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 Tsu: “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!