HEART SHARE

SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT FOR OVER 30 YEARS

As a spiritual aspirant for over 30 years, and in my profession as a Ph.D. Psychologist, I have practiced numerous techniques and approaches for enhancing well being and spiritual growth…

… yet none of them can compare to the profound peace, joy, and love experienced from going into the depths of our heart.

I now realize that the path of the Heart is the most direct approach to our ultimate fulfillment. Many of us know that we are meant to follow our hearts, listen to our hearts and live from our hearts. About 4 years ago I thought I was grounded in my heart and I now realize that I had only scratched the surface of my heart. Even though I had become an established and successful meditator who could easily experience an extended space between my thoughts and the pause between my breaths, I was not truly heart centered nor was I experiencing the inner depths of my heart. The last three years of my life have been the most profound, since I realized and can experience the deep joy and love radiating from the core of my heart.

I am so grateful to know that opening our hearts completely, is a great gift that we offer ourselves, our families and our planet. From the depths of our heart we experience the direct loving connection to the True Source, the Source of Love and Light. As I let go, and allow my heart to love the True Source more and more, the joy and love continues to deepen beyond what I ever imagined. What is so amazing to me, is that my efforts, skills, or ability to focus, has nothing to do with enhancing the process and are actually obstacles that block one from going into their heart. It is simply my willingness to feel what is already their, and to allow the love to bring me deeper into the love. This sacred process is available to all of us who are willing to let love work the way love truly is. I trust that if you listen to your heart call, you will feel that Love is calling you home to the core of your heart, your true self. I am grateful to share the journey of life with so many hearts that are feeling the inner calling to be instruments of light and love, the way the Source of Light and Love wants us to be.

- Ed Rubenstein

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LOVING TRUE SOURCE MORE

“Learning to open my Heart has changed my life completely. There are no words that will adequately describe the Love and Joy that I have experienced since the opening of my Heart.

It has been truly miraculous. I recommend this for everyone. I now know that Loving True Source more is what life is really all about.”

Jack Bracewell

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Sometimes you feel like you have been searching your whole life for something, and you don’t even know it until you find it. That is the way it was for me when I met my own heart.

I knew that I was longing for a feeling of Home and a connection with the Creator through which I could just be me and be loved and love in return, no matter what. I had a sense that this was what our adventure on earth was all about. I already knew that what I longed for wasn’t in being successful, having a loving relationship, being attractive, having children or a beautiful house. As nice as these all are they require a lot of feeding, and the results are often uncertain.

I meditated for 32 years, and taught meditation to others. I listened to and spoke inspiring words. I met people who seemed to have what I was looking for, but found they were not able to pass it onto me. I tried to give up and settle for less, but I got depressed and felt even more empty and lost than before. After traveling through the lessons of two marriages, stepparenthood,and a career as a psychologist, a friend of mine told me what he had learned through a gifted teacher. That the key to our connection Home is the heart, not the physical muscle that pumps our blood, but the non physical heart that we talk about when we say “follow your heart” or “a pure heart”.

It is the heart that you pick up and dial and then listen to in order to connect back again to the feelings of love, calmness, and joy. I had been trying for years to get to those feelings through a peaceful mind,which hadn’t worked very well. I thought if your mind was quiet enough then what was underneath the mental chatter would be love and joy. What I found was that a lot of calm mind could get pretty boring, and that it was hard work keeping it calm even some of the time when living a normal life. That is why most people seeking to quiet the mind usually had to go to a retreat place to find it. At times, I had tried to use my head to connect with my heart by focusing on being loving or visualizing being loved. What I hadn’t realized was that I had to go directly to the heart, not through any other part of me, in order to be able to feel what is within it, Divine Love and Light.

It has been three years since I first began experiencing and enjoying the feelings from my heart, feelings gentle, beautiful, sweet and powerful at the same time, beyond anything I could have imagined. All my good feelings had always been coming from there, I had just not known how to access them. More wonderful still,I now experience that the heart is the key to our connection with our Creator, the Divine Source, which is why the wonderful feelings are there, not in our heads. Being in our hearts leads to a life lived in love, which leads us closer and closer to our true Home and destiny as human beings, to our Creator.

How wonderful it is for me to be able to say that this is no longer a far off dream or something written about in a holy book, but something that is available now.

