I am an auditory learner. I grew up on a farm in rural Philippines and we only had radios. There was no electricity. I can remember listening to "The Voice of America" and a show called "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" I was too young to relate to the romantic side of it, but I loved the music. I know it is by one of the classical composers but who it is escapes me right now.

The heart, truly is a lonely hunter. To hunt is not it's function. Its function is to give freely, without bounds and without expectations. Its function is to love unconditionally.

Unconditional love is the key to everything: every material desire, every relationship desire, literally, everything. To arrive there one must work a lot.on oneself.

To arrive at that space we have to let go of all our egoistic identifications. We can pray, meditate, do yoga, the only object of which is to arrive at a perfect union with the Divine. There is no other way. Literally and figuratively it is the key to everything.

The heart is at the center of chakras whether coming up or down from the base to the seventh chakra. It is possible to open the third eye by using mantras. It is where all the psychic powers can be had, and yet, when the heart is not open then we are still on child’s play, fulfilling egoistic needs with our psychic powers
Nobody wants to block the heart consciously, and yet every time our egos get pricked and we respond to it , it is a heart blockage. We need to release everything.

In the past six weeks, I have been only “Listening to My Heart.”

To get there I had to relate to the intense pain of looking within. While in deep meditations over many years, I experienced involuntary tears coming from my eyes a great number of times. I know this is a form of release for all of the pains I either dismissed or refused to acknowledge and all of my unconscious attachments. The tears no longer came after a certain point and I thought, wow, I have graduated from my attachments, finally! I was wrong!

I am a trained scientist and as such trained to only believe what I see, in the form of experiments. Even going through the process of looking within and recognizing where the pain was coming from, I had to look as an observer and look at the experiences with that training. Intense suffering is real, but it is intelligent. I can, at will, dismiss all of if by exhausting everything with the question “Why?” but that would be putting band aid over a very deep gash, and in the long run it would not work. We ALL have to go to the roots of our suffering. It is the first Noble truth. Suffering springs from attachment. All attachments.

This time, when I cried during meditations, I KNEW why I was crying.

To relate to the ego we must work on ourselves via meditation or contemplation or prayer. Do what you think is best for you at the moment and then move on when it is necessary. We honor our paths.

Because I have been a student of spirituality for a long time, I can, at will, go into the Space of Unconditional Love with people I love. I call it a Sacred Space.

When I said at will it is because I choose to do so. Choosing is still ego’s function. This is not what I am talking about. I am talking about being open hearted at times when it is difficult. The ego is so intelligent it can use everything to assert itself and lull us into THINKING we are free. The real test now comes from the heart. Are you able to trust your heart?

I do not recommend that you follow your instincts all the time. It is only at times when there is a conflict between logic and what your heart tells you that you follow your heart. Trust yourself. Trust your feelings. I will always remember the scene from Star Wars when Luke Skywalker was trying to raise his spaceship from the marshes when he landed on Yoda's planet. He could do it at will for a few minutes and it would sink again. Then Yoda said “Trust your feelings, Luke”

I mentioned this because it required that:

1. Luke trusted Yoda

2. Luke did not ask Yoda to do it for him! He could have, just as Peter did when he was sinking whereas before he was walking on water, and he told Jesus Christ, "Lord, I am sinking" at which time Jesus Christ extended a hand.

3. When Luke finally trusted himself, fully, he raised his spaceship from the marshes and off he went. He was finally a Jedi Knight. Not yet a Master. That test was when he faced Darth Vader and left himself completely at the mercy of Darth Vader during the final battle between him and his father. He was vulnerable yet he knew that that was what was needed to be done. In that act, Luke liberated Darth Vader.

To trust the heart? Completely? At first, no. Fear will be everywhere. Your ego will keep on saying “What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Are you crazy?” .Fear is the ego's way to project something in the future based on the past. A projection into the future from the memory of a past. Acknowledge that voice and give it a pat. Your ego is a friend, not an enemy.

How to get there? By the choices that we make, moment to moment, this is awareness. By contemplating on the heart while meditating, by praying for others, by forgiving, continuously, the perceived slights that we encounter day after day, and the most important, letting go of the past.

No matter how glorious or how sad it was, it is in the past. Let it go.

We only have NOW.

© 2009 by Melinda M. Sorensson