Healing the heart

Actually the real heart, the energetic heart, cannot be healed, because it cannot be hurt. It is always undisturbed and peaceful.

When we refer to a ‘broken heart’, we are talking about a physical sensation in the body which is caused by certain thoughts – for example, that our partner doesn’t love us any more, or loves someone else instead. It is actually the ego that is hurt, not the heart.

Thoughts like these, and the feelings they provoke, are very painful, and so we armor ourselves as a protection. This armor is like a wall we build up around our heart. We ‘close’ our hearts in the mistaken belief that the heart is the problem. It is not.

Our dreams are the problem. Our ideas that we cling to about how things should be – that is the problem. We had a Hollywood happy-ever-after dream, and it ended. And our ego doesn’t want to accept the fact that our dreams have been shattered. It doesn’t want to face the reality. Have you noticed how the mind goes on feeding the wounds of a ‘broken heart’ by endlessly running the story of what happened to us. Endlessly chewing on the ‘What if’s’. Like a tongue constantly returning to the hole left by a tooth that was removed by the dentist. It just can’t let it go, can it?

That is why it is very difficult to let go completely of the people who we feel have ‘hurt’ us. We either go on carrying an illusion that the love will somehow miraculously be rekindled, that the other will see the light and come back to us, or we carry hate and revenge against them. We may think we have cut them out of our lives, but every time we see them or hear about them, we have an emotional reaction. And despite our best endeavors, they keep coming back into our thoughts whenever we are feeling vulnerable or lonely.

Whether we are waiting for them to come back or have cut them off, either way we are burdened – either way we are not free to find another love. Either way we have put up some kind of wall around our heart.

Hope is a terrible thing… waiting for the impossible to happen eats away not only at our loving feelings and openness, but also at our self-esteem and confidence. And when we make someone into an enemy, it hurts us – it hurts to close ourselves off from our hearts, which is what we do when we block someone out.

The only way to really let someone go, and thus be free to get on with our lives, is with gratitude for what they did give us. Or at least with a focus on appreciating their good qualities, rather than harping on their bad ones. This is not at all easy for the mind, the ego, which would much rather stay with blame and complaint. But it is not difficult for the heart, for the energetic heart.

The heart has the capacity to see the positive, even in someone whom the mind can only see as a monster. That is because the heart doesn’t compare and doesn’t have ideals. It doesn’t have dreams or hopes. It simply sees the present reality, without judging. Judging is a quality of the mind, not the heart, because it requires comparison.

Because the heart is not involved in the stories the mind spins, it can see more clearly. It can see that the other person has been acting unconsciously, even though they may not be aware of it. For their own unconscious reasons, they were unable to give you what you wanted from them. Unlike the mind, or ego, the heart doesn’t take this personally. It understands that that person has their own problems, their own vulnerability and their own limits that make them behave the way they do. And that has nothing to do with you. Their behavior is their way of covering up their own wounds, fears and needs. With that understanding, compassion arises. And with that compassion, you can finally let that person go and find peace for yourself.

It takes tremendous courage to shift from the mind to the heart and have this perspective, but if you are fed up with feeling the walls around your heart, and really want to feel your heart flowing freely again, then you can give this a try.

It is not a matter of forgiveness. If the other person has treated you badly, then it is important to leave the responsibility for that with them, and let them take the consequences. This process is something just for you – to allow you to let go of this situation that has been hanging over you, and get on with your life feeling lighter and unburdened.

The process is not just for healing wounds you are carrying from lovers, but for anyone you are holding grudges against, or judgments about. It may be someone alive or dead, someone present in your life or from the past, someone in your family or someone from your work. It doesn’t matter – as long as we carry grudge against someone, that person goes on haunting us in a way – we give them power over us. We are not free.

This process is about cleaning up our lives and becoming free of these burdens

An article by Anando published in the Italian Osho Times

Do not think that this nirvana is an empty or void state. There is this consciousness, without distinguishing mark, infinite and shining everywhere; it is untouched by the material elements and not subject to any power.

