The Petrified Heart

Atrophied from non-activity, swallowed in the quicksand of neglect, compressed under layers of tension, the soul becomes a fossil imprisoned in time. 

Regardless of where we begin our spiritual journey, or how easy or arduous it is, the great masters of the past tell us there is a common progression that takes place. Scripture provides a sophisticated understanding of the transformation we undergo, as we move from being buried under our tensions to abiding in the highest Consciousness and coming to know ourselves as God.

In nondual Tantric tradition, the upāyas describe this path of walking back into God’s heart. The journey begins the moment God says, I am you. This is an act of God’s grace, or what tradition calls śaktipata.

To support the unfolding of that grace, we meditate regularly and make conscious choices as we move through our lives. In addition, our practice includes śakti transmission, in which there is a simultaneous conveyance of both śakti (energy) and Consciousness. A student’s capacity to receive the full depth of the transmission depends on how far along the progression of that journey they are. A teacher tries to become a pure vehicle for energy — and the Consciousness that is never separate from that energy — and allows it to do its work. What blocks the reception and absorption of transmission are the layers of soot in which our awareness is buried.

The Mind is a Limited Level of Consciousness

Abhinavagupta, the father of Trika Śaivism, said, “Thoughts are the source of all bondage,” and The Dalai Lama put it this way: “Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind. Others seem to be bothering you — but it is not others, it is your mind.” Over time, functioning only on the level of mind and ego creates patterns, tensions, and karma that petrify our consciousness, and the soul becomes a fossil imprisoned in time.

One of the patterns I witness is that students find innumerable reasons to complain about spiritual practice, often projecting shortcomings onto the teacher. If those feelings crop up, establish yourself in stillness and have the insight to ask: Are all my thoughts and projections even true? Is my tendency to react and attack just my misunderstanding?

Do not let yourself suffocate and die because your consciousness has been buried by your mind and emotions. The heart atrophied because we failed to use it to open and were caught in our ego and its projections about our life. We became established on that limited level.

The extraordinary thing is that at some point — even with only one ounce of light left in our heart, through grace, the memory of the light within us begins to shine forth. Too often we don’t respond to that call because we hold on to the very tensions, patterns, and karma that fossilized our hearts in the first place.

Abhinavagupta’s words are not a negation of mind and thought, but a recognition that they are limited levels of consciousness within us that cannot understand beyond their own realm. The mind inherently cannot comprehend the extraordinary message we are receiving every day of our life: that love, joy, and freedom are available to us in every moment.

Choose to Be Changed

Consciousness is always trying to rise up, even though it has been neglected and covered by quicksand. The petrified heart can only be revived by opening from within. However, we must choose to be changed. To begin to open, simply take a breath and bring all of that projected energy back inside.

My teacher Rudi described spiritual practice as “the burning of lesser things.” Our inner work utilizes the fire of kuṇḍalinī to transform all limitations — converting tension and blocks into energy that is in flow. Through our practice, we ultimately uncover that which has been buried but is never gone, because Consciousness is ever-present within us.

If we do not perceive the grace that is being offered to us, the reason is twofold: we are living in a place that cannot see or feel it, and we are unwilling to look from some other place in ourselves. We perpetually defend our ego and our own experience, both of which are sustained by our minds. Living in a fossilized heart, we have been trapped, lifetime after lifetime, in suffering.

The extraordinary gift of our sādhana, of that grace, is that all of our experiences up to this moment do not have to dictate the present or future unless we keep functioning from the same place.

The purpose of opening your heart is to understand from a different place. The most basic teaching I give students, time and time again, is this: Open your heart. That is also the most advanced teaching you will ever receive.

Do not accept your own misunderstanding. We don’t do our sādhana to prove what we think we know, but to have everything we think we know disproved. The point of our spiritual practice is to uncover the treasure within us by transforming mind into heart, and suffering into absolute joy. Sādhana is about one thing: our response to the grace that has offered us the possibility of reviving our buried heart, opening it, and merging our heart with God’s Heart.