One day it was suddenly revealed to me that everything
is Pure Spirit … Whatever I saw I worshiped.
—ramakrishna
Secret Garden Walls Fall
In the beginning a secret garden needs walls to protect the delicate seedlings trying to grow. But once they’ve taken root and grown into a beautiful landscape, why not let the walls down—at least some of the time? Invite in friends. Share the growth and beauty with family. Dare to reveal a little of your spiritual self to colleagues. Opening the gate to others and even tearing down walls mark big steps toward integration.
Back in Switzerland on a hike above a little village called Sagno, where white marble angels bigger than life adorned the altar of a small Catholic church, I strolled along the path alone, in silence. An Alpine bird sang out the sweetest, most beautiful song. I stopped, closed my eyes to listen, and opened my heart. Relaxed in concentrated love for the tiny creature perched high and invisible in the branches, the warbling song connected us. Love of the bird and its music expanded my heart until, eyes closed, I felt its tiny heart beating. Its heart became my heart. In silent reverence, we merged into one. A mystical union occurred beyond my will or understanding. It felt sublime, blissful, quiet.
When my mind kicked in and started to recognize the merging, it panicked and jerked me back into separation. The bird must have felt it too, because it flew away startled at the same instant. “Wait a minute,” my mind protested. “I am separate. I am not a bird. You know it’s not possible to feel a bird’s heart.” My head felt rattled by the experience of expansion and argued for separation, for keeping up the boundaries and fences. But my heart knew the experience was more real than any of the walls I’d put up. I loved animals. I loved the bird. Without thinking or forcing, the love had made us one.
Similar incidents began to happen with people. In Antibes, some friends arrived and introduced me to a man from London. When we shook hands, I grasped my heart and felt deep pain. I’d felt fine and content until this encounter. But my heart ached and shattered like breaking glass. I wanted to cry, but didn’t know why. The feeling lingered as we all went for a drink at a small café. Then I overheard the young man say that his girlfriend had recently broken up with him and that he felt overwhelming sadness. My heart felt his hurting heart. What was happening to me?
Later a friend called to talk. During the conversation, I felt like I was suffocating and I struggled to breathe. I needed air. Ten minutes later my friend said, “I feel like I’m suffocating.” I knew she did. I felt it too. I felt it as if we were one and the same. These empathic experiences defy the rational, logical way of thinking about life, which says, This is me. This is mine. This is where I start and you stop. Barriers between you and me fall and we literally come to understand that we “do unto others” because one’s self and the other are one and the same. In this expansive place, hearts and thoughts merge.
On another occasion, walking down a narrow street in a Swiss village, I felt struck by fear. The sky glowed a crystalline light blue; the sun shimmered on the chestnut trees; and the air smelled pure. All seemed peaceful, yet I clutched my heart and wondered what the feeling meant. Looking around, there seemed to be no apparent danger. The fear came from outside. It belonged to someone else. Around the bend, I saw a woman with her tiny lap dog walking up the road. The fear emanated from her in a cloud that filled a huge radius. Her dog had bitten me once and I now realized she communicated her fear to it, which made it aggressive. The two of them lived in perpetual terror. That strong feeling of fear came from her!
Disassociated fear again floated in the air during my meditations in the Swiss Alps on September 10th, 2001. It hung in the air like a cloud of dread as if the whole world knew of the looming September 11th catastrophe and the change it would wreak on the world. When a friend called to announce the news of the collapse of the Twin Towers a day later, I knew the fear had come from the many people who had unconsciously sensed the arrival of the dreadful event on the eve of the disaster. We are all connected, and that connection transcends time and space as well as levels of awareness.
In 1966 a similar tragedy occurred that showed our profound connection and how we often know of events before they happen. At Aberfan, Wales, torrential rains created a mudslide from the coal waste in the mining village, killing many people. Before the disaster several people reported dreams and premonitions of it. A researcher interviewed villagers after the fact and recorded their experiences. No fewer than sixty people had dreamed of or sensed dread of the event before it happened. A mother reported that her ten-year-old daughter woke up the day before and said she dreamed she wanted to go to school but there was no school. Something black covered it. The next day the slide wiped out the school, and many schoolchildren, including the dreamer, perished. Imagine if someone would have paid attention to the dreams and premonitions!
Animals often foreshadow and know of coming events, too. Elephants in Sri Lanka escaped the disastrous tsunami by moving to high ground many hours before the waves hit. Some part of us is also alerted to danger and knows to move if we pay attention and listen. It also knows when all feels right and when to freely reach out and help.
As time passes, not only feelings but thoughts too become more apparent. They arrive like kind letters from the post office or like punches from people with negative intentions. Like radio waves that carry words through the air, if your receiver is on and tuned to the frequency, the waves can be deciphered and words become clear. Sensitivity to thoughts functions in a similar way. In my kitchen, while cooking, when my mind is clear, I sometimes hear friends who need help, and I call or send loving thoughts. The unkind thoughts of people who wish ill arrive, too. They also need loving prayers. In the silence, nothing remains hidden. Motives arise, feelings emerge and become known like invisible ink on a piece of paper. By brushing the paper with the light of love, certain images and intents become clear.
Every thought, word, and deed counts. I had heard this and shrugged before, but now the meaning translated into experience and understanding. By the sea, a circle of light appeared around a seagull. The auras appeared around other birds also as they flew through the sky. When two flew close together, I imagined the two auras that encircled them separately would simply overlap and be connected at the edges, but still maintain two separate and distinct circles. Instead they merged and made one larger circle. When a flock flew together, the circle enlarged even more to create a bigger energy field. The same happens around people as well. The energy we carry influences others. We are not separate, but a collective whole. Our state of being interacts with others in subtle and powerful ways. The essence that fills all of us, all animals, all of life and inert things, vibrates with the Divine. Through love, we can know the hearts of all.
Our moods, intentions, feelings, and thoughts communicate subtly. In Egypt, long before I imagined any of these experiences possible, Karim, the perfumer in Cairo, read my heart. “You live in France,” he said. “You have no children and you are going through a period of transition.” He had introduced me to the thoughts, stories, and feelings that I wore like a perfume and he possessed the ability to sense and interpret them. The perfumer’s expressions of kindness and his unusual gift of seeing into hearts added a new dimension to my garden. The deeper step into oneness with all people and things opened the doors to my heart. The heart marks that critical point of balance between the material and spiritual worlds, between reason and intuition. When it opens and the energy of love flows through, unhindered life becomes a joy.
Breaking Down Barriers
If you wish to let the barriers around your secret garden expand, begin working with the light meditation. You may wish to sit in front of a candle and watch the flame. When you’re ready, close your eyes and imagine the flame inside of your heart. From your heart let it fill your entire body limb to limb, up into your head, your eyes, your mouth and ears. Ask the light to purify your thoughts and the words that come from your mouth. Ask it to let you hear, see, and speak good things. Let the light continue to fill all of your being. Bring the focus to your heart and let the rays of light shine out. As you visualize the light expanding from your heart and emanating from you, imagine that it permeates those closest to you—your mate, friends, and family. Expand it to include neighbors, your whole town or city. Let it expand out toward strangers, and finally let it fill those you resist, those you may condemn, and those you imagine to be enemies until it fills the entire world. Linger in this expanded sense of light.
When you’re ready, slowly return to your body and heart. Leave the flame of light burning brightly in the center of your heart. When you go through the days, focus on the light, that spark of love that ignites each heart and sparkles in the eyes of the people who stand before you day in and day out. Relate to others with compassion and watch how both you and they transform. Search for the good and the elevated in the hearts and lives of those around you. Integrate this as a conscious, constant practice.
Merging with the Inner Gardener
For a portion of the journey, the higher self—the one I call the wise, inner gardener—appears as separate. But the deeper we move into the heart of the secret garden, the more we merge with her until there is no longer any separation at all. The two aspects of our Self—one that is alert to the material world, and the other, which appears to guide us from an elevated, light place—become one. We no longer need to go to sleep to dream and receive her messages. Those messages and images arrive at any time of day and we welcome them as gifts. The two wills and desires—those of the outer self, the personality; and the soul-Self—merge into one cohesive and coherent whole. This unity within one’s self marks a big leap toward wholeness and harmony with the world.
As you work through and tend the inner spaces in your beautiful, sacred garden of the spirit, have you noticed a merging between these two aspects of yourself? How does this feel? If you still struggle with believing that you hold this wisdom in your depths and doubt that you are a spark of the Divine, take a moment to enter deep within your sacred garden and meditate on the wise gardener who helps you tend to the spiritual. Can you imagine the two of you merging into one? Take a moment to explore this in writing or through some form of artistic expression.