Here’s an interesting question I got the other day:

I like this question because it shows that you are looking to connect your inner work with Heart Rhythm Meditation to the immediate needs of those you care about. There is no question that you can send energy to others to help them in all sorts of ways.

I would prefer to tell someone that I’m sending them heart energy. I would explain in some detail what it means to me. People often appreciate knowing that you’re doing this; it would take a great deal of experience with energetic work to recognize that someone was sending you energy from a distance.

On the issue of is it ethical, my feeling is that it is ethical to send energy to someone to help them succeed as long as that person’s success does not occur at the expense of someone else. There are many different kinds of advantage and disadvantage; one student may receive private coaching that other students cannot afford. Another student may feel unloved, which saps his confidence. Receiving the concentrated dose of love and support of your heart energy, strengthened many times over by your breath, heartbeat, and attention, is indeed an advantage. But I don’t think it is an unfair one, because doesn’t break any rules, but is simply part of life.

There are some competitive endeavors where not everyone can win. People often pray and direct their thoughts and feelings toward one team or another in professional sports, where a win can only mean a loss for the other team. I think this is ethical as long as what you pray for is for the player or team to play at their best. It’s certainly not good to send anyone negative energy, such as wish for failure or any sort of injury.

Your question about ethics means you take seriously the power of your heart, which is very important. May your son perform at his highest level, and may he be successful in pursuing his dreams.

Yours in the One Heart,
Asatar

I recognize that the word prayer is not entirely positive for everyone, because it has religious connotations, and the world’s religions have made a lot of mistakes. But stay with me on this, because prayer is too powerful and important to be left to religion.

If you have a problem that has no solution, that is a good time for prayer. If you had a great outcome, that’s a great time for a prayer of thanks. If you need help internally, that’s a good time for prayer. And if you know someone that needs help, that’s also a great time for prayer.

But to what or whom do we pray?

Everyone will have their own unique concept of the Source of All Being. For some, they may see the One Being in very personal terms. Others may see the Divine as an impersonal force. But whatever term you use, whatever name you give (or perhaps you prefer no name at all), and whatever manner you feel most invokes your sense of the sacred, all forms of prayer have their own unique beauty and power.

Hazrat Inayat Khan recognized that we need new language for prayer, and so he used this language to begin his Invocation:

Toward the One

The perfection of love, harmony, and beauty

The Only Being

Puran and Susanna have a wonderful approach to prayer, which they discuss in Follow Your Heart: The Map To Illumination. Here is the secret: the Divine Being resides within your own heart, which opens and awakens to become the Heart of All.

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

p.s. I highly recommend Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Prayers as an incredibly powerful way of opening your heart to the Divine.

UPCOMING EVENTS FROM IAM HEART

GETTING STARTED WITH HEART RHYTHM MEDITATION

I think it’s an amazing sign that the phrase Occupy Your Heart is popping up all over… it’s a surprisingly viral thought, which indicates that it comes from a deeper feeling emerging in the heart of humanity. Here’s a poem that we discovered recently that speaks to what does it mean to occupy your heart.

OCCUPY

Occupy your (higher) Self. 100 %.

Occupy your heart.

Occupy the place where everything is connected.

Occupy your own rhythm.

Occupy compassion.

Occupy your creativity.

Occupy whatever is in front of you RIGHT NOW.

Occupy your feelings.

Occupy stillness.

Occupy the truth that you are good enough.

Occupy your physical body.

Occupy uncertainty.

Occupy the space in which you are never alone.

Occupy grace.
Occupy your OWN energy.

Occupy all points of view.

Occupy your intentions.

Occupy what makes You feel most alive.

Occupy your inner knowing.

Occupy a raindrop.

Occupy your dreams.

Occupy acceptance.

Occupy what needs to be said.

Occupy sound and light and color and space.

Occupy a sense of purpose.

Occupy kindness.

(breathe now)

Occupy your breath.

Occupy this inhale.

Occupy this exhale.

