Notes

Standing in the Spiritual Heart
An Interview with Laurie Conrad by Diana Souza. Ithaca, New York.

Q Laurie, the first question Let me ask - I would like to know what you mean by the phrases "standing in my heart" and "I looked within and found him in the spiritual heart". You wrote: "I was standing in my Heart. My Heart was throughout me in the room, surrounding me. I could do bit more than look around the area at all that has been manifesting from my Heart, intrigued and wondering."

A The passage you merely read was about my experience with the sage Paul Brunton, almost thirty years back. When I say "I looked within and found him in the spiritual heart"... There is the physical heart that beats and provides us life, and gleam spiritual Heart where clairvoyants often head to find their images. You can say that it is where the soul, the average person soul has its mysterious link with the Divine, to God.

Therefore the divine images, the images which are directed at the soul by the Divine, are first received by the soul in what I'd call the spiritual Heart. I am not the only real person to utilize that term -- I didn't develop that vocabulary. The spiritual Heart is a mystical term.

Once the clairvