Natural Love of the Heart Part 2

Oct29

DSCN1895 The whole world is getting a wake up call. The Universe all around is calling us to our Highest Selves and that which is inclusive, serviceful, kind and unifying. We are being called back to the Source, God within us.

So many of us are hearing the clarion call to expand the “love of our hearts.” Yet so many souls on this earth right now have little to no help at all. This is not a marketing scheme to find ways to expand income and create an online business. I am not judging that but that is not the purpose here.

It is my mission to support the use conscious loving awakening tools that empower anyone who seeks to connect to the presence. Every soul has a destiny to understand what that means and how to do it. It is a call for service and right action for every soul that knows how to reach God to help those that do not or cannot figure out what to do. Go within and listen to God by connecting and centering yourself in your heart. Ask, Seek and Knock on the door of God within you.

The spirit of oneness is calling each one of us to play our part and go deeper. I feel a call to go deeper into the profound harmony with the wisdom of universal truth than ever before.

The supportive guidance in the following paragraph comes from Paramhansa Yogananda’s 1932 edition of Metaphysical Meditations and is offered as a suggestion and conscious tool to help begin a meditation by centering devotionally in the heart.

Lock the eyelid doors and shut out the wild dance of tempting scenes. Drop your mind into the bottomless well of your heart. Hold the mind on your heart bubbling with your life-giving blood. Keep your attention tied to the heart, until you feel its rhythmic beat. With every heartbeat feel the knock of almighty Life. Picture the same all-pervading Life knocking at the heart-door of fifteen hundred million human bodies and of billions of living creatures. The heart-throb constantly, meekly announces the infinite power standing behind the doors of your awareness. The gentle beat of all-pervading Life says to you silently, “Do not receive only a little flow of My life, but expand the opening of thy feeling powers, and let Me flood thy blood, body, mind, feelings, and soul with My throbs of universal life.”

This works for me. I offer it to you hoping that it will serve you in as you deepen your connection to Spirit. Please let me know how you are doing on your spiritual journey.

Know that you are Loved, Rev. Barb Walley

Our Hearts Natural Love Part 1

Oct25

DSCN2146 Many of us have been on an inner spiritual journey for quite some time. For many years I looked for love in the most ridiculous places until I finally looked for it within myself. I felt that God was Love and being one with God, I too am meant to be love. If that was true, I wanted to feel and express love at all times, in all relationships and certainly within myself. After many years of seeking truth and awareness, and working daily spiritual practice of applying the tools of Self Realization, I feel that I growing daily toward the “Hearts Natural Love,” in me. This is a journey that is a process that keeps on growing. God is not done with me yet. This is a term I found in a book by Paramhansa Yogananda’s (who wrote “The Autobiography of a Yogi”) guru, Swami Shri Yukteswar, who wrote “The Holy Science.” It is a small priceless treasure of a book that I have close at hand and I keep very close to my heart.

When I first heard the term, the Hearts Natural Love, something inside of me was energized and saying “yes”. I felt my heart open up to something I was about to explore for many years to come that caused me to seek a deeper and more universal understanding. Our heart has profound wisdom that can lead us to God, wisdom and eventually Self Realization. Our ego and our head on the other hand, has many opinions, conditions, distractions, reactions, flaws and obstacles that prevent us from expressing the hearts natural love.

Taking my own spiritual growth to heart I knew there was a lot of work for me to do. Opening my heart helps me learn better ways to serve God with greater energy and ever deepening dedication. I am always working on the daily “Practicing of the Presence” by consciously knowing that “God is the doer”. That is when I witness the growth in my own awareness and attune myself to my highest self rather than being caught in any unholy habits of trying to manipulate or have power over anyone else but me.

Shri Yukteswar wrote about eight obstacles to the hearts natural love and he called them “meannesses of the heart.” The following is his list of traps that prevent our hearts from becoming perfectly purified. At Ananda we do that with meditation and using the techniques of Kriya Yoga that help us reach the spiritual eye and light within us. Many old habits block us from going deeper into spiritual substance within us and gaining the deep realization that we seek beyond the intellect.

