February 2009

Appearances of the Heart

Some people live closely guarded lives, fearful of encountering someone or something that might shatter their insecure spiritual foundation. This attitude, however, is not the fault of religion but of their own limited understanding. True Dharma leads in exactly the opposite direction. It enables one to integrate all the many diverse experiences of life into a meaningful and coherent whole, thereby banishing fear and insecurity completely. ~Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Wisdom Energy"

As I take an upward stance to observe the human drama below, the message angle for this month’s newsletter immediately becomes clear.

There are many who claim to be accelerated on the evolutionary path of ascension who parade around in a sheath of spiritual ego full of self-aggrandizement. Their attention is anchored with concern over how they appear to others and thus, they exaggerate their own importance, power, and reputation masking their inadequacies under the guise of love and compassion. With a need to secure false personal power in the eyes of others to appear expert on matters that elude them, their emotional bodies are easily thrown off balance and threatened when their thoughts and ideals are questioned and processes examined. Quick to mask their overcompensations from feelings of self doubt, inadequacy or victimhood, they react with quick emotional force. Taking things personally, with a swift wave of the hand they judge and dismiss differing perspectives and approaches of others on the path. Be weary of such manipulations. Discernment is needed here. The hallmark of a true initiate is non-attachment and clearly unconcerned with others emotional positions, as they are steadfast upon bridging inner and outer connections on many levels and to transmit that synthetic union to others through world service. Their lower bodies are aligned and integrated with focus on living a more soul infused reality as an expressive link in consciousness.

While the spiritual egoist espouses to tout the law of love, they miss the mark and project onto others a love-less vibrational state de-spiriting those in their chain of connection. These characters having reached a small measure of congruency between what they say, feel and do, their uncontrolled emotional bodies ever lead them astray. Emotional reactivity leads to imbalanced thought.

While to err is to be human, it is most wise to take personal responsibility to grow and make better when it is due. Halting judgment and embracing others ways of being is a good place to start. With finger-pointing fear based approaches, many refuse to own their projections lost in their own demagoguery. The virtues of humility, trust and the integrity of simultaneous interplay between teacher/student as a co-creative experience, is lost to their desire for guru-hood. Overriding true wisdom and halting acceleration, is the ever-common failure of the Path Seeker to control the emotional body into a calm sea of glass.

I have extracted and revised a piece of my work, “The Seven Attributes of Heart” to express the many evolving layers of heart consciousness that differ only by degree of vibration that is discernable as our level of awareness rises. A Selfish Heart functions from conditioned logical responses, while the emotions are a continuous shifting of moods and sentiments wrapped into the self. A Desirous Heart is concerned with sense gratification and is motivated by that which brings pleasure. An Egoic Heart, pride and vanity plays an important role so that others may fall in love with the mask perceived as Self. Misidentification further thickens the veil of glamour and illusion. A Compassionate Heart stimulates the innate potential for healing and through the path of selfless service, love flows gracefully and brings awareness and influence upon others. A Listening Heart is a self-aware organized consciousness of integrated perceptions between inner and outer worlds, open to the channels of knowledge and illumination. A Wise Heart perceives a world of differing forces that must congeal into a unified whole if there is ever to be systemic harmony. Virtuous, without distortion of any kind, the tide of beingness is in rhythm with an undifferentiated Kosmic awareness. A Spiritual Heart recognizes the essential unity in all things and merges with supreme consciousness with reflection in the Kosmic self.

Like a huge mirror our ability to govern the law of our own being always operates in accordance with our actions. We must come to realize that we each are responsible for our own happiness and our own misery chained by the instinctive forces that enslave us. We must move beyond these forces into self-mastery by using the gifts with which we are endowed to promote our inner ideal. Each day we can overcome the effect of our selfish hearts and brackish deeds if we act wisely by evolving our hearts vibration to more inclusive values. This leads us to live a noble life with potential to change the world en masse.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

In Lighted Companionship,
Rev. Alisa Battaglia

To bring in the new day, we do not need a further appraisal of the world condition based on a particular ideology or point of view. Rather, we need a deeper sense of reality based on spiritual values, and a new perception of humanity as a unit of divine life within an ordered and purposive universe.