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March 30, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 4. Heart Neutral

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3/30/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 4. Heart Neutral

We can create a state of consciousness for which some people have searched a long, long time. We are aware that we are in the world but not of it. We touch experiences and enjoy their richness but they do not control us. It takes focus and special energy in the heart, and the way to bring it forth is seen in HeartMath Cut-Thru. HeartMath is a secular way, but it shows the spiritual potential and maturity within us. The steps are 1, embrace your feelings, 2, activate the power by breathing love, 3, call forth the amazing wisdom within through spiritual understanding, divine objectivity.

Today is 4, Heart Neutral. Feelings come up, and that is wonderful, but they can control us. Heart Neutral is different. We can hold the feelings in our hearts but we don’t have to be controlled by them. The power of Spirit is always there to act on them. Heart Neutral can release levels in us we have no idea are there.

Lao Tzu: “The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces…” So too the heart. There is room to hold whatever you are feeling in your heart because in there there is infinite ability. “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move… We work with being, but non-being is what we use.” Then we hold it in non-being, in neutral—the part we don’t see, we don’t understand, that flows through us.

How do you get to neutral when the feelings come up? There is head neutral and heart neutral. When the mind tries to choose it suppresses feelings. Our teens have a wonderful expression for this—“whatever!”—it’s head neutral, “I don’t care.” But Heart Neutral embraces the experience, it cares, yet it is unattached. Embrace the feelings. Affirm, “I hold the feelings in my heart in neutral.” They’re ok. I don’t need to give them power; I don’t need to withhold power. But they are part of my experience.

In India, Joanna was in neutral about a fly in her cup of tea, so did nothing. Then her awareness was lifted to another level when a monk carefully lifted it from her cup and told her the fly would be all right; she was opened to an entirely new appreciation for all life. What she had been missing!

A few days before Valentine’s day, Walt was driving Patricia over here. He ran a red light and got pulled over. When the officer walked up, he might write the ticket; he might not. After a short friendly talk, he let Walt off. In neutral there is a beautiful caring. Spirit works through it. With affirmation and encouragement, not suppressing or putting down, hold the feelings in that beautiful embrace of care, of neutral. “I hold the feelings in my heart in neutral.”

It’s like with a piece of chocolate—you enter a moment when your heart is full. When you taste it, there’s appreciation! Let it flow!

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March 23, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 3. Understanding

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Tsu3/23/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 3. Understanding

On our journey to be free the first step is Embrace your feelings, especially the ones not in harmony, identified by that reactive pain. When they come up, there is healing to do. Then turn on the power of the heart by Breathing Love. Today step three, Spiritual Understanding. It’s divine objectivity. It’s in the heart because love is there, God is there, and there is intelligence and light.

I found myself filled with anxiety and a very strong feeling to get away from a conference that I really wanted to attend. Feelings are something we experience, but are not our nature. It was time I healed my feelings. So I took time to be alone. I turned on the power of my heart and spent five beautiful minutes breathing love. Then I asked for understanding. Within that love is the wisdom to truly see. When we look at ourselves through the head it is judgmental. The brain loves right and wrong. We feel guilt, fear, blame. That’s why we don’t like to look at ourselves. But I was in my heart, breathing love, opening to Spirit, to the heart’s deep understanding. It is enlightening, compassionate. Wholeness is it’s nature because Divine Presence is wholeness.

We know a secret: God is good all the time —even when it doesn’t feel like it. There are those who are healed just by the spiritual power when they open to compassion. A young missionary found she was increasingly unhappy, even depressed. She didn’t know she could just go in and turn on the power by breathing love. But she prayed, asking for help, a beautiful expression of self love. She opened to that until she could the feel love. She asked for understanding. She then understood it wasn’t her dream, but her parents’. She needed to go home and attend to her own needs. She was freed of her unhappiness.