(breathe. now.)

Occupy the space you are most afraid to occupy.

Occupy gentleness.

Occupy your relationships.

Occupy the ether and the deep ground.

Occupy your truth.

Occupy change.

Occupy your deepest passion.

Occupy forgiveness.

Occupy the divinity of all living things.

Occupy your word.

Occupy the unknown.

Occupy your readiness to heal.

Occupy silence.

Occupy whatever is downstream.

Occupy tranquility.

Occupy the understanding that there is always enough.

Occupy timelessness.

Occupy your power.

Occupy your seat on the journey Home.

Occupy the mind that recognizes these words.

Occupy the eyes that see this grand vision.

Occupy the ears that hear this possibility.

Occupy the mouth that speaks only light.

Occupy the hands that long to share.

Occupy the You that lives to love.

Occupy this moment.

Occupy gratitude.

Occupy joy.

Occupy your fear and transform it into love.

Occupy. The beat. Of Your. Wild heart.

Occupy NOW.

Occupy your (higher) Self. 100 %.

– Peggy Fitzsimmons

This is the feeling that Susanna Bair is tapping into with the Occupy Your Heart 2012 Tour. I hope you will be part of this amazing journey.

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

p.s. Puran and Susanna’s book Follow Your Heart has three reviews on Amazon… if you’ve read the book, can you help by writing a review? If you haven’t read it, pick it up here, and read this amazing book. You will thank me.

Here’s a secret about Heart Rhythm Meditation: it will change you. Heart Rhythm Meditation is miraculously powerful and fast-acting. And therein lies the problem.

Heart Rhythm Meditation is very, very effective at uncovering your heart, revealing your heart to you, and bringing up your deepest and strongest emotions. But sometimes those emotions are very challenging, very difficult, and very intense.

We have had students experience such strong emotion that they would cry during every meditation. This period of difficulty passes as you explore your emotions fully and deeply, but it can be good to know that this is a common reaction to Heart Rhythm Meditation, if that is your experience.

Others have just the opposite experience. During their practice of Heart Rhythm Meditation, they experience great peace and joy, which is both calming and rejuvenating. Others experience both ends of this spectrum at different times. I think everyone has times where they really don’t want to meditate. And these are often the times when you need it the most.

Others do not experience this kind of intensity in either the positive or negative direction. Sometimes it feels like not much has happened. But each time you pay attention to your heart, each conscious breath you take, each minute you spend breathing deeply, full, and rhythmically builds more energy in your heart, bringing with it greater self-knowledge, peace, and calm, radiant power.

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

UPCOMING EVENTS FROM IAM HEART

GETTING STARTED WITH HEART RHYTHM MEDITATION

Here’s a poem I wrote:

Drinking from the cup of truthIt’s the most bitter concoction you’ve ever tasted

but it clears your head
showing you everything in the harsh light of day.

It’s such strong medicine, it feels like you might die.
(The tag would read: Too much truth.)
But you live instead.
Reborn.

Truth wakes you from your slumber
as it breaks your chains,
sharpening your will with adversity,
like steel sharpens steel.

Your old self blows away
like a snake’s skin
as you step into the Light.

* * * * *

There’s a reason that people don’t like to hear the truth; as they say, the truth hurts. So much of what we think we know is an illusion. It takes great courage to turn the lights on and examine yourself and what you know in the light of truth.

Then there’s the development of your understanding that occurs, when you see that what you thought was truth was really just your own version of things, your collection of preconceived notions, opinions, designed to support your view of yourself and the world.

There is a bigger truth than this. And a bigger one that encompasses that truth. Until you arrive at Truth itself, too big to comprehend, too vast for words, or thoughts. Truth cannot be spoken; but your heart, stretching to infinity, can become Truth.

Occupy Your Heart and find the Truth your heart is longing for.

Yours in the One Heart,
Asatar

UPCOMING EVENTS FROM IAM HEART

Life is so big. And we seem so small next to the immensity of big institutions, corporations, and the globalizing world. Yet each of us longs to make a difference. We want to help not only those we know and care for, but those we don’t know. We want to create a better world.

