The Heart's Worthiness

After teaching and working with people for almost 20 years, I begin to notice certain trends and patterns. There is one trend that continued to baffle me, and this is something I wish I could influence in some way.

Many people want to change, but don’t want to put in the effort to change. Or perhaps they put in a little effort for a while, but then get discouraged and stop. Or their experience lacks depth, and so becomes uninspiring, and so they just stop. I know I’ve seen this again and again, and I know other teachers, including Amma, mention this. I remember Adya one time mentioning that around 95% of people will stop at some point! Even people that come and spend the money for a private session will at some point drop the ball, because the effort to change seems out of reach for them. And it never made a difference how much I attempted to support them, they always seemed to find a reason to quit. I can pretty much tell when a person has the drive to keep going, or when they don’t.

I kept wondering about this. And then one day, I was listening to my newest teacher talk about change, and the effort that is needed to grow. He then spoke about why he thinks people don’t want to put in the effort, and he put it in a nutshell- People don’t feel worthy enough to put in the effort to change. There is something that they believe about themselves, on a mostly subconscious level, that makes them not believe in themselves.

We’ve all encountered deficiencies in ourselves. How we act, our successes and failures, our relationships, etc. But what I want to talk about is the deeper deficiencies that have to do with our identity as a separate self. The separate self will never feel whole and complete. That’s why it feels separate. It will always feel some sort of deficiency in some way. These deficiencies fuel doubt, which creates a self-sabotage towards self-growth and evolution.

Now, there is a difference between evolution and self-improvement. The change I am speaking about is knowing our infinite Divine nature. It is not the self-improvement that feeds new identities so that one feels better about oneself. If we are trying to create new identities to feel better about ourselves, we are only validating the deficiencies that lie in the subconscious. It’s the bandaid effect, and it doesn’t give us the feeling of wholeness and freedom.

Real worthiness lies within our Heart. It is the Heart that knows it’s own Divine nature, as Love. When we know this lies within us, as something that is infinite and eternal, we really value it. We want to open up to it and allow it to free itself. This requires effort, by seeing what is in the way. It requires devotion and dedication, time and energy. All this is intention, and it gets registered in the Field. If we are doubting, procrastinating, and making excuses then that gets registered in the Field.

Unworthiness is simply old programs, but when we make excuses for not putting in effort, we are identifying with the unworthiness. This is what we are embodying. We don’t see ourselves as worth the effort, and we keep believing that happiness and fulfillment lie outside of ourselves. We keep trying to find satisfaction by listening to teachers that confirm our bias, not with people that will challenge us to keep looking and keep going. We want these confirmations in the people that we hang out with, while anyone that challenges our ideas and beliefs will be seen as a threat. But this is just the unworthiness being triggered. If we are putting in the effort, we won’t need confirmation, because we are the confirmation. We are the ultimate state of worthiness, because we are connected to the Heart. The Heart knows its own goodness, its own value. And when we connect with it, and it begins to open, we will begin to know this within our own Self. Not by what we do, or how others see us, but by what we are.

Perfectionism

Ooooo- such a good topic for spiritual folks! I had no idea about this when I first started experiencing pain. And now that it’s nine months later, self-perfectionism is still attempting to divert from real authenticity.

Some of us unconsciously created impossible standards for ourselves as human beings. I now know that I did. Spending all those years in an ashram at a young age set me up for this type of personality. Amma didn’t do it, but the cultural conditioning around her did. We had to abide by so many rules of conduct, clothing, discipline and general presentation. This all has its place in order to make us more aware, more focused, and less distracted. But it also can breed this type of perfectionism which can make us really hard on ourselves.

When we encounter parts of ourselves that are affected by the programs from our past, we are usually encountering things like insecurity, deficiency, unworthiness, lack of confidence, need for approval, people-pleasing, defensiveness, etc. All these things are simply programs, but when they are unconscious, we can adopt a strategy to compensate for them. This is where perfectionism comes in to play. Unconsciously, we begin to set really high standards for ourselves- we need to be perfect. This perfectionism keeps all these other programs buried, which the brain begins to perceive as dangerous. No wonder so many people have chronic symptoms! Because when we make mistakes, we then turn against our experience- because it’s not perfect, and this is all done through the sub-conscious programs.

