how to heal heartbreak...

jcfeet
Originally uploaded by alxindia.

over the last few months of teaching and healing in America, it just keeps hitting me, that every spiritual person is carrying heartbreak.

it's like our medal, our ph. d., the confirmation that we are in fact indelibly stamped with an understanding about suffering because we've experienced it intimately and deeply.

I wanted to share a technique I've learned that is TREMENDOUS for washing out any kind of heartbreak-related ailment, and opening up doorways for the divine to rekindle/reconnect Itself in our hearts....

I've found that this ritual works better than just about anything else in order to ease the burden of a sensitive & aching heart.

make a circle of candles, and sit in the middle of them. (if you want to burn incense or sage, so much the better.)

make sure you do this alone, ie, no one else in the room for 20 minutes or so, and no phones ringing to disturb you, etc.

it also helps to be in a room without open windows (no drafts, or from AC units, etc.) and NO electric lights on at the time you do this process.

then, sit in the center of the candles, make sure that at least 90% of them STAY lit during the process, and raise your arms at your sides until your upper arms are parallel with the floor, palms facing out, elbows making a right angle -- kinda like the response to 'stick 'em up!' in the movies, when the ganster sticks the weapon between the shoulder blades of someone he wants to rob....

then -- this is the tricky part -- HOLD your arms like that for 15-20 minutes, no matter HOW heavy they may get!!! (and they will start feeling tremendously heavy in short time!) while chanting ANY prayer or mantra you really really really really love, over and over again, either out loud or internally, for 15-20 minutes.

before you start the prayer, think what your deep intention for this process is -- for instance, "right now, heartfully, I want to wash out any pain or suffering I'm carrying in my heart," or "I really want to re-ignite my relationship with god(dess) and would like to use this fire to wash out whatever stands in the way of my feeling the depth of that relationship in my life..." or whatever it is.

it's good to do this process a few times, over the course of a month -- maximum four times, if the situation is dire, but three times, like, maybe once a week or so, should do the trick.

towards more of this discussion, I want to offer a few words my brilliant teacher in India shared with us about the quality of being heart-broken:

"A healer means, first of all, a heartbroken person.  Write it in your dictionary and burn the words into it.  Every spiritual practitioner is carrying sadness in their heart but they don’t know what sadness it is.  Period.  It’s a golden statement.  Plus, some sweetness is there.  It’s sad and it’s sweet.  Every spiritual practitioner around the globe is carrying sadness.  Sorry, that is the law of spirituality.  But in that sadness is luck.  It’s a needle to stitch.  That’s the essence to suck the divinity.  You don’t need to take it in a bad way.  It’s a divine gift to your soul.  Then, you can find the joy in that, the bliss, satchitananda." - Sri Sai Kaleshwara Swami