Jewel In The Heart

 

'The jewel at the center of the lotus,' the 'inward light,' the 'fire of Christ in the heart': these are not mythic symbols but transcendental sensations in the human body.

For too long philosophers and theologians have intellectualized these fiery, organic, bio-spiritual encounters with God in the flesh. When did our culture forget that the human body is a garland of portals to the other worlds that are all within this one?

We are, in fact, born to breathe the divine, to taste the sacred, to imbibe the nectar of Love through the heart. And I mean this blood-drenched muscle in our chest, which is so much more than a pump. The cardiac plexus embroidering the physical organ  is as 'spiritual' as any metaphysical 'heart' invented by intellectuals.

Let us feel the heart. Quite literally, let awareness sink into this dark flower pulsing at the center of our physical form. The heart is like one of those painted Russian Easter eggs, containing eggs within eggs. Here are layers of unawakened energy, depths of fear, mountains of sorrow to unpack from the blackness of our shadow. But if we keep falling into the heart's night, we finally discover that each particle of pain is actually made out of concentrated love, and at high resolution, the grains of our darkness are brilliant jewels.

At the very core of your heart, entombed in the shadow, is the ineffable diamond of Christ, who is pure Beauty. You are Mary, waiting at dawn. The stone has already been rolled aside. Meet the Beloved in the garden of your body.

Though its substance is formless and uncreated, yet in the radiance of this diamond is essential intimacy, luminous Friendship, more solid than matter. It is, in truth, what matter is made of - yes, every mote of dust and star.

Why do we not perceive the scintillating gem of our essence immediately, every moment? Perhaps we do at our death, and perhaps again when we are newborn infants. But the brilliance is soon 'educated' out of us. The human condition is this: the diamond that is nearer than our own eye gets buried in the dust of inattention, the mud of distraction, the mire of doubt. And that is why we must return again and again to polish it.

Use your breath to polish the diamond in your heart, and bathe it in reverberations of the mantra, until your inward light outshines the world, blessing all creatures. By the grace of the Christ who dwells even now in your heart, Be the healing, Be the Parousia, Be the one who is to come.

None of this is your doing. 'Doing' burns away into active Being, dynamic and grace-full. Your work is to radiate Life from the core of all worlds, which is your beating heart. All else unfolds.

I think this is an Easter message.