RETURN TO SPIRIT

© Barbara Stone, 2001

In the usual Yogic tradition, you are requested to take full responsibility for your life.  That means the recognition that whatever may emerge from working with these lessons is part of your life and, therefore, is your responsibility.  We all receive the lessons we need from one source or another, and our only choice is whether we attend to them or not.  So, if you find yourself with this guidebook in hand with the intention to make your way through it, it is because you are meant to do this kind of self-investigation.This material is not intended to be, nor to take the place of, psychotherapy.  It is designed to assist psychologically healthy adults to more fully understand themselves and their spiritual journeys.  These guidebooks do not diagnose or treat psychological disorders.  If you are engaged in psycho-therapy already and have doubts about whether you should work with them, please consult your psychologist and follow his or her advice.If you are not willing to take complete responsibility in these contexts, please do not use the guidebook.

Introduction

UNIT I.  Fourth Chakra Themes

UNIT II.  Adolescent Development

UNIT III.  The Wishing Tree

UNIT IV.  Connection

UNIT V.  The Beloved One

UNIT VI.  Attunement

UNIT VII.  Solitude

UNIT VIII.  Divine Light

UNIT IX.  Illumination

UNIT X.  Healing

References

Appendix A.  The Metta Sutra

Appendix B.  Religion

Appendix C.  Our Mother the Earth

Figure 4-1.  Anahata Chakra

Figure 4-2.  The Wishing Tree

Figure 4-3.  Bentov's Torus

When it became necessary for me to close House of Spirit in Colorado because I could no longer take care of the property alone due to aging, I was plunged into a severe depression that has only lifted during the past year and a half.  I love Colorado and the location of House of Spirit was so beautiful, I knew it could never be duplicated for me again.  So mourning set in in a big way.  In this case, my depression manifested as a profound disspiritedness.  I felt like Spirit had let me down and abandoned me.  So, in the move away, my heart closed down and a powerful sense of mistrust set in.  When I came to Massachusettes, the dark cloud was still hovering over me, and I holed up inside for the first winter seeing no one unless I went to town for food and supplies.  I met my neighbors, but did little to develop their friendship.  I felt very sorry for myself, but could not pull myself out of the inertia no matter how hard I tried.  I had lost my motivation and reason to exist.  I let go of all my spiritual practices except meditation and hatha yoga.  I had no friends, no family nearby and no spiritual community.  My cat was my sole companion, my garden my only consolation.  I knew I needed to get out and make some friends and meet new people, perhaps find a community activity that would inspire me to settle down and make this my home, but I had no energy and felt extremely introspective, sedentary and shy.  So I took refuge in my books and time ticked by.

One day a friend, who had lived for a time at House of Spirit in Colorado, sent me a brochure for a training program on “The Art of Spiritual Guidance.”   It galvanized me into action as if it was the answer to my prayers as it, indeed, turned out to be.  My friend knew I would be interested because he and I both were inspired by Atum O’Kane whose workshops we had been attending at opposite ends of the country.  About the same time, I went to one such workshop at The Abode of the Message which is a Sufi Center in New Lebanon, NY just across the mountain from here.  There I began to explore the meaning of my closed heart and to see if it could be reopened.  Sufis specialize in heartwork, so I knew I was in the right place.

My first insight was that my heart wasn’t just closed, it was broken; just as one’s heart breaks at the end of a relationship that has been deeply meaningful.  So what does one do with a broken heart?  Looking into that question, I came to the realization that my heart had to be broken in order to open it.  Atum had said, “Wounds are openings through which the Light can come.”  This resonated and resounded in my heart center, so I knew it was the truth.  I wrote the following haiku at that time:
 

 I see the dagger
 Concealed in the flaming love
 Separation from You.

It was probably no accident that the next workshop of Atum’s I attended was called “Opening the Heart.”  Here the message was that longing is the most important facet of the return to the Beloved [the Sufi’s name for Spirit].  Atum said, “Attachment to the old face of the Beloved can get in the way of a new face of the Living God.”  This went straight as an arrow to the place where I live.  Soon I was to discover that in the relationship with the Beloved the longing is the loving.  And so, gradually and with the support of my new spiritual support group that developed during the guidance training, my heart began to open once again.