The medicine wheel is a wonderful part of the Native American teaching. One of its four directions is Eagle. This young lady had the experience of Eagle, seeing from above. Emily Cady put it this way: “Understanding is a spiritual birth, a revelation of God within the heart of man.” It’s a greater vision from God through the power of the heart. The Taoist, Lao Tzu, said, “The master observes the world but trusts his inner vision…His heart is open as the sky.”

Affirm Breathing love, I open to understanding. In a quiet moment in your day, ask, “Were there recent times when pain or emotions not in harmony came up?” Then Breathe Love. That openness is the opening to the beautiful, powerful individual you are. It brings understanding to everything in our lives!

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March 16, 2014 – The Most Powerful Partnership

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3/16/14 Rev. Rita Marie Johnson
The Most Powerful Partnership

Have you ever gotten stuck on your spiritual path? Did some old stuff come up, or maybe you just got bored? Me too. I wanted inspiration and growth! So I started searching. I found a partnership within, a two-step process.

The first part is Empathy. It is respectful understanding of what others are feeling. When we name our feelings and needs, we empathize with ourselves. When we guess what others are feeling, we are empathizing with them.

The second part of the equation is Insight, which comes from being in Coherence. A few years ago I could not breathe through the left side of my nose. It was quite uncomfortable. The doctors only gave me slight, temporary relief. Then I remembered my two steps. I named my feelings and needs in this regard, and I went into coherence in my heart and asked. I got a surprising insight—that I should stand on my head! But I acted on my insight, and went to the corner of the room and stood on my head for as long as I could. I actually could breathe a bit better. I did it again, and then again, and I got total relief! It is answered prayer. It is Spirit speaking through your heart.

Insight needs empathy to keep it humble. Otherwise, we could get really arrogant. And empathy needs insight to lift us out of misery, or we would be overloaded with the feelings of others. When the two are put together, the synergy propels our spiritual growth forward. It’s growth with joy.

Myrtle Fillmore got stuck at one point in healing herself. She used this process in her way, and got an insight: “Look among your virtues.” She had felt it was a virtue keeping her feelings to herself. With this insight, however, she determined to deal with a feeling “before I swallowed it and it made me ill.” She used this method that has now been proven by science, and her healing was complete.

That’s how life gets better. Jesus also taught this two step process. In Mark 20, verse 30, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” Feel the deep connection in your heart with God. Coherence leads to insight. In verse 31, He said, “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is guessing the feelings and needs of your neighbor, empathy. “There is no commandment greater than these.” There is no greater way to live than this. It accelerates our spiritual growth joyfully because we have our two partners within us all the time.

Before directing the lightening in the sky we must first harness the storms in our own hearts. We can bring ourselves out of unnecessary suffering. We can make it so! Amen.

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March 9, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 2. Breathe Love

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3/9/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 2. Breathing Love

We are walking a journey to the true freedom found in the soul. We took our first step last week, 1. Embrace Our Feelings, to move into wholeness, healing. To step into who we are. And we know at any moment, Divine Presence is good, which let’s us touch that part of ourselves,the feelings, with tenderness and love. This week we 2. Turn on the Power! There is a simple way which is so powerful it will bring some of the greatest experiences in life. It is to Breathe Love. But the mind will try to take over, and say, “What is love?” It will try to put love in a box. Love can’t be put in a box, but you know what it is because you’ve been there again and again. From John, 4:16-18, “God is love.[not a being “out there” loving us, but what moves through us] Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. There is no fear in love… love drives out fear.”

We say we “breathe through our hearts” to bring our attention to the area around the heart. Then to activate the feeling of love, you can use the power of intention. Breathe in and out intending to feel love. Be aware of how you are feeling. In entering into a feeling it is often more helpful to focus on something specific, which is clearer, such as appreciation. You can think of someone you really appreciate. Now let it grow into love. Breathe love. Or you can remember one of those beautiful moments when your heart was full of love. The memory is “past”, the feeling is “right now”. Remember that feeling of love. Breathe love. What a marvelous way to spend some time!

