Tag Archives: compassion

Chuck’s Place: Finding The True Heart

Don Juan’s fundamental guidance to Carlos Castaneda was to choose a path with heart, for “a path with heart is easy—it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man [or woman] follows it, he [she] is one with it.” *

We all have a two-part heart... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all have a two-part heart…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Here don Juan speaks to what Sri Aurobindo called being in alignment with the Divine Spark, the Psychic Being hidden in the cave at the center of the heart chakra. To realize the truth of this Divine Spark as one’s path in this life is to truly find and traverse one’s path with heart. And yet, the heart is of two parts, its emotional side offering “an obscure and often uncertain and misleading power,” as Aurobindo states, as well as behind that emotional heart, “a profounder mystic light which, if not what we call intuition…has yet a direct touch upon Truth and is nearer the Divine that the human intellect in its pride of knowledge.” ** This second, mystical heart, is the heart that is hidden in the cave at the center of the heart chakra, this is the true heart that seeks and recognizes a path with heart.

On a physical level the heart is the center of life and vitality in the body. There is no physical life without a heartbeat. The movement of the heart distributes energy to every cell of the body to enable all cells to act. This action extends to emotional life, where feelings spur human action and interaction.

Aurobindo states: “…there is in front in men a heart of vital emotion similar to the animal’s, if more variously developed; its emotions are governed by egoistic passion, blind instinctive affections and all the play of the life-impulses with their imperfections, perversions, often sordid degradations,—heart besieged and given over to the lusts, desires, wraths, intense or fierce demands or little greeds and mean pettinesses of an obscure and fallen life-force and debased by its slavery to any and every impulse.” **

Here Aurobindo refers to the heart’s action capacity as being under the dominance of the three lower chakras, animal instincts ruled by the archetypal governances or gods of the planetary being at its purely survival mode, as well as a mixture of ego-willfulness supplanting nature’s imperative to its own self-serving ends. (See last week’s blogpost for further explanation: Beyond Archetypal Bondage)

Here arises confusion at the heart center, for though the emotional heart dominates through much of life this irrational emotive center is incapable of guiding the true needs of the Self, the higher being that we all are. This part of the heart chakra, with all its powerful emotionality, provides the justification for the rise to order and reason of the rational mind, as it insists on its superiority and hegemony over the vagaries of the feeling heart.

Rationality is like a predator, constantly swooping in to reassert its presence... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Rationality is like a predator, constantly swooping in to reassert its presence…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Aurobindo comments: “This mixture of the emotive heart and the sensational hungering vital creates in man a false soul of desire; it is this that is the crude and dangerous element which the reason rightly distrusts and feels a need to control, even though the actual control or rather coercion it succeeds in establishing over our raw and insistent vital nature remains always very uncertain and deceptive.” ***

Unfortunately, attempts at rational control over emotive behavior, or cognitive behavioral therapy, rarely quell the base impulses raging in the heart. More often than not they are sentenced to the prison of the shadow unconscious where they lie in wait, scheming their next disruptive moves. The apparent calm after the storm is generally short-lived.

How many times couples find themselves immediately reignited in a conflict, after a voluntary break for calming and cooling, reflects the thin veil of control reason holds over the fiery energy of an ignited heart.

Though reason might offer a pause, it cannot settle matters of the true heart. For don Juan, reason would be a false path, not the path that could be guided by spirit. How then does one go about achieving the quiet heart, of locating “the true invisible heart hidden in the luminous cave” *** of the heart center, and truly find a path with heart.

Tibetan Buddhism has developed the practice of Tonglen breathing where the fire of emotion is allowed to burn off and transform in the heart center, through breathing in the fire that wants to attack or attach outwardly and breathing out a cooler breath of compassion. This is an alchemical process of transforming emotional heat into the steady flame of cool luminosity utilizing the heart chamber as the retort, or flask, to burn off the impurities of the lower chakras to arrive at truth and compassion. Once we find our way to true compassion, compassion that is not tainted with sympathy, empathy, or guilt, we’ve entered the cave of objective truth where the cool Divine Spark glows in all its luminosity.

