The eternal promise of Life unfolds unceasingly in time, space and substance: season by season, cycle after cycle and era by era. With every passing moment, more of Life’s mystery is revealed as we expand our awareness and enhance our competency and capacity to deliver on this sacred promise.
We mark the passing of these temporal phases in years – from the annual celebration of our birthdays and the span of an incarnation to those vast cycles encompassing the rise and fall of civilizations and on up to unimaginable rounds of the Cosmic Calendar. Then there are those auspicious moments within the boundless continuum of the evolutionary process when a number of these cycles line up to create a scalar portal through which new energies enter our Earth from deeper dimensions of the Cosmos. It may be viewed in the same way a combination lock works on a safe – when the numbers line up and click, we can safely open the vault. When these astronomical and astrological cycles line up and click open, we have access to the vault of heaven with its storehouse of refined riches.
We find ourselves living in one such pertinent period of stellar alignment when the Piscean Age is giving way to the Aquarian Age and when the dark era of Kali Yuga is finishing and the golden cycle of Satya Yuga is beginning. The Agni Yoga teaching informs us that:
“Falsehood and darkness fill the end of Kali Yuga. One must realize this in order not to lose one's strength. It is impossible to avoid the dark days. And only a knowledge of their cause will give one the patience to survive them… Hence, in this Kali Yuga cycle of death and destruction for the Age of the Mind, there is already emerging a new paradigm of the Satya Yuga cycle – or golden age, a renaissance for the human spirit that will set the tone for the Age of Aquarius.”
There is always great turmoil and upheaval during these critical times of transition as the old passes away and new forms emerge. The ending of an age or the death of a civilization is not the death of the Human Spirit, but simply the dissolution of the forms that have carried that Spirit to this point in time. In the continuous Pageant of Life through the cyclical procession of the seasons, the Angel of Death and Endings always precedes the Avatar of Regeneration. Appearance, disappearance and re-appearance – such is the generative nature and rhythmic flow of an emergent process.
There is always a pivotal passage between the cycles that has to be traversed and I believe that entry into the coming new era will only be gained by passing through the Portal of the Heart. This gateway leads us into heightened levels of caring and sharing which invite and stimulate us to carry out acts of loving service for the good of the whole. So why the strong emphasis on the heart at this particular juncture in history?
The mind provides us with the ability to analyze, dissect and deduce through the power of critical reasoning while the heart comprises a more refined field of synthesis and unification that offers a boundless reservoir of wisdom and a constant fount of deep knowing while also acting as a moral compass to guide us on our journey through life. This heart-lighted guidance is urgently needed in these troubled times of transition if we are to safely cross the threshold into a more wholesome and sustainable way of living in harmony together on the planet.
The heart is an organ of immense receptivity and radiance – a unified field that can hold all things with loving understanding and kindness. Inside the subtle sphere of the heart, there is the pervasive quality of cohesion where all the various aspects of life are sensed as interconnected and thus the notion of separation no longer exists. The heart also functions as a fecund field - a womb and birthplace of the dream of a more enlightened and compassionate world.
In the Agni Yoga teachings, the heart is central. It is called the Sun of Suns of the Universe. Our heart is the locus of our own inner Sun – the Soul. We are advised not to think of the heart solely as our own personal organ but more as a universal organ that is an integral part of us. In this way, the heart becomes the connective tissue and medium of communication, communion and coherence with the cosmos.
The opening paragraph of the Agni Yoga book, ‘Heart’ declares:
To behold with the eyes of the heart; to listen with the ears of the heart of the roar of the world; to peer into the future with the comprehension of the heart; to remember the cumulations of the past through the heart; thus must one impetuously advance upon the path of ascent. Creativeness encompasses the fiery potentiality, and is impregnated with the sacred fire of the heart. Therefore, upon the path to the Hierarchy, upon the path of Great Service, upon the path of Communion, synthesis is the one luminous path of the heart. How can the manifested rays be radiated if the flame is not affirmed in the heart? It is precisely the quality of the magnet that is inherent in the heart. The highest creativeness is imbued with this great law. Hence, each consummation, each union, each great cosmic unification is achieved through the flame of the heart.
