The Mystical Union of Love and Heartbreak

An Invitation: Notice Your Thinking for Nine Days

2010-04-07T09:18:00.004-06:00

In an earlier blog, i wrote about Novenas - nine days of attention, sacred questions, presence, prayer, ceremony, meditation, whatever you feel called to do, in service to an intention. This is an invitation to spend nine days simply witnessing your mind and its thoughts. This doesn't mean engaging any of them, massaging them, challenging them, trying to replace them with 'better' thoughts. This is just about watching, witnessing, noticing... especially when you have difficult or painful feelings arise. See what unfolds... i'd love to hear from you if you have discoveries, epiphanies, revelations.

Fear, Shadow, Samyama and the Great Heart

2010-04-07T07:31:00.008-06:00

We are living in a time that seems like no other in my lifetime, anyway, when it feels that there are tremendous, ongoing tidal waves of fear in the collective field, as well as in our own lives and bodybeings. I do not have to list the wars, horrors, economics, daily human struggles and losses that seem to be spreading through this country, the planet, and our own lives. There is so much heartbreak and suffering everywhere. This period or epoch of great darkness and strife on the planet has been called the Kali Yuga, in the Hindu tradition, a very long time when shadow and evil run rampant in the world. The mythic tradition of the goddess Kali is that she destroys illusion, she deconstructs what is not 'real' in order to reveal the absolute behind all forms.

Paradoxically, this is also an amazing time of awakening consciousness, the likes of which we have never seen. The Light of Consciousness, awakening, is increasing on the planet as more and more people are becoming aware of the Truth that is deeper than all apparent phenomena, however dark it may be. The veils of untruth are lifting, burning off in the fire of awareness, both personally and collectively.

On a personal level, it is easy for me to see how, when a huge amount of bright consciousness is present in a field, it seems to call forth shadow, either in the moment or within a day or two of the experience. I see this when I am working with groups or have attended a very light-filled event. My own shadow, in one form or another, wants to come out of the darkness to the sanctuary of awareness and the light of consciousness. Every part of us, however long it has been denied, suppressed, wounded, longs for the Light of Awareness.

Shadow, whether it is our personal shadow or collective shadow, is that which is unknown, unwanted, unloved, and wounded. At its root, it is not bad or evil, though its appearance may be. On a personal level, what is in shadow is usually some wounded, forbidden aspect of our human nature that has not been welcomed, wanted, or allowed to exist in our family, church, school, or culture. When it finally emerges, we often find a hurt child, some level of soul loss, and/or heartbreak, where part of us was not allowed, for whatever reason, to live and be free to express. It seems to me that there is always some level of soul loss and devastation that expresses as shadow, whether it is personal or collective.

Nevertheless, this is a highly challenging time for the planet, humans and otherwise. Our personal and collective initiations are intense, and the amazing skills and tools for healing, awakening, and understanding what is going on have never been so prolific or accessible. There are an incomprehensible number of unseen helpers from many dimensions guiding and supporting us. The veils are very thin, so asking for help can yield quick response. You don’t have to ‘believe’ they are there, or that only certain ones are ‘real’ and accessible, orthat you have to somehow be 'worthy' to ask. Experiment! Ask for help and see what appears. We are not alone in this cosmic crock pot as things continue to heat up. This life we are in, your life and mine, is the alchemical vessel. Everything that is needed is here now for whatever our wake-up requires.

So, what do we do with the fear and the terror that are arising, that permeate our daily lives and send shock waves through our bodies, tighten our muscles, jangle our nervous systems, and incite our thinking minds to run in all directions at once with all of the ‘what if’s’ and ‘oh, no’s’?

Samyama practice is the best method that I use to meet this fear, whether it is an old fear, a new fear, a small fear, or huge, shocking terror. Our thinking mind wants to get rid of fear, figure it out, make sense or make meaning of it, understand it, analyze it, and interpret it, which is fine, but it doesn’t really help when we feel filled with fear. Our nervous systems and our bodies are feeling the many phenomena that arise with fear and terror. Our fear may be catalyzed by something occurring in the moment, a situation we are dealing with, or it may be catalyzed by thoughts about the future: what if…? What will I do when…? How will I pay for…? What if I get sick…? What if I have no work…? How will I feed my kids…?

It is also common that fear evoked by current circumstances is also rooted somewhere in our past, perhaps to one traumatic event or a series. It is as if a thread goes from now to then and our whole bodybeing responds intensely to past and present all at once. There is, in fact, only now, so everything converges here and now. It’s all here now. The good news is that addressing it fully now often takes care of fear held from past experiences.