Behind the known heart lies the cave of the luminous heart... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Behind the known heart lies the cave of the luminous heart…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The I Ching in the hexagram Ken, the Mountain, hints at the practice of yoga as a method to still the restlessness of the heart, another alchemical process. Regardless of methodology, the essence of an alchemical practice is to contain the energy of the lower chakras that would drive the heart to outbursts of emotive activity. Through containment of this emotional energy a transformation takes place whereby the cave of the hidden mystical heart appears. Then the Psychic Being, the true higher Self, is available to come forth and take the reins in right action.

In opening access to the true heart chakra where the Psychic Being resides, that inmost link to Divine Soul, only truth and compassion flow. As Aurobindo states: “It is as this psychic being in him grows and the movements of the heart reflect its divinations and impulsions that man becomes more and more aware of his soul, ceases to be a superior animal, and, awakening to glimpses of the godhead within him, admits more and more its intimations of a deeper life and consciousness and an impulse towards things divine.” ****

The path to unveil the hidden heart is truly the path with heart.

With compassion,
Chuck

References:
* The Wheel of Time, Castaneda, p. 19
** The Psychic Being, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, p 26
*** The Psychic Being, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, p 27
**** The Psychic Being, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, p 27-28

A Day in a Life: What The World Needs Now

For today’s blogpost I decided to channel a message. I’m always interested in gaining a new and different perspective and channeling never fails to produce just that. I hope you enjoy what follows and are not afraid to take it to heart, for at its heart is a message of love.

Love is... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Love is…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Here is the channeled message for all of us:

What the world needs now is love but, unfortunately, that is not enough. Even love is not enough to change the world. The world and the people in it have too many other problems, the greatest being ignorance. And so, the first issue at hand is to rid the world and the people of the world of ignorance.

Ignorance is responsible for all the ills of the world, for the sicknesses and the disputes, the wars and the battles that wage across the globe—between countries, between factions within countries, within families, as well as within individuals. Ignorance, topped with arrogance, makes things even worse.

To say one has the answer is arrogance. To say one has found the way is arrogance. To declare that one is the prophet of the world is arrogance and yet there are many who say such things and many who believe them. There are as many answers as there are people, and there are as many paths and as many prophets as there are people because all who exist upon that earth have the answers, the way, and the teachings within. But many do not know this, nor know how to find this “within” I speak of. However, that being said, there are many truly good people who are available to show the way.

There are advanced beings who walk among you, quietly going about their own work while offering what they know in a most humble and docile way. It is up to each one of you to determine who they are and, by your heartfelt knowing, allow yourself to be taught and guided by them. Their methods will be without personal gain and without needing anything in return, as they will live by the laws of nature and in alignment with the principles of loving kindness to all beings.

To understand and find the answers within, to take up the task of taking the journey into the self, gaining in knowledge and awareness, will reveal the truth of what I speak of. Such a journey will be the beginning of the end of ignorance and yet, even so, there will be many of arrogance who will say, “You are not capable; you are not doing it right,” and they will try to persuade you to do it in their way, for there will always be greed. And so, you must know that greed lies beneath arrogance and so arrogance will not abate until greed is no longer an issue.

And how will greed be eradicated? It will never completely disappear, but it can be put into perspective, into the human animal’s genome, as an inevitability of life in the human form. Everyone has to contend with greed and to accept it about the self. That you are a greedy human being cannot be denied. It is the first big lesson in losing your own arrogance and overcoming your own ignorance.

Nature's helping hand... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Nature’s helping hand…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

To accept that all of you are the same, with the same processes to undergo and the same issues to address will begin the slow trek to abolishing arrogance and ignorance. Once this process is begun then love, real universal love, will find its way into the world.

As the clearing away of all that holds the world now in its grip begins, love will find the channels it needs to seep into the hearts of all the peoples of the world. And then real changes may begin to take place.

On a practical level, on a personal level, it is really about time to learn how to love yourself. Is this not true? And to do this, you all must contend with the three main issues of all human beings: greed, arrogance, and ignorance.

You will not understand ignorance until you understand arrogance. And you will not understand arrogance until you understand greed. And you will not understand greed until you understand the self as a human animal, a being of greed.

First, you must understand that none of these issues are bad. They are the lessons that all living beings must contend with to evolve into loving beings. All of life must contend with such for balance to be gained and for all of life to flourish, on a human as well as a natural level. But the human being must take the biggest responsibility for the imbalance, for it is the ignorant, arrogant, greedy human being who has caused the issues that now confound the very soil, water, and air of the planet. It is the human greed machine—and you are all a part of it—that has created the situation that now plagues everyone; everything from sickness of people to sickness of Mother Earth, anger and hatred, war and destruction. All have been caused by the imbalances created by the human animal.

Remind the self often that the human animal is but one part of the picture of who you are, part of your wholeness. Each human animal is accompanied through life by an energy body self and a higher spiritual self, existing above it all, above life on earth.

The physical and the spiritual... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The physical and the spiritual…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

These are the other aspects of self that many do not feel or even desire connection with, for encounters with these other aspects of self are often frightening. When the human self encounters these profoundly loving and knowledgeable higher spiritual selves they may be startled and fearful, as they discover that they are not what they have always thought themselves to be. To discover that you are something else does indeed strike fear in the hearts of many!

Accessing these other aspects of self begins the process of letting go of all that is human, and this is what is also frightening, to have to leave the known world and face the unknown! But this is exactly what everyone will be faced with sooner or later.

If you really want to help solve the worlds’ problems, the deterioration and death of the world as you know it, coming closer every day, why not turn and face your own death first, the death of your physical self that will happen anyway? In so doing, you will discover your life force, that which never dies. What is so frightening about that?

If all beings were to begin this process of facing death by reaching out to their spiritual higher selves, the world would have a chance of once again returning to balance and even possibly becoming an environment that is in the Tao, in alignment with nature, and thus without cause for any disputes. For in nature all is natural, all is accepted, all is appreciated, as every living organism is respected as part of the whole and this, My Dears, is what love is.

Do not only admit that you are a greedy human being, but fully explore it and own it by finding out what it means and only then put it to rest. If you can do this before death puts it to rest for you, you will have begun the greater journey that awaits outside the realm of the physical where you will learn your greatest experiences of love and life.

How can you truly love if you do not love all of who you are? How can you totally love another if you do not even like certain parts of yourself? How can you say you are in alignment with nature if you do not own nature in you? How can you say you know everything if you do not allow nature to be your guide and your teacher, including nature inside you? How can you keep saying you love everyone and everything, if this is not really true?

In the Tao... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the Tao…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The work of the world is in each one of you. If you are to act on behalf of the world, and all beings, in the context of the life you lead, then let every day be dedicated to learning more about the self on the deepest levels.

As you face all that you are, even your most greedy and entitled self, you will understand the world a little bit better too. And you will no longer be angry at it and at what is happening to it, but you will know that you are beginning to change it, one compassionate self-directed discovery at a time. Only then will your kindness really matter, your compassion be utilized, and your love be enveloping.

You are the work of the world and the work of the world is the work of you. Take up the challenges you face and you will aid all of humanity, even as you remain an active part of life and the world. For to do the work of the self is not to remove oneself from life but to fully embrace it and live it, consciously and with good intentions always in your heart.

If one human being’s energy changes it affects everything else. That is nature. That is love.

Thank you to Jeanne, channeled with love and gratitude for all of us,
Jan

A Day in a Life: Searching For Meaning

Our little visitor... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our little visitor…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Last Sunday, a female pheasant flew into our yard and began eating the seeds on the ground, fallen there from the bird feeders we have hanging in a tree. We noticed her limping and detected an injured foot, though her wings were intact and she flew just fine. She has since stayed.