In this book we will introduce some Sufi practices and ideas because the Sufi path is the path of love.  And love is the essence of heartwork.

Some of the objectives for this book follow:

Objectives

1.    To gain insights into the generation of brokenheartedness and the defensive cage that is often     built around the heart.
2.   To get acquainted with the perils of adolescence.
3.   To see how the need to belong motivates us to betray ourselves.
4.   To master the Focusing technique.
5.   To study the formation of psychological identity and then to see how it expands during the spiritual journey.
6.   To become acquainted with our divine identity.
7.   To examine the relationship between character armor and vulnerability, and to see how the armor can be removed.
8.   To look at intellectual development during adolescence.
9.   To examine the role of the mind in defense.
10.  To compare Buddhist and Yogic views of the mind.
11.  To learn more about Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion and worship.
12.  To create a worship space and learn how to develop our own rituals.
13.  To examine the need for a teacher and a spiritual support group.
14.  To study aspects of connection both with others and with the Divine One.
15.  To learn how to do Tong len.
16.  To learn how to transmute emotions into finer feelings.
17.  To work on problems in relationships.
18.  To meet the guru/Beloved within.
19.  To practice the zhikr of love.
20.  To experiment with varying ways to tune in to the Divine One.
21.  To tune in to inner guidance.
22.  To learn how to do Centering Prayer and the Jesus Prayer.
23.  To examine the contemplative life and become familiar with some of the    practices done by mystics in training
24.  To learn how to work with heart rhythms.
25.  To study the three vows common to all mystic paths.
26.  To see the value of solitude.
27.  To understand the symbolism of Light, what it stands for, why it is common to    all religions, and to explore the implications of living in the Light.
28.  To learn how to do the Divine Light Invocation.
29.  To study the stage of illumination in the mystic journey.
30.  To review some principles of healing and heart opening.

The following list of books is arranged by Unit and is cumulative (book is listed only in the first unit in which you will use it), so you can see which ones to secure first.  They are listed in the order you will need them rather than alphabetically.  You may want to leaf through the exercises or outline if you are in doubt about how much each book will be used.  If you prefer not to buy all of them, it is fine to borrow them through library loan at your local library.  However, if you do this, be sure to give the librarian some lead time to find and get them there.  Several of them you will already have.  They are marked with an asterisk (*).

Unit I. Fourth Chakra Themes

Vaughan-Lee, L.  (1995). Sufism: The transformation of the heart.  Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.

Chopra, D. (1997).  The path to love: Renewing the power of spirit in your life. New York: Harmony Books.

* Johari, H. (1987).  Chakras: Energy centers of transformation.  Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

Bair, P. (1998).  Living from the heart: Heart rhythm meditation for energy, clarity, peace, joy and inner power.  New York: Three Rivers Press.

Unit II.  Adolescent Development

Gendlin, E. T. (1988).  Focusing (2nd ed.).  New York: Bantam Books.

O’Donohue, J. (1999).  Eternal echoes: Exploring our yearning to belong.  New York: Cliff Street Books of HarperCollins.

Barks, C. (1997).  The illuminated Rumi.  (Transl.)  New York: Broadway Books. [optional]

Levine, S. (1987). Healing into life and death.  New York: Anchor Press.

* Pearce, J. C. (1989).  Magical child: Rediscovering nature’s plan for our children. New York: Bantam Books.

Trungpa, C. (1973).  Cutting through spiritual materialism.  Boulder: Shambhala.

Easwaran, E. (1979).  Like a thousand suns: The Bhagavad Gita for daily living, Volume 2.  Petaluma, CA: Nilgiri Press.

* Kornfield, J. (1993).  A path with heart: A guide through the perils and promises of  spiritual life.  New York: Bantam Books.

Unit III.  The Wishing Tree

Parabola: Myth, tradition, and the search for meaning:  “The Teacher,”  (2000). 25(3), 6-19, 27, 60-64, 100-105.

Vivekananda, Swami (1978). Bhakti-Yoga: The Yoga of love and devotion. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama (distributed by Vedanta Press, Hollywood, CA.)

Unit IV.  Connection

Palmer, M. & Ramsay, J. with Man-Ho Kwok (1995).  Kuan Yin: Myths and revelations of the Chinese goddess of compassion. San Francisco:     HarperCollins.

                                                               or

Blofeld, J. (1978).  Bodhisattva of compassion: The mystical tradition of Kuan Yin.  Boulder: Shambhala.

Unit V.  The Beloved One

The Holy Bible: King James or authorized version.  Philadelphia: John C. Winston.

Unit VI.  Attunement

Gass, R. (1999).  Chanting: Discovering Spirit in sound.  New York: Broadway Books.

Gunzel, R. J. (1992).  If today you hear God’s voice: Biblical images of prayer for modern men and women.  Kansas City: Sheed & Ward.

Douglas-Klotz, N. (1994).  Prayers of the cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic words of Jesus.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Jones, A. (1985).  Soul making: The desert way of spirituality.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Unit VII. Solitude

Steindl-Rast, D.  (1983). A listening heart: The art of contemplative living.  New York: Crossroad.

Nouwen, H. J. M.  (1991). The way of the heart.  New York: Ballantine Books.

Parabola: The magazine of myth and tradition: “Solitude and Community. (1992).  17(1).

Unit VIII. Divine Light

Trungpa, C.  (1999).  Great eastern sun: The wisdom of Shambhala.  Boston:    Shambhala.

Radha, Swami S. (1987).  The Divine Light invocation.  Spokane, WA: Timeless Books.

Unit IX.  Illumination

* Phillips, R. (1997).  Windows to the soul: Healing the emotional body [or   Emergence of the divine child].  Glorieta, New Mexico: Deva Publishing.

Unit X. Healing

Radha, Swami S. (1997).  The rose ceremony.  Spokane, WA: Timeless Books.

Heinberg, R. (1985).  Memories and visions of paradise: The spiritual heritage and   destiny of mankind.  Loveland, CO: Emissaries of Divine Light.
 
 

* You may already have these books.

1.  Broken heart/disheartenment
2.  Fourth chakra themes

Materials needed:  Journal, crayons or colored pens

Books needed (full reference at end of unit):

Sufism: The transformation of the heart
The path to love
* Chakras: Energy centers of transformation
Living from the heart

Exercises and practices:

The path of love
Fourth chakras themes
Living from the heart

* If you have been working with these guidebooks before, you will have this book.

It is said that men are forced into the need for gender identification/conformity at age five and women are not caught until they are in their teens.  Be that as it may, it is adolescence that separates people in our culture from their core identification as competent individuals.  Adolescence is a time during which there is no meaningful role for our youth, and they often mark time by playing the role of "teen-ager.”    At a time of full emergence of sexuality and the need to know how to direct it into socially acceptable forms, our society fails miserably to provide guidance.  The mind has now developed to the point where a person can introspect and think about his/her own thinking.  So a great deal of existential questioning goes on with no answers forthcoming.  The culture is silent about what makes my life meaningful.  Silent about Spirit.

Loneliness due to the separations that have been culminating combines with sexual urges to produce romantic love which is fed by sex-role stereotypes to produce remarkably deviant relationships.  These are deviant in the sense that they are not based upon anything substantial upon which to create a lasting union with the other person.  The heartbreak that results from these tentative efforts at intimacy can still be felt in middle age decades later.  Who does not remember their first love?

