Opening The Heart

“The human being is my secret. Knowledge of the inner being is one of My Secrets. I have installed it in the heart of My servants, and no one is aware of it, apart from Me. “

~ Written in the Secret of Secrets, Kitab Sirr Al-Asrar

A couple of days ago, as I was getting ready for work, I woke up in an especially bad mood. I was tired. I had been going to bed too late. When I do not get the sleep my body requires, my mind becomes exhausted and I tend to fall victim to the illusionary thoughts that have plagued me my entire life - basically, self worth issues.

As I was getting ready for work, I was sitting in front of the mirror with all of these crazy thoughts running through my head. I am not going to repeat them, as they aren’t worth repeating. As these thoughts ran through my head, even though I knew they weren’t the truth, I couldn’t manage to get them out of my head. And I began to cry.

As I cried, I watched the newly placed mascara on my eyelashes run down my face. I was so irritated. I didn’t have time for this, yet I couldn’t figure out how to stop the thoughts, or the tears from falling. I give myself just enough time in the morning to get ready and go to work, and this behavior was not in my schedule. I didn’t have time for it.

I washed my face again, through the tears, and I searched for waterproof mascara. Maybe if I make my eyelashes stand out, my clients can’t see the redness around my eyes. I managed to cover up the streaks on my face and run out the door, not to stop and look anyone in the eye. I couldn’t bear being called out with my emotions. I didn’t want anyone to see. I found solace in Van Morrison’s song, “In The Forest” as I raced down the road, during a busy morning, getting held up with school zone traffic and everyone in Tampa trying to get to work at the same time as me.

Singing loudly as I tried to weave in and out of traffic, praying I wouldn’t be late, and trying my hardest to push the thoughts out of my head, right before I got to work the thoughts came rushing back, like a dam had broken and the water came out with such force, it couldn’t be stopped. Sitting at the red light, tears started streaking down my face, uncontrollably this time, “Allison! you know you can’t push it away! It gets worse when you do!” Ugh…. why now? My client was early, and I was in my car, at the red light right before the office, crying.

Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.

I managed to take a few deep breaths, blot my eyes and walk in, with my stoic poker face, I am known for. This client needed me and right now, it wasn’t about me. “Why don’t I just cancel when I have days like this,” I muttered to myself as I raced up six flights of steps.

Running up the steps is much quicker than waiting on the elevator, and the adrenaline rush helped give me a better first impression. That way my client wouldn’t recognize the swollen eyes, my heavy breathing would divert her.

“Hey! How are you,” I said panting with a smile on my face as I beat the elevator. “Come on back!”

Thank goodness I prep the room every night so there was nothing to do other than turn on the lamps and the table heater.

Everything’s good now I thought to myself as I listened to her explain the pain in her body and assessed how she was standing and made a plan to help get her out of pain.

When I work, I tend to put myself in a zone, where I don’t exist. I am only a vessel there to help the person heal. My personality doesn’t matter - usually. I tend to surrender to the needs of that client and get myself out of the way. But as the session went on, the thoughts hit me hard, and her words came in and out like a wave that I couldn’t catch. I found myself ready to cry again. I turned my head and looked towards the mirror. Don’t you dare, Allison. Don’t you dare.

All of the sudden, her voice diverted the thoughts with, “Are you okay?”

“Just held back a sneeze and it made my eyes water,” I replied. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh! I hate it when that happens,” she said.

I managed to make it through that appointment and I had some time before the next one. I sat in my chair, put my feet on my table that I just took the sheets off of, closed my eyes and took a deep long breath.

“Why do I let my thoughts get to me?” I asked myself.

For years I taught meditation and I began to recall the advice I gave myself and eventually to my clients.

“Let the thoughts come and go, don’t push them away, let them release, surrender to them.”

As I surrendered to my thoughts, I took another deep, long breath and with the long, slow exhale, I felt the tears dry up and I finally felt a sense of relief.

It was then that I began to think about the most recent podcast, about opening the heart.

It became very apparent to me that before we open our hearts to everyone else, we must open them to ourselves. It all starts within. But why do we have to deal with these thoughts anyways? Negativity is a normal part of life. We cannot expect to get rid of all negativity, but we must become aware so we can use tools to overcome it. Awareness about what we are taking into our bodies at any time.

I tell my meditation students that we’re like sponges. We take it all in, whether we know it or not. Everything we read, everything we watch, everything we hear and see. We take it in. We take on other people’s emotions without even realizing. We take on the negativity. This is why we have to be careful about what we allow ourselves to watch on TV, and what we allow ourselves to read in books, articles or even social media. It becomes a part of us.

Once that negativity starts to rise within us, begging to be released, it comes in a form of a thought. Without the awareness of what’s actually happening, those thoughts, that aren’t actually ours, can stress us out, and then because we don’t understand, we hold onto them and claim them. This can cause more stress on the body, and can also create physical pain, as well as emotional pain.

What is the remedy?

Surrender.

We spoke in depth about surrender in previous episodes of The Vistara Hour.

In that moment, when I made myself close my eyes and sit in silence, I recognized that those thoughts were not actually me, and I surrendered. Surrendering doesn’t make us weak, and it is not throwing up the white flag to admit defeat. Surrendering is allowing yourself to be. It is settling down and allowing nature to do what it needs to do. It’s rising above and seeing what’s happening without judgment. It’s a place of observation.

By surrendering to the negativity within me, I allowed it to release in an easy and painless way. Once I did that, the thoughts didn’t matter anymore. At this moment, I can recall the thoughts, but what stands out to me the most, is that for a short time, I waged a war with those thoughts and allowed myself to react. The most powerful people on this planet, the wise men, the sages, avatars, siddhi’s, understand the nature of negativity. They surrender to it, and they know how to release it.

Sri Kaleshwar talked about a mechanism called Decharging: releasing the negativity into Nature.

Understanding that the negativity is not you, it is not your essence, but understanding it is a part of nature, is a big step in you taking care of yourself. By accepting this truth, you are accepting the fact that you can pick up on the negativity from many different sources, but it is not you. It’s not even the people around you.

We tend to treat others the way we treat ourselves. If we have super high expectations of ourself, then we will have the same expectations of others around us. If we fight the negativity within us, we will fight the negativity that surrounds us in the form of others. If we judge the nature of negativity within us, we will judge it coming from others. If we learn to accept it, and learn to accept that we cannot stop it and begin to surrender to it, we start to live life in an easier and stress free way.

As we begin to open our hearts to ourselves, the love we give ourselves will naturally come out to those around us.

When I realized this, I naturally put down my energetic sword and the love I had for myself began to show outwards to others. The forgiveness that I gave myself, I began to forgive those around me. The high expectations I had of myself, I let those go within me and I didn’t expect from others as well. I became more grateful and joyful.

I began this blog with a Sufi quote, taken from The Secret of Secrets, the Kitab Siri Al-Asrar.

“The Human Being is my secret and I am his secret. Knowledge of the inner being is on of my secrets. I have installed it in the heart of my servants. And no one is aware of it, apart from me.”

Take from this quote what you need, as it may resonate differently from you than it did me.

For me, what it says is that God resides within us and He knows our heart and we can come to know His. In order for us to even begin to explore the most important questions (Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?) we must open our hearts to ourselves first. It is within each and every one of us that holds the spark of the Divine. And when we surrender, then can we actually begin to experience the inner knowledge, that spark of the Divine, the source of creation, that we were all born with.

It is our birthright.

Namaste