Learning by Heart

by Martin Cooney

My (grey haired) generation is sometimes admired for our seemingly miraculous ability to do ‘complex sums in our heads’. The trouble is we were taught to learn not only our times tables by rote, but also the catechism. Dogma leads to rejection because it’s little help with the real personal choices of our lives.

On finding my Guru, I found that spiritual learning is ‘by heart’ – not rote.
We are encouraged to practice Pure Meditation each morning and evening and attend a regular refresher. Soon those loving techniques and tools became part of my daily consciousness. Then with attending courses at the Centre, practical phrases like ‘flipping the coin’, ‘doing the A to Z’ and ‘fear into faith into freedom’ were also unconsciously ‘memorised’.

The first longer group of words that I learnt by heart was also not deliberate. It was after an operation and during a very painful recovery when I could not practice my Pure Meditation. I kept saying the healing statement of Mataji’s each time I felt the pain. (Truth Eternal, The Benefits of Pain, p.46).

I learned by heart the words of the loving tools taught in Intuitive Counselling and Holistic Healing courses, knowing they had to used flexibly to fit the circumstances of the patient. Later I became a light worker and attended a number of expos where I was answering questions about the Centre. Wanting more of the Truth, I noticed that the section on ‘Beliefs and Aims of the Centre’ appears in all of Mataji’s publications. During the quiet of one retreat, I learned by heart the thirteen aims and beliefs.

I have found it helpful to learn and know Mataji’s words ‘by heart’, but not by rote. It is the heart, the love surrounding them, that counts. They are spiritual food made with love for us for our journey. We are fortunate to be able to carry such spiritual food handy ‘in our heads’, our higher selves, at all times.