Because we do not provide our children with any education about how to be parents or how to be intimate in relationship, over two-thirds of the marriages in this country end in divorce.  We don't know how to be intimate.  And this ignorance causes untold heartbreak and anguish of loneliness.  It begins in adolescence when the urges come to fruition, when love affairs fail and we are rejected or betrayed (often because of stereotypes of attractiveness).  We are separated from our hearts, we learn not to trust them.  Openheartedness is something we need to relearn, along with the trust that was forfeited back in infancy.  According to Erikson (1968), development of trust is the first task we have in life, one that is encountered in infancy and which depends upon adequate loving and mothering for its fruition.  All other developmental tasks (autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity and integrity) depend upon this one for their successful emergence.  When our hearts are closed, our lives go into a state of rigidity as a defense against further vulnerability.  And spiritual develop-ment ceases.  In the resulting isolation, adults try to find meaning in relationships and family or in their work.  But nothing can substitute for the real Love and connection that we all seek.  When the pain comes to a head, the search begins. . .

It has been said that there is an emptiness that usually underlies addictions, particularly alcoholism.  In this emptiness, we find the longing.  We usually interpret it to mean we need something physical like food or drink or someone to be with in a relationship or love affair.  In fact, falling in love seems to fill the emptiness – until the courtship phase is over and the rapture is lost in the everydayness of creating a life together.  So we drink or overeat or do drugs or have an affair in a frantic effort to recreate the desired ecstasy.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we know deeply inside that none of these things can satisfy the soul’s need for meaning or desire to be reunited with Spirit.  Since we do not know how to achieve the reunion, we resort  to a defense to put the soul’s cries out of awareness.  We “go to sleep,” put it out of awareness.  This means another loss of consciousness so that, from the standpoint of someone who is enlightened, we are all walking around like zombies. . . sleepwalking.  Ask yourself:  Is my life like this?  If your answer is “no,” think about it more carefully.  Do you really know what is going on in your soul?  How much joy is there in your life?  Not just that you are happy or not, but joy, real joy, exuberant joy.  How much love is in your life?  Is there anyone who accepts and loves you unconditionally?  This means they don’t try to change anything about you and that you know intuitively how deeply they care for you.  If there is, you may count yourself among a very few privileged persons.

Exercise: The Path of Love

1.  In Sufism: The transformation of the heart, read the Introduction and chapters 1-2.  The questions that follow are just things to think about as you read.  If they distract you, ignore them.  Alternatively, you might want to write out the answers to them as you go along to make some sort of record of the chapter or to help you focus your attention.

Think about what Vaughan-Lee says about longing.  Is that something you can identify with?  How does it apply in your life and how do you notice it?  What are you doing about it?  Dhikr is pronounced “zicker.”  It is very similar to mantra, but often carries some physical movements along with it.  We will explore this later on.  Meanwhile, check to see if you are bringing any preconceived ideas, assumptions or expectations  to the study of Sufism.  What associations do you have to it, if any?  Sufism is the mystical path related to the Islamic religion.  Can you spot the common  roots of Judaism, Christianity and Sufism?  What is the Beloved called in the tradition you are most familiar with? How do you react to the idea of God as a lover?  Who else said, “God is love?” (cf  p. 68)  Do Vaughan-Lee’s ideas of meditation fit with yours?  How does Sufism deal with the idea of dualism?

2. Read chapters 1 and 2 in The path to love.  This book is by Deepak Chopra who comes out of the Hindu tradition.  Yoga is the mystical path of Hinduism.  You will find many similarities between Yoga and Sufism if you take the time to understand the terminology and look for its deeper meanings.  Both Vaughn-Lee and Chopra are offering us the path of Love as one way to make our spiritual journey.  Which of the two appeals to you more?
 

In this guidebook, we will explore the question of how to make a connection with the Beloved within.  The one we are seeking is not another person out there somewhere, not a soul mate, not a lover, not a friend; but the Divine One Itself who is all these things and more.  When we fall in love with someone, it is because we have had a glimpse of the Beloved within them, and we are irresistibly attracted to It.

In the first three guidebooks, we have examined the personality in all its many guises and phases.  Now we come to the intersection of the path, so to speak, the point at which the love of the Divine One reaches down to find us reaching up to seek It.  The touch is made in the heart center.  So our focus now moves from the personality and its aspects to the Higher Self.

