Passages from January's book "Alchemy of the Heart" offer some wonderful lessons for the soul in the chapters on "Freeing the Heart" and "Keeping Watch in Your Heart.
Just as we wash off the dust and dirt we collect daily, we can have a daily ritual of bathing and purifying our hearts to free them from the clutter that clouds our spiritual vision and makes us short-sighted. Every spiritual tradition has its own purification exercises. Often they are sacred formulas of prayer and meditation that invoke the light of the Holy Spirit to purify the heart. In some traditions, this powerful transforming energy of the Holy Spirit is seen as a violet light, better known as the violet flame.
To "transmute" is to change something into a higher form. This term was used centuries ago by the alchemists who attempted to transmute base metals into gold on a physical level - and, on a spiritual level, achieve transformation, and ultimately eternal life. This is exactly what the violet flame can do. It is a high-frequency spiritual energy that separates the "heavy" elements of our karma from the gold of our true self, and transmutes it so that we can reach our highest potential.
Affirmations and prayers that invoke the violet flame of the Holy Spirit can be used to support any spiritual practice. People who use the violet flame in their prayers and meditations find that it helps to dissolve unhealthy patterns of consciousness, transmute negative karma, dispel inner pain and bring balance to their lives. It brings awareness of and attunement to the inner self, increasing creativity and sensitivity. It helps to keep the doors of our hearts open even after we have gone through a painful experience.
I always advise newcomers to the violet flame to experiment with it. I advise them to give violet flame prayers and affirmations for 15 minutes a day for at least a month, and pay attention to the positive changes that begin to take place in their lives. You can give these affirmations as part of your daily prayer ritual, while you are in the shower, or getting ready for the day, or even when you are driving to work, exercising or running errands.
In our current fast-paced world, we are often bombarded by outside and inside pressures that can disrupt the peaceful and harmonious rhythm of our hearts. Spiritual mastery requires that we guard our hearts against these intruders who want to take us out of the center of love. If we want to achieve mastery in our hearts, we must learn to adjust the rhythm of our existence to the natural rhythm of the heart.
The adept Djwal Kul says, "Just as food can bestow spiritual happiness when prepared by hands charged with spiritual love, so our actions, imbued with love, will enhance the beauty of the world community.
We compromise our ability to be an instrument of healing when we cannot hold on to the light God gave us - when we allow that energy to be depleted by outbursts of anger, irritation, pride, bigotry, selfishness, criticism, and so on. God wants to entrust us with more light and energy, but we must be worthy of that increase in power. In other words, the cosmic bank will not lend us more energy than we can prove we will use wisely.
The eighth-century Buddhist monk and sage Shantideva put it this way: 'Whatever my virtuous deeds, devotion to the Buddha΄s, generosity, and so on, accumulated over thousands of eternities, they are destroyed in one moment of anger. There is no sin so harmful as hatred, no atonement so effective as forbearance ... My mind will not experience peace if it maintains painful thoughts of hatred.'
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