Newsletter February 2010
Monthly Focus is Heart-Centered

Namaste!

When one’s heart is in bloom, the world is set aglow in radiance. Within you is the vision, external to you is the mirror. From your heart — reflect beauty. It’s innately yours to share. ENJOY!

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Monthly Kriya:  Object of Beauty

In a meditative pose, attune yourself to a beautiful object or place. As the vision forms, hold your full attention and awareness to the image until you become completelyimmersed in it. Allow the feeling of beauty the object or place has evoked to fill you completely, penetrating your entire being. Stay attuned and absorbed in this energy as long as you’d like, sinking ever more deeply into the essence of beauty. Gently return to the outer world bringing forth this feeling with you.

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Inspiring Quotes

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
Carl Jung

“What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”
Jacques Bénigne Bossuel

“Gratitude is the heart’s memory.”
French Proverb

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Heart of Being

The heart has been used as a symbol through time in many religious and mythological teachings to describe the center of being and to signify a state of illumination. It is no mistake that the heart symbol is often depicted in relation to both Christ and Buddha, two (of many) enlightened souls who have embodied and sustained a balanced state of heart-conscious awareness.

Being heart-centered is recognizing our dualist tendencies and being willing to overcome the proclivities that propel us toward a feeling of separation and disconnection. That which is divided, always returns home into the heart. In the Taoist tradition, there is a saying “You can only go so far into the forest before nature draws you back out again.” It is a law of nature. It is innate cyclical patterning. Karmic proclivities draw us away from our center (outward) causing a feeling of imbalance and disconnection. As we naturally work to balance this state, we move back to our center (inward). We move back to the heart of our being

Being heart-centered is honoring the radiance that is always with us, like the Sun itself. In this way, the Sun and the Heart are likened to one another. In yoga, the sun center is located at the ajna chakra, and within the sun center is a hidden center, so the mystics say. They refer to the second center as the moon.

The goal of hatha yoga is to join the sun (ha) and the moon (tha). The sun is symbolic of the sacred masculine and is active, while the moon is symbolic of the sacred feminine and is passive. Unifying these two opposing forces of nature brings about a state of illumination – balanced at the heart of being.

When our tendency is weighted — either too passive or too active — we move away from the heart. Taoism (meaning the way) dedicates its teachings to the art of being actively passive. And, as humans, we naturally seek a state of balance. Maintaining that state, however, is our practice.

Always remember, that from the heart of being beauty and abundance flows perpetually — without accumulating a thing.

Daily Reflections

Ask yourself. . .

What areas of my life am I being too active or too passive?

How can I bring more heart-centered awareness into my being?

What draws me away from my heart-centered being?

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May we all be centered in the heart of now. . .loving for love’s sake. . .

With BIG love,

elaina
swami karikananda

Om Shanti!