One of the most important aspects of awakening, says Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson, is the opening of the heart. The heart is a floodgate which, when open, enables the world’s great mystical teachings and realizations to pour through.
Here, Ann Marie guides you through a short, heart-centering meditation, which you can practice daily, or anytime you wish to access the mystery and intelligence that is your own heart.
Friends, many of you commented that you really enjoyed the online video dialogue we recently offered with Peter Fenner and Jeff Foster, moderated by Sounds True founder Tami Simon.
Many of the world’s great wisdom traditions speak of the “natural” state, one of unconditioned awareness where we meet reality directly as it is. What is this experience of unconditioned awareness and how is it related to healing and transformation? Is it some sort of resting place? Is it something we can cultivate through spiritual practice or in some other way? And most importantly, how does the experience of unconditioned awareness shift the way we relate with difficulties in our lives, challenges around intimacy and relationships, our work in the world, and the way we experience feelings and emotions?
I hope you enjoy the dialogue and that you find it meaningful and useful in your life.
Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Ashok Gangadean, who has been a professor of philosophy at Haverford College for more than 45 years. Ashok investigates the primal internal logic of human reason and the deep dynamics of communication between diverse worldviews. He is the author of Meditative Reason and Between Worlds, and with Sounds True has created the six-session audio course Awakening the Global Mind. In this episode, Tami speaks with Ashok about breaking out of limiting patterns of “ego-mental thinking” by deepening our dialogue with ourselves and others, and what it might mean to find the “missing grammar” of supreme universal consciousness he calls “Logos.” (57 minutes)
I wanted to share with you the invocation given by our dear friend and author Mirabai Starr at the recent Wake Up Festival. Invoking the great wisdom traditions throughout our world, Mirabai led the community in prayer and gratitude as we opened this year’s event. Several of you mentioned that you were really moved by Mirabai’s words; we wanted make make a copy available here. May you drink deeply.
Beloved One,
Living Light,
Spirit of All That Is,
we give thanks.
Thank you for welcoming us
to this sacred circle.
We come from everywhere,
and we find you wherever we are:
inside the holy houses of each of the world’s faiths,
and out in the wild places of the earth;
shoulder to shoulder in the mosque,
bending to press our hearts to the ground in surrender;
in the haunting Hebrew melodies of our ancestors
as we call on the Shekinah to infuse us
with her indwelling feminine spirit;
in the communion bread and wine,
which we take in remembrance
of the Prince of Peace.
We hear your voice joining with ours when we chant the Divine Names
in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Tiwa and Maya and Maori.
We meet you high on alpine trails,
where we stop to rest among fragrant wild herbs,
beside a stream rushing with melted snow.
We feel you holding us when we float in the arms of the ocean
and she sways us with her breath.
We kiss you when we are making love;
we mourn you when an elder releases her final exhalation;
we soothe you when we rock a tired child in our arms.
We look for you in the pulsating emptiness,
search for your true form in the heart of formlessness,
unexpectedly recognize you when we give up and turn away.
You shine through the ecstatic stanzas of the poets and mystics,
each one singing your praises in a different language.
You well up in our aching hearts
when we cry out for the pain of the world.
You are the call to justice,
and the answering response of mercy.
You are in the wounding of the earth
and you are the only hope for mending her.
Oh Great Spirit,
Father-Mother God,
True Self and No-Self,
Invisible animating energy of Life:
We claim our place at your table
and find ourselves home at last.
Here may we eat and be filled,
drink and become unbridled,
lay down our burdens and take refuge,
drop into your sacred silence and remember.
And let us take this remembrance back out into our lives,
That we may truly be of service
in this broken and beautiful world.
AMEN.
-Mirabai Starr
There is a brief moment when you imagined that your sorrow was working against you. For an instant there was the sense that your sadness, your despair, and your loneliness were obstacles on the path. But love is a shape-shifter. She will take any form she must to unlock a secret place within you.
Even in the center of your fear, right in the heart of your anxiety, weaved into the fabric of your most scary places there is a raging intelligence, a firestorm of pure creativity. Love is awakening those parts of you that have drifted asleep. This is not a journey into some transcendent, detached, and safe place, but into the heart of a wild, untamed groundlessness. You will feel so much more than you ever felt, care so much more than you ever thought possible, yet you will know nothing. Love will even convince you of her absence if that is how she must reach you.
It may seem like an ordinary Saturday, but what is happening here is far from ordinary. Stop. Breathe. Lay your hands on your sacred body. Touch the earth and feel the aliveness and the rare opportunity that has been given here. It will not last long, friends, for love will be calling you home soon. Every person you meet, each feeling that surges within you, every emotion that comes knocking at the door of your heart, every form that appears – love is sending its messengers to you, one by one.
Your body is love’s temple, your heart is its tavern, your eyes are its windows, your words of kindness are its voice, the way you sweetly touch another are its hands – for it is only through you that love can explode into this world.
Friends, I want to let you know about the new Sounds True online community, a space that we’ve dedicated to meaningful conversation with you, our listeners from around the world. Through the community, it is our intention to support you to connect with fellow journeyers on the path in a way that is meaningful and transformative for you. As part of the community, we’ll be initiating book clubs and practice groups (which you can initiate as well!), sharing our experience with certain titles and authors, dialoguing about the journey of awakening and healing, discussing practices of meditation and prayer, facilitating local meetings with like-minded people, and whatever you might be drawn to share or discuss.
Of course, the community is totally free. We’d love to have you!
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