With Samayama, we invite the fear into our heart. Fear is only energy. Fear is an uncomfortable energy and often, we discover that feeling it, while uncomfortable, is not impossible or terrible. It’s okay to be uncomfortable. Fear is just energy. It is our thoughts that scare us and make us want to avoid feeling the fear directly. Fear is just energy. When we can directly experience the energy of fear in our hearts, without the stories that go with it, the fear energy will begin to dissolve. The body will begin to take in breath, relax, let down, open. Everything is energy, including the thoughts. They are not solid objects even when they seem to be. When we are fearful, our bodies contract, our breathing gets shallow, we may go into hyper-vigilance, hyperventilate, sweat, get cold, tighten our muscles, our spine may get rigid, we shake, we go numb, or dissociate. Fear has many ways of expressing itself energetically.

With Samyama, we invite the fear and all of its phenomena into awareness, into the heart, beginning with the first little edge of the fear. We approach our fear in the heart center the way we would approach a frightened child or animal—very gently and slowly. We breathe, we give the fear breath which creates more space for it to be what it is and to be seen and experienced for what it is. We invite it to come and rest in our heart. Fear doesn’t get much rest, so this invitation to come, rest, and just be, has enormous impact on our systems.

If the fear feels too big, too consuming, to open to feel fully, we can nibble at the edges of it. We bring attention to the fear for as long as we can tolerate it, and then back off when we need to. It is only energy, no matter how big and daunting it feels. We can gradually breathe into fear, inviting and allowing it to be as big and deep and intense as it is when fully felt. Breath will create the room for this expansion. When become more tolerant of the energy, we can open to feel more of it.

Now here is the magic of Samyama: when we are able to bring fear into our hearts, breathe into it, allow it to be as big, deep, and intense as it needs to be, as it is, keeping our attention focused on it in our heart center, this fear energy actually begins to dissolve. As it dissolves and feels less and less consuming, and we are less and less frightened of feeling this uncomfortable energy that we name ‘fear’, our inner Sacred Witness activates and we become able to witness this process with some distance even while feeling it. Witnessing allows us to become increasingly less identified with the energy of the fear. This is not a cut-off or a bypass. This is feeling the fear energy all the way to the core of it, feeling the full intensity of it—which may take some time, perhaps more than one Samyama session if it is a huge fear/terror. Truly, any fear or terror can dissolve in awareness in the heart when directly experienced. The energy of the Great Heart, in combination with our awareness, transmutes the energy of fear to something more gentle.

Sustained attention in the heart is key. Directly experiencing the feeling, rather than the stories that evoked the fear, launches the alchemical process. Alchemy transmutes the vibration of fear to a vibration of peace. Remember, fear is only energy! We can grow our tolerance for experiencing fear and other uncomfortable energies. As conditioned human beings in the process of awakening to our essence as pure awareness, many uncomfortable energies come through. If we don’t grab onto them, they pass through. Our heart is like a toll booth! We pay the toll with our allowing what is to be what it is in the moment. Samyama is a way of allowing feelings to move through and be transmuted in the heart center. Our human heart feels the pain of it all, the discomfort, and with focused attention in the heart, all is transmuted into silence, peacefulness, often love. It is also not uncommon with Samyama for true insight to arise through the body and the heart—not from the thinking mind.

Samyama is a gateway to freedom from staying stuck in fear or any other emotion. It is a gateway to nondual awareness, spaciousness. It does not matter if we start with terror, fear, grief. We can start with peace, love, or nothing at all. It makes no difference where we start. When we enter our precious human heart to meet what is there with our focused attention and awareness, directly expereince it, allow it to break open into the spaciousness of the Great Heart, the Sacred Heart of all Hearts, we are free no matter what is happening. We are the light emerging on the planet.

Heart Magic, Novenas, & Ceaseless Prayer

2010-01-12T06:41:00.009-07:00

Today, January 12, is my son's 39th birthday. I woke at 3 am and sunk my attention into my heart where I focused on him and on my boundless, ineffable love for him. This love for my child is like no other. Holding him in my heart, which i do often, seems to deepen and magnify the love. Or perhaps it just shows me how big it really is. It reminds me of being pregnant with him when I was but a child of 22, carrying him within me for nine months, most of that time alone, as my husband was on a war ship in Viet Nam. I was living alone in Honolulu among other young Navy wives, many of whom were also pregnant.

Holding our love and particular intentions for another in our hearts is one way to use Samyama for simply being with another, for loving them, or offering them healing and prayers. Samyama, is, to me, a prayer, a ceaseless prayer. Focusing on loving evokes devotion. This heart energy is magic, as it alchemizes and purifies whatever/whomever it touches into its highest vibration. These vibes are non-local, so they affect these others we tune into, wherever they are. I sometimes tune into the soul of each of my children, as well as others, and focus my loving attention on that soul within my heart. This can be a very sublime practice. I deeply experience how united i am with each soul i focus upon.