Intention. Appreciation. Memory. Which way was strongest for you this time? At different times and in different situations you can use different ways. At any time, affirm, “I breathe love. Love is what I am.” “I breathe love. Love is what I am.” “I breathe love. Love is what I am.”

This week, in one of “those” business meetings, breathe love. Or in any situation that comes up this week, breathe love. What a magnificent way to be in the world! In the words of Mother Teresa, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

“I breathe love. Love is what I am.” You are right; you are love!

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March 2, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 1. Embrace

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3/2/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 1. Embrace

Going further on our journey into the heart means admitting there are things within us we have to heal. To exist without feelings of limitation brings freedom. It’s “being in the world but not of it.” Feelings come up to protect us from pain, but there is this divine presence that will heal us. “He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers. And He will remove the anger of their hearts.” —the Qur’an 9:14-15. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him… There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…” —John, 4:16,18.

Scripture tells us what to do, but seldom how to do it. In “alternative wisdom writings” like “Winnie the Pooh”, Pooh is the part of us that wants to journey out and see what is there. Piglet is the part of us that gets frightened as we journey further into the soul, and wants to run back home. Christopher Robin is the Christ Self that, with knowledge and love, makes our Hundred Acre Woods safe. One day Pooh and Piglet are following a growing number of tracks in the snow and become afraid that there are fearsome beasts gathering. Piglet wants to run home, but then Christopher Robin calls from up above. Pooh looks up into the branches of an old oak tree. From up there Christopher Robin had seen they were following their own tracks! He admonishes Pooh for trying then to apologize for his silliness, telling Pooh he “is the best bear in all the world!”

Both scripture and Pooh are telling us that there is a presence and power within us; we can explore the tracks before us without fear. We can overcome the pain of loss, great hurt, abuse, and rejection.

I have experienced violent, sudden loss, and many of you have told me you have too. In those times nothing can distract you from your pain. Some sleepless nights I wanted to scream, but was afraid if I gave in, I might not return to sanity. At some point I asked for help and I found an understanding. I then knew the pain was great because the love was great. The pain was part of the loving, and was sacred because it brought the gift of understanding. That understanding did not feel painful, but let me see. That greater wisdom in you helps you see. I invite you to embrace your feelings. You might not give up the deepest feelings, but they will pass when the time is right. Embrace every feeling. If you suffered a great or small physical wound, you would use the tools available to you to heal. So there is an obligation to embrace all feelings. Embrace them with God’s tender love.

I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love! I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love! I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love!

That power in your heart is love. Look up into that great oak tree of God’s tender love!

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February 23, 2014 – Reawakening the Heart of Christianity

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2/23/14 Rev. David McArthur
Reawakening the Heart of Christianity

From the African-American church came a new experience. When they came as slaves, Black Americans were “given” Christianity, and were told Jesus died for their sins in great suffering, which made their suffering acceptable. Over the generations, they found the man Jesus. Not The Christ, not GOD, but the Jesus who held them in love just as they were. They found the personal experience of Jesus. From Emilie Cady, Lessons In Truth, “God is the name we give to that …source of all existence. To the individual …He becomes… a personal, loving, all-forgiving Father-Mother.” Out of the experiences of slavery and the personal presence of Jesus came a passion, a consciousness that touches us all. You cannot be bored in an African-American church.

From a culture of constant abuse they chose to love, to live the teachings and create a consciousness so strong that the world could no longer tolerate slavery, or deny civil rights, not because it was taught, but because it was lived. Martin Luther King, jr., said “Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power… that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react… with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.” Rev. King told all the people, “We must meet violence with non-violence… We must love our white brothers no matter what they have done. We must meet hate with love.”

This is really the only message in the Bible! Choose love! I choose love. I choose love. I choose love. Choose love in the office with that one who always gets to you; in the home, with that one in the family you have been working so hard to get along with; on yourself, when you do that thing again!

It overcame separation, segregation, government resistance, tremendous hurt on both sides. It is the choice that won out! Bless you!

