One could easily interpret living the heart’s desire as simple contentment. In one sense this seems true. We seem content on the material plane when we are living the Truth of our heart within. Contentment needs a slight shift in view – a reframing if you will – in order to find the Truth about its real face. When we say we are living to our heart’s content, we usually place the accent on the last syllable to mean we are indeed content: at ease, comfortable, free from irritation of any kind. However, the spiritual meaning comes from understanding that the accent ought to be placed on the first syllable. To make it the heart’s content, the elements of Truth the heart holds for us. How we respond to Life’s situations and circumstances and opportunities for relationships is determined by the heart’s content. If one is heavy hearted one plays out Life heavily. If one has a vengeful heart it is that content which manifests in relationship, let us say. If one is what we call lighthearted, then one both literally and metaphorically brings Lightness into any situation, which dispels or disintegrates darkness or heaviness. A heart filled with Light unveils enlightenment.

Our choice in the matter, then, is to decide with what we wish to furnish our heart. Such choices are boundless: envy, anxiety, fear, love, generosity, prayer, greed, authenticity. On and on it goes. Actually, which is always the case, there is only one of two decisions that can be made regarding the content of our heart: to be filled with the Spirit of loving – or not. Life is always simple this way, is it not? We have applied this simple test in our journey as Lovers: either we are being Loving – or we are not. Well, in this case, either we are carrying, filling our heart with, some form of Loving Spirit – or we are not. This is an easy discernment to make. All we need do is ask ourselves this question, or one similar to it: “Heart, what is the right thing to do here?” If you get an answer that sounds as though it is Loving in nature – that is, it is in harmony with our Loving nature – then simply act this out Lovingly. On the other hand, if the answer is in some way not naturally Loving, then it only needs examination – an honest facing of the feeling – in order to dispel it from one’s heart. When we make room for Loving content by letting go of that which is not, the Loving way rushes in like the mighty Niagara, flooding all levels of one’s Being. Thus Love’s Light dispels error, darkness of Spirit.

The idea is to always live in a loving Spirit. In order to do this one simply makes comparisons throughout one’s day as to what is happening without, laid alongside that which one knows to be the Truth of one’s heart. One thing is for sure: how one is feeling within is how one is dealing with life without. The only way to change how we relate to the world is to change the content of our heart to one of contentment, that is, being in the Truth of Spirit, rather than shrouded by that which darkens our Soul. One can learn to live Spiritually quite quickly by understanding that Spirit is the only substance there is. It is everywhere and in every thing. It is everything.

Therefore, when one is seeing life as something other than Spirit – that is, its not being about Spirit – then all one needs to do is change one’s focus about Life in that moment and a clearer vision of it will appear. As Wayne Dyer says so artfully, “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” Never is this more so than when we change from looking at a particular situation out of envy or revenge, for example, to seeing it out of a need for Loving instead. This is grace showing its face.

In a recent incident with a friend, I engaged in a conversation which could have provided me with a new living situation. I got way ahead of the decision about it – hadn’t even really thoroughly investigated the physical location, yet built my hopes and dreams around the possibility. What happened as a result was that when my friend placed surprisingly stringent limitations on the potential agreement, my dreams and hopes were dashed and that pained me greatly. Simply, I had filled the content of my heart with neediness, hopefulness, rather than with Lovingly holding the idea in a space where my friend could safely deal with it. Oh, my words sounded safe, but the condition of my heart was needy. And needy is not a facet of Loving, but one that comes from the tradition of separation: feeling separation and wanting someone “out there” to fix it for me.

However, what I also learned was that there was a hidden consequence for my friend, one I hadn’t expected in the least: my query about the potential for living in her now vacated space raised several of her demons to the surface. So now she had the opportunity to deal with them once and for all, an unsuspected consequence of the situation. Now she was faced with the opportunity to look at the content of her heart and to discern whether or not she was responding out of Spirit.

The moral of the story is to use all Life brings us as Spirit. Merely as a series of parables, metaphors, that are spiritual in nature, and not at all material, no pun intended. When we finally learn that Life is, and can only be, Spirit – for that is Its nature – then we only have to make a quick determination of how a particular facet of it fits with its spiritual intent and then deal with it. Usually such evaluations turn up ways in which we have lost sight of Spirit and have inserted material in its place. Our response? To correct the content of our heart. Actually, when we come to the realization that Spirit is all there is, and therefore only that which could be in our hearts, then when we feel something else there we can come to know it only as illusion, a figment of our imagination. All we need do is examine how we are viewing Life at the moment and change how we see it to seeing Life Lovingly. Those are the only lenses we ever need use. The only real reality there Is. All else is either nearsighted, far-sighted, an astigmatism – meaning a warp in our focus – or some other aberration in the clarity of Being. No matter what the aberration, we can return to our natural state simply by returning to Lovingness.

What this says to me is that we must be ever vigilant in discerning how we are viewing life. And become expert in reframing our view to accommodate our natural state, which, of course, is Being Loving. Loving heals all. In truth, Loving is all. Anything else is but an illusion. A detail that doesn’t matter, again, no pun intended. Actually, anything contrary to Loving is a resistance to Loving. Our self-absorption, our egocentric character, is nothing but resistance to Being what we naturally already Are. Contrary to those ideas and beliefs that are nothing but resistance to Loving, we are not in any way separate from one another or God, and thus not separated from Loving. It is only our belief in separation – the power of the ego and our own self-importance – that keeps us feeling like we are separated from one another and from Source.

But those feelings, like the ideas and beliefs that formed them, are nothing but illusions that cloud our hearts. The Truth of our one and only reality, our only true nature, is Loving. Here, too, all we need do is feel our feelings to there fullest. When we do so there can be no doubt about what they are saying to us. We can then use these feelings as a means to the end of inner peace and joy, so we can once again be simply Loving. As the old expression goes, “Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they merely are.” And what they are informs us as to the content of our heart, and whether we might want to change it. Choice once again reigns.

SPIRIT NOODLES