Access the Course: The Yoga of Heartfulness 4-Week Course • Ram Dass
Ram Dass reminds us this week that all we need to do when we want our heart open is to ask?
How do you ask? When do you ask? What keeps you from asking? Do you feel the asking is answered? In ways you expect?
Again, this is not to therapize ourselves, but rather to normalize our experiences of being human.
The last three weeks has been a great watershed of growth and realization for me as we have progressed through this course. I realized that for me the most profound or deepest ‘asking’ is not so much a specific action or thought, but rather an experience or expression of heart. It is generated by that longing for the infinite, accompanied by my actions to learn and remember, and answered by recognition of the divine being that I am. I am overwhelmed by the enormous response to my asking, it is more than I could ever imagine.
I also realized that even the smallest desire to know/remember is the seed from which this all springs. My asking seems to emanate from that desire and grows exponentially. It is as if I have set a rescue beacon and the infinite has come to me.
Usually I ask for an open heart during times of extreme suffering, and when I know I’m going into a difficult situation. I’ve really learned, during this course, that the universe/God is always open to my asking…that is a huge comfort.
I’ve been asking multiple times a day now…lol, and I’m grateful for the knowledge and practice. 
What I have noticed is the small (regular, daily) moments and connections have really expended with an open heart and the energy feeds positively upon itself.
I ask when I’m in pain or sick. Love how Ram Dass expressed how the heart is an accordion. Reminds me I did play the accordion as a child…remembering the good and heart-feelings of life…and Mother Nature my church.
Usually, my asking comes mainly when I’m in moments of turmoil, like most of us I imagine, but I often try ask when I’m in times of joy too.
I ask to hold on to this feeling, to let this resonate for a long while and allow it to get me through the moments of turmoil in the future.
What keeps me from asking would definitely be my mind, when I’m just all tripping out in my emotions and ego. Totally buying into the illusion of it all. And just forgetting my heart and the power it holds because my head just won’t be quiet.
As for the answering, I think it does get answered but not in ways I expect. And not on the time table I want it to either of course! But it comes back around later when I don’t realize, then I get the moment of clarity and realize ‘ooooohhhh , I see what that was months ago and this is what it meant for me then, and how it helps me now,’ etc…
This has been a process. Ideally, I am avoiding the introduction of mind forms without physical/chemical correlates/reinforcement. Moving beyond illusions and placebos.
But I do find the breathe, walking, mindfulness, and ‘seizing’ moments of opening of the heart to be an effective inroad towards further investigation, awareness, and happiness.
Asking myself for a pause, enough space to not rush in and try to analyze or fix ‘anything’. It is answered moment by moment, internally and externally. Compassion towards self opens up compassion for others. Compassion for others opens up a compassion for self.
Sometimes I ask to see from another perspective, or I ask to be guided re: what to do, particularly when I just don’t know. When I can’t seem to hear my intuition or my heart. When I need to get out of my own way. When I require some clarity.
What keeps me from asking? Fear and anxiety can create resistance in me. Same with clinging to anger or a certain understanding of a situation. What might happen if I open myself to new perspectives? GASP! I might CHANGE. 
And when I overcome my resistance and find the courage to ask, often I access or ‘hear’ something I can try… and so ‘being answered’ is like a door unlocking or a perspective revealed… not necessarily the END or OUTCOME in a given situation. And not always what I expect. There can be such heartblastingly beautiful, illuminating learning in that help, however it reveals itself.
I start almost every day with asking… In this way I try to let the divine create my reality with me. I open myself (via the heart) for my guides and ask them questions.
I end every day with the following sentence…
The magic I witnessed today is …
which makes that you really cannot miss the magic of life and the way it’s a co-creation. Answering this simple question opens my heart at any time, because it brings me awe, humbleness and lots of smiles. At times I suffer I read my answers to open the heart, to trust…
I love this practice! I typically do gratitudes at the end of the day but I like this better and will try it. Thank you for sharing!
I have a morning prayer session I do before chanting or meditating. I ask Jesus for help if I feel I need it. I forget to ask, a lot of the time.
Tell me later your magic.
So much magic going on all the time.
Happy you adopt the practice.