Hatred: dislike, loathing, animosity, disgust, aversion- all are the opposite of love.

Shame: dishonor, humiliation, embarrassment, disgrace, dishonor, degrade, discredit.

Fear: dread, terror, anxiety, fright, worry, concern, afraid, alarm, panic, horror

Grief: heartache, pain, misery, unhappiness, sorrow, angst

Condemnation: blame, disapproval, criticism, attack, judgment

Race Prejudice: People of influence who prejudge others set the stage for institutional racism to occur.

Pride of Pedigree: Proud of being in an elite and privileged group.

Smugness: arrogance, self-satisfaction, conceit, self righteousness, self importance, over confidence, condescension, pride, exclusiveness

Most of us will find some thing on this list that we still have some work to do upon. If not, good for you.

If you would like to join me in exploring how the above thoughts or issues impact your relationships in your life, or in yourself, your family, in the work place, in your security, social actions and attitudes. Who are you honest with? This is a wonderful opportunity to get support on your spiritual journey. I invite you to take advantage of it.

Perhaps you are willing to take a look at the above attitudes and behaviors and see what comes to you. If you need to shift or change something within you to make the world a better place, now is a great time to do just that. What I seek to share with you in this series of blogs is an opportunity to go more deeply into reflection over the next few blogs and in my book in development.

Share your thoughts, your struggles, victories and insights. Lets see who is in this process with me that intends to grow and make a difference. The world needs all hands on deck now. “Be a part of the Change.” We all grow a little faster with the help of our friends along the path. I hope that you will share some of your process so we can all encourage one another and dissolve any doubts that blocks our peace and understanding with a little help of our spiritual friends. You are not alone! If that touched a vulnerable place in you…. put your hand on your heart and breath deeply. Then write me a post and tell me how I can help, what is up, do you need to share something now?

I ask you to look at this as both a student and for those of us that are also teachers to make sure we are revealing the keys to our inner kingdom of divine consciousness in all of our thoughts, beliefs and actions. This journey demands self-control and honesty and lots of prayer for assistance from God to help us discover the joy of living in tune with the Infinite.

Know that You are Loved! Rev. Barb Walley

Is the Ego your friend? Part 2

Oct16

I grew up thinking that developing a strong ego was a good thing. What my spiritual journey has revealed is that it is really about how I protect myself from what I fear. All of the many ego identifications are often about what we like or what we dislike. Whatever we identify with will always create fences that define our limitations and block others out. We all have oodles and bundles of self definitions. We just do not recognize them as that.

The ego takes sides – and expresses the color, shape and size of the limitations that we choose. It is not very obvious that we are up to that It is what sets us apart from the other souls on the planet who have more or less than we do. They live in other countries, cultures or economic realities. We create fences with so many of our thoughts, beliefs and .

We construct brick fences, or thick concrete fences, or high barbed wire fences, or electric fences, glass transparent ones that block others out. They are all how we limit ourselves and keep others out of our lives. It is about what we think will keep us safe. It is our delusional fears that are triggering in us.

The fences can be economic, social, cultural, racial and they often translate into divisions. They invoke feelings that mask the Soul. In our souls we are one. In the heart of God we are one.

When the hurricanes head into an area of the world – they come to everyone regardless of the economic or social circumstances. It blows its ravaging winds upon everyone in its path. The rich might be able to escape more quickly if they have the means available to them, and sadly the poor and sick are not as easily served.

Only Spirit within us can set us free. When we identify with God and choose that energy that lifts us toward our higher self, we have an opening to possibilities

The great Spiritual Master – Paramhansa Yogananda said that limitations are like putting on a very heavy coat on a very hot summer day.

All of these fences are “agitations of the heart” and they delude us and disturb the mind and body with the conditions and beliefs that we fool ourselves into believing. I am on a journey to bring more love, more authenticity and service into the world as it is.

I am a spiritual life coach and I do engaging workshops, speak at meetings and in spiritual centers. I teach one on one, in groups.

Know that you are Loved, Rev Barb Walley