WE ARE MEANT TO BE HAPPY

We are meant to be happy.

That has always been something we strive for in this life. In fact, if we look at the motivations behind our thoughts and actions—conscious and unconscious—they are all to get us closer to the feeling, or at least the idea, of happiness.

Some of us have long asked why we cannot hold on to happiness. For all of the scholarship and human insights across the centuries, nobody has found a complete and enduring answer. Perhaps because it has been too close to see…

The answer, the key, is our heart.

We have been told throughout our lives to “follow your heart.” This has been written in countless holy texts as well, across virtually all religions, since the very beginning. This is because our heart - even without us realizing it - feels the Love that comes from True Source, who loves us completely, and always wants the very best for us.

In opening and using our heart, we are blessed with lasting peace and happiness that we can feel—actually and really feel—in our daily lives. Our daily life is actually a manifestation of how strongly we are connected to our Creator, the True Source. Thus, an open heart is also the real key to our spiritual advancement in getting closer to True Source, the Source of Eternal Peace and True Joy.

Why is our heart the main connection to True Source? Why is our heart the center of beautiful feelings? Why is our heart, not our brain or other parts of us, the key?

Our heart is the key because our true self is within our heart. Our true self that is within our heart will continue to live on even after this lifetime has been completed. While our physical body is only a temporary “shell”—flesh and blood that will one day turn into dust—our relationship with True Source is eternal. We need True Source and True Source’s Love not only when we are alive on this earth, but forever and always.

As we are still in our physical body, our heart (not the physical heart but the spiritual heart – the center of our feeling) is where and how we remain connected to True Source.

With this connection, our heart communicates with True Source and receives True Source’s Blessings. In receiving True Source’s Blessings, we can feel so many beautiful things within our heart, including the feeling of lightness, calmness, peace, happiness, and joy beyond all things we have ever felt from our worldly experiences.

Being calm and joyful at every moment of our life may sound fantastic, even impossible. Now recognize that it is your brain making this judgment, imposing this false limitation. In this regard, you may have quite a bit of work to do in getting out of your own way. Our brain is so strong—we have spent so much of our life within our head—that it can overtake our heart at the beginning. However, our heart knows that peace, calmness, and happiness await us once we begin opening and using our heart. It is only a matter of opening it up to let True Source’s Blessing do the best for us.

How beautiful and exciting it is to consider that all these wonderful feelings are within us at all times. All we need to do is to open and use our heart to be able to feel and enjoy these wonderful Blessings.

May you open your heart to the Creator and use your heart to experience the peace, calmness, and happiness within.

- Irmansyah Effendi, M.Sc.

TYPICAL CHALLENGE OF USING HEART

Thinking You’re in Your Heart

Many people know that we are supposed to follow our heart, listen to our heart and live from our heart. Indeed, many people think and believe they are in their heart. However, thinking, believing or visualizing will not bring someone into their heart because these are functions of the brain. We cannot follow our heart from our brain nor can we use our head to get into our heart.

Why it has been so hard to get in Your Heart?

Experiencing the peace, joy, love and gratitude of our hearts is actually a simple process. However, due to our conditioning, we have learned to be brain dominant and come to believe this to be a normal and complete existence, for our educational training has taught us to use just our intellectual and mental functions. Therefore, most people have never received proper guidance or education on how to be in their heart, the greatest gift that life offers. People ‘try’ to be in their hearts and fail to realize that it is this “effort” that keeps them anchored in their heads. Most commonly, when people think they are in their hearts, they are really in their head. Or a part of them may be scratching the surface of their heart while the biggest part of them is observing the process. This act of observation keeps them separated from their heart, yet they may think they are having a great heart experience. In reality, they are only experiencing a minute fraction of what is available. Joy and love are boundless and can only be experienced in the depths of the heart, when we are able to be in our hearts with our full being.

Hesitancy in Opening Your Heart

Even though we have been told the importance of opening our hearts, we are often hesitant in doing so. The reason is that there is a concern, or perhaps even a fear, that opening our hearts will make us vulnerable or that we may get hurt again like we did in the past. We may equate an open heart with emotional hurts from our past. Paradoxically, opening our heart does not mean that we will be easily exposed to negative emotions. On the contrary, as our heart opens and becomes stronger, positive heart felt feeling will grow and automatically reduces negative emotions. Our heart cannot hurt us. But, completely opening our hearts will heal us on the deepest levels so that we can feel whole, complete, satisfied and fulfilled from moment to moment in our lives.

Emotions versus Feeling from our Heart

There is very big difference between ‘emotions’ and ‘feeling’ from the heart. Anger, fear, worry, resentment, guilt, sadness, jealousy, insecurity and arrogance are examples of the many emotions that people experience. Following emotions is not productive because it’s like putting wood on the fire. By following emotions we end up complicating our relationships usually leading to repetitive and unpleasant experiences. Following emotions also dirties the field of the heart and creates clouds that block the radiance of the light from our hearts. By contrast, ‘feeling’ are the subtle qualities of our heart. Love, joy, compassion, appreciation, and gratitude are feeling from our heart. That is why we say “heart felt love and gratitude”. Being filled with positive heart felt feeling is the key to happiness and true fulfillment.

Our Limiting the Direct Heart Connection

Rather than experiencing the direct connection between one’s heart and the True Source, many of us have typically connected (or been taught to connect) to an intermediary. The nature of an ‘intermediary’ means that something, or someone, is placed between the direct connection of the core of one’s heart and the True Source. Consequently, the fullest expression of love is limited. Similarly, when we offer devotional sentiments to any being in human form, or any being on another dimension, we limit ourselves and our spiritual potential because we create a boundary between the core of our heart and the Source of Light and Love.

(source : www.heartsanctuary.org)