A True Human Journey
By Tara Khandro
When the student is ready … the teacher appears. The teacher is your own heart
Humanity is in the midst of rebirthing into what I name a True Human: A Being who has merged logic with intuition to live with a radiant, open heart. The radiance that shines forth is our IAM Presence, our Christ Mind, our Original Innocence. A heart lived life is a profoundly playful, loving life and reveals spiritual maturity. It is a life in which you assume conscious responsibility for this Truth: Nothing happens on the outside of you without first choosing it from the inside. The path of an open heart asks you to dive into the dark dungeon of denials to see, feel, listen and embrace their shadowed wisdom. The intellect alone cannot transmute your pain and challenges into joy. This is the job of the heart, the Great Unifier and Transformer. To live grounded in the peace and joy that you desire it is imperative that you consciously open your heart to be guided by its alchemical mastery.
Conscious Choice
You are Creative like the Creator. As the Creator you are divinely endowed to create a life filled with love, abundance and harmonic diversity. Creation is materialized through the power of choice. When you assume the responsibility of conscious choice you drop into alignment with the Cosmos as Self. You redirect your brain response out of animal fight-or flight mode towards reception: Directly receiving the wisdom, and love from Source energy within and without. Conscious receptivity is key to creating a life grounded in your heart’s wisdom.
I offer the following story illustrating the radical simplicity of our choices for these rapidly
shifting times on Mama Gaia.
A Native American Grandfather is sitting by the river with his grandson.
The Grandfather says to the boy: “You know son, there are two wolves fighting inside of me. One is the wolf of fear, greed and hatred. The other is the wolf of love, faith and wonder.”
The grandson asks: “Which one is winning grandfather?”
Grandfather replies: “Whichever one I feed”.
I love this story because it speaks of ‘feeding’ fear or love. It brings our choices into our body, into our feelings and out of our mental addictive patterns. This story brings us into direct experience with what we are feeling here and now. This teaching invites us to inquire: “What feeling am I nourishing in this moment? Fear or love? When I feed judgments, self-loathing, and anger I feed fear. When I feed acceptance, gratitude and forgiveness I feed love.”
Each of us, every moment are choosing to create our reality now…for the future. Humanity has arrived at a crossroads. The crossroads has two signs: Fear or Love. Reuben Blades a Native American activist said: “If we don’t change directions, we just might end up where we are headed.”
A New Earth paradigm founded in love, abundance and harmonic diversity is created when each one of us consciously chooses to change directions, moment to moment. Each one of us must plant our feet firmly on Mama Gaia, breathe our breath as Heaven’s Spirit and say: “No!” I choose to stop the cycle of fear within myself here and now.” Each time we make this personal choice we invest in our social transformation.
The path of living with an open heart demands a fierce integrity and discipline to continually turn inward to view that nothing occurs outside of you without first choosing it consciously or unconsciously from the inside. It requires you to become radically honest with yourself. It is a way of walking your earth walk in Self Love- discerning what is real and true for you moment to moment. A conscious, open heart is as the ocean, accommodating everything. The heart is a Great Transformer. If you invite fear into your heart where it can be held, seen and heard with Love, it alchemically transmutes into courage.
Your heart beats with the rhythm of the earth, Gaia. Your heart is connected with Her heart. Gaia’s heart is held within Her fiery core. In the core of our Being, seated in the roots of our belly is the Source of All that Is. It is the Sun of our Being. When our hearts are open this Cosmic Light shines through. Zen adepts identify this Source as ‘The Face before you were born.” When Master Jesus said that to create Heaven on earth we must become as children he was referring to the conscious rebirth of this Original Innocence, our IAM Presence.
IAM THAT IAM AND THAT’S ALL THAT IAM
When Moses asked God: ‘Who are you” God replied: IAM That IAM” The ancient yogis discovered these words compose our very breath. Sooo is the sound of inhalation and Hummm is the sound of exhalation. In Sanskrit these words translate as IAM That. This SoHam mantra answers the question: ‘Who am I?” IAM That. IAM that IAM is our True Identity. It can never, ever be harmed.
Just as the sun, a star, is held within the dark void of the emptiness of space, so it is with the Light of IAM. Out of the fertile womb of black vast Existence an orgasmic cry of Love-Light arose to ignite the formation of planets, stars, animals, plants, rivers, mountains and humans. We have been carefully, meticulously taught that black, dark and empty is associated with evil, death and terror. The dark is also a primal fear associated with our reptilian brain. As children many of us wanted to have a night light on to comfort us into a good night’s sleep.
