We all experience tension and pain and want to free ourselves of them quickly and effectively. Our yearning for peace and for an intimate connection with the divine is not luxuries, but necessities for a fulfilled life. How do we realize them? How do we become free? What exactly is the step-by-step process?

First we need to become aware of the pain. Some of it will be right on the surface. Let’s work with that; the hidden pain will come up when the time is right. It never fails. There is no need to go digging in the subconscious unless it feels good to do so. Work on the simple issues of everyday life. Free yourself of that stress and the rest will follow.

We don’t know what our pain is until something or someone brings it to our attention. This is always a blessing. Only when our buttons are pushed can we become conscious of them. Until then they remain our blind spots. Luckily, we can always rely on people and situations to trigger and aggravate us. We can count on the world to do that for us because it is a completely compassionate world. Once we are triggered, the work of our liberation can begin.

1. Once we are conscious of our stress or our pain, we can notice the temptation to lay blame. At first we fall into it; at other times we will be conscious enough to resist this temptation.
2. Next we can notice if we are experiencing the pain in the form of a thought or an emotion.
3. If thoughts cause the pain or the stress, then Self-Inquiry is the skill of choice. After Inquiry, we will no longer believe the thoughts and the pain will dissolve.
4. If the pain arises as an emotion, and we don’t know the thoughts that create the emotion, Open Attention is the right tool. It enables us to identify the body sensations of the emotion and embrace them with caring awareness. That way their stress will dissolve. We can combine Self-Inquiry and Open Attention.
5. The practice of stillness will help us to be less reactive and to see with increasing clarity what is going on inside us. As we become progressively more free, we will be less and less assaulted and burdened by the unconscious drives of the pain body. That in turn will set the heart free.
6. The yearning of the heart does not have to wait for the pain body to be dissolved. All love is already available in the bottomless well in our chest. Our Goal, or the Beloved, serves as a perfect mirror for that love. Every time we gaze into that mirror our devotion grows. Increasingly we can live in love with our Beloved until we realize that we are one with the Beloved and that the Beloved is everywhere. Then we can dissolve in that love.
7. And already now, at any moment, all the love, peace and happiness we seek are available right within us. That is why we can directly tune into the heart and nurture ourselves from that essence. In HeartSourcing we discover the inner well to be the Source of our world. As we nurture ourselves from that well and let its nectar flow into our being, we heal all the lost, forgotten and suffering parts of us. And once we are more whole we come to realize the magic of love, that by giving it away freely we receive more and more. This is how our world will come to heal.

Once we skillfully begin to dissolve our pain and to taste the love and peace that are waiting within us, we can shed the painful story of our past. Without a painful past, we can let go of our fear of the future. That leaves us fully alive and free in the here and now in the heart.

Using these skills in the context of relationship is enlightening and allows us to transform a relationship into a true spiritual partnership that can continue to grow deeper and more fulfilling year after year. Since the models for intimate relationships we have inherited from our culture are based on the faulty thinking that our partner is responsible for our happiness and security, they cannot function well. Therefore I believe such conscious spiritual partnership is the relationship blueprint for the future.

Namaste,

Ram Giri