{"id":1356,"date":"2026-04-22T16:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/?p=1356"},"modified":"2026-04-22T20:17:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:17:03","slug":"how-do-you-open-the-spiritual-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/1356-how-do-you-open-the-spiritual-heart","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Open the Spiritual Heart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“If you want to find a fast way to run self-correction, you have to practice the ability to move into the loving heart, the spiritual heart.”<\/em> – John-Roger<\/p>\n

This article by John-Roger was first published in the New Day Herald in March of 2011.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Survival isn\u2019t physical longevity. Survival is spiritual longevity. If you haven\u2019t survived spiritually it doesn\u2019t matter how long you live here physically, because your physical body is going to die at some point. It\u2019s interesting to think about how we try to protect something that isn\u2019t going to work. If you can really understand what that means, a lot of those things that you now hold \u201csacred\u201d\u2014 your \u201csacred cows\u201d and those things that you defend through ego\u2014 will fall from you. At that moment you\u2019re free. But you don\u2019t have liberation until you recognize and know your own soul.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest jobs we have is to run our own self-correction. This is where we fight with ourselves the most. It\u2019s called \u201cto thine own self be true.\u201d If you do something wrong, you have to run the correction so you can be true.<\/p>\n

If you want to find a fast way to run self-correction, you have to practice the ability to move into the loving heart, the spiritual heart. You come into it not just through your emotions, but through the emotions plus the loving feeling that sits on the emotions. Then the feelings of loving can be moved by the emotional energy.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re upset and righteous and you\u2019re not going to self-correct, a good thing to practice would be to find something\u2014a horse, a dog, an animal, a baby, a person, a tree, a rock\u2014that you can get in touch with, so that it then gets in touch with you. You stir the feeling of, \u201cGod, this is wonderful!\u201d And then you walk away from it. I tell people don\u2019t use food because it has only one sensation associated with it. Get hold of something that arouses most of your senses\u2014hearing, touching, tasting, feeling\u2014and activate it internally as much as you can. Then walk away from it and attempt to move that feeling in the loving spiritual heart, to the point where you go, \u201cOh yeah, there it is!\u201d<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t, you\u2019re not a failure at this point, you\u2019re just somebody who hasn\u2019t succeeded. You go back to that object, re-look at it and say, \u201cDid I just think that was really something wonderful?\u201d Or you may look at it and say, \u201cOh you know something? That color reminds me of a house I knew a long time ago.\u201d And you find out that the object doesn\u2019t really do it for you. But something else in there did it for you, and if you can isolate that, and get in touch with it, then maybe you can activate it.<\/p>\n

When you walk away from it and think of it, and all this loving comes up inside of you, guess where you now have it? Inside of you. You now have the ability to access and touch that whenever you want to. Here\u2019s the bad news. If you don\u2019t practice that, it will go away. It gets lost in the rest of the ego functions. It\u2019s like an affirmation that you must do over and over again. But affirmations are more in the area of the mind, ego, and feelings, whereas the spiritual heart moves the consciousness to a place where you will lovingly self-correct because that is the right, loving thing to do. The spiritual heart then embraces the ego and the ego feels wonderful to have made the self-correction. It feels proud and it will say, \u201cLook, I did that wrong. Now look how right I do it!\u201d And it feels great when everybody goes, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s right.\u201d You\u2019re bringing all the diverse levels of your personality into a focus, back inside of you, and you\u2019re grabbing control of it consciously, touching it and activating it.<\/p>\n

Often, as you become faster and more adroit at doing this, you will become faster and more adroit at solving ego dilemmas. Ego dilemmas deal with all the things of the world\u2014how you perceive those things in the world, how you want them, and how you\u2019re not getting them. For example, you say, \u201cLet\u2019s go down to the theater and we\u2019ll catch that eight o\u2019clock show. It will be great, it\u2019s the middle of the week and very few people will be there.\u201d But you get there and it\u2019s sold out\u2014not only that showing, but all the other showings that night. The mind then goes into dilemmas. It thinks, \u201cWhat are all these people doing here? Doesn\u2019t anybody work? Doesn\u2019t anybody stay home? I\u2019ll show them! I\u2019ll burn down the building, I\u2019ll do all these horrible things.\u201d Instead you go into self-correction, touch the heart center and say, \u201cWow, they\u2019re going to really enjoy this movie and I still have an enjoyment ahead of me. I\u2019ll go see this other show.\u201d And now you\u2019re in the area of choices instead of addictive behaviors. Only out of the spiritual heart can you make these types of profound choices.<\/p>\n

I use the term \u201cvaluable\u201d interchangeably with \u201cusable.\u201d The value of a thing is its usefulness. Everyone\u2019s reference point for what is valuable is going to be based on the experience of their life and their karma. That is unseen and unknown, so therefore we can\u2019t judge it. We can only perceive how others value something and cooperate with it if we find it matches what we value. When something matches our own value, we have peace, because we\u2019re in harmony. Being in harmony is a wonderful thing, but you have to remember that harmony does not mean non-movement. If its non-usable, then it becomes non-movable and you must stay by it to use it, which means you\u2019re now non-movable and non-usable also.<\/p>\n

The only things that we can really pick up and move are those things that are inside of us. Consequently, we\u2019re all busy translating whatever we get from the outside to the inside, to see how we can value and use it. And what we value is sometimes an answer to something in the mind. We may not be able to use it but it answers a dilemma, so now that part of us is quiet, and we say, \u201cThat was so valuable to me!\u201d Nobody else can see that use, but just because it is invisible it is not less valuable. It is extremely valuable because it solves a dilemma of disturbance and stops the againstness inside us.<\/p>\n

How do I find the way into the spiritual heart? I have a little girl that does it for me. I can think of her for a second and it just opens, and I\u2019m in the spiritual heart\u2014immediately. I promote, allow, and create that. I wouldn\u2019t want it to change because it is very usable to me inside of me. In the midst of a disturbance, she\u2019ll kick in automatically and people just cannot disturb me. I start to see how she would handle the disturbance by pontificating and moving her hands and yelling and screaming, not necessarily in that order. Or she might get up and walk out of the room, and you yell her name and she keeps right on going, thinking that it\u2019s a game. She\u2019ll look back to see if you\u2019re after her and she will run faster and giggle and laugh, and you\u2019re out of the disturbance.<\/p>\n

Through this technique I can overcome a lot of things. If I get a headache I go, \u201cWhy don\u2019t I go down and see that little girl?\u201d And the headache just goes away. What was the headache from? Internal stress and strife that is below my level of awareness. Maybe there is too much glare from the TV lights. Or it could be the wind blowing a certain way. It could be allergies. It could be perfumes. It could be smells. It could be drinking some water and choking on it and you clear the choking, but you still have to deal with residuals in there. So what could it be? Almost anything and everything.<\/p>\n

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. It\u2019s knowing the process of your being and how you process life, and how things are processed inside of you, and then working those in such a way that they become functional and usable to you, either by working with them or getting out of them. I would not suggest to anybody to put up with something, because putting up with it is, in a sense, condoning its existence, its behavior, and its actions in and around you.<\/p>\n

Something may be causing a level of disturbance inside of you and even though your mind says, \u201cOh that\u2019s all right,\u201d the uptight stomach says, \u201cNo it is not\u201d. If you accept it in the mind and ignore the stomach, you\u2019re disowning the signals of your life. You\u2019re disowning something inside of you that says, \u201cI have a signal for you about something that is out of line.\u201d It may be saying, \u201cYour house is burning down and you don\u2019t want to hear this signal\u201d. All the while you\u2019re saying, \u201cWell I wish I would have heard the signal, I\u2019d have gotten up and saved the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad news about not listening to the signals is they don\u2019t necessarily stop, but they seem to stop. Then you come into a group like this or to a person like me and you think, \u201cHe hasn\u2019t said anything new in thirty minutes, but he\u2019s said things that I\u2019ve had to hear, because there is a part of me that stopped, disowned, and didn\u2019t listen, and it just woke up and said, \u2018Hi!\u2019 And I want you to wake me up and say \u2018Hi\u2019 in my life.\u201d I want you to be watchful. I\u2019m going to give you the value that you are. I am going to use you the way that you are to be used. I am going to value you.<\/p>\n

The Kingdom of Heaven is much like that. If you start to disown and not value parts of your system of information, you have cut off one of the sources into the kingdom, because who knows where the entrance is? We know it\u2019s a straight and narrow way, and few enter because few choose to go that way. And we all know that at times, we feel as far away from the Kingdom of the Heaven as we can possibly be, just because we are unaware. And as strange as it may seem, in comes somebody we love, the spiritual heart opens, and the Kingdom of Heaven is immediately at hand. So how far away from us is it?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nowhere. All that blocks us is a sense of separation. Not separation. A sense. And we value the sense of separation more than we value the reality that is always present. If we get a feeling that says we\u2019re in separation, we value that feeling so strongly that we will leave our family, quit our job, feel people hate us, or become paranoid, over something that is not real. It\u2019s not usable or functional. So we have to come back once again and say, \u201cWait a minute! Just because I don\u2019t sense and know the Kingdom of Heaven is active in me, that is not a reason to feel separate and lonely unless I\u2019m choosing to have an exercise in separate\/lonely. And if I am, I think I\u2019ll find out what that is at the highest rate of efficiency I can, so I\u2019ll know it no matter what its disguise looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone has that sense of unworthiness. I don\u2019t know if we will ever get rid of it while we\u2019re on the planet. I\u2019ve got mine encoded as a guardian that keeps me going, so I can never sit in complacency and say, \u201cI\u2019ve got it! This is it! I don\u2019t have to do anything else.\u201d As soon as I do that this thing kicks me right in the backside and says, \u201cUp one more stair.\u201d And I say, \u201cYeah, but I declared this stair the top!\u201d That\u2019s an ego position that\u2019s going to cause me disturbance, because the top is the top. It will declare itself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been talking about this for years: coming back to self, introspecting, finding the places inside, going in, and strengthening those. If we strengthen them and we don\u2019t use them, they start to go weak. Here\u2019s the dilemma of this whole spiritual game: You can\u2019t just come to a place where you get strong and then never have to do that again.<\/p>\n

You can lift weights for a while and get in shape. You say, \u201cWow, I\u2019m in shape!\u201d Then you put the weights away and you don\u2019t lift them again because you\u2019re in shape. A year later you look in the mirror and you go, \u201cEverything went to my stomach.\u201d What happened? You stopped strengthening yourself. \u201cYeah but you see I was strong. I was in shape.\u201d Well, at that time you were in shape. Now you\u2019re not. Now what? \u201cWell that\u2019s not fair.\u201d Its never been designed for fair, its been designed for a process of doing.<\/p>\n

Strengthening ourselves spiritually is much the same. Some people ask, \u201cWhen do I stop doing spiritual exercises?\u201d I say, \u201cAbout forty seconds after you die physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

When are you going to die? Are you as strong as you want to be spiritually? Then why don\u2019t you keep doing s.e.\u2019s? People respond that they don\u2019t know if the s.e.\u2019s are strengthening them. Then along comes some problem. Kaboom! And you fall down and cry and moan and say, \u201cGod doesn\u2019t love me. Nobody loves me. I\u2019m all alone in this world. How am I going to get through this?\u201d Then you go inside where you\u2019ve been doing spiritual exercises and you grab hold of the strength and you think, \u201cWow! This isn\u2019t as bad as I was dramatizing it to be. I\u2019m doing pretty well here. I wonder how I\u2019m doing pretty well?\u201d It\u2019s because you were strengthening yourself, and you didn\u2019t know how strong you were. Along came the test and now you\u2019re being shown how strong you are. It\u2019s really wonderful. Instead of crying about the event, pat yourself on the back and claim the event.<\/p>\n

Will there be harder tests? Yes. But you have a method by which to counter the harder tests\u2014 spiritual exercises. You have a way to strengthen yourself so that whatever shows up, if you\u2019ve been doing your spiritual work, you will meet it, go with it, and add it to your repository of resources. My mom used to say, \u201cSon if doesn\u2019t kill you, it will strengthen you.\u201d It hasn\u2019t killed me yet, so it only leaves one alternative. It is strengthening me.<\/p>\n

Baruch Bashan.<\/p>\n

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