DOORWAYS INTO THE HEART
Dying into freedom
There are infinite doorways into the heart. Like a hall of mirrors, everywhere you look, an access point into the heart. Every single reflection, object and experience serving as an opportunity to recognize the heart. With all of these doorways present everywhere you look, it’s a wonder why we don’t see the heart. The heart alludes us. It seems a bit mysterious. How do we feel it, see it and know it? It seems that only in moments of great grief or rapturous love we find it, but what about all of the moments in between? They seem ordinary, mechanical, devoid of much actual aliveness and without much consideration of the heart. The majority of the human focus is on going all of the places, creating all of the stuff and doing all of the things. Our immediate and longer term survival preoccupy our mind and we give little attention to how it is that we experience our experience. We say we want to feel joy, bliss and love, yet we don’t prioritize those things over all other things.
Finding our way into our heart can feel like an impossible prospect at times. Things look dim, we feel grim and there doesn’t seem to be light anywhere near. Shifting our state of being doesn’t seem like an option and changing the circumstances feels out of our control. So we wait it out, hoping for something to change or pass, all the while feeling stuck without the capacity to change anything. We’ve heard that if we change our perspective than we change our experience of our experience, that we actually experience a different reality, but we don’t really believe that’s possible. So stuck it is and waiting we do, until something appears to randomly shift and we feel different for at least a moment or two. We feel our breath, the tension lifts, and ease and peace is experienced for a few of our inhales and exhales.
No matter how hard we try we cannot force our way into our heart. We can only enter into the open doors of it. Often we must get to the point of exhaustion, of absolutely no other option, but to let go of all of the forcing, trying and doing to get inside of our heart. This is where we crack, where we simply just can’t go on anymore, when we’ve got nothing left, finally then we will give it over. It being all of our attempts, all of our trying, all of our efforting. In a way we die to all of it. Everything we hope for, the thing(s) we want to achieve, and how we want everything to happen. When we die to it, and to all of the effort, the tension and resistance releases, and in that moment we enter the heart. The heart which has always been there, but which we were too busy trying to find our way in, to see the open doors.
PERVASIVENESS OF THE HEART
Ever present availability
The heart is like an open spacious field of freedom. Omnipresent, all pervasive, and here. It is not ever the heart that is not available, but rather our minds that are not. Your state of our mind can never make the heart come or go, rather your state only occludes or illuminates your view of it. Recognizing that absolutely everything you feel and experience can be a door into illumination of the heart is revolutionary. You might wonder how your anger, frustration, limitation, confusion and like could ever be a doorway in; they all are. However you must allow them all to be as they are, and through your allowing you experiencing the melting away and opening into the ever present, stable heart. This is the key and where the magic lives. As paradoxical as it sounds even allowing your resistance sets you free into the heart.
There are some tools, techniques or other various permission slips that may help you see the doors more clearly. Recognizing beauty, being grateful, and giving/receiving acts of service can be helpful tools. Dancing, finding rhythm in your body, or moving your energy can help you see the doors. Being still, contemplating, and meditating can reveal to you what is already here. Focusing your attention on certain words, remembering simple truths or reciting mantras can bring you into clarity. Defeat, pain, disease, grief, and exhaustion can open you into surrender if you go all the way into them. There is no one size fits all. Remember everything is a doorway if you utilize it as such.
There is so much more available here than just surviving and getting through. Yes “making it” is a feat, but your experience doesn’t have to be about getting to an end. After all every single body will die. Yes we want our bodies to be well and keeping our vehicles in good working condition is vital, but it’s not what life is about. The human experience is not about surviving, because that my friend’s, is already a lost game. Ultimately your life is about whatever you prioritize. If you choose to prioritize the experience of heart while in a physical body, while then you get to have that experience. It is not a must, but it is an option. It’s an option that comes with a fuller, richer and more connected experience of existing. One that feels more fulfilling and purposeful than just making it through. One that is alive with energy, synchronicity and the freedom to be as you are.
Doorways into the heart are everywhere. You are never truly disconnected even though it feels that way at times. Remember every experience is for your learning, even your experience of forgetting yourself and of feeling out of connection with your heart. If you remember in those moments that this is all learning you can find a doorway back in. Into you, as you are your heart. Here you can no longer not see yourself, you can only accept what is. Here in the open vastness of unconditional love you find home, unity and truth in what you are and what has undeniable been present all along.
Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado
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