Buddha

Wise people have gone through a great deal of pain to know the truth directly, for they have understood that such knowledge alone could give them freedom. We gain that knowledge not by reading books or listening to lectures but through direct experience. For direct experience you need to meditate. 

Swami Rama of the Himalayas

Our minds are never quiet; constant scheming, calculating, and worrying produces the incoherent sounds of our internal talking machine. The roots of this universal anxiety are the desire to be something, to become somebody, to claim that I am somebody, and the accompanying fear of the failure of this claim. 

Ravi Ravindra, Pilgrim Without Boundaries

“How do I free myself from the belief that I am the operator? How do I empty my self of self-will in order that ‘Thy will be done’? How can I know what is my will and what is Thy will? How can I empty myself of myself and become, in Saint Francis’s words, a perfect ‘instrument of Thy peace’?” These questions are answered in meditation when we practice it sincerely, systematically, and with sustained enthusiasm. The answers do not come through voices or visions, but through slow, steady growth in discrimination and detachment. As old desires lose their power to drive us, veil after veil falls away from our eyes, leaving our vision calm and clear, able to take in the whole where before we saw only our own small corner. 

Eknath Easwaran, Climbing the Blue Mountain: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey

There are two aspects of individual harmony: the harmony between body and soul, and the harmony between individuals. All the tragedy in the world, in the individual and in the multitude, comes from lack of harmony. And harmony is the best given by producing harmony in one's own life. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mastery Through Accomplishment

“One is never so strong as when one is broken.” 

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Thinking Like The Universe: The Sufi Path Of Awakening

“I have loved in life and I have been loved. 

I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, 

and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow. 

My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it. 

My heart has been rent and joined again; 

My heart has been broken and again made whole; 

My heart has been wounded and healed again; 

A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet. 

I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire, 

and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love. 

I wept in love and made all weep with me; 

I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men; 

And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes. 

The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear; 

With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved, 

I shook the throne of God in heaven.

I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love, 

"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret." 

She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear, 

"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover, 

and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.” 

Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul

School of Love

Your love taught me how to grieve,

And for centuries I needed a woman to make me grieve,

I needed a woman

To make me cry on her shoulders like a bird,

I needed a woman to collect my pieces like broken glass.

Oh my lady, your love taught me the worst of my habits,

It taught me how to drink coffee a thousand times every night,

It taught me how to visit doctors and ask soothsayers,

It taught me to go out to scan the streets,

To seek your face in the rain and in the lights,

To chase your shadow in the faces of strangers,

To hunt your aura even in the newspapers!

Your love showed me the sadness city,

Which I have never entered ere you,

I have never known that the tear is humane,

And the human without tears is just a memory!

Your love taught me

How to draw your face on the walls with chalk like kids,

It taught me how love can change the map of times,

It taught me that when I love,

The earth stands still!

Your love showed me what hallucination is,

It taught me how to love you in every little thing,

In the bare, autumn trees,

In the falling, yellow leafs,

In the rain,

In every cafeteria in which we drank our black coffee,

My lady, your love taught me to sleep in nameless hotels,

And to sit by nameless shores,

It taught me to weep without tears,

Your love taught me how to grieve,

And for centuries I needed a woman to make me grieve,

I needed a woman

To make me cry on her shoulders like a bird,

I needed a woman to collect my pieces like broken glass, 

Nizar Qabbani

“And So We Dance"

.......................................And so I met you

.....................................And so we danced 

and whirled like One in the skies 

Two souls

entangled in one

Two lives

breathing as one

Two mouths

smiling as one...

With Hope

Love..

With silence we were telling a story 

that was us..

Was it..

A fairytale? 

A Dream? 

A Fantasy?

An Illusion?

A Lie?

or

The Truth?

So we chose the truth

Harm?

No

Loss?