The rhythm of life can be sensed in each one of us through the pulse and the beat of our heart as it circulates the lifeblood around the ecosystem of Self. And yet, there is a greater system of circulation in which we can consciously participate as we connect heart-to-heart-to-heart and realize the true nature and gift of the Universal Heart. Earlier we used the example of cycles within cycles lining up to create the right combination that opens the vault of heaven. I invite us to expand this allegory in regard to the aligning of hearts through the following visualization.
Take a moment to cease all outer activity and come to a place of inner stillness. Enter the sacred space of your heart and feel the Fire of Love burning as an Eternal Flame at its center. Now sense and see lines of lighted love flowing and connecting your heart with the hearts of friends, family and coworkers – weaving together a matrix of deep connection and communion. Begin to sense the pulsing heart of our One Humanity and how it beats in rhythm with the Heart of the Planetary Life. Feel our Earth pulsing as one coherent field to the heartbeat of the Solar System and then imagine this Chain of Hearts extending into the infinite Nature of the Creator. Lives within lives within lives – hearts within hearts within hearts. Realize that there is only One Heart and that you and I are heart-fractals of the Generative Mystery we call God. Now bring this expanded awareness and inner knowing back into this waking moment and allow it to shape and guide all that you think, say, feel and do today.
Coming to a realization that there is only One Heart in the whole of Existence and that each of us is somehow a fractal of this Loving Core, will mark a major point of development in human consciousness. The breakthrough and shift from self-centeredness, where the part is seen as separate from the whole, to a new world view where each fractal is known to be a unique expression of the Whole, will herald the birth of the Epoch of the Heart on Earth. This new ‘felt reality’ opens us up to the fullness of life and allows us to joyfully participate in the Great Chain of Being and Blessing that forms the vast circulatory system of Creation through which the golden lifeblood of liquid love flows freely. A heart-centered society is a sustainable society.
We are being invited by our Souls to ‘realize’, or make this vision ‘real’, by how we choose to show up each day and comport ourselves. When we allow ourself to be ‘heartful’ and stand inside this Essential Center, then we become a timeless aspect of Love that is now manifesting on Earth in time, space and substance. The heart is that sacred dwelling in which Limitless Love resides and through which it can be made visible and tangible.
Part of our assignment here at Meditation Mount is to make known the three Principles of Essential Divinity, Goodwill and Unanimity and this work can also be viewed through the lens of the heart. For instance, the Principle of Essential Divinity declares that inside each person burns the fiery Presence of Eternal Love and that life is a continuous journey of revealing that Presence. The Principle of Goodwill affirms that Love is the lifeblood that flows throughout the entire Universe and which nourishes and sustains all Creation. Goodwill is how you and I demonstrate that Eternal Love through the daily practice of being in the world. The Principle of Unanimity affirms that we are each integral aspects of one coherent web of life - one interdependent multidimensional ecosystem - that is glued together and held in place by the power of Unconditional Love. Love is all there is.
The heart is activated, and the portal into its domain gracefully opened, through acts of loving kindness. The Era of the Heart will be characterized by a deep urge to love and serve the One Life – starting with ourselves, our family and neighbors and extending to the whole community of our sisters and brothers around the world. From this space of connection and kinship, we may open the heart further to hold all creatures for whom this Earth is home. As the heart of humanity continues to expand then our communion will include the stars and all life within the incarnational field of the Cosmos in which we ‘live and move and have our Being’.
You and I are being summoned by the over-lighting Soul of Humanity to inaugurate the golden Era of the Heart today through the way we live our lives. Let us begin this collective journey by first igniting the Fire of Love inside our own heart to remove the barriers between us and to create a natural state of communion. Love is the compelling force that liberates us to joyfully celebrate the rich diversity of the One Life that each of us represents.
May Love prevail on Earth as we welcome in another next Great Season in the flowering of the human spirit within the verdant Garden of Gaia.
Michael Lindfield
Board President
Meditation Mount