“When you are in touch with the ultimate truth and the most complete sense of Being, there is nothing separate remaining…no experiencer, no Heart, and no sense of self. There is only Being.” ~ Nirmala
In Living from the Heart, Nirmala provides a beautiful and instructive exploration about how to live an authentic, heart centered life. Read this overview (second in a series of three) and you can download a FREE PDF copy of Living from the Heart courtesy of Free Spiritual Ebooks … and it is also available from Nirmala’s website.
Living from the Heart is divided into three sections. If you missed it, read our Overview of the first section, How to Live from the Heart. This second Overview explores Following The Heart’s Wisdom. All quoted material from Nirmala’s book is in italics.
“The truth is that which opens the Heart. The capacity to sense the truth is something we all already have. We all have a Heart that is already accurately showing us how true things are… Anything that puts you in touch with more of the truth opens the Heart. This is a literal and experiential description of truth.”
How can you discern if you are actually sensing truth…?
“…there is a sense of opening, softening, relaxation, expansion, fulfillment, and satisfaction in the Heart. This can be most directly sensed in the center of the chest, but the Heart of all Being is infinite and therefore actually bigger than your entire body.”
“…a side effect of being in touch with more of the truth, your mind gets quieter because you simply have less to think about.”
When we are losing our connection to truth our experience is quite different…
“In contrast, when your experience is moving into a diminished or smaller experience of the truth and of reality, the Heart contracts. The sense of your self gets tight, hard, contracted, and feels incomplete, bounded, and limited.”
But what is truth? Nirmala explores this enigmatic yet experiential ideal…
“Truth is what exists, what is here now. So if what exists is also what is true, then there is only truth. Whatever is present is true— but to varying degrees. Just as there is no actual substance or energy that is darkness, but just varying amounts of the energy of light or photons, there is no falsehood or untruth, only varying degrees of the truth.”
“All there is, is truth, and our Heart’s capacity to reflect the degree of truth in any experience is the way we recognize how true a particular experience is.”
The heart has a powerful ability to show us Truth. What actually is the heart and the associated sense of self that Nirmala is describing?
“It doesn’t relate to sensations in the physical heart or chest. It’s a more subtle sense, at times even more subtle than the physical senses, although the opening or contracting can also be experienced as relaxation and contraction in the physical body. The sense of your self, the sense that you exist, is something more intimate than your physical experience.”
“This sense of your self is a very alive and changing experience. At times, your sense of me is open, free-flowing, and expanded. At other times, like when a judgment arises, it feels small, inadequate, and deficient.”
Truth is all there really is, but our experience of it is relative. Our sensory understanding can only reveal partial truth… “your Heart is always showing you the degree of truth of the experience you are having in the moment.”
The Heart is the best and only authentic guide. It’s wisdom leads to the most essential reality of your true self. Nirmala calls this Your Perfect Wisdom.
“…following your Heart day in and day out can put you in touch with the richness of the functioning of this dimension of your Being. Along the way, you may also find your Heart opening in response to the bigger truths and deeper movements of Being that touch every life.”
“If no Heart is any wiser than any other, perhaps that’s because there is just one Heart that functions through many bodies and yet is not contained in any of these particular expressions. What you are is this one Heart of Being.”
The Heart of Being is Love… and receiving the subtle guidance of our hearts allows us to recognize, embrace and live fully from transforming love.
“It is possible to recognize the love that is already inside of us and already acting through all of us… Contrarily, when we reject any aspect of love—which includes anything that’s happening—the more contracted our experience will be and the less completely loving our actions will be. So in condemning, we actually become more like what we condemn. Seeing the beauty, perfection, and love within something is what allows it to transform, to move into a more complete way of loving.”
Nirmala turns to our sense of self. He looks at how we identify with our bodies and believe we exist as separate selves…
“The most intimate sense of your self is often this sense of me, which is a limited and incomplete sensing of your self. It doesn’t include the far reaches of your greater Being. This sense of a separate me is not bad or wrong; it’s just limited and incomplete.”
“When the awareness of self becomes even more complete, you come to see that there is ultimately nothing that needs to be changed or fixed. Everything is already fine. The world already is full of love. Your actions and everyone else’s are already loving. Whatever Being is doing is Being taking care of itself. That is all it ever does or ever has done.”
the truth catches up with me
I am not enough
never have been
never will be
what relief to admit this finite container
can never contain infinity
what joy to find infinity
needs no container
Download Living from the Heart to learn much more …or …..stay tuned for our next post in this Nirmala series … Love is for Giving … coming soon.
Nirmala’s Stillness Speaks Teacher Page will be coming soon...a brief excerpt from his website bio is offered here:
After a lifetime of spiritual seeking, Nirmala met his teacher, Neelam, a devotee of H.W.L. Poonja (Papaji). She convinced him that seeking wasn’t necessary; and after experiencing a profound spiritual awakening in India, he began offering satsang and Nondual Spiritual Mentoring with Neelam’s blessing. This tradition of spiritual wisdom has been most profoundly disseminated by Ramana Maharshi, a revered Indian saint, who was Papaji’s teacher.
Nirmala’s Stillness Speaks Images: (edited and logo added): Featured and 1) Water by IK3, 2) Cloudberry Bush by IK3, 3) Northern Lights by IK3, 4) Hug by geralt, 5) Lotus by xiexingrong 6) Rose by Glynn424 Public Domain, CC0 1.0. Nirmala’s image sourced from his website.