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February 16, 2014 – The Long Journey Home

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2/16/14 Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
The Long Journey Home

The fourteen inches from the head to the heart can be a long journey indeed. We have learned the 5 steps to the heart, and to receive unlimited good. Now let’s look at the parable of “The Lost Son”, also known by other titles. Among so many things, it illustrates our long journey of spiritual development. Metaphysically, the characters in the Bible represent aspects of us, and their stories illustrate our spiritual development. Many of us, during a “dark night of the soul”, can identify with stories about hitting bottom, when there is only up. That’s when we need to ask, “What is it I need to bring me up from this desperation?”

Well, we always know what we need to overcome. These challenges help us use our God muscle. Otherwise, how do you know you have faith if you never used it? And we always have what we need for overcoming our challenges. There is nothing we can’t do because magnificence is with in us to overcome anything before us! When we know we are one with the Creator, when we know we are Creator, we know everything has been created for us by us.

The steps on this journey line up with the steps to the heart. First, wake up! Remember who you are and whose you are. 2nd, look up! Raise your vision above the current situation. Then 3, get up! Step out of the mess and into the message. 4Th, turn around! Go back to what you know. Go back to the heart. 5, ask for directions! Go to the Heart, call upon the Holy Spirit for guidance. From A Course In Miracles, if you don’t know what to ask, say What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say? And to whom? 6Th, Take One Step at a Time! Make your way steadily along the Heart’s Direction. 7. Don’t Give Up! Keep the Faith and Rest in Knowing.

You were not put here to fail. You cannot fail. We are continually developing in consciousness. Charles Fillmore called it the upward spiral of the spirit. We can avoid letting our challenges destroy us! Emma Curtis Hopkins tells us, when facing a challenge, know that “This too is good. This too is God. This too is for me and I demand to see the blessing in it for me.” Welcome home! Forgive yourself and others; revel in the journey and settle in at Home. Home is where the heart is.

I am at home in the haven of my Heart! I am at home in the haven of my Heart! I am at home in the haven of my Heart!

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February 2, 2014 – The Fifth Step to the Heart: Receptivity

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2/2/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Fifth Step to the Heart: Receptivity

What an amazing journey we’re on—this amazing journey to the depth of the heart, which is infinite! I’m so joyful to be doing it with you. Step one, the awareness of how we’re feeling right now, is the beginning of the movement from the mechanism of the mind to that of the heart, to step two: connecting with the heart. Step three is entry into a beautiful spiritual connection, heart feelings. They are all love, and are experienced as joy, compassion, and so on. God is love—not that God loves, but God is love. When I love, I am one with that divine spiritual presence. When I love so does everyone in the world because they each have a heart no matter which religious club they are in. You find peace—peace within you—because it is connection to the divine presence.

Fourth is Heart Asking. We can now enter into creating with this spiritual power the world in which we live. It is the movement from saying God is good all the time to the feeling that God is good all the time, the movement into creating that experience in the world around us.
Fifth. The step today is something created by this journey: receptivity. Receptivity comes from this journey. Each time we take this journey we have an opportunity for an even deeper experience. It’s the request made of Divine Intelligence to respond to us. Divine Intelligence will not take away your ability to choose, nor impose Itself upon you, but respect you. When you ask for Its wisdom and power you get it. It’s always there. Although we see impossibility and loss, it is always there with wholeness and wisdom.
A beautiful gift! An amazing giver! These simple steps take us to a state of being where we are receptive. I am receptive. I am receptive. I am receptivity. It is the nature of who you are when you step into that spiritual self. There is something that lets us go step by step. See the reality of the love that is always there even though we can reject it. All the conditions that say otherwise are not true. You are loved with no conditions. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. And I love you too!

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January 26, 2014 – The Fourth Step to the Heart: Heart Asking

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1/26/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Fourth Step to the Heart: Heart Asking

Step 1. is Self Awareness—that point of spiritual awakening which takes us to the capacity to choose. 2. Heart Focus—takes us to the heart, to the capacity to enter into the direct connection with the spiritual self. 3. Heart Feeling—is being at the door of the heart and diving in, feeling love, appreciation, etc. Today, it’s 4. Heart Asking. You don’t have to do this, by step 3 you are already in the place of peace. But Jesus’ teaching, “My peace I give unto you” was to find love in the midst of what’s going on, to effectively transform what’s around you. (If it’s around you it’s yours!) So you’ve gotta take care of what’s there. How? With Heart Asking—accessing the powerful divine intelligence that moves in us and through us.

You’ve heard “Ask, and it will be given to you…For everyone who asks receives.…” I explored this asking for many years. When we ask sincerely within ourselves for guidance it will be given. That’s a law and it works! Sincerity in asking takes you to the peace within and the divine guidance.

Emily Cady taught that God is not omnipotent, but omnipotence; not omnipresent, but omnipresence. All that is not a being having qualities. It is the very good itself—all power—all knowledge. We call on knowledge and power. All it is, is wholeness. We call on taking something not whole and go to wholeness.

God is the very intelligence itself. We come to the fullness of intelligence Itself. When we perceive the divine, the wholeness that is there, we are enlightened, illumined. We ask that it be brought into our experience. Self Awareness. Heart Focus. Heart Feeling. Now, Heart Asking, “How do I respond wisely?” The trick is it requires sincerity. Not asking that the heart agree with what the head has already decided, but sincerely ask with open heart, “How do I respond wisely?” When things aren’t working—we have rejection, anger, hurt—find the road to the greater through Heart Asking. The intelligence is there. It has to be. It is pure love and intelligence.

“How do I respond wisely?” “How do I respond wisely?” “How do I respond wisely?” This is a kick! It takes care of us. We are always invited into a world of wholeness and wisdom. Divine wisdom flows through my heart. Divine wisdom flows through my heart. Divine wisdom flows through my heart. It does. What a gift! Your wisdom is here, now! Bless You!

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January 19, 2014 – The Third Step to the Heart: Heart Feeling

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1/19/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Third Step to the Heart: Heart Feeling

Today we get to the good stuff, our third step—heart feeling. Our brain is so good at figuring things out we use it by default, but it can only get you to the heart. Entry into the heart, the connection to the infinite, is through heart feeling. The way there is love. But it is not the natural response when we are upset. In difficulty, or just uncomfortable moments, we give our comfort over to someone else. But there is so much love in the heart that we only need to touch a small part of it to get into it. An easy way is appreciation.

Feeling appreciation is what takes us into the power, peace, harmony, and abundance. I was downtown shopping recently and took too long to cross the street. The cars moved closer impatiently till I got to the sidewalk. A motorcycle officer pulled up and addressed me with anger that was far beyond anything that I had caused. Easily embarrassed and trained as a lawyer to point out the other person’s weaknesses, I so wanted to engage him. However, aware of my feelings, I put my hand on my heart and went to appreciation to get into my heart. Now, every grandparent knows that no matter what’s going on, they always feel love when they appreciate their grandchildren. So I refrained from adding to his anger. When he was through getting in my face he left and didn’t even give me a ticket.

Your heart does not give you power over others, but it does give you power over you, and that’s who you are responsible for. You do not need to appreciate the pain the other is in, nor participate in it and make his pain any greater. What you can do is find your freedom. Make that choice to enter into a spiritual connection.

You have the ability to walk this world in peace. You are an infinite being of magnificent power which is always there. When you begin to feel the other way, you have a tool. Enter into the feeling—appreciate God is good all the time! That goodness is in your heart and you have access to it all the time. It’s there! Even weeks after a difficult experience, it’s there!

Step one: self-awareness. Step two: heart focus. Now step three: Heart feeling. You have power. On this, Krishnamurti said, “You will discover that for you, the world transforms.” And an amazing thing happens: the more you find your peace, the easier it is for all others. For your heart being that way, I thank you!

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