As a child I was afraid of the dark. At some point my parents ceased looking into the black emptiness under my bed for monsters and closing the closet doors before turning out the light. This was a great teaching. I was left alone, to sit with myself and my fears in this eternal black emptiness. Gradually I began to discover I had a choice on how to use my fear: I could use it to paralyze me or en-courage me to accept and embrace the darkness. I found out that the dark unto itself is not fearful. Rather it was the projections of my fears-ugly monsters, invading aliens, giant reptiles-into this void reflected back onto me that created my powerlessness. The darkness is simply empty space.
Gautama Buddha revealed to us that the Nature of all form is Empty. And within this Emptiness flows the radiant divine life energy that weaves itself through every particle of matter. It is this Emptiness that contains and allows this vital Force to flow. The Mahayana Buddhists name this Emptiness “Sunyata”. I love this word. When I speak it I speak it as in invocation of the Sun of my Being: “Sun-yata!” I experience the yata as an activator- container for the vast space of the Sun. This word reflects my own life experience: The Sun of our Being, our IAM Presence, is held within the dark void.
I made a conscious choice to dive into the dark abyss within upon regaining consciousness from winning a battle with a man who broke into my apartment, woke me up from a deep sleep and wanted to rape me. He did not have a weapon, he blocked the only exit, I chose to fight, and I was not raped, yet severely beaten. It was during my days working as an international touring actor. A few months prior to this amazing date with destiny I had taken up contemplation of the Zen koan: “Nothing Evil! Nothing Good! My Original Face now!”
After calling the police I went into the bathroom to look at my face. My head felt the size of a small planet. I was an actor. My face was my identity. I wanted to see what it looked like.
The mirror reflected my chestnut brown hair coiffed with blood. A gash slit the right side of my face, making me look like Batman’s Joker. My face was swollen black and blue beyond recognition. My eyes were two black dots in the middle of my head. The dots felt vast. Looking into them I received an invitation to enter into the dark unknown.
I looked into the black holes with the curiosity of Alice looking into the rabbit hole.
As I peered into my eyes I fell into my body and into my feelings. Simultaneously my energy began to descend from the crown of my head into my body.
As I fell feelings became me. Terror shook my body. I deepened my gaze into the black void. Shame rose up to shackle me. “Hm,” I said out loud to my cat Martha, sitting on the toilet. Grief swept over me, temporarily knocking me off balance. I redirected my vision into the dark unknown before me. Rage roared loudly, as I steadfastly remained focused on the empty void within me. Freely I fell until I felt the energy in my body alight in my belly, just above my pubic bone.
I saw a radiant, golden- white light. It was as loud as the sun.
“Martha! This is it! This is my True Face. This is IAM that IAM!”
All pain washed away as I entered into the Peace that Passeth all understanding. I became empty, and full of Joy. My body became electrified with Love. I was not a beat up fractured human being. I felt complete; whole unto myself.
“I vow to remain connected to You, this Light of mine, no matter what. It is You that will lead me to live as my wholeness. It is You that will guide me on how to use all of these experiences and feelings of rage, shame, grief and terror to embody IAM that IAM. It is done.”
A vow is said with the Cosmic God and the IAM as witness.
With that vow I made a conscious choice to create my life around this core of Love inside of me. The vow said: ‘I want to become identified with my True Face.” This vow initiated me upon my True Human journey: To fearlessly live with an open heart. A magical, athletically reclaimed remembrance, re-membering and rebirthing of my Original Innocence.
AUTONOMY: A Light unto Your Self
The adventure to rebirth as IAM THAT IAM is a way of life leading you to live into conscious autonomy. Autonomy is the embodied Awareness that you are whole unto yourself needing no ‘other’ to complete you. When we experience true autonomy we feel firmly grounded with Mama Gaia, breathing our breath as Heaven’s Spirit radiating as a Light unto our self. True, enlightened autonomy, is a potent pilgrimage that leads you from believing and perceiving that you are alone towards consciously living as All One. This pilgrimage requires you to embrace those fears and wounds that separate you from fully feeling your feelings, trusting your divine intuitive guidance, and allowing the Cosmic Christ within to move your heart into action. It is a trek that allows you to know that you are divinely programmed with the authority to author you life from the truth of your inner authority. This inner authority is rooted in Love. It is cradled in the invincibility of vulnerability.
The right question compels us on a quest.
How do I want to live in the world?
Do I want to live in fear or Love?
My answer: As Love
Love is the evolutionary revolutionary.
IAM the autonomous rebel of the heart.
Tara Khandro
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