This image, a photo of a sculpture's "capture" of yearning, is key to understanding the importance of desire in cultivating an expansive spiritual life. From the angle of the photo, St. Teresa's face is only partially revealed, but nevertheless, she appears to be positively orgasmic, does she not? The angel with the knowing arrow to pierce Teresa's heart, also beams with evident pleasure at the role "it" is playing in Teresa's ecstasy. Notice her limp hand and her curling toes: sure signs of orgasmic delight. As in sexual orgasm, but even more, her every cell is vibrating with a heightened force to the point of mystic-trance -- into the sublime union with the Divine Beloved. The yearning for this dynamic surrender-into-total-self-annihilation-in-Love-for-the-Cosmic-Other is the supreme reason for the practice of any religion.
The access point for mystic-faith is the heart: the heart is the spirit's brain: it is source for our highest intellectual capabilities. The heart is the center of our "divine" possibilities to fully "mirror" the image the Divine within us / within every single atom of the physical universe. "To consciously enter into the heart" is the work of the spiritual life. There are many methods to this madness...
I suppose that the very first step is the working assumption that one really knows nothing and likely never will. Doubt of one's opinions and perceptions is essential, as well as the ability to laugh at oneself and the seriousness with which we approach our spiritual life. We are, at every moment, only a beginner... So wash the dishes. Scrub the toilet. Rub your partner's back. Everyday -- multiple times everyday -- tell your kids that you love them. Look them in their eyes, lock eyes with them, and tell them how you adore them. Grow a garden. Get dirt under your nails. Hug and slow dance around your living room with your partner. If you are certain the kids are asleep, make love right there on the floor... Spirituality is attention given to the every sacred moment that fills your day, and most especially, to every person with whom you share your life. For too many years, I was focused on my "work", my "vocation", my "spiritual life" -- and my real life received far too little, and that ended up costing me dearly in unnecessary suffering, later, down the road... So, humility and attention, are the beginning of the spiritual path (and also every step of the way)...
Secondly, "to enter the heart", means several things. It means to cultivate the virtues of the heart: empathy, compassion, mercy, kindness, peace, and justice. Without these virtues, the heart will never be other / more than an instrument for the maintenance of bodily life. So we must practice: volunteer in or start a Soup Kitchen; volunteer in a Rape Crisis Center, a Food Pantry, a Homeless Shelter, an Immigrant Rights Center, an Interfaith Gathering: anything that will carry you out of your "regular" routine and daily concerns. The heart desperately wants to expand: your heart intuitively knows that it was made with the same capacity for divine-yearning as St. Teresa's! "To enter the heart" also means to "knock on its door"...
Sitting comfortably, incline your head ever so slightly to the left, as if focusing your intention upon your heart. Stir your mind with a chosen love-word. Choose a two syllable word that you find resonates with your spirit (possibilities include Jesus, Mary, Mother, Allah, Abba, Amma, Krishna, Kuan Yin, etc.) Attach that two-syllable word to the slow and gentle flow of your breath. But more, kiss that holy word as it passes through your slightly parted lips: mentally swirl your tongue around the word as it slides down, down, down into your heart, there to take up residence in its newly opened Home... Every part and particle of creation is energized and amplified by the Encouraging and Energizing Thought of the Divine Beloved!
If all seven+ billion of us human beings on Planet Earth were to have all of the empty space within the atoms that make up our bodies removed: and the remnants swept up, those collected remnants would amount to something about the size of a single grain of rice! Emptiness is as much (or more) our nature as is physicality. The true "fullness" of our humanity is its divinization! It is within our heart that we may merge in ecstatic union: our "nothing" with the "Big No One": our gifted love with the Pure Thought of the One Love: this is the Mystery of Being-ness: empty / full, beyond duality but loving within multiplicity, the Abode of the Divine Beloved within us... This "Loving Breath" meditation is the humble practice of interior adoration and surrender: it is the "little way" of cultivating Divine Yearning... Before there was existence, there was Non-Existence. Before there was thought, there was No Thought. Yearning raised the possibility of Someone To Love, Something To Discover... Yearning is the Seed-Bed of Every Possibility... Yearning is the Secret Name of G-d! Filling our hearts with Little Bits of Divine Yearning, we naturally seek pleasure and sexual union and the gifting and receiving of orgasm, we love this Precious Blue Planet and seek its blessing in regeneration, we love and lift up our children and every child, we practice daily compassion and justice, we walk lightly upon the Earth and cause as little harm as possible, and we forget! Of course we forget! But as soon as it dawns upon us -- oops I forgot again! -- I practice my intention to remember, and so begin again...
Our loving breath meditation becomes the very breath of our breath: we learn to begin making love to the moments of our daily lives. We pause and weep for all those who hurt -- especially for those whom we have hurt. We learn, perhaps, how to even dwell in tears. We practice forgiveness: perhaps some of the people whom we loved, or failed to love in the ways they needed, have removed themselves from our lives: we keep space for them in our hearts. We steadily learn that we are loved by the One Breath of All Life: It, in fact, is breathing within us through our breath / as our breath. Our loving breath meditation is an "any moment / every moment" bath in the Breath of the Divine Beloved... our contemplative breath is awakening to the Beatitude Vision: the entirety of Creation / Universe is interrelated: is an Inter-being... And in this day of manufactured distractions and cultivated divisions, we pierce through this fog and recognize the Face of G-d in the faces of Every Other... Master Yeshua, the Exemplar of Love-In-Action, strides today through our pursuit of the Beloved Community: welcoming home and leaving no one behind...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place of prayer and transformation...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where we are enfolded in Love...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where all creativity is born...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where the future is vitalized...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where we live now our resurrection...
