Make a list of all the qualities you most treasure; the qualities you, and the world, need most urgently.

Your list might include peace, love, oneness, joy, fulfilment, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, wisdom, courage, strength, belonging, kindness, tolerance, patience, beauty, sweetness, perfection, satisfaction.

All these qualities are to be found in our spiritual heart, the place we point to when we say “I”. Indeed, they are to be found nowhere else. “Home is where the heart is” because our heart is where we feel most natural, most comfortable, most fulfilled, most complete, most at home.

We cannot see the spiritual heart, so how can we be aware of it? How can we concentrate on it?

If you close your eyes and someone holds a rose in front of you, you will know it is there by its fragrance. Similarly, we know we have a spiritual heart by the fragrance of its qualities, its emissaries, and we can concentrate and enter into the heart by invoking, loving and absorbing ourselves in these qualities.

The spiritual heart is the 4th level of our being, at once housing and yet extending infinitely beyond the first three levels of body, vital and mind. The heart is our portal and guide to the spiritual realm, to our deeper, more real, eternal self.

Our heart is like the mother to our lesser parts, always offering love, compassion and concern, yet requiring infinite tolerance and patience, and often ignored.

The heart connects directly with reality through the identification of oneness. Our heart reveals itself and communicates most eloquently through a smile.

Love is the heart’s staple diet; music its universal language.

Our spiritual heart is ever new, all-loving and all-wise, continually expanding, deepening and blossoming.

(…continued…)