October 4, 2018
By Steve Beckow
An example of one who lived from the heart of awareness: Sri Ramana
If you wish to be free,
Know you are the Self,
The witness of all these,
The heart of awareness.(1)
The heart of awareness.
What does Ashtavakra mean by that term?
Awareness and love are like male and female in their compatibility. I use my awareness to draw up the love from my heart. And the love itself is the cure-all and treasure – our “spiritual currency,” as Archangel Michael calls it, that will turn our lives around.
Just as there are many sides to the everyday me, so there are many sides to the Self.
Awareness is one side of the Self – one of its capabilities. Love is a second side – another of its capabilities. Other sides and capabilities include bliss, joy, peace, etc. – the divine qualities.
Why awareness? Because the task assigned to every individual, every sentient being is to know its true nature. When it knows its true nature as God, God meets God and for that meeting was the whole round of life created.
Becoming aware of the Self leads, by gradual steps, to full knowledge of it. Awareness becomes the method and Self-Knowledge is, as always, the goal. Love lifts up our awareness and expands it.
So to think of awareness and love working hand-in-hand is not difficult for me. Just as my brain usually serves the desires of my heart, so my awareness obeys the commands of love.
It sees that love needs priming and imagines that it’s priming the pump by pulling love up on the in-breath and then breathing it out to the world on the out-breath.
And after just a breath or two, the pump is primed. Love begins flowing from my heart without conscious effort. And once love flows, I care for little else. All problems are resolved – or perhaps dissolved. I am as happy as I can imagine being.
Awareness and love worked hand-in-hand to produce that outcome.
And, finally, why the “heart”? The “heart” can also mean the “center,” the balance point, the middle. And the richness of pursuing that meaning warrants an article in itself.
Those who can remain in the center, unstirred by passionate extremes – something that Kathleen is working on – achieve, I suspect, mastery of self. Remaining in the center, they’re unstirred by the passions.
Adding that layer of meaning as well to “the heart of awareness” makes it a rich context.
I strive to live in the heart of awareness.
I use the heart of awareness to guide my steps forward.
I only wish to reside in the heart of awareness permanently.
Thank you. I very much enjoyed that. I do see that my ability to interpret has increased and I expect it to keep increasing (as will yours as well, I’m sure) as we go farther and farther up the ladder of consciousness to Ascension.
Source: Golden Age of Gaia