VISIONARY TEACHINGS
by Gill Schwartz

THE FOUR REALMS of the HEART and MIND

       The true nature of the Heart's Realms can only be indicated with words. Experience alone can tell you what you're after. The following is offered by way of poetry and metaphor to help evoke your personal unutterable truth.

       THE FIRST REALM. The first, outermost Realm of our heart is in the Earthly Realm where it meets and makes contact with the physical and social worlds. This is where personality, ego and all their emotional aspects are created and manifest. It is shaped and landmarked with our personal history. This is where we meet and engage with others' outermost selves. Our worldly, day-to-day constructs and concerns, needs and imaginings occupy this Realm.

       The "I-sayer" here is focused through the ego, the personality's hub and reference point. This predisposes us to take everything personally and to break connections with deeper contexts and resources in the process. This level of our personhood is shaped through interaction between our deeper, more essential natures and the circumstances of our lives.

       The first Realm correlates with and shapes our experience of the outer world that we know through the senses. The energies involved in this are polarized and dualistic --'this/that", like/dislike", "desire/fear", etc. The self-talk is usually around "I want...", "I need...", "I should..." Relationships, pursuits of any kind -love, work, family, spirituality- grounded on this level are limited to externals and these mind-sets that personality can grasp. Thoughts and feelings are mainly shaped by one's judgments and pictures around being deserving, desirable,, valuable and the need for recognition. These are sourced from the Root Chakra,the 1st, at the base of the spine, the personal connector with the energies of the Earth. This concerned with issues of survival and vitality; the 2nd, Belly Chakra, the Vegetative energies and aspects that are focused on nurturing and procreation; and the 3rd, the Solar Plexus Chakra. HereThis is forcused on our animal nature's needs and expression, personal power, the source of sense of self.

       In this outermost layer, we are often caught in our fleeting desires and the welter of happenings around us. Heartfelt and consciously held meditative prayer, images or affirmations can be used to heal and strengthen it. We might ask for or give thanks for clarity, adequate provision, forgiveness for one'e self and others, for mercy for our wrongs and blunders.

       We might pray, "Oh, Lord of Mercy, have compassion. Lord of Compassion, have Mercy. Thank you Lord, for Your boundless mercy and compassion." As you recognize and honor this outermost level of your Heart calls for.

 

       THE SECOND REALM. The next deeper layer of the Heart, usually completely surrounded by the first, is the Astral Realm of the soul. This is a more authentic and pure aspect of our being. Here is our own unique individuality, apart from outer circumstance and conditioning. Here we experience emotions, feelings and heart-knowings that relate to our inner personhood. Our interests, needs and gifts here are more essential to our true natures. They concern us over longer periods of time and can persevere beyond the limits of circumstances.

       This soul Realm of the Heart is multidimensional, rather than just the limiting four dimensions of space and time of the first Realm. It is of a finer, subtler substance -the Etheric- with a profusion of polarities. Consciousness here has a higher range - subtler, more expansive. With other resources than just the physical Realm's senses, here our knowing includes psychic and visionary phenomena. On this level, we can interact with our personal angels, helpers and others' souls. All our deeper personal aspects, known and unknown, interact in here, from childhood memories to the culture's longings. Here are the meanings of our core issues, gifts and life-callings. In the soul of the Heart we come to a fuller knowing of one's self that the outer heart is too limited to grasp.

       Therefor relationships and pursuits that stem from this Realm are truer to ourselves, are more natural and flow from fuller resources. The subtle-body energies in of this Realm are mainly from the 4th, the Heart, concerned with the aspects of our beings involving higher emotions and knowing- like compassion, altruism and creativity; 5th Throat, psychic sensing and self-expression and 6th, Third Eye Energy Center, expansive, illuminative consciousness.

       Meditative prayers or affirmations also help to clear and align this Realm. They help the release and healing of issues that block our growth and the manifestation of our deeper being and calling. "Guide and bless this soul that seeks You.". "Help me find other souls who seek You, Lord." "Thank You for revealing my truth." Again we listen to this Realm of your Heart for what it experiences and is called to express.

 

       THE THIRD REALM. The next deepest layer of the heart is of the spirit. This Etheric Realm is more mysterious and calls for and creates its own kind of consciousness. Here we have access to our essential emotions, such as presence, being, compassion, self-fulfilling, unconditional love and goodness.

       When there is alignment and resonance between all these, the radiance of the spiritual Realm of the Heart can support and nurture the first two Realms with its gifts. In this way spirit engages with the soul, and, through it, to the outer, first layer of self and the outer world. This liaison gives one's spirit a means to transmit its infinite splendor down into the narrower but transformative material Realms. It makes it possible to materialize spirit and to spiritualize matter.

       We share this highest level with the Divine Qualities, the Attributes of the Creator. Guidance, visions and empowerments are manifest in this domain, The Etheric Realm of higher consciousness.

       There is more to us in this third Realm of the heart than can ever be known on the outer, more apparent levels. This is where the "knowing heart", the prophetic nature dwells and communicates with our High Self, with others' spirits, in or out of the body, the Lords of Karma, higher angels, and others involved with the fullness of our spiritual life. From here relationship and worldly pursuits express the highest calling and purpose of all those involved. And the evolved, fulfilled individual is a glorification of the Divine Impulse.

       The "I-sayer" in the Etheric Realm is the High Self, with transpersonal capacities and resources. "I Know...", "I Vision...", are usual frames of reference.

       At the Third Realm's innermost edge, at its boundary with the transcendent Fourth Realm, is an illuminative WEB of etheric crystal. This is the matrix that marks the end of Self and the beginning of the Divine Other. This is the limit of created reality and the threshold of the Eternal Boundless.

       This primal matrix is the prophetic doorway. It is what allows the Nothingness of the Absolute to assume any form at all, and what allows beings of form, like those with prophetic calling, to escape the restricted experience of selfhood and have conscious access to the Unknowable.

       At this boundary where these imponderables meet is where your spirit might be most aware of its separation and longing for the Beloved.

       Prayer or devotional affirmation used here would concern one's spiritual needs, issues or realizations, personal or universal. Or they might be a expression of the spirit's devotion like, "There is no Truth but You, Lord."

 

       THE FOURTH REALM. This Heart of the heart is beyond grasping in form or name. The Celestial Realm, the Heavenlies of the heart.. It might be experienced as a mystic stillness or emptiness, yet with potency beyond imagining. The mystic view of this inner radiance, the luminous essential core of our heart and being, is unpredictable, always new, renewed in its eternal source of Being. Movement into this innermost Realm is done with a gesture of surrender, of honoring of the awaiting grace. In this Heart of our heart we know and are seen by the Divine, by the Heart's Eye. Ecstasy and bliss come with the realization of this at-onement with Source.

       This is the Realm of self-knowing and acceptance, compassion and peace. All feelings and concerns from the first three Realms can be offered and released, healed and fulfilled in this Boundlessness.

       Here we connect with the eternal essence of our being. If you subscribe to reincarnation, this is the individuated speck of the Divine, the true "I" that goes from life to life. This is the Self that wears individual soul after soul in its coming into Its fullness of being while manifesting the Divine Impulse. Our spirit, this individuated particle divine light, transcends the specifics of our personal lives. These are the Heavenlies, but because these energies fields are so subtle and interior and not accessible to the outer-conscious mind, they can easily be covered and disguised by grosser, transitory events on more superficial levels.

       The energies utilized in the Celestial Realm are from the 7th, the Crown Chakra of individual consciousness and ascends to a Universal Chakra of Cosmic Consciousness and Love, that merges and transcends heart and mind. The I-sayer rests in the realizations "I am a Quality of the Eternal", "This is my fullness of being," "I compassionately encompass all."

       Far beyond the outer mind's imagining, this is the individual's inner palace of the Godhead, the Source, the Being in All. This is the Realm of the Secret, the place of the merging, of at-onement. It is most wondrous and mysterious, the bliss of being in the Throne's pure Light. The transforming truth of this culminating experience is beyond all description, yet can be repeated daily.

       Each one of us is our own Way to discover this Unknowable. When the "I-sayer" is absorbed into this greatest depth of Heart -- the "I AM" Love -- it comprehends that here is the only this Truth, the only real source of meaning. This is the true Heart, the Portal into the Unity. Here we become a radiant drop, ever-merging with the Infinite Ocean of Being.

       In the realization of this deepest Realm, devotionaly repeating the name, image or sound that holds your Knowing of the Divine is best.

 

 

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Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2003   www.WisdomVisions.com