Yes

Alone

Hoping to meet again

And so we keep dancing in the sky...

whirling round and round

two souls trying to be as one 

two lives trying to make it as one

two mouths desperately wanting to smile as one 

To Kiss 

To be..

One

.... And so we dance....

By: Farah Al-Bayaty 

art credit: Canan Berber

Our Mind-essence is originally perfect and bright. The reason that we cannot attain instantaneous enlightenment and partake of immediate enjoyment is the veiling of the Mind by the klesa of covetousnes, hatred, stupidity, and cupidity during the innumerable kalpas in the past. It is therefore necessary to practice gradual cultivation.

The Ch'an master Kuei-shan teaches that if a student can attain sudden enlightenment, he has only to apply his enlightenment to the purification of the manifested karmas and the flowing consciousness. This is called "cultivation." There is no other kind of cultivation. 

If the student seeks only sudden enlightenment and stops there, thinking that there is no function or application, then the karmic force will go underground and erupt when conditions permit. Gradually, the mind will become a demonic realm. 

Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing

A wise man has said:

"He who is content with himself

Has done a worthless work. 

Achievement is the beginning of failure.

Fame is beginning of disgrace.

" Who can free himself from achievement 

And from fame, descend and be lost 

Amid the masses of men? 

He will flow like Tao, unseen, 

He will go about like Life itself

With no name and no home. 

Simple is he, without distinction.

To all appearances he is a fool.

His steps leave no trace. He has no power.

He achieves nothing, has no reputation. 

Since he judges no one

No one judges him.

Such is the perfect man: 

His boat is empty. 

Chuang Tzu

In your own land seek the hidden flame…. It is unworthy of man to borrow light from elsewhere.

AL-HALLÂJ

Take one step away from yourself and—behold!—the Path!

ABÛ SA‘ÎD IBN ABÎ-L-KHAYR

Know that when you learn to lose yourself, you will reach the Beloved. There is no other secret to be learnt, and more than that is not known to me.

AL-ANSÂRÎ

There was a king, who, one day, entering his royal court, observed one person who among all those present, was not bowing down before him. Unnerved by the impudent act of this stranger in the hall, the king called out: “How dare you not bow down before me! Only God does not bow down before me, and there is nothing greater than God. Who then are you?” The tattered stranger answered with a smile, “I am that nothing.”

ANONYMOUS

To be a Sufi is to give up all worries and there is no worse worry than yourself. When you are occupied with self you are separated from God. The way to God is but one step: the step out of yourself.

ABÛ SA‘ÎD IBN ABÎ-L-KHAYR

If you keep the company of the truthful, be truthful with them, for they are spies of the hearts. They come into your hearts and leave without your becoming aware.

AHMAD B. ‘ASIM AL-ANTÂKÎ

No one by himself

can find the Path to Him

Whoever goes to His street

goes with His feet.

MAGHRIBÎ

If you walk toward Him, He comes to you running.

HADÎTH

You too put your best foot forward. If you do not wish to, then follow your fantasies. But if you prefer the secrets of the love of your soul you will sacrifice everything. You will lose what you consider valuable, but you will soon hear the sacramental word “Enter.”

‘ATTÂR

The mystical path is the soul’s journey from separation back to union. On this homeward journey we are seeking our own innermost essence, the pearl of great price that lies hidden within the heart.

Among the greatest treasures to be found on earth,

Being of nothingness is the greatest.

How mysterious!

The lotus remains unstained

By its muddy roots,

Delivering shimmering

Bright jewels from common dew. 

Sojo Henjo

Those who have attained union have nothing but the inward eye and the divine lamp—they have been delivered of signs and roads.

Rumi

The one who has looked at the sun and then looks at himself, finds he is filled with nothing else but rays of the sun and exclaims, “I am the sun.”