Ka-boom (lightning) by Leszek Leszczynski

Why would we have the longing within us if such a thing were not only possible, but necessary?

It is necessary that each one of us do what we can to contribute to humanity, however we conceive of it. But here’s the thing:

In order to have the influence that you need to bring change, you’re going to need more power. Here’s how you get it.

1. Power flows to where it is needed. So create a need for power by doing something that you’re not sure you are capable of doing; as Puran and Susanna put it “do something that makes you tremble.”
2. Do something that really matters to you. Engage the power of your emotions by doing something you care deeply about.
3. Make a public commitment. Making a commitment has a lot of power, and making it public means it touches upon your self-image and how you are perceived by others.
4. Be patient. Don’t forget that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Steadily accumulate by holding your focus on what you are choosing to accomplish, and hold your focus over time.
5. Believe you can do it. Belief in yourself is like a muscle that can be trained by exercise, and a good exercise is to create an affirmation for yourself and say it each day, eleven times before each meal.
6. Use your breath. Breathe and connect the source of your life to your emotions and your will. Breathe fully, rhythmically, and deeply. Breathe as though your heart is breathing. You will succeed. And in your success, you gain the power to bring change.

Please try this out and let me know how it goes. Did I miss anything?

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

p.s. Can you help us to let people know about the Occupy Your Heart 2012 Tour? Thank you.

It’s a wonderful thing that we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr today. How many activists, who in their day were seen as threats to the US Government, to the point of being investigated covertly by the FBI, later become so accepted that they receive official recognition with an government-sanctioned holiday?

Here’s a quote from Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech:

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!” – Martin Luther King, Jr

What is your dream? Have you forgotten it, allowed it to be buried under compromises, swept aside by life’s urgencies, or come to believe that your dream is not practical?

Today is a good day to remember your dream. Remember that your heart has the power to make your dream real. Remember too that having a dream will involve some pain. (Especially if your dream is really big, like Dr. King’s. His dream was not possible to accomplish during his lifetime.) Having a dream brings pain because when you keep your dream in mind, then the world finds a million ways to remind you how far away from it you are right now.

Alright, so you remember you dream now. How do you make it real? Glad you asked — here’s how:

1. Connect your dream to a measurable outcome, something that is in the direction of your dream, but is possible to accomplish with about 9 months of steady effort. This may seem like a compromise, but it’s not. It’s a stepping stone. You have created a goal that will bring you closer to your dream.
2. Work on your goal every day. You don’t have to work on it all day. Just make sure it advances each and every day.
3. Write down your progress to keep yourself motivated and accountable. To really increase the accountability, tell someone what you’re working on and when you plan to have it done.
4. Connect your goal to your dream by remembering your dream each day, and using the power of your dream to keep yourself going. The best way to do this is to energize your heart with your breath and attention, as we do in Heart Rhythm Meditation, using a deep, full breath that is rhythmic and heart-centered.
5. Advanced: To really crank up the energy, create a special phrase to place on your heartbeat as you practice Heart Rhythm Meditation. This creates synergy, helping focus your mind, engage your emotions, inspire your idealism, and at the same time create powerful, rhythmic waves that revitalize your whole being. Your phrase will be unique to your work and interests, but for example, say you are working to stop a destructive dam that threatens the environment in your area. You might use a phrase like: “I work to create harmony with the Earth.” This is 8 words, and by placing each word on your heartbeat, you can breathe in and out 8 beats, while repeating the phrase.

When you work on your goal, the Universe rejoices; when you accomplish it, the Universe celebrates, for your desire is the desire of the One Being coming through your heart.

Yours in the One Heart,
Asatar

p.s. Don’t forget, Puran is giving a free webinar tonight, 1/16, called How Your Heart Grows — check it out!

