It is easy to give in to our egos and emotions to dominate and bend others to our will. It is much harder to find the genuine inner strength to master our egos and discipline our emotions. Such inner strength is an enduring and a rare commodity, and a quality much revered by Taoists.
The shape and form of this strength are predominantly made up of compassion and humility. Humility is not about self-abasement and grovelling, nor timidity, but rather the courage to open up to others’ ideas and the willingness to listen and to learn. This form of humility ultimately makes us stronger, not weaker. While the individual is infinitely small, humility is endless. Meanwhile, compassion is comprised of an unconditional kindness and Love for all things regardless of their nature, a Love that is liberated from the Heart when individuals are free of their ego.
The Nature of Love
The Life Force is the connective tissue that unites us with the Absolute and everything else, and this force is experienced as Love. It is felt, not as a detached state, but one of which you become a part, feeling the Life Force running through and around you, knowing it to be infinite and limitless, a compassionate Love that is unconditional, all-encompassing and not in any way directed towards objects of desire (as with lust). Those exposed to it can become almost manic, with every event being full of meaning and their life totally ordered. People in this state are full of energy, purpose and Love – indeed, the more open the Heart, the greater the ability to extend undemanding spiritual Love. Often they may be highly creative, seeing connections that are invisible, or overlooked by others. In this state, the prefrontal cortex, where the Third Eye is located, is very active.
The Spiritual heart
As the Buddhist Third Noble Truth says: ‘Enlightenment is found at the still Centre when light opens the Mind to wisdom, dispels illusion and brings freedom from the small Self, so liberating the Heart from egos and opening it up to kindness and compassion.’ To evolve, you need to transcend the ‘evil’ of the ego through the experience of living and Love. Even our immune system is linked to the physical heart and its strength is built up on the basis of experience and suffering. The immune system also develops in the same way, as we learn to think and it is through thinking that we acquire wisdom and make our choices.
Our spiritual Heart is the Centre through which we Love unconditionally and it is located at the centre of our bodies to the right of the physical heart. It is linked to our solar plexus in the expression of love in physical ways. When personal desires and passions are transformed into a Love that encompasses fellow human beings and all of Nature’s creations, the solar plexus energies come into the Heart Centre. Absence of such Love isolates you and leads to self-hatred, fear and anger. Physical acts to try to gain Love that are directed without Love in Mind do not attract Love in return, but instead attract more negativity.
The necessity of love
Universal Love is not romantic or erotic, nor is it something that you can get or grab. Rather, you are given or receive it through the act of sharing. As a full realization of the Life Force maintaining the substance of our Being flows through you, you attain something indefinable and unbounded – a sense of beauty, harmony, peace, silence, joy, a state of bliss beyond expression, of absolute impersonal power, a pure existence and an all-pervading presence. The prevailing emotion during this experience is a feeling of intense joy. Once experienced, it removes any misconception that the Absolute is remote, unattainable and hidden. Through Love, the Absolute is revealed as part of the Self, ever manifest, immediate and direct.
Akhenaton’s legacy
Akhenaton is the Egyptian pharaoh associated with the ancient mystery school whose symbol was the Right Eye of Horus in a golden Sun Disc. He tried to change the traditional polytheism into a monotheist religion with a unique God accessible to everyone, without the priest as an intermediary. He started by cancelling the value of the various gods and by changing the name of Amon Re, the Absolute God (the Sun), into Aton. According to the revised religion, Aton’s Love creates and supports the whole Universe. This Love is continually and forever among people, since it is the light of the Sun, creating the heat that gives life with all his endless arms full of gifts. Akhenaton’s Love-filled ideology, that Aton is everything and everything Aton, spread into the world of the Greeks and Hebrews.
Akhenaton’s prayer to Aton
You are in my heart
You are unique
You only, create thousands and
thousands of beings
You are the course of Life and
nobody can live without You
You feed the child from the moment
he is within his mother’s body
You console him so that he does not cry
You open his mouth and give him
what is necessary to him
You are everybody’s God, You who
took care of all men
You who create the life of all people
You who put the Nile in the sky so that he descends upon us and spreads his waters upon the land and fertilizes the fields of our countries.
From Gateway to the Heavens © 2014 by Karen French, published by Watkins Publishing
