I want to start this practice with a quote from the Suvi mystic and poet Rumi.
Your task is not to seek for love,
But merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
In the spirit of these wise and beautiful words,
Let us set our intentions for this practice today,
Aiming squarely upon opening wide our hearts by seeking to dismantle any barriers we've built around it and allowing the truth of its love to shine through us into the world.
So please,
Bring yourself into a comfortable position,
Seated or lying down,
And whenever you're ready,
Allow your eyes to drift closed.
Keep your spine straight,
Holding yourself tall from your root to your crown,
Leaving your chin slightly tucked.
Hold your shoulders loosely,
Letting them droop down and back away from your ears.
Your chest is wide open,
Your heart space is lifted.
Notice your body finding balance here,
Cradled firmly by the earth below.
And rooting in deeply.
Feel the stability of mother earth greeting you.
Feel it holding you.
Before we get too deep here,
I want you to take a moment and think of an object of gratitude for today's meditation.
It might be a person in your life,
It might be a specific memory,
It might be a broad sense of gratitude you hold for your life,
Or it could simply be the gratitude you have for this time you're taking now for yourself.
Whatever this object is,
Choose it now and tuck it away.
Allowing all of that to drift away,
Bring your attention gently onto your breath.
Notice the natural rhythms and allow yourself to begin taking deeper breaths.
Breathing in through the nose,
You feel yourself filled with a relaxing,
Healing energy.
Exhaling through your mouth,
You release any tensions or negativities you may have been holding onto.
Gently and deeply,
Breathe in relaxation,
Contentment,
And equanimity.
And exhaling completely,
Release all anxieties,
Frustrations,
And discomforts.
Take a minute here for yourself and just breathe.
Take a minute here for yourself and just breathe.
Breathe in.
Having found a peaceful equanimity through focusing on the rhythms of our breath,
We bring our attention onto our hearts.
Ask yourself,
Are there any barriers you've built around your heart?
Are there people in your life with whom you feel an absence of compassion?
Many of us build these barriers as means of protection when put in difficult situations.
Some of us have come to do this habitually as means of coping with the stresses of our modern cultures.
While we certainly don't want to take on negative energies,
Or allow others to drain us,
We must take great care when tending to the flow of our heart's own energy.
We must preserve a state of giving and receiving.
Without it,
We become disconnected from the love which surrounds us.
We come to feel isolated,
Alone.
By breaking down these barriers we've created over the course of our lives,
We allow ourselves to heal,
To return to a sense of belonging,
To embody unconditional love.
And so with all of this in mind,
Let us set aside our thinking minds and bring our attentions fully onto our heart space.
Imagine yourself sitting in front of a broad field of energy composed of thousands of small bright white orbs of light.
This field sprawls before you.
As you breathe in deeply,
See this field of energy streaming into your chest.
See all of it,
In its entirety,
Compressing into a stream as it pours through your heart space like a river.
See that this energy expands again,
Emerging from the space between your shoulder blades,
Spreading back out into the field of individual white orbs.
All of this,
Just on the in-breath,
This light moves fast.
As you breathe out,
See the river of light pour back through your heart space to emerge again before you.
And continue breathing here like this,
Imagining the orbs of white light pouring in through your chest as you breathe in and feeling them flow back through you as you breathe out.
Feel it cleansing your heart space as it passes through you.
Feel it opening the energy channels of your heart.
This light is powerful and healing.
Breathe in and breathe out,
Allowing yourself to give and receive love freely without reservation or restriction.
And just keep breathing in and out here,
Focusing on this flowing field of energy,
Feeling it stream through you,
Knowing it is breaking down any barriers you might have created within your heart space.
Allow yourself to let go into this process and know you are safe here,
Know you deserve this healing,
And know you are not alone.
Breathe in and breathe out,
Allowing yourself to give and receive love freely without reservation Having increased the flow of energy through our hearts,
Let us now reverse that flow.
And now,
As we breathe in,
This field of energy begins behind us and flows through us to our front side.
As we breathe out,
Feel it pouring back through,
Returning to its station behind us.
And as we breathe here,
For another minute,
Really allow yourself to let go into the visualization.
Allow your heart to be opened wide.
Feeling powerfully open-hearted.
Let us now imagine our heart's energy as a swirling vortex of light centered on our chest,
Its slowly spinning currents are soothing.
Let us breathe into this space,
Keeping our focus here as we simultaneously bring in feelings of gratitude.
So think back now to your object of gratitude and bring that feeling in,
Bring it all the way in to your heart and feel it bloom there.
And together,
We just keep breathing into this vortex of powerful love and gratitude,
Feeling the light flowing through us.
Let us now realize our energy as a swirling vortex of light centered on our chest,
Its slowly spinning currents.
With our hearts now powerfully attuned to energetic openness and emboldened by our own gratitude,
Let us let go of all of the visualizations and come to rest here,
Connecting through our hearts with each other,
Allowing ourselves to feel the comfort and companionship of unconditional love.
Knowing that no matter how different we may seem through the eyes of an earthly observer,
Ultimately we are all family,
We are all a part of the same beautiful mystery.
Let us invite connection to not only each other,
But to our friends and families,
To our ancestors,
To ascended masters,
And let us hold the intention of not only empowering our own life with the unconditional love available through our hearts,
But of empowering all of humanity and every being which exists in this conscious universe to embody that same love.
God Bless.
You you As we return now to our bodies Let us set the intentions to carry this work with us To retain our open-heartedness And to continue allowing energy to flow freely through our heart space And so come back now to your physical body Notice it's right where you left it Allow yourself to sense the space around you Wiggle your toes wiggle your fingers Take a deep breath in And a deep breath out Whenever you're ready open your eyes I Want to thank you for joining me today for this meditation on opening the heart I Am truly grateful for this opportunity to have led you You you