In conclusion, scroll back up to the photo of the Teresa sculpture, look at it intently and know that you too -- and every last one of us -- were born for ecstasy...
The access point for mystic-faith is the heart: the heart is the spirit's brain: it is source for our highest intellectual capabilities. The heart is the center of our "divine" possibilities to fully "mirror" the image the Divine within us / within every single atom of the physical universe. "To consciously enter into the heart" is the work of the spiritual life. There are many methods to this madness...
I suppose that the very first step is the working assumption that one really knows nothing and likely never will. Doubt of one's opinions and perceptions is essential, as well as the ability to laugh at oneself and the seriousness with which we approach our spiritual life. We are, at every moment, only a beginner... So wash the dishes. Scrub the toilet. Rub your partner's back. Everyday -- multiple times everyday -- tell your kids that you love them. Look them in their eyes, lock eyes with them, and tell them how you adore them. Grow a garden. Get dirt under your nails. Hug and slow dance around your living room with your partner. If you are certain the kids are asleep, make love right there on the floor... Spirituality is attention given to the every sacred moment that fills your day, and most especially, to every person with whom you share your life. For too many years, I was focused on my "work", my "vocation", my "spiritual life" -- and my real life received far too little, and that ended up costing me dearly in unnecessary suffering, later, down the road... So, humility and attention, are the beginning of the spiritual path (and also every step of the way)...
Secondly, "to enter the heart", means several things. It means to cultivate the virtues of the heart: empathy, compassion, mercy, kindness, peace, and justice. Without these virtues, the heart will never be other / more than an instrument for the maintenance of bodily life. So we must practice: volunteer in or start a Soup Kitchen; volunteer in a Rape Crisis Center, a Food Pantry, a Homeless Shelter, an Immigrant Rights Center, an Interfaith Gathering: anything that will carry you out of your "regular" routine and daily concerns. The heart desperately wants to expand: your heart intuitively knows that it was made with the same capacity for divine-yearning as St. Teresa's! "To enter the heart" also means to "knock on its door"...
Sitting comfortably, incline your head ever so slightly to the left, as if focusing your intention upon your heart. Stir your mind with a chosen love-word. Choose a two syllable word that you find resonates with your spirit (possibilities include Jesus, Mary, Mother, Allah, Abba, Amma, Krishna, Kuan Yin, etc.) Attach that two-syllable word to the slow and gentle flow of your breath. But more, kiss that holy word as it passes through your slightly parted lips: mentally swirl your tongue around the word as it slides down, down, down into your heart, there to take up residence in its newly opened Home... Every part and particle of creation is energized and amplified by the Encouraging and Energizing Thought of the Divine Beloved!
If all seven+ billion of us human beings on Planet Earth were to have all of the empty space within the atoms that make up our bodies removed: and the remnants swept up, those collected remnants would amount to something about the size of a single grain of rice! Emptiness is as much (or more) our nature as is physicality. The true "fullness" of our humanity is its divinization! It is within our heart that we may merge in ecstatic union: our "nothing" with the "Big No One": our gifted love with the Pure Thought of the One Love: this is the Mystery of Being-ness: empty / full, beyond duality but loving within multiplicity, the Abode of the Divine Beloved within us... This "Loving Breath" meditation is the humble practice of interior adoration and surrender: it is the "little way" of cultivating Divine Yearning... Before there was existence, there was Non-Existence. Before there was thought, there was No Thought. Yearning raised the possibility of Someone To Love, Something To Discover... Yearning is the Seed-Bed of Every Possibility... Yearning is the Secret Name of G-d! Filling our hearts with Little Bits of Divine Yearning, we naturally seek pleasure and sexual union and the gifting and receiving of orgasm, we love this Precious Blue Planet and seek its blessing in regeneration, we love and lift up our children and every child, we practice daily compassion and justice, we walk lightly upon the Earth and cause as little harm as possible, and we forget! Of course we forget! But as soon as it dawns upon us -- oops I forgot again! -- I practice my intention to remember, and so begin again...
Our loving breath meditation becomes the very breath of our breath: we learn to begin making love to the moments of our daily lives. We pause and weep for all those who hurt -- especially for those whom we have hurt. We learn, perhaps, how to even dwell in tears. We practice forgiveness: perhaps some of the people whom we loved, or failed to love in the ways they needed, have removed themselves from our lives: we keep space for them in our hearts. We steadily learn that we are loved by the One Breath of All Life: It, in fact, is breathing within us through our breath / as our breath. Our loving breath meditation is an "any moment / every moment" bath in the Breath of the Divine Beloved... our contemplative breath is awakening to the Beatitude Vision: the entirety of Creation / Universe is interrelated: is an Inter-being... And in this day of manufactured distractions and cultivated divisions, we pierce through this fog and recognize the Face of G-d in the faces of Every Other... Master Yeshua, the Exemplar of Love-In-Action, strides today through our pursuit of the Beloved Community: welcoming home and leaving no one behind...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place of prayer and transformation...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where we are enfolded in Love...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where all creativity is born...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where the future is vitalized...
That place of the Divine Within us, is the place where we live now our resurrection...
In conclusion, scroll back up to the photo of the Teresa sculpture, look at it intently and know that you too -- and every last one of us -- were born for ecstasy...
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