We see her every morning, as she comes out from wherever she spends the cold nights to eat her fill. There is plenty of seed on the ground, a thick carpet, tossed there by the smaller birds as they perch and peck at the feeders. The larger birds take advantage of this arrangement. Everyone is happy.

Carlos Castaneda once moved a small snail from a sidewalk and put it into the bushes on the opposite side, fearing that the snail would be crushed by someone inadvertently stepping on it, but he learned something new from his teacher that day. Here is what he wrote about the incident in The Second Ring of Power:

“Don Juan pointed out that my assumption was a careless one, because I had not taken into consideration two important possibilities. One was that the snail might have been escaping a sure death by poison under the leaves of the vine, and the other possibility was that the snail had enough personal power to cross the sidewalk. By interfering I had not saved the snail but only made it lose whatever it had so painfully gained.”

And so, taking such insight into consideration, we have chosen not to interfere with the pheasant. We have learned that it is better to let nature take its course unimpeded by human intervention. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but we have also learned that no matter what we do to help someone or something, in the end we really have little impact. We know that everyone will do what they want and what they are ready for, no matter how ardent, concerned, and loving our help or suggestions might be. We have experienced this often enough both personally and professionally. When people are ready, they will take the journey that is right for them to take.

So we watch the little pheasant with fascination, for her intrepid spirit, marveling that she found her way to our yard, and of course, wondering what it might mean for us personally. How could we not?

She offers us pause to consider other times when we have been put in similar positions, when the unexpected arrives on our doorstep, unbidden. Life is full of surprises. We get news of something, we get asked to do something, we get offered something. We must make conscious decisions.

Everybody's happy with the arrangement...  - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Everybody’s happy with the arrangement…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Sometimes decisions come spontaneously, and whether they are right or wrong we act instinctively. At other times a decision does not come so quickly and we must ponder why. We must ask: What is the right decision to make and why is it right? Who will benefit or not, and to what end?

We are loving and compassionate people, but we also know that everyone has a journey to take, and that each person’s journey is unique and special. We know that each person must learn to make choices and decisions for themselves, that they will learn about life in both their successes and failures. Sometimes it is right to help; sometimes it is best to step out of the way. The decision to help and the decision to step out of the way are each difficult to make. Based on each circumstance, what we elect to do for another may propel them forward or keep them stuck. We want everyone to access the limitless resources within themselves and often the best way to do that is to step out of the way.

And so we watch our little pheasant with sheer pleasure. How resourceful she is! The cats that roam the neighborhood are no match for her. She is alert and quick. She flies up into the trees when danger approaches, fully capable of taking care of herself. She takes advantage of the sunny spots during the day. We see her sitting up against the warm brick front of the house, safely tucked behind the wall of snow that has formed over the past week by the gusty winds. She is, after all, a creature of nature and is instinctively drawn to the healing power of the sun.

She must be getting enough food. And although we give her nothing more than we give to the other birds we do send her our energetic intent. We send her our full energetic support as she takes her own journey. The outcome is up to her. We do not judge her choices; after all, she landed on our doorstep, and so we thank her for coming into our life, offering us the opportunity to observe her and to search for meaning in her visitation.

Synchronistically, and so not surprisingly, we find that we have been offered many opportunities over the past week to make some meaningful decisions. Is it time to help, or time to step out of the way?

Sometimes helping another living being means standing back and letting them take the next leg of their journey on their own. This might be the hardest choice we ever make. But we can send them off with loving energetic encouragement and good wishes that they make mature and reasonable decisions that will lead them beyond mere survival to new stages of evolution.

Basking in some rays... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Basking in some rays…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

At some point we all have to choose a path, and so we fully support everyone’s search for meaning and for their own path of heart. Sometimes it’s enough to say: “Go ahead, you can do it! You’re on your own now! Good luck! Life is waiting to receive you!”

Letting nature takes its course without interference, but with compassionate detachment,
Jan

A Day in a Life: In The Tension Of Nature

What turn will nature take for me today? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What turn will nature take for me today?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The recent weather situation in the Northeast, as we awaited the track that the “snowstorm of the century” would take, reminded me of how we expect the experts, in this case the meteorologists, to get it right and how quick we are to judge them for getting it wrong. I, for one, am always grateful for those experts. I know how rare it is to be able to predict nature with any certainty.