If you have come this far, you will already know that the chakra diagrams have symbolic meaning for the spiritual journey.  Each  of the items depicted in a chakra means something specific.  Recently several books have been published that show the colors of the chakras changing in an order that corresponds to the light spectrum.  This is not correct.  The colors have specific meanings that are peculiar to the chakra itself and the issues associated with it.  For instance, there are several varieties of red and orange, and each is unique in its meaning.  I have edited  the clipart available to me in the Corel Library   to indicate  these differences.

The Wishing Tree.  In the chakra symbol displayed in The serpent powers  by Sir John Woodroffe (1973, facing p. 382), there is a small chakra just below the fourth chakra that is called the Anandakanda or wishing tree.  In this chakra is the Kalpa tree, an awning, a tree loaded with birds, fruits and flowers,  and a jeweled altar.  This is the place of mental worship.  It is called the wishing tree because it is said that whatever one prays for is given.  As Jesus said, “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find;  knock and it shall be opened to you.  For whoever asks, receives;  and he who seeks, finds;  and to him who knocks, the door is opened. . . If therefore you who err, know how to give good gifts to your sons, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7: 7-8, 11)

Satkona.   The dominant figure in the fourth chakra is the Satkona  better known to us as the Seal of Solomon or Star of David.  This is a six-pointed star that is composed of two triangles, one pointing down and the other pointing up.  Within the satkona is the seed bija, the Vayu-Bija which is Yam.  Bija means the “origin.”  The bija is the black Sanskrit letter in the center of the chakra, in this case “Yam.”  Vayu means air, and air is the element of this chakra.  The satkona is a smokey color that means it is surrounded by masses of vapor or air.  It also is the color of the smoke that emanates from the flame that represents Spirit.

Antelope.  Beneath the bija is an antelope which is known for its fleetness.  This represents the property of motion as in fleeting glimpses of other realms.

Surya Mandala.  Enclosing the satkona is a red circle that represents the sun.  From it radiate 12 petals each of which has a sanskrit letter on it.  The sun is the source of all life and energy in this solar system.  It also represents the Supreme Being upon whom we depend for our life.  All of the filaments of this chakra are illumined by this sun.

Trikona.  Also within the satkona is the trikona, another downward-facing triangle.  The trikona is frequently a symbol for divine mother, in this case Shakti, the consort of Shiva.  Woodroffe (1973) says this triangle is as “lustrous as ten million flashes of lightning.” (p. 382) We might expect that since Shakti is the creatrix of all that is manifested.

Bana-Linga.   Within the trikona is a lingam or phallic symbol.  The lingam and trikona taken together are usually a symbol of creativity.  However, in this chakra, we can think of them as the coming together of the manifest and unmanifest or the individual soul and the Oversoul or Beloved.  The lingam represents the Atma or Spirit.  This is pure consciousness.  Woodroffe says, “Spirit is one.  There are no degrees or differences in Spirit.  The Spirit which is in man is the one Spirit which is in everything and which, as the object of worship, is the Lord (Isvara) or God.” (Woodroffe, 1973, p. 26) That it is a phallic symbol does not mean it is masculine, but that it is unmanifest energy, i.e., Shiva.

Nada.  In the head of the lingam in the trikona is a crescent moon called nada.  Nada is the first movement in the ideating consciousness of the creator.  This gives rise to the sabda-brahman or first sound which corresponds to the Logos with which we are familiar.

Bindu.  Above the nada is a small dot or point.  This represents the state of active consciousness (Shakti) as opposed to the dormant energy of Shiva.  Woodroffe, (1973, p. 34) says, “. .the ‘I’ or illuminating aspect of Consciousness identifies itself with the total ‘This.’  It subjectifies the ‘This,’ thereby becoming a point (Bindu) of consciousness with it.” An example of this is that when the universe collapses it does so into an infinitesimal point without any magnitude. (p. 34-5)  Notice that this is identical to what physicists say about stars and black holes.  This bottomless point is bindu.  All this taken together sounds like the universe comes out of and returns to the consciousness of the Ultimate Reality (cf. Fig. 3, Fig.4-3 and discussion in Unit 4 of Book I).  In the Hindu tradition, it is said that Vishnu breathes in and out, and in each cycle the universe is created and destroyed, created on the exhalation and withdrawn on the inhalation.  A pulse.  Bindu also means the void (sunya) in other contexts.

