"Is a Love Affair with the Truth Possible Without an Awakening?"

"Listen to the space between thought as  you gaze at the night sky, for it is there you will find the silent beating of your Spiritual Heart"                                                                                      

In my last post "Moment by Moment Love Affair with Truth", I talked about some personal moments that I encountered which led me to face the truth. As I mentioned, this meeting of truth was surprisingly painful and at the same time filled with the most beautiful JOY that I have ever felt.

Now what do I mean when I say "to meet the truth"?To meet the truth is to meet oneself from every angle, regardless of whether your conditioned human thoughts tell you that what you see is ugly, unbecoming and unlovable, or beautiful, enough and utterly perfect... it is to meet the MOMENT as it is unfolding... To  meet oneself from every angle, regardless of the feelings inside your body which may reveal that you are in fear, disappointment and resentment, or love, peace and acceptance... is to meet the MOMENT  as it is unfolding... To meet oneself from every angle, regardless of whether it is from a place of your Ego, Separation and Conditioned Self or from your Spiritual Heart, Connection and Love... is to meet the MOMENT as it is unfolding.

To meet oneself from every angle, regardless of whether it is from a place of your deepest Humanity or your deepest Spirit is to meet the MOMENT as it is unfolding... it is to meet the truth of what is. There is no other more important task than this....

As Spiritual Teacher, Mark Nepo, writes in his ever poetic and beautifully insightful book "The Endless Practice", we are,

"To learn how to ask for what we need,

only to practice accepting what we're

given. This is our journey on Earth"

Accepting that which we are given... From a human perspective, we like to think that we can find acceptance of what we are given, until what we are given rips our human hearts to shreds and bring us to our knees. It is far easier to accept thoughts and feelings that feel good and circumstances that make our hearts dizzy with happiness. And yet, even though we may encounter difficulties, heartaches and sorrows, we have to question why we were even given the capacity to feel, to hurt, to cry out in pain as our bodies shake and our hearts tumble down a spiral staircase from which we see no end.

 Why were we given this capacity to be so deeply human? We were given this capacity because "through the experience of being human we come full circle to the same Spiritual Heart that feels Love, Joy and complete Connection to all that is" 

I am sure you have all had the experience of watching on TV or reading and hearing about a tragedy where humans inflict pain on one another. Through the experience of being human, we have the capacity to hurt one another in ways unimaginable. And yet, at the same time that tears of sorrow run down our faces, we see how the same human hearts that are so capable of hurting another can come together to help ease the pain and burden of a tragedy.

I remember the intense pain I felt as I watched the tragedy of 9/11 unfold on my TV. It was a pain of the biggest proportions. As my heart beat to a fast frantic nonsensical rhythm of a million drums, it was the same heart that simultaneously felt a perfect steady rhythm of Love for all of life and all the humans in it who were using the same human heart to help those suffering from this tragedy. In that one single moment my heart burst wide open to a Love for all that is. This included the humans that inflicted the pain and suffering. This tragedy allowed me to awaken to the truth that the same heart that beats in a human who inflicts pain, is the same heart that causes that human to express a Love that unifies, that heals, and that sustains all of the Oneness of Life. Our Human and Spiritual Heart is the Portal through which we can fully step into the other. Except there really is no Other. It is all One.

The experience of my heart bursting wide open in and of itself was not an Awakening, but it was a realization and a knowing that changed my life immensely.

Ever since the Awakening that I encountered two years ago, I have had many people tell me that they have not had an Awakening experience and don't know how to meet the Truth for they don't know what the Truth is. I would like to dispel the notion that you need an Awakening in order to live an Awakened Life.

Yes, I did have a spiritual experience two years ago that awakened the Oneness out of identification with thought and feeling forms. And no, I did not have any conscious choice in that. Oneness was simply ready to awaken through my human body. It used my body and the human experience to awaken itself and from a human perspective of things, I had no choice in that. However, to think that a life of meeting Truth on a moment by moment basis is available only to those who have had an Awakening experience would be to reduce the power of our Innately Spiritual Heart.

Just as I did on the day of 9/11, I know you too have felt the power of your Spiritual Heart. It is that place deep inside that gets stirred when you look up at a dark night sky full of twinkling stars with all its mystery and wonder. It is that deep place that bursts your heart wide open into infinity when you look at your newborn child. It is that deep place of reverence when you inhale the beauty of a sunset or feel the life inherent within something as tiny as an ant. It is the deep place inside that stills your breath. It is that deep place before thought comes in. The Love that resides in our Spiritual Heart is available to us any time we decide on a human level to access it through our Humanity. That is how we access the truth.

Our Humanity, and our Human Heart is the gateway to our Spiritual Heart and paradoxically, our Spiritual Heart, the gateway to our Human Heart. Both are gateways into the truth of the present moment...

They are really one and the same... but for the sake of our human perspective of things, it is helpful to understand these from their own individual approach. My next post will be "How to Access the Human Heart".

As always, thank-you once again for partaking in my journey... I hope that through these writings you feel the Love in your own Human and Spiritual Heart...

I would love to hear from any one of you who have comments, questions, or simply musings of any kind. My hope is to keep expanding the spiritual community that is growing in our hearts and lives...

Thank you again dear friends,

Much Love and Blessings to all of you,

Izabella