UPCOMING EVENTS FROM IAM HEART

Puran Bair, co-founder of IAM Heart and co-author of Living from the Heart, has written a wonderful eBook called Breathing For A Better World. This eBook is a true gem. It’s only 15 pages, but each line is packed with such wisdom that you could contemplate it for weeks. Here’s an excerpt from the eBook about breathing problems which has a brief story:

The idea that you could have an impact on the world through your breathing is an incredible thought, yet it’s explored with great insight in Breathing For A Better World; at only $2.95, it is our most affordable product.

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

p.s. Puran is giving a free webinar on Thursday, 1/19, called How Your Heart Grows — don’t miss it!

One of my favorite themes of Puran and Susanna’s book Living from the Heart is the importance of rhythm. If you understand how to live in rhythm, you truly have a monumental advantage in the battle of life. Puran and Susanna talk about the different rhythms of the day, weak, and year, as well as longer-term rhythms of expansion and contraction that occur throughout your life. And then there is the micro-level rhythms we can discern when we carefully pay attention to heartbeat and breath, as we do in Heart Rhythm Meditation.

Here is a section from the Living from the Heart Audiobook (scroll down on the page, you’ll see it!) that gives brief exercise in observing the Four Phases of the breath, and what this reveals about your rhythm. It was an honor for me to serve as the reader of Living from the Heart, a true masterpiece of heart-wisdom that has already become something of a classic.

Please try this exercise out and let me know how it goes.

Yours in the One Heart,

Asatar

p.s. Can you support the work of IAM Heart by making a tax-deductible contribution of $5 today? Thank you for your support.

Susanna Bair shared this wonderful poem with me the other day, written by an anonymous author, which beautifully expresses what Susanna’s Occupy Your Heart 2012 Tour is all about:

SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY

On the surface of the world right now there is war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time, something else is happening underground
An inner revolution is taking place and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.

It is a silent revolution.

From the inside out.
From the ground up.
This is a global operation; a Spiritual Conspiracy.

There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.
You wont see us on the T.V.
You won’t read about us in the newspaper
You won’t hear about us on the radio

We don’t seek any glory
We don’t wear any uniform
We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles
Most of us work anonymously

We are quietly working behind the scenes in every country and culture of the world
Cities big and small, mountains and valleys, in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands
You could pass by one of us on the street and not even notice

We go undercover
We remain behind the scenes
It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done

Occasionally we spot each other in the street
We give a quiet nod and continue on our way

During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs
But behind the false storefront at night, this is where the real work takes a place
Some call us the Conscious Army

We are slowly creating a new world with the power of our minds and hearts

We follow, with passion and joy
Our orders come from the Central Spiritual Intelligence
We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking
Poems, Hugs, Music, Photography, Movies, Kind words, Smiles, Meditation and prayer, Dance, Social activism, Websites, Blogs, Random acts of kindness…
We each express ourselves in our own unique ways with our own unique gifts and talents

“Be the change you want to see in the world”
That is the motto that fills our hearts
We know it is the only way real transformation takes place
We know that quietly and humbly we have the power of all the oceans combined
Our work is slow and meticulous like the formation of mountains
It is not even visible at first glance
And yet with it entire tectonic plates shall be moved in the centuries to come

Love is the new religion of the 21st century
You don’t have to be a highly educated person
Or have any exceptional knowledge to understand it
It comes from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse of all human beings

“Be the change you want to see in the world”
Nobody else can do it for you
We are now recruiting
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have.
All are welcome
The door is open
Are you in?

* * * * *

The rising culture of the heart is happening all around us. But we can provide leadership, we can encourage, inspire, and help. Each step forward each one of us is able to take in healing, knowledge, understanding, and love can reverberate across the entire world.

Yours in the One Heart,
Asatar

p.s. A great way to absorb the basics of Heart Rhythm Meditation is with Susanna’s new Introduction to Heart Rhythm Meditation CD, available for just $9.95. Buy it with Living from the Heart and get free shipping anywhere in the world. Or add the audiobook for just $7 more.