“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.” ~ Rumi
Happy Sunday!
I had a mystical experience last Sunday night.
After writing and posting my blog about ‘Words as Jewels’, I was feeling very energized.  I knew that my vibration was up and that sleep would not be able to come.  I decided to mediate and enter my heart.
I made my way into my castle and into my golden room.  It was revealed to me that below the floor was a hidden cellar.  This cellar contained a treasure chest with a gift for me. When I saw it my mind exclaimed.
“I found my Sacred Heart!”
I was full of both joy and surprise.  There was a knowing that this was an event of great significance but at the same time my mind questioned why this was important.  Growing up as a child of Catholicism I always felt an aversion to the images of the Sacred Heart.  I actually never liked to look at anything having to do with anatomy so the Sacred Heart was just another image of internal organs.
I lifted my Sacred Heart from the golden treasure chest and placed it within my chest.  I felt a great peace.  I thought of my recent meditations calling to ‘Shanti’, the Hindu deity of peace, my Lord had heard my call and brought her to me.
I became aware that I held the Sacred Heart in my chest but that it also held all of me. It was like it had become my new aura, the energy field that surrounds me.  I felt sleep coming so I set the intention to wake in the morning with my Sacred Heart being the first thing I thought of.
I woke in the morning and thought first of my Sacred Heart.  The excitement of Sunday night continued Monday morning with me feeling as though I had arrived at a destination and claimed my prize.  This changed as my thoughts throughout the day Monday formed into questions so I realized this was actually a new beginning.
The questions that formed in my mind built the new path for me to travel along.  This felt like a significant event to me, had others experienced it?  And what of Jesus, why was my heart’s reaction to say I had found MY Sacred Heart?  I also realized that I knew nothing of the history of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Like I said earlier, it was not something I was interested in learning about from my religion.
That evening I googled “do we all have a sacred heart” to see if there were other people out there talking of an experience like mine.  I watched a film made about Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque who in the 1670s had three visions of Christ that formed the modern Catholic devotion of the Sacred Heart.  This film gave me some history from the Catholic perspective but it didn’t feel right for me to just take on a devotional practice.
I want to understand.
I then found a 30 day retreat of spiritual readings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by David Richo.  This website seems to offer just what I am seeking to learn of the Sacred Heart.  It is just right for me in the way it brings in teachings from mystics of all faiths about the sacredness of our hearts. The author, in the first seven readings, has brought in lessons of many faiths including Sufism – including quotes from Hazrat Khan.  This is what validates for me that I have found the right place for me to learn.  From Mr. Richo I have learned of Teilhard de Chardin who I think has much wisdom to offer me.
The big question for me, that I ask to understand, is what is my part in the Sacred Heart and what part is Jesus.  It was by pure instinct that I have attached myself to the symbol and energetic gift that appeared in my heart space. The Self of my vision just reacted in joy in claiming it as my own.  I also followed the guidance I was given to take it within my-Self. Perhaps if I had the history of Church doctrine and devotion I would have recognized it as the Sacred Heart of Jesus and just held it in awe and kept my distance from it.
Is it one and the same or do I, and everyone else, have our own Sacred Heart to discover?
Of course I have been pondering this big question all week.  I had a thought the other day that I think is good but has not fully settled within me to feel like Truth.  I’ve heard told that Christ consciousness is the collective consciousness of planet Earth.  This idea came to me as I thought of how I like to send my love and devotion to Mother Earth for the beautiful home she provides to us.  I think of sending love from my heart to the heart of Mother Earth so the thought came to me that perhaps the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the heart center of the Christ Consciousness, the collective consciousness of humanity.
Now I just had the thought that Christ consciousness and collective consciousness are not the same.  Christ has a direction and guidance that Jesus has asked of us as written in the Bible, in ACIM, and as he requested when he spoke to Saint Margaret about the Sacred Heart devotion.  The evidence I have seen from studies of human collective consciousness is that it is very attached to the physical and is reactionary to events in the world.
Perhaps Christ consciousness is the Source energy to the collective consciousness as Abraham is to Esther.  (This is feeling closer to being Truth, the tingling is starting.)
Source is our True Self, spirit, soul, conscious, the pull to strive for all we are meant to be, the knower of who we truly are.  Was Jesus the physical manifestation of that spirit of all humanity – a collective that became individualized to bring the message to individuals?
And what of the Sacred Heart?
The thought just came that the symbol is the ongoing connection of the greater expansive Christ to we humans.  It is when my heart is open that I feel the connection.  I think he gave to us the symbol to remind us that although he returned to God, Source, expanded Beingness, that he retains the human trait of a heart to connect to us when we seek that connection.
When Caroline Myss was on Super Soul Sunday she described God as ‘Law’.  When Oprah asked her about her prayer practice she spoke about how intimate and personal it was.  She said of prayer with God that it was totally impersonal and personal at the same time.  After today’s reflection I think the Sacred Heart is the personal connection to our Savior.
My Sacred Heart, my celphone to Christ.
A couple of weeks ago I had asked Jesus to leave my heart.  This was because I was feeling intimidated to enter my heart in meditation.  I didn’t like holding the expectation of another encounter and another big lesson.  What if it was more than I was ready for.  Or worse, what if he wasn’t there at all?  I felt he understood.  He went gladly to give me time but he left me his heart – our heart.
I thank you Lord for the reflections and thoughts of this day.  I welcome the lessons and understanding that will come along this part of my journey.
Namaste’
“My heart will not be still.  It seems to know what I know not.  It dances to a tune I do not hear.  It calls to me from you, whose heart has listened and whose ears have heard. ~ ACIM pg. 589 URText