The Power Within.
How's your heart?
Meister Eckhart said, "A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there."
It is not easy to look within and to attempt to examine what lies beneath all the layers of protection around my heart. Sometimes those layers that I think are there for protection are actually constricting my heart muscle and preventing it from pumping life to its maximum capacity. What constricts life? Fear, worry, doubt, and control always seem to make my heart constrict. I find that prayer and meditation are what strengthens my heart for prayer allows me to examine my heart and move beneath the protective layers. I know that we are to guard our hearts for they are the wellspring of life, but there is a huge difference from guarding our hearts and allowing the hides to harden around our hearts so much that they cannot be penetrated. What are the skins of protection that surround your heart that prevent real life from flowing?
My heart is what sustains me. The more I am in touch with what is going on in my heart the more I am in touch with God. One of my prayers each morining is, "God I offer you my heart." I ask God to live there-- in my heart. I can open myself to real life, true life my removing the protective layers and allowing God access. Exposing my heart allows the light to shine in and through me. Carl Jung said that one’s vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. In order to truly see-- to awaken I must open my heart to God.
Howard Thurman said that the key that one needs for one's peace is in the heart. There can be no personal freedom where there is not an initial surrender. Shedding the layers and opening our hearts to God is surrender, and with surrender comes awakening and life. Surrender gives God access to our hearts. And it is when I give God full access to my heart that I can begin to discover who I really am.
3 Comments:
"God I offer you my heart."
Mine has been calloused lately, apathetic. Thanks for this post and a reminder that a simple prayer can often be the most powerful.
Geez, I really hate it when your writing pricks me like that...
I've been re-learning a whole bunch of lessons that I'd forgotten from early sobriety - one of which is the willingness to "unzip all the wet-suits surrounding my soul, so that people can see what's really inside." I'm sure it's just a coincidence that your writing touched that very topic...as in:
coincidence (n.) - a miracle, in which God chooses to maintain God's anonymity.
This has been a wonderful contemplation. I envision 'opening my heart' and invariably when I do this I feel a warmth radiating from my chest area. I have this image that if I open my heart, God enters, and begins to burst forth exposing the light, just as you wrote, " Exposing my heart allows the light to shine in and through me." The only thing that seems to cover this opportunity is being too ego identified, the fear you mention, and layers of self doubt. It is a bit of surrender to open in this way, to put aside 'little me' and allow a greater presence to flow through me. When I am able to do this, I feel very awake. Wow!
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