“Knock with your whole being and it shall be opened.”


~ Leowe

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The Questions That Can Open the Heart

Dear Heart,

Sometimes, it is common for a being new to satsang to arrive with many questions. These questions within one’s heart might be probably why one comes to the satsang. And they begin to arise within when life has decided that the time has come to pierce through the conditionings of one’s personhood and wedge its feet into one’s heart. 

This could be sensed as a feeling of pointlessness that begins to arise to continue to live a distracted, fake life as before. Of the anger at the injustices existing in the world turning into helplessness at the realisation that no amount of activism or laws could ever be enough to end human suffering; the helplessness causing one to question the need for suffering as part of human life. Of turning fainthearted at the realisation that despite one’s best attempts and efforts, nothing in one’s life is under one’s control and that everything that one holds dear to oneself could perish without a moment’s notice. 

And when life enters one’s heart like that, it throbs urgently to seek a way out of all that is bringing about so much fragility. The very first signs of this seeking are perhaps the questioning. Why is there so much suffering? Is there a way to find peace inside my heart? How is it possible that there is so much sorrow inside my Being, for it cannot be the true meaning of life. Can I please see what this is all about?

This is also perhaps when a being is ready to come to satsang. If one has never been to a satsang before, there might be some hesitation but the urge to know the Truth ignites one’s courage to arrive at the door of Presence. It is also the same urge that inspires one to ask Leowe one’s questions.

Sometimes these questions might appear to be seemingly common and answered many times by many masters of the past and the present, but in truth, what the questions are about does not matter at all. It is the how that matters: is one’s heart ready to receive the Truth? For the truth is sometimes too intense for the ego as it brings to light the conditionings and the patterns, the clinging to worldly pursuits and desires, and the attachment to impermanent things – all that are what the ego sustains itself on. 

If the questions are born out of the urge for Truth and if one’s heart is truly listening, the words of Presence in reply work as a soothing balm to the Being longing to be set free from the cage of identification. They gently nudge the bud of Beingness within to flower and there is a deepening of clarity that there is nothing to be set free, for there is no one, only freedom, and an acceptance that life is only a play of Consciousness. This clarity and acceptance lead one into looking at what has been brought to light with openness: this is the key to allowing grace to enter one’s heart. And when grace is in, there is nothing one needs to do other than to melt away into it. 

However, when one’s heart is not ripe and ready to be broken open by grace, one might remain in the place of seeking and awaiting, of dreaming and suffering, sometimes for decades, sometimes for lifetimes.   
 
In the end, it is up to each one of us to listen to this tender calling emerging from the Heart. To consider with honesty if we are truly ready for an encounter with the Truth, if we are truly devoted to be free, if we are truly longing to love unconditionally. And if not, why – why might we be choosing bondage over freedom, pain over joy, otherness over love?

May these questions serve to take us into our heart and may the looking begin, for only in deep looking is an answer not required as the questioner dissolves, and with them the questions, and all that remains is the Truth.  

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“There are many houses, but only one home, which is the heart.”
~ Leowe

In loving care,
Leowe & the Heart is Home Movement