Love is in Air: Five Steps into Joyful Abundance

What is it that brings about healing and attracts love, joy, peace and prosperity into our lives? As a journalist, writer and author, I’ve studied science and spirituality for decades and perhaps like you have formed a seamless belief system that makes sense of everything.

So I’m excited when I see proof of it, which comes over and over again and most recently in an e-mail message from a new friend of mine in Pittsburgh. He wrote to say that when we hugged, he felt direct transfer of something from me into his chest. It didn't carry any emotional impact, but a physical shift in his energies transpired and next day rid him of a misconception that had caused him a great deal of anxiety.

Could I explain what had happened, he asked? Were these two events connected? What isn't, I laughed in delight, replying with lessons my inner voice of wisdom had just been teaching me!

Bearers of light

I spoke to David of liking him from moment we met, as I'd sensed something very special in him. He was coordinating Sunday service at his Unity church, and as he stood at podium, speaking so gently of love, my heart opened and I became aware of high spiritual energies in room. I was there to speak and my travel fatigue instantly melted away.

During "meet and greet" portion of service, I hugged David gratefully for love he had given me. So it was not I who healed him, but Love in him that did work. When we are open and ready for change, love responds and Light flows into and through us, bringing about transformation we seek.

My seven-year-old grandson understands this perfectly. He delights in creating "pictures" to give away, and alongside many of his colorful airplanes and butterflies are words, "Love is in air."

In this cosmic sea of spirit, composed of energetic waves of thought and feeling, love flows through every person and event. I bring to you some gift of wisdom, a loving thought or touch, and you say something that enlivens me, perhaps opens my heart to a new understanding of us both.

This is what Hindu mystic-poet Kabir meant in saying, "Sometimes we are a wave, sometimes ocean. We come here to bring each other to God." When we are calm and peaceful, we float restfully in ocean of OneMind, immersed in its expanded perspectives and at-one with its rhythmic flow. When we are disconnected, we break into separate waves, but even then we call each other back to One.

Waves in flow with ocean

What separates us from OneMind and its peace, joy and fulfillment? It is always stress, fatigue, fear and distrust, tensing us into waves of rigidity and resistance. Many of us fear being hurt and shrink away from life, closing our hearts to healing Love in and all around us. At times we feel cold and alone, perhaps rejected, abandoned, unsure and confused. But in truth, Love has not abandoned us. We have become oblivious to its presence.

This separation is why we so often feel lost and unhappy. The closed heart, by virtue of its separation, cannot be enriched by All That Is. The law of magnetic resonance, governing law of attraction, cannot bring riches to poverty, nor peace and happiness to a conflicted bodymind trapped in anger or judgment. When we are experiencing inner conflict and are out of integrity with our souls, we feel a gnawing hunger, a thirst for what is missing, and usually try to satisfy this craving with love relationships, euphoric chemicals, career achievement and/or material possessions. Our busyness almost distracts us from cold internal knot of separation, but not quite.

The only way back to ocean of OneMind is to open our hearts to light and unfold, petal by petal, into our blossoming.

Nature shows us what to do, especially in springtime. Out of dark, quiet winter comes a season of warmth and renewal. Brightly colored plants and flowers draw us to wondrous life force swirling into curve of a leaf, colorful patches of wildflowers and light mint greens of budding trees. Seeing magic of spring, we remember how Creative Force sweeps into every thing: in sheets of rain upon a rushing river; pealing laughter in a child's perfect cartwheel; sparkling spiral star-dance of our magnificent Milky Way.

Because of this visible and invisible evidence of love, I trust and believe what my inner wisdom tells me: that all waves come to empty our darkness so that Light can flow into bodymind, enabling us to gently unfold and flower into lives of beauty and joy. Our inner wisdom whispers that each and every wave helps us grow and is called, by our nature, into being.

When we listen to our souls very closely, we hear that this is our dearest wish and work that we came here to do. The open heart knows this and does it willingly, with excitement and gratitude, understanding its soul’s purpose and ultimate meaning of life.

The secrets of an open heart

All same, life is sometimes like a banana peel. It seems that everything conspires to trip us up, throw us off-balance and slide us down some slippery slope, whereupon we close our tender hearts for our own protection. How to open heart, then, when it closes suddenly or over time?

STEP 1. The most immediate antidote is to breathe and relax inside remembered assurance that every wave comes out OneMind and so must be a wave of love calling us back to Love. Knowing this, we breathe deeply and evenly, becoming perfectly present to flow of air into nose and back out of mouth.

Your can deepen this relaxed, peaceful state of consciousness by counting breaths or following wind of your breath into your diaphragm and back out of your body. Research has shown that focusing on breath relaxes us, and focusing on two things simultaneously, like counting and movement of breath, produces a deeper state of consciousness akin to meditation.

Another heart-opening technique, especially useful during conflict, is to close your eyes and focus on space between your ears. Try this now, to see for yourself how this diffuses thought and relaxes body. It works just as well when we focus on space between eyes or any two objects. Just as in a guided meditation, act of imagining space shifts our brainwaves into alpha bandwidth of vibration. This relaxed peacefulness neutralizes patterns of overexcited, hyper-aroused physical tension that create most if not all illness and disease, according to neurofeedback research.

STEP 2. When we repeatedly experience this meditative state of mind, we extend it into everyday life and are better able to stay united with OneMind. We are less upset by our own thoughts and by external events, so we live happier, healthier, more balanced lives.

There's a wonderful story about Milarepa, Tibetan Buddhist saint who as a young man went out into world to experience life and returned home to find his house filled with demons. He was angry and afraid at first and wanted to fight them or flee. Instead, he did unexpected.

First he took a deep breath and bowed. Half of demons disappeared. Then he opened his heart and mind, expanded his field of awareness and out of his mouth came a song that sent away all but one of demons. The last demon, snarling fiercely, opened his mouth to consume Milarepa, but Milarepa placed his head in demon's mouth. The demon disappeared.

What's wonderful about this story is way Milarepa dispelled demons. He "inspired" himself with a deep, calming breath and expanded into higher perspectives of peaceful non-resistance.

We can do same. If we are quiet and wait patiently, magnificent insights will come to us too. We have only to expand our view, as ancient people did in watching constellations move around nighttime sky. One day, someone built a wheel and civilization moved forward.

How do we move into higher mind, which sees farther and more truly than our ordinary eyes?

Here’s how it works for me. When I take a deep breath, widen my awareness and wait patiently, my still, small voice beckons me into peaceful serenity of my heart. I am drawn by these joyful feelings into a luminous field of love behind my closed eyes, and I sit silently, gratefully, in these currents of energy until Earth meets Heaven in me.

In this stillness of being, I seek not to know why there was an earthquake and tsunami in Indian Ocean. I open my heart and envision light illuminating that part of world, calming and purifying earth, sea and sky. In being a channel of blessings, I too am healed.

Some people consider meditative prayer to be wishful thinking, yet it is single most effective way to bring about healing and peace. More than anything else, love and light flowing from us will bring each suffering person understanding, peace and healing so badly needed and propel us all into age of enlightenment wheeling toward us now.