Becoming aware of any tendencies towards perfectionism is a huge step towards self-compassion and recovery from pain. Perfectionism is simply a strategy to stay safe in a spiritual identity. Once we can get beyond that identity and begin embracing ourselves as a human being, from Awareness, self-compassion becomes like a warm hug, and a welcome home.

Spiritual life is hard enough without us setting impossible standards for ourselves. I think because we know deep in our hearts that we are pure potential, anything limiting feels extremely painful. But this is simply identification, and once we see these tendencies that we identify with, they can become the doorway to liberation. Yes, even perfectionism becomes an amazing opening into the Unlimited.

The Doorway

When I first began my new exploration of science, through my new teacher, it was to deepen my understanding and also to change the old programs of fear and scarcity. I saw these programs as a “problem” that was causing the pain symptoms, and so my motivation was quite focused and inspired. I wanted the pain to stop.

I was still seeing the mindbody coach and participating in the group coaching calls. This part of my recovery lasted about 5 months, and then I knew it was time to take it to the next level. I understood the recovery process- it was just a matter of putting it into practice.

But something told me that there was an opportunity here- that what I was seeing as “problematic” (i.e. old programs) could be a doorway to another level of understanding. As I began my new journey into looking at my brain and body with a broader perspective, I intuited that this work would lead to a much deeper understanding of the Universe, and how creation worked. I read, I listened, I watched, and I meditated- sometimes up to 6 hours a day. And as my brain began to build a model of understanding, I began to experience deep changes in my moment-to-moment life. My intentions weren’t just about getting rid of my pain symptoms anymore- I wanted to know the nuts and bolts of creation- I wanted to know how Amma manifested so many amazing things from nothing. I wanted to know about omniscience and omnipresence- something that most modern non-dual teachings never talk about. And I saw the pain symptoms as a doorway to this discovery.

Alignment with the Universe depends on many things, but the main one is to be completely out of the way- meaning we don’t project our beliefs, fears, expectations on it. The Universe is infinite, and our beliefs are limited. Surrender needs to be fully actualized- the Unknown is the fundamental reality of this actualization. If we are fearful of the Unknown, we are in the way- we are someone that is fearful, and we will not be able to let go to it- we will hang onto the known- our familiar 3D world of perception. But if we really want to know what we are capable of, and who we really and truly are, we must offer ourselves to the Unknown again and again- as a nobody. We can experience fear in the Unknown, but if it is free of identity, then the Unknown has access to the fear in order to transmute it.

I started entering into a space of Nothingness- a Nothingness that contained everything. Yet, in order to access the everything, I had learned the importance of coherence between the heart and brain. Maybe some of you are familiar with this concept (see Heartmath). When the Heart starts to inform the brain, they begin to synchronize and harmonize to one another. Heart/Brain coherence is the gorgeous and Divine union within embodiment, and it is absolutely crucial for both health of the body (autonomic nervous system), and also creation within the Quantum. Working on this level of coherence- through understanding what I was doing- was an important part of returning to Wholeness.

Another crucial step was clearing stuck energy within the body’s energy centers (chakras). I learned to do this through directing energy with Awareness. I had a lot of stuck energy in my 2nd center- which is the place where fear resides. Learning to move this energy up through the centers on a daily basis was part of my new and inspired discipline.

After that was the breath! Such breath! There is all this creative energy stored in the 1st center, and if we aren’t spending it all in unproductive ways, we can take this energy and bring it all the way up into our brains! Then the brain has all this new creative energy to use. Having an orgasm in the brain is not something I would have ever thought of looking forward to each and every day!

The meditations continue to evolve and astound. I am in awe. Embodiment is a very real and important step in our evolution, and the deeper it is allowed, the more capable it becomes. I am so grateful to Amma for being my beacon- for continually leading me and showing me what is possible. The evolution of this soul is an adventure, and as scary as it has been at times, it is so worth it. This adventure is way more precious than being a teacher or anything in this 3D world. I can’t rely on this 3D world anyways- it is not true Source- it is just a mere reflection. I have gradually shifted all my energy and invested it into the Unknown, my Beloved. This is the surrender that I know.