AL-HALLÂJ

Who do you think I am? A drunkard? A love-sick fool, a slave of my senses, made senseless by desire? Understand: I have risen above all that, I am the King of Love in majesty. My soul is purified from the darkness of lust, my longing purged of low desire, my mind free from shame. I have broken the teeming bazaar of the senses in my body. Love is the essence of my being. Love is fire and I am wood burnt by the flame. Love has moved in and adorned the house, my self tied up its bundle and left. You imagine that you see me, but I no longer exist: what remains is the Beloved….

NIZÂMÎ

No sadness lasts forever

nor any felicity

Nor any state of poverty 

or one of luxury.

If you are the owner

of a heart that is content

Then you

and the owner of the world

are equivalent..!

Imam al-Shafi’i

“As if the sorrows and stupidities of the world could overwhelm me now that I realize what we all are. I wish everyone could realize this, but there is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Thomas Merton

Ordinary love_U2_Tribute to Nelson Mandela

The sea wants to kiss the golden shore

The sunlight warms your skin

All the beauty that's been lost before

Wants to find us again

I can't fight you anymore

It's you I'm fighting for

The sea throws rock together

But time leaves us polished stones

We can't fall any further

If we can't feel ordinary love

We cannot reach any higher

If we can't deal with ordinary love

Birds fly high in the summer sky

And rest on the breeze

The same wind will take care of you and

I will build our house in the trees

Your heart is on my sleeve

Did you put there with a magic marker

For years I would believe

That the world couldn't wash it away

'Cause we can't fall any further

If we can't feel ordinary love

We cannot reach any higher

If we can't deal with ordinary love

Are we tough enough

For ordinary love

We can't fall any further

If we can't feel ordinary love

We cannot reach any higher

If we can't deal with ordinary love

We can't fall any further

If we can't feel ordinary love

We cannot reach any higher

If we can't deal with ordinary love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC3ahd6Di3M

Love’s healing power

When you can forgive

all that still clings to you from the past

the way thistles and cockleburs

cling to your clothes

while wandering in the fields of the world

you will emerge into a present moment

that is already filled with music.

When you stop worrying

about the future

you will become such a joyful

and laughing nuisance

that love will come very close to you

and begin combing you

into the beauty

of the beloved’s flowing hair.

When you can finally forgive

every wound your mind drags around

as if it were caused by others

only then

will the heart be free

to truly begin to sing of love

Unending Love ♥ ♥

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,

It's ancient tale of being apart or together.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers,

Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,

the distressful tears of farewell,

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

The love of all man's days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -

And the songs of every poet past and forever.

~Rabindranath Tagore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VkXglGuDh8#t=32

If you are in a relationship, you might think that you are more emotionally healthy than your partner, or that your partner is more emotionally healthy than you. But we are attracted to each other at our common level of woundedness, as well as our common level of health.

Dr. Margaret Paul

Things do not change; we change.

Henry David Thoreau

Mending Broken Trust

By Dr. Margaret Paul

When trust is broken, it does not need to be the end of a relationship. Much can be learned from staying in a relationship and learning from the conflict situation. This article tells of how, through the practice of Inner Bonding, two people mended trust when one was unfaithful.

Dylan and Hannah were to be married in a month when Hannah found out that Dylan had been cheating on her with another woman. Devastated, she ended their relationship.

Dylan was also devastated. He really loved Hannah and had no idea why he had been having an affair with a woman who meant nothing to him. Fortunately, Dylan reached out for help and started phone sessions with me. In the course of his Inner Bonding work, he discovered deep feelings of worthlessness from a highly abusive childhood. He had learned to define his worth through women and sex, and was addicted to the validation he received from women. He had no idea how to fill and validate himself and was driven to appease his fear and anxiety through sex with multiple women.

Dylan also discovered that he was terrified of being controlled due to his angry and controlling mother, and having an affair was a way to protect himself from this fear. Hannah frequently used anger as a way to have her way and Dylan had never learned how to stand up for himself, having learned to be a caretaker for his parents. Withdrawing into his addiction was the only way he knew of not being controlled.

