Success in anything requires the active desire for that success. Thus it was that a great saint said that “the unfolding of the heart’s natural love” is a necessary step on our spiritual journey – and one that will hasten our progress in meditation.
This unfolding happens in many ways- through opening our hearts to others, purifying our desires and intentions, clearing the heart of attachments, and directing the heart’s energy upward toward our spiritual aspirations. Here are a few meditation techniques to help…
Harmonizing the Heart~
An important tenet of yoga is ahimsa: non-harming. Swami Kriyananda writes: “The desire to hurt another living being in any way… alienates us from our soul-reality, and affirms the delusion of ego. Anything that separates us in consciousness from the vastness of all life amounts to a denial of that oneness which we should be seeking in meditation…
“For the purposes of meditation, non-violence has a further purpose. The wish to inflict harm creates in ourselves an inner tension, which conflicts with the peacefulness we seek to develop in meditation.”
As spiritual seekers, we come to realize that our thoughts and emotions, as much as our actions- are a powerful force. Thus feelings of anger, judgement and jealousy create in us a disharmony that prevents the free flow of the love we are trying to experience, both in meditation and in life.
Try this visualization to harmonize the heart:
Before meditating, take a moment to become aware of your heart center (situated in the spine opposite the heart). Carefully uproot any feelings of judgement, jealousy, competition, anger, pride, unkindness, or hatred you find there. One way is to offer those emotions up at the point between the eyebrows and visualize them transformed and purified there in a blazing light or bonfire.
Now plant seeds of compassion, kindness and love in the newly cleared heart. Visualize your heart expanding, embracing all human beings through an attitude of unity with all life. Try to feel the truth that the life that flows through your veins is the same life that flows through all creatures. Feel your heart become softer, purer and open to embrace all. Focus at the center of your heart and send waves of blessing out to all people, all creatures- all life.
Focusing our hearts’ love toward aspiration~
In The Art and Science of Raja Yoga, Kriyananda writes: “Some yogis, over-preoccupied with techniques, postures, and pranayamas, with subtle energies and psychic centers, forget that without love all such efforts are wasted- like a mountain stream that loses itself in a vast desert. Love is the prime necessity. All one’s efforts in yoga should be directed with love, and offered on the altar of devotion…”
In meditation, we can actively cultivate that devotion through techniques that channel the energy of the heart center up to the point between the eyebrows- the center of spiritual awakening. Here is a technique that can help.
Lotus Visualization for focusing the heart’s love:
Feel in meditation that your heart center is like a flower with its petals turned downward. Mentally turn these petals upward so that they point toward the brain. Feel rays of energy flowing up from the heart toward the point between the eyebrows. Awaken love in the heart and channel all this love upward, as if to the altar of God, in deep meditation.
The more we offer all our hearts’ love, all our desires up toward the divine, the more we will grow spiritually. Devotion, as Kriyananda writes, “is no mere sentiment, it is the deep longing to commune with, and know, the only reality there is.”