Flame.   There is a steady flame below the lingam in the center of the chakra that is called Hamsa.  Woodroffe says that Hamsa is the Jivatma (or Purusa which we know as Pure Consciousness).  Tyberg (1970, p. 107) says the Jivatman is the Spirit or individual Self, that part of the Divine that supports life.  Hamsa is also the mantra of breathing.  So it appears that we have a living, breathing Spirit within our heart center.

Petals.  Chakras are located at the intersections of the ida and pingala nadiis which are channels in the subtle body.  Because of their locations, they permit energy exchanges, i.e., they act like energy transformers.  The number of petals indicate how intense the energy is.  They are also associated with the power of speech, such that as the number of petals increase, speech becomes increasingly refined.  You will notice that at each ascending level, the number of petals increases up to the sixth chakra which has only two.

Touch.  The sense associated with the fourth chakra is touch.  This means not only physical touch but, in its refined dimension, connections with others and with the Divine One.  So we will be examining relationships in this guidebook.

Air (vayu).  The element of the fourth chakra is air and is represented by the smokey gray color within the Satkona.  Vayu also  means life.  In its bodily form it is called prana.You will notice that the elements are becoming increasingly intangible as we travel up the chakras.  This reflects the refinement process.  Since air is a medium that conveys both auditory and visual stimuli, we will be looking at the processes of attunement.

Seed bija.  The seed mantra for this chakra is YAM.  The bija is the vibratory essence of the chakra.  Bija is associated with Shakti.

Isa.  One other figure needs to be mentioned because it is so appropriate to this chakra.  In each chakra, according to Woodroffe,  are two small circles (not shown) that enclose a male and female deity respectively.  These figures are armed with all sorts of tools that can be used to help oneself on the journey.  The male deity in this chakra is Isa.  I suspect this is Jesus because a manuscript found in Tibet is about the life of a saint called Issa.  It is presumed to be an account of the lost  years of Jesus (Bock, 1980), those years that are not documented in the Bible.  Since this manuscript also documents other activities of Jesus accurately, it suggests that Jesus traveled in search of other teachers during his formative years.  The text of this manuscript is given in the Bock  book.

Exercise: Fourth chakra themes

In Chakras: Energy centers of transformation, read pages 63-69 and color the chakra diagram on page 64.  Can you find all of the symbols we have been discussing in Johari’s picture?  If you look at the colored picture of the Anahata chakra, you will see another set of colors that differ from the ones presented here.  How do you account for these differences?  Do you think they are significant?  If so, which do you prefer?
 

So we move from innocence through the developmental years to the capacity for mature intimacy . . . with God.

Exercise: Living from the heart

Please read the introduction to Living from the heart.  This book is a treasure chest of exercises to help open the heart.  Since it will take a great deal of time to work through all of them, I have tried to stagger them throughout the entire guidebook and associate each practice with an appropriate content.

Bair, P. (1998). Living from the heart: Heart rhythm meditation for energy, clarity, peace, joy and inner power.  New York: Three Rivers Press.

Chopra, D. The path to love.  New York: Harmony Books.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis.  New York: Norton.

Johari, H. (1987). Chakras: Energy centers of transformation.  Rochester, VT:    Destiny Books.

Tyberg, J. M. (1970). The language of the gods: Sanskrit keys to India’s wisdom.    Los Angeles: East-West Cultural Center.

Vaughan-Lee, L. (1995). Sufism: The transformation of the heart.  Inverness, CA:    The Golden Sufi Center.

Woodroffe, Sir J. (1973). The serpent power.  Madras: Ganesh & Co.

We have seen that the heart can be broken at any age by social convention or isolation. In Unit II. Adolescent Development, we will take a look at one of the most poignant times of broken heartedness and longing: adolescence and young adulthood.

Return to Home Page