While Dylan believed in God, he had no connection with a personal source of spiritual guidance. As he learned and began to practice the six steps of Inner Bonding and developed his spiritual connection, Dylan began to fill up from the inside instead of having always to fill up from the outside. Dylan was diligent regarding his Inner Bonding practice and within a short time, he knew that his sexual addiction was behind him. He had no more desire to act out sexually. He loved Hannah and just wanted to be with her.

Dylan was also healing the old guilt from his parents' blame and abuse. He was learning to stand up for himself rather let himself be controlled, to speak his truth rather than comply out of fear and guilt to another's demands.

At this point, he contacted Hannah. She was still hurt and furious and had no trust in him at all. However, she still loved him, and was confused about what to do. Her family and friends advised her to stay away, but she heard something new in Dylan's voice that compelled her to open up a bit. She started phone sessions with me as well.

"I love him but how can I ever trust him again?" she asked over and over. Instead of working on trusting Dylan, we worked on Hannah learning to trust herself. As we went back through the relationship, it became apparent to Hannah that she had been ignoring the inner promptings that told her something was wrong. She had not trusted her own inner knowing. Out of fear of conflict, she had let many events go by that, if she would have confronted them, would have shed light on the problems much earlier. Instead of speaking her truth, she had learned to get angry as a way to protect against her fears of rejection. Hannah worked on developing her spiritual connection with a source of guidance that helped her begin to trust her inner knowing. As she stopped abandoning herself and learned how to take care of herself so that she no longer needed to control Dylan to feel safe, her anger subsided.

Meanwhile, Dylan went about proving his trustworthiness. He was not only attentive and kind to Hannah, he became generous and kind with various members of his family, from whom he had previously distanced.

After a few months of individual work, Hannah and Dylan began to work together in their phone sessions with me. They learned to open and explore their conflicts and learn from them instead of Hannah getting angry and Dylan complying and withdrawing. In shifting their intent from protecting against pain to learning about love, Hannah and Dylan developed a loving relationship based on trust for themselves and each other. They are now married with children and their relationship continues to evolve in love and trust.

Trust is built in a relationship when both people are open to learning rather than controlling through anger, withdrawal, compliance or resistance. When our intention is to control rather than to learn about what is loving to ourselves and our partner, we can never trust or feel secure with our partner, because if we can control and manipulate him or her, others can too - and that's scary. Only when we believe our partner is with us because he or she wants to be - out of desire and caring, rather than out of fear, obligation, or guilt - will we feel secure and trusting. This only occurs when our intent is to learn about loving ourselves and others rather than to control.

The more we trust ourselves - our own inner knowing and the wisdom from our spiritual guidance - the more open and trusting we can be with our partner. People often hold back from being open with their partners with the implication, "I can't be open until you prove that I can trust you." By trust they mean being able to predict their partners' response, guaranteeing that their partners will be loving rather than rejecting. One of life's hardest realities is that this kind of guarantee is impossible. However, the more we trust ourselves and develop our ability to speak our truth, the more we are willing to be open and risk another's free response to us. This is what creates a loving and trusting relationship.

We all want connection. We don't want to feel alone and lonely and we have many addictions to avoid these feelings. Yet the moment we connect with Spirit and with ourselves, we do not feel alone, and then we can manage the loneliness when we are not connected with others. Today, do not leave your inner child alone. Bring the love of Spirit to your Self so that you can manage the times of loneliness.

Dr. Margaret Paul

When I am with you, we stay up all night. 

When you're not here, I can't go to sleep. 

Praise God for these two insomnias! 

And the difference between them. 

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. 

We are the mirror as well as the face in it. 

We are tasting the taste this minute 

of eternity. We are pain 

and what cures pain, both. We are 

the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. 

I want to hold you close like a lute, so we can cry out with loving. 

You would rather throw stones at a mirror? 

I am your mirror, and here are the stones. 

Rumi