I spent the better part of last week writing and finding photos for my son's birthday letter. In this letter, I focused on his conception and his birth, simply giving him the 'dreamscape' of what was there in the field when he was conceived and born. I included photos of his newly-married dad and me, of our first apartment and view of Waikiki, and, of course, the first photos of him as an adorable, chubby-cheeked, newborn infant. He weighed 8.5 pounds! Putting this letter together gave me a week of deepening love for my son, as well as devotion. I was in a constant experience of Samyama as I wrote the 'dreamscape' and placed the photos.

His dreamscape included the natrual, wild beauty of Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean, the awesome surrounding volcanic mountains, the ubiquitous frangrance of flowers, the constant awareness of the Viet Nam war, the presence of the goddess Pele, and, of course, my condition as a very wounded 22-year-old giving birth alone while his father was at sea. His dad came home safely a week later. My son was born after 23 hours of labor in an army hospital filled with wounded servicemen, shock, trauma, death, and grief. All of this was in the vibrational field affecting us, certainly unbeknownst to me at that time. I brought my baby home to the love of good friends and the fragrant beauty of our little nest with a view of Diamond Head and Waikiki beach.

So much surrounds each of our births, and we rarely think about it. When we do, we see that the vibratory field was woven with all kinds of intense emotions, family and collective events, the emotions and circumstances of our parents, not to mention the chemicals and toxins we ingest through our mothers and the birth itself. Sometimes just knowing what was in the field of our parents and family when we were conceived and born, can help us to understand what was woven into our tiny bodies and into our consciousness that may impact our whole life and we later experience without understanding its source. We are not separate from anyone or anything around us--ever. Even the moment of conception is conditioned by what is in the field as well as in our parents.

I started a novena for my son on January 10th. Today is the third day. This novena is comprised of nine days of Samyama, prayer, tuning in, listening, all focused on him, his life, his health and healing, the healing of ancestral wounds, and anything else that emerges in these nine days. I don't have a plan with this novena for a particular practice, i am just listening and feeling and showing up for whatever appears.

The novena serves as a container and a lens to focus attention on something and work with a particular intention. In this case, my intention is in service to my son and his life. Novenas are very powerful, and can be carried out with a variety of practices and prayers. We can offer them for others or for our own intentions, such as healing, fulfilling work, clarity about some issue, relationships. Anything is possible. The novena also provides a lens to see everything in the nine days as a 'response' to our intention, that helps clarify, heal, reveal obstacles, deepen our understanding of what we are truly asking for, and distill it. Things do happen! I never know where a novena will take me...often to the unimaginable.

At a certain point in my children's lives, I realized, painfully, that I am helpless in certain ways to prevent them from being hurt. I am unable to keep them safe in this world. I cannot 'do' much to help them in the outer world, but I can love them, do Samyama, pray for them, and carry them in my heart always.

Samyama: Heart Alchemy

2010-01-11T11:36:00.006-07:00

I first learned about alchemy thirty years ago when I began studying the work of Carl Jung. Jung realized that the images and symbols of alchemy were an “historical counterpart” to his psychology of the unconscious. Alchemy provided an apt description of the process of individuation and awakening, i.e., the transformation or evolution of consciousness from the ‘prima materia’ or raw material of the unconscious, to the gold or ‘philosopher’s stone’ of awakened consciousness. Thus, when we engage our own unconscious via dreams, fantasies, active imagination, we are engaging the alchemical process. We pay attention to the dream image, for example, and it begins to change, the next 'chapter' of the dream unfolds before our eyes. We are not doing it, it is naturally happening, and much learning and healing can be gained from this process. This unfoldment is alchemy.

When I was first learning and exploring Samyama, I was directed to place my full attention into my heart, into whatever emotion I was feeling there. When I learned to sustain my attention on an emotion held in my heart center with Samyama, the emotion alchemizes. It simply changes naturally, organically, perhaps by becoming more intense at first, bigger than it was, and then, gradually, the intensity lessens, and the emotion may change into another one or dissolve altogether. This brings relief from the pain if it was a painful emotion, and a dis-identification from it. A feeling of peace or spaciousness often follows. We go from a conditioned feeling that may or may not be painful, through its dissolution, to no longer being identified with it, to unconditioned awareness.

The Inner Witness is also cultivated in this Samyama process, because while we are full feeling it all, we are aware of what is happening. We are witnessing this alchemy of the heart. Healing happens, as does awakening. Our ability and capacity to be with what is, as it is, develops. The center of our consciousness shifts from head to heart. All kinds of amazing changes happen within us and in our lives if we work with Samyama consistently. You can read about other people’s experiences with Samyama at http://www.temenoscenter.org/

Emotions, whatever they are, change when held in the heart center and attention is sustained without splitting off into the story or other thoughts. This last part is the key to the alchemical process. Sustaining the focus of attention without having attention on the story or thoughts. This takes practices. We are not changing the emotion—it morphs on its own with our focused attention. Even the feeling of ‘being stuck’ changes when we sustain a focus of attention on it. This works with any emotion, including the deepest rage or heartbreak. Every emotion can be the portal to this Great Heart, including love. The challenge for most people is sustaining focused attention in the emotion in the area of the heart chakra, and it is a skill that you can learn. It takes practice. Sustainability grows, capacity accrues with each practice session. It's a little like bushwacking a path through a thicket. Each day the path becomes more defined and deeper into the heart.

Many years ago, in a Continuum workshop led by Emilie Conrad, I heard her speak of the sperm of attention. I love that phrase. Samyama is a process of directing the ‘sperm of attention’ into the womb of the heart—and a creative process begins. We are a creative process, just as living a human life is a creative process. Stuckness and stagnation are names we attribute to certain emotional states or conditions that feel like nothing is moving, but they are not static. They are very dynamic, necessary 'stations of the cross' also, phases of the journey that are part of the creative process, as well as the individuation process which brings forth our natural wholeness.

In the myth of Inanna, the centrality of her journey is her descent into the underworld where she is slain when ‘the eyes of death’ are cast upon her by her sister, Erishkegal, Queen of the Underworld. Inanna is then hung upon a peg—a meathook—until she turns to ‘green, rotting meat.’ Not a pretty thought, but we all have our meathook experiences that feel interminable when we are in them. The meathook is not static, it is a dynamic process, even though we feel horrible and like it will never change or end. Doing Samyama when we are ‘on the meathook’ is a wonderful way to be fully in that experience, and see how dynamic it is. Resistance, which is natural, creates persistence, so Samyama is a way to be with what we resist or with the resistance itself.

Sometimes in Samyama, one emotion will dissolve to reveal another, and then another, beneath it. Sometimes it feels like there is 'nothing' there, and we can attend to that ‘nothing’ and experience what unfolds. Sometimes there is so much intensity, we can only nibble at the edges of the feeling before we can enter into it fully. Other times, we hit the wall of resistance and that works, too—we just feel resistance, invite it via breath to become as deep and big as it needs to be, and stay with it until it alchemizes. Memories may arise in the midst of it all, taking us back to the root of the emotion we started with. All kinds of captivating things happen in our very own heart center, that soon fascination with the practice overrides the seduction of the mind and its stories.
While our emotions are arising from our conditioned self, when they dissolve they are dissolving into the same unconditioned awareness from which they arise. We may experience this unconditioned awareness as stillness, silence, spaciousness, peace, love, or compassion.

What I love most about Samyama is that it supports us, invites us, to embrace our humanness, to feel everything, the holy and the horrible and everything in between. We don’t have to deny it or cut it off, we can fully embrace and embody our humanness. We ultimately find, through our own direct experience, that the holy and the horrible are not separate. They, and everything else, are sourced from the same source. Samyama is not a spiritual bypass, it is alchemy, the transformation of the emotion by way of feeling it so completely and fully that it morphs and ultimately dissolves in the ‘solution’ of what I call the Great Heart, the unconditioned spaciousness from which everything arises and to which everything returns--including us.

If you would like to learn and practice Samyama, there is an mp3 download called "Always at the Beginning" in the Store on the Temple of the Sacred Feminine site: http://www.templeofthesacredfeminine.com/Temple/TempleStore/index.html

There is also going to be another Samyama teleconference on February 5 @ 7pm MT. Please email me for further information: temenosctr@aol.com or to subscribe to my newsletter/flyer.

2010-01-04T15:06:00.001-07:00

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doors

where the two worlds meet.
Don’t go back to sleep.
The door is round and open.
~rumi

The Heart of Longing

2009-04-28T06:19:00.000-06:00

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.

Love Dogs

2009-04-28T06:06:00.001-06:00

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.

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.”

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.

2009-04-28T05:51:00.004-06:00

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

Message from the Hopi Elders

2009-04-22T16:09:00.004-06:00

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

What Do Our Hearts Have to Do with 2012?

2009-04-21T13:17:00.013-06:00

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.

What Is Samyama?

2009-04-16T10:42:00.011-06:00

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.