- Dianna Stone, Ph.D

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I NEVER IMAGINED……

“I never imagined that the spiritual path could be so easy and so much fun. I am having more joy than ever and I am growing spiritually faster than ever. I have been doing spiritual practices diligently for 35 years.
But until I took my first Open Heart workshop, my spiritual path was like swimming upstream against a raging current. Now my spiritual path is like being carried downstream, letting the love of my heart gently carry me home.
My first profound spiritual experience came in 1970. So, I have long known that the spark of the divine is within me. But I didn’t know how to easily and consistently access that spark. All the pathways I had been taking involved going through my mind. Unfortunately my mind is full of pitfalls, and those 35 years have felt like climbing a steep mountain on an uncertain path. Allowing my heart to take me to the divine spark within is like relaxing on deck of a boat on a warm, sunny day while the boat carries me to my destination.
I feel as if I have found what I have been searching for my entire adult life. I am so grateful. I am letting go of the struggles of my mind and enjoying the sweet love of my heart. I still stumble and fall on my path at times, but now my heart is always ready and able to pick me up and guide me ever deeper into the love that is my birthright as a human being.”
- Bob Kaplan
(taken from : www.heartsanctuary.org)

STEP TO OPEN OUR HEART

IT’S EASY

The great news is that no special talent is needed to open your heart. Everyone has a heart, and it is your birthright to open your heart and enjoy. Some will be able to feel their hearts right away, while for others it can take a little longer.

If you are having difficulty with feeling your heart, it is because you are not relaxed enough and you are trying to open your heart, rather than feeling your heart open.

Feeling your heart is very different from observing your heart. If you are observing the experience, you are not properly in your heart.

Initially, some people may not be aware of the feeling in their heart because they are only used to “feeling” from their physical senses, such as being pinched or tickled, hot or cold, sweet or salty.

The feeling from the heart is most similar to what you feel when you are happy and joyful. This is not to be confused with emotional expressions.

RECOGNIZING THE DIFFERENCE

Head

1. Take one minute and think about a problem you are having at work, home or elsewhere.
2. Now realize which part of you was active and what happened. Can you notice that your brain or head was dominant?
3. You may have experienced a pressure or heaviness in your head area as you thought about the problem. This is normal and it is how many people experience most of their lives.

Heart

1. Remember a happy or joyful moment you have experienced. Re-experience the feeling of the happy or joyful moment again. Don’t visualize or try to capture the details…. just relax and re-experience the feeling again, as if you were in that moment.
2. Now, realize which part of you became activated and what had happened.
3. Many of you will have experienced a nice feeling in the center of your chest. That is the very beginning stage of feeling your heart.

The above exercise can help you distinguish the difference when you are in your head and when you are in your heart. It is important for us to know the difference. If we are not able to clearly distinguish head from heart, then we will be very limited in our capacity to live a heart centered life.

(source : www.heartsanctuary.org)

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)

OPENING OUR HEART

Opening our Hearts

Opening our heart as big as possible is the greatest gift that we offer ourselves and to the world. Opening our heart has a profound healing affect on all levels of our being as well as on our families and communities. The more we allow our hearts to open, the more we can share love. For peace, joy, and love radiates from the core of our hearts. If we really listen to and feel our inner calling, we will realize that our hearts want to open and let the light and love to do wonderful things for ourselves, our families and communities.

When we open our hearts, we deepen our spiritual connection to the True Source, and this allows us to live genuinely and authentically in the sacredness of love. Then we can begin to realize that the True Source, as the Ultimate Source of Love and Light, has Loved us completely in every moment of our existence. Indeed, there has never been a moment in our existence, when this was not the truth, because True Source can never stop Loving us and all beings.

(Note: We prefer the term ‘True Source’ because it is a neutral term which does not have a charged history. Feel free to replace the term ‘True Source’, with whatever phrase for you which represents the Ultimate Source of Love and Light).

Where does the Peace, Love and Joy Originate From?

The deepest peace and love that is available to us in our earthly existence is the spark of light and love in the core of our hearts. This spark is the purest aspect of our deepest self and is directly connected to the Source of Love & light. The more we allow the blessings of love and light to purify and open our hearts, the more the love and light from the core of our being becomes free to radiate in all directions to every heart everywhere. Everyone has a spark of love and light in the core of their heart. However, not every spark is radiating freely and sweetly.When we first begin to open our hearts, the nice feeling we experience may only be felt as a peaceful and calm feeling. As the layers of our heart are purified, not only are we able to feel the peace and the calmness, we are able to feel the deep joy, love and light that radiates from the core of our heart. At any time we can then just stop, do nothing and realize and feel that the Love is sweetly pulling us deeper into the Love….toward the core inside of our heart. And this never stops if we allow it to take us there. When the clouds of impurity surrounding our hearts are dissolved, then the love and light can be experienced without obstruction in its purest joy.

Why we are here?

The ultimate purpose of our life is to love the True Source completely with all of our heart. To the head/brain this statement might seem debatable. However, the core of our heart, which is calling to take us ‘back home’ to the Source of Love and Light, knows this to be true. But the direct path home to the cherished goals of our existence can only happen by embracing and surrendering completely to the purest love - the most subtle, most sublime form of love – that of the Ultimate Source of all. It is only through this purest love that our essence of being can return home.

We are being invited to open our hearts and be instruments of Love and Light by sharing the blessings of this love with the hearts of every being. When we share this love as an instrument, we are also loving the True Source and getting closer to the home of our True Self. This means we are getting closer to the Ultimate Destination available to us. So now is the time for our deepest awakening – loving The Source of Love and Light completely with our heart and whole being and becoming the instrument of light and love that we are intended to be.

Our life on earth is a great gift. To live our life without opening our heart and loving the True Source completely is to miss out on the real meaning and purpose of why we are here. Equally, being mindful, or using intellect or logic, cannot take us home.

(source : www.heartsanctuary.org)

LEARNING ABOUT HEART

Since Using our Heart is very important, Why We have Not Done this Before?

Our education has focused on the “education of the brain”.

Head/brain Intelligence is what society typically calls “normal”. It is the way our whole educational system and families have taught us to function. It is how we learned to think, reason, rationalize, categorize, judge and problem solve – all qualities valued, and therefore reinforced, in later working life. Yet, head/brain intelligence is frequently self-centered and motivated for personal gain, for the bottom line is invariably “What’s in it for me”. “Butting heads” is an expression that represents why there is so much friction and conflict in people’s lives and in the world. While heads have a tendency to collide, the nature of the heart is to share.

We have been distracted in following the impulse of the brain rather than the heart

We have come to believe being brain dominant to be a normal existence. As a result, we have not fully realized how this colors our perceptions, determines what we think is reality, or how this keeps us disconnected from true joy and our deepest purpose here on earth. For example, ‘Desire’ is often one of the ways that our heads/brains distract us from realizing that contentment and fulfillment can only be experienced in our heart, because our heart is the center of peace, love and joy. Following desires help us to remain in illusion because they keep us thinking that they will lead to fulfillment, when in reality, all they do is lead to more desires. Seeking desires is a means of attempting to fill the vacuum that is created by a life not lived in Heartfullness. But, chasing desires is similar to running on a treadmill. No matter how long you run, you don’t get very far, and you end up where you started. By contrast, when you follow your heart, you are truly getting somewhere. You are tuned to the deeper pulse of life, and you are expanding into light and love.

The difference between emotions and feeling from the heart, were never clarified before.

Many of us did not realize that there is a difference between emotions and the subtle feeling of our heart. The subtle feeling of our heart are the natural by-product of love, whereas emotions are created from our reactive responses to the environment.

We were not taught how to enjoy and be in our hearts.

We learned in almost every moment to be brain dominant, and very seldom did we truly get to experience our hearts. There was not a proper understanding or experience that our heart is the center of feeling and the key to happiness and joy. Many of us were actually taught not to feel, because all priority was given to the rational thinking mind.

Our hearts have not been sufficiently open due to accumulation of stuck energies polluting the layers of our hearts

Our hearts have become more closed because our hearts have been filled with negative emotions from past experiences, interactions, and misunderstandings. An important part of opening our hearts is the process of allowing the blessings from the True Source to help us forgive others and ourselves completely. Where we have held onto emotions of judgment, anger, fear, sadness, resentments, disappointments, arrogance, self-righteous positioning, or other emotional expressions, then the negative energies from these have muddied the field of our heart. As a result of these stuck energies, our hearts have not been able to open completely. But no one, except ourselves, can dirty the field of our heart and only the Love and Light of the True Source can properly cleanse and take us into the inner depths of our heart.

We have not yet learned to follow our heart from within our heart.

We have learned to achieve and accomplish through focus, effort and trying. These ways fail us when we try to get into our hearts, for we can only experience our heart by letting go of all concepts, thoughts, focus and effort. Instead we can relax and enjoy the gentle feeling of our heart.

What Our Heart is Not

Our heart is not a place where we get hurt; it is a place where we heal.

Our heart is not a place where we are taken advantage of; it is a center for making clear, insightful and wise choices.

Our heart is not a place where we can be manipulated; it is the center of clarity where we can experience truth.

Our heart is not a place of weakness, but the place of our greatest strength.

Our heart is not a place that can be contaminated by others, because we are the only ones that can pollute the field of our heart

(source : www.heartsanctuary.org)