I spent almost a decade living in Louisiana where the specter of hurricanes is real and is taken very seriously. Many a time we packed up our belongings and hoped for the best. Each hurricane’s approach offered a lesson in detachment. What had meaning? In the end, we discovered that very little had value; only our lives and our children’s lives had meaning. In those moments, I understood the challenge that death brought, having to leave everything behind. Hurricane preparation itself presented us with the real truths of nature; death could come at anytime and you are not allowed to take anything with you.

One time we went to the campus of the university where my husband taught. We spent the last critical 24 hours before the hurricane was predicted to strike in the company of others, keeping our children occupied while the parents, most of them other faculty and staff, worriedly watched the news and wondered if we should all move up to the second floor for the night, just in case. We were 30 miles inland, but we knew that meant nothing.

It was a hot August day. Occasionally we’d all step outside, trying to gauge the situation, giving ourselves and our children the experience of what it felt like to be in the path of approaching annihilation. The wind, swirling from the north in a counterclockwise direction, was eerily balmy. The sky darkened, as the dry soil of Southwest Louisiana flew into hair, eyes, nose and mouth. None of us took it lightly.

We’d all heard of the devastation that the Louisiana coastal area had been through in the past, how most of the towns south of us had been totally wiped out in Hurricane Camille in 1969, causing catastrophic damage and major loss of life. Bodies of the dead had been found 50 miles away from where they’d lived, washed inland by the surging seas.

In Louisiana they don’t take hurricanes lightly. Every family, it seems, has a hurricane story. My daughter has been living in New Orleans for the past 3 years, and she says that each year as hurricane season approaches a certain tension arises. If a hurricane has not hit in a while people get suspicious, expect the “big one,” as happened in 2005. First Katrina hit New Orleans and then Rita hit Southwest Louisiana, our old hometown.

My daughter experienced Hurricane Isaac a few months after her move to New Orleans in 2012. She and her roommates hunkered down for three days while the winds howled, windows shattered, part of the roof blew off the house they were renting and the shed in the backyard blew away. She has stayed on, but her two friends couldn’t handle the tension that exists in a land so vulnerable; within 6 months they were back in New York.

Little bird hunkering down... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Little bird hunkering down…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

We, in the Hudson Valley, fared well the other day. And just as that day in Louisiana when we waited in the tension of the impending storm, which struck 50 miles to the east of us, so too this winter storm, Juno, struck to the east of us as well. In both cases, other people did not fare so well. In both cases, lives were lost and people suffered. Compassion is naturally stirred, as naturally as fear of impending disaster is stirred.

Nature does as nature does. There is really no predicting it exactly. Many a hurricane has gone out to sea only to turn back inland and strike again. Living in Louisiana, I heard many such stories, how people were caught off guard, thinking they were safe. Nature is truly unpredictable. And so I respect nature and those who seek to warn us of its changing nature. Even if I am safe, if my loved ones are safe, there are others who are suffering. Lessons in compassion are easy to experience in the everyday events of being human on this planet we all share.

And so I shovel my snow, grateful that it is only about 8 inches deep. I send love and good thoughts to my brother, on the coast north of Boston, shoveling the 30 inches he got, and to another brother on Cape Cod, likewise digging out from the snowstorm of the century.

Be safe in nature; be compassionate in your own nature,
Jan

Message from Jeanne: Ebola, Fear & Compassion

In a matter of hours we can be in another country... That's how close we are to each other too! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
In a matter of hours we can be in another country…
That’s how close we are to each other too!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here is a special message from Jeanne, urging us all to get on the same page. I asked her to comment on the situation in the world today, specifically around the spread of the ebola virus. It’s a very passionate appeal to all of us to get our acts together and become who we truly are. I hope it’s helpful.

Lovingly and most humbly channeled for you all,
Jan