PART I

There is a tender spot in the sternum, a spot sensitive to being touched by the breath. As one breathes in and out of the nose, taking a refined breath, one discovers this area being very gently massaged. This gentle motion of the breath is described in some eastern texts as blowing on an ember in the heart. Something is quickened by this action! As one caresses and massages this area with the breath, a feeling of warmth begins to emerge, which has a decongesting action. The whole area begins to soften. As it softens, one can let the in-breath penetrate and the out-breath open and release.

As one breathes more deeply into the heart, one begins to experience the subjective sense of self sinking into the heart. There is a sense of "splitting" the subject. One subject still seems centered in the head, doing what it normally does. Another subject seems located in the depth of the heart. One begins to more profoundly experience the center of being as emanating from the heart. One begins to sense visual and kinesthetic experiences of exploring nature and the cosmos from the center of the heart.

There is a heightened experience and appreciation of space. At first the chest cavity seems larger than usual. Then one begins to experience consciousness moving into a vast, boundless domain -- the domain of the heart. One begins to experience the ocean of one's being. At first, it is like being on the beach looking into the ocean. As one begins to allow oneself to be carried out into the ocean there are a number of wondrous experiences. First, there is the realization that this boundless internal space of the heart is not just a vacuum or emptiness. Far from it! It is teeming with life, surging with energy, full of light. As one allows oneself to be carried out into it, there is the experience of "buoyancy". This leads one to a deep sense of internal support. To be buoyant means the medium is supporting one.

Further, the boundaries of the subjective self begin to melt, blur, and disappear. One starts to merge with a greater sense of identity, a cosmic field of being. One begins to realize the nature of this inner space, that not only is it supportive in structure, but it also is a threshold to a much deeper domain of life. Not only does a wondrous shimmering luminosity well up within this boundless space, but those structures representing our deepest nature (that the ancient Sufis called Divine Qualities) also begin to stream forth and bubble up. Indeed this ocean of the heart appears to be formless, but in fact gives birth to deeply active aspects of our being.

PART II

In his book, The Inner Journey, Hazrat Inayat Khan states that the first step in the inner journey is living in the heart, which culminates in living in the soul. To live in the heart we not only need to know how to enter this domain, but also the dynamics of the heart. In other words, what living in the heart has to offer us and others, how we can effectively live in it during our everyday life and how we find ourselves not living in it from time to time. We examined how to enter this domain in our last newsletter; therefore I'll use this article to briefly describe the "dynamics".

The first significant aspect of this domain we awaken to is the vastness, which is a boundless, open, fluid, subtle, nurturing, warm, light-filled space. As we allow ourselves to be carried into this boundless domain, we experience a radical transformation of identity. Our identity switches from one which is deeply rooted in our personal history to one which is rooted in a boundless and timeless dimension of being. We experience a paradoxical condition of freedom and unity simultaneously.

Further, our relationship to those reactive, adaptive patterns in our life, and the emotions at the root of them, has shifted. When we are in the identity of our "personal history" those patterns and the emotions/energy at their root can well up and seem infinitely larger than us. We seem entrapped within them. From the domain of the heart, we experience ourselves as infinitely larger than both the pattern and the emotions it is rooted within. This offers us a totally new avenue to approach and work with these issues. It also gives us an opportunity to not only soften and heal this part of our live but also to transform our personality, using these reactive patterns as catalysts to call forth deeper qualities of being into the personality structure.

For the sake of this discussion I define "presence" as being able to hold unwaveringly a pattern of emotion as a loving non-judgmental awareness. There is no desire to overcome nor a desire to distance oneself. It is bringing "eyes of innocence" to the situation. Simply watching, and noting the subtle shifts that spontaneously take place as we watch. It is being The Witness.

One difficulty we might suffer when we are in our "personal history identity" is that when we try to be present to our reactive pieces we get very scared. At the root of this fear may be the feeling, "I am going to die if this continues." Some other feelings might be: deep anxiety, nausea, dizziness, blacking out, instantly forgetting what we are talking about, warm or cold energies rushing around our body, or incredible rage.

I am defining our personal history identity as the past experiences of our history as an individual from which we have created our identity. The reactive, or adaptive, elements of our "personal history identity" were created as survival mechanisms -- strategies that obviously worked, as we still exist. The difficulty is that these strategies, a product of the sympathetic nervous system, are in present time "dead strategies". They have become part of what Hazrat Inayat Khan would call nafs amara, the "mechanical ego". Consequently they do not support us in being truly awake to what is happening in the present time. Because such strategies are simply mechanical in nature, they do not allow an active consciousness to be present. They imprison rather than free energy and consciousness. They are not only dead, but also deadening, shaping our personalities into caricatures of our worst moments, and they do not support the expression of the active aspects of our being. I believe the "personal history identity" is a practical illustration of that Ibn Arabi alluded to as our "prison" when he asked us to awaken to that which is beyond the prison of time and space, so that we might receive our divine investiture.

The domain of the heart is a fifth dimensionality. It is not of the three dimensions of our physical body, nor is it simply contained with the dimension of the mind. It can be clearly experienced to be a dimension much vaster than either. It intersects both, and can contain both.

When we realize the greater identity that exists within the domain of the heart we realize that we can allow the "I" which feels itself about to die when it is caught up in a highly reactive piece to do just that. It can die because we have now realized a much vaster identity. It can die, but in truth only the reactive piece dies, and that probably isn't even the appropriate description. It would be better to say that it softens, or melts, allowing space to emerge where once there was a hard and dense psychic structure.

When we are in the domain of the heart there is a startling realization: We are not only surrounded by boundless space; we are boundless space. When we are in our personal history identity, we create structures to protect ourselves, to feel safe; but when we are in the boundless space of the heart (with no structures), we feel infinitely safe. Why? From this domain a realization is birthed that there is an Essential Presence within this space that fills us with life, buoyancy, love, and light.