Journey of the Heart

For a few days now I have felt a longing in my heart…   I’ve felt a thirst and emptiness that cannot seem to be quenched or filled. I have allowed very real material concerns, like a nearly broken marriage, to distract me spiritually and have been seeking to regain my footing and find myself once again on a more steady and sure path towards He who I seek. 
 In times of reverie throughout my waking hours the image of Radharani has filled my mind.  (Radaharani is a name for the Supreme Divine Feminine in the Vashnava tradition) Like a lighthouse stretched over a vast sea of nescience she seems to call out in a love divine; beckoning my soul to come back home.
 This morning I arose and as I sat by the computer a beautiful and gentle light passed through the curtains and warmed my heart. Instantly the image of Radharani once again filled my mind and it was as if she was calling me to come this early morning to a place of solitude alongside a riverbank where my h...

I wrote this poem some time ago just shortly after I had started chanting… Although chanting God's names on sacred beads is an ancient, spiritual practice in the bhakti yoga tradition, to me it is fairly new. Nevertheless, t hrough Krishna's grace I began to feel such peace and joy while repeating his holy names.  With each successive bead passing through my fingers I could feel myself draw deeper into a love I simply had not expected to encounter.  This quickly caused me to commit myself to make chanting a daily part of my spiritual practices. As time has passed I am starting to really experience the truth to the following lines I had written: "True freedom is conceived from a soul who surrenders.  To hearts devoted to Him, His Mercy He renders."   I have seen my share of peaks and valleys spiritually but what I am learning is that when I turn to Krishna with a heart that is humbled and bowed down, mercy seems to blossom ...

The way before me is unclear and full of uncertainty… It seems like my search for truth and understanding into the nature of reality, of the Absolute, often brings me into places of obscure wilderness. It seems that the more I learn and discover the more I realize how very little I know about anything, including my own nature. There is a constant battle between what my intellect questions to be true and the direction my heart longs to pursue. I stumble and often fall. When I find myself back on the winding path that creeps its way along the mountainside I'm usually in familiar places already traversed. My heart sinks, as it appears very little progress if any has been made. One treasure that I have discovered along my journey's path is my mantra. The maha mantra, the Holy Names of Krishna, I have chanted for more than a year now nearly every day. There was only one dark period that lasted a couple of weeks where my intellect stubbornly denied me...

 Nearly every summer, since childhood to the present, I have returned annually to the shores of Cape Cod… …Spending days walking along its sandy beaches and gazing at colorful kites pirouetting across its sun drenched skies. As my family and I make preparations to have our senses once again inundated with the exhilarating combination of salt air and invigorating waters I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that every time I come back to this place of abundant memories I return a different person.  One year I remember going up to that most treasured peninsula jutting out from the eastern seaboard as a child dreaming of being an astronaut. Mesmerized by the heavens I sat, wide-eyed, gazing out at the view before me stretching out into infinity. Another summer I went up as a bright-eyed dreamer envisioning that I would change the world and someday ride the ocean's waves on Greenpeace rafts and save whales from being murdered. I've retur...

 A few months ago, well after winter made her entrance...  I rose early one morning and, after chanting and reading for awhile, I paused from my spiritual pursuits and simply turned  my gaze and attention to what lay outside my window.  My senses became captivated by the rising  sun unfolding its glorious garments of light across the treetops of oaks, maples and pines that lined the horizon before me. It was then that I began to write whatever came to mind, purging my consciousness of stray thoughts that had been curled up tight in its corners, dark and hidden.   I scribbled six pages of what most would probably consider contradictory nonsense. Philosophical and spiritual ramblings, one thought leading to another, a string of jumbled up observations and insights. That was inconsequential to me, however, because when words and thoughts seem to flow out like that I feel so alive and it causes my consciousness to greet the day w...

It seems one desire that is common to the human condition is our desire to be happy and to find peace… We look for it everywhere and oftentimes try to fill the emptiness within with all sorts of attractive things this world offers only to be left feeling even more dissatisfied and empty than before.   The restlessness our soul's experience, I feel, is a symptom of our natural longing to connect to God and realize our true natures.  For those of us who pursue truth and understanding into the reality of God, and our eternal natures, the journey we embark on can be laden with lush forests offering fruits heavy with refreshing eternal nectar. But the landscape can also become barren and dry, as well as tumultuous and unsteady, causing our hearts to be uncertain of what the truth really is. Making us doubt ourselves, and even the existence of God. In our searching we can enter into what the mystic's call "The Dark Night...