Take a moment to put your hand on your heart. Do you feel it beating?
THE MIRACLE OF THE HEART
With each beat, a tiny electrical spark ignites in your heart. The muscle contracts and then relaxes. Blood is pumped throughout your body. Through the blood:
Nourishing oxygen, hormones, nutrients, and proteins are delivered to each cell.
We are protected from harmful fungus, bacteria, viruses, and damaged cells.
Healing of broken blood vessels takes place.
Waste and toxins are picked up throughout the body and delivered to organs that can remove them.
With each heartbeat, nourishment.
With each heartbeat, protection.
With each heartbeat, healing.
With each heartbeat, detoxification.
With each heartbeat, a miracle.
THE COMMUNION OF CELLS
In the heartbeat, we see just one example of the intricate network that connects the individual cells of the body into the wholeness of one being.
Individual cells join together to form the community of a body tissue. Tissues join together to form organs. Organs join together to form organ systems – such as the circulatory system. Groups of organ systems join together to form the community that is your body.
Each part is inextricably interconnected to the wholeness that is you.
You are the Consciousness caring for the community of cells that form your body.
THE WEB OF LIFE
Just as each individual cell is a part of the wholeness that makes up your body, so are you a part of the wholeness that is the web of life.
Without the bumble bee to pollinate, you wouldn’t have the fruit you ate for breakfast. Without the factory worker thousands of miles away, you wouldn’t have the shirt you are wearing. Without the union of generations of ancestors, you wouldn’t be here. And without the love and support of community, we wouldn’t survive.
The Hindu and Buddhist cosmology has a story about the god Indra that beautifully illustrates this awareness. It is often called “Indra’s Net”:
‘Indra established the foundations of the world in the Tushita Heaven. To do this, he hung over his palace on Mount Meru a net of silk threads, like a spider web, which extends to infinity in all directions. In each knot of the net he put a precious gem, which reflects in its perfect facets all the other gems that cover the net. When you approach to look into any one of those gems, you discover that the gems reflected in it reflect in turn each and every one of the other gems of this immense silk fabric … and so on to infinity.’
…‘You are one of those gems …and every person, every animal, every tree and plant, every insect, every speck of dust that floats up into a sunbeam and down onto a road, is a gem of the net of Indra.
Each of us is one cell in the wholeness of the Universe. Each of us is one jewel in the web of life. And when we look closely, we can see the wholeness of the Universe reflected in one another.
A HEART-CETERED PRACTICE
Amidst the busyness of life, it is easy to slip out of this awareness. That is why we must practice it.
Place your hand on your heart. Acknowledge each heartbeat as an electrical spark that lights up your being. Welcome it with awe.
Acknowledge each cell, tissue, organ, and organ system in your community. Each is playing its part in nourishing, protecting, healing, and detoxifying your body. Send your love and gratitude to your cells for creating, supporting, and sustaining you. Welcome them as part of your community. Sit in the awareness that they are you.
At the bottom of each breath, feel the weight of gravity pulling you towards the core of your home– Mother Earth. Feel yourself being drawn to the heart of the Mother.
Acknowledge yourself as one cell in the body of the Universe. Feel the Divine Consciousness holding you, just as you are holding your heart. Feel the embrace of love surrounding you, welcoming you, accepting you, sending gratitude to you for your participation in the wholeness of the Universe. Whatever you name this – God, Spirit, the Universe, Consciousness – rest in this awareness.
Expand your awareness to see each living being, each jewel in the web of life. See every being as part of this wholeness - inextricably interconnected.
Rest in the awareness that all are One.