I still remember that first experience: I was feeling a lot of grief and I had to work to keep bringing my attention back to my heart. My mind wanted to go over the story, understand, interpret, and analyze, but the guidance was so clear that I was to keep coming back to focus in my heart on the feeling.
The Inner Witness appeared and as I focused into my heart and felt my grief deeply, I noticed that the longer I stayed focused and present to my grief, it began to dissolve. I felt the shift in my body as well. I could hardly believe it so I sat in meditation again that day, focused on what I was feeling in my heart, and the same thing happened. I was going through a very big change in my life at the time, so there were many deep and intense feelings arising. I did the practice whenever I felt emotional pain, not just when I sat to meditate. Before long, I was trying it out when I felt happy or joyful or peaceful. It didn't seem to matter what I felt, the practice brought me into direct experience of whatever it was and taught me what it was to be fully present to my own heart, my own self. I became fascinated with the process and jumped into it fully, having always been in love with the structure of experience and consciousness.
I came to understand that I was not in a 'spiritual bypass' as I was feeling every bit of feeling, and sometimes layers of feelings would be revealed. Increasingly, I was less drawn to what my mind had to say about what was going on. What was happening in my heart was far more interesting! I didn't know that this was an ancient spiritual practice, or that it had a name, until a few months later I 'happened' to be reading the Patanjali Sutras and there it was. I was amazed. The practice was called samyama and the sutra said it had three stages or steps to it. There was nothing said about focusing attention into the heart.
If the sutras said samyama was a process to discover the true nature of an object, then what could be discovered about my heart, the heart?
I came to realize that the Heart is a very powerful and mysterious portal to the Silence, to direct unitive experience, to opening to love, to being love and all of its expressions, as well as a vessel for alchemizing and transmuting all that appears to be obstacles to human love and Big Love. Samyama led me to embrace my broken human heart which then opened my awareness to the Great Heart, the Heart of all Hearts, which for me is the altar for the deepest surrender and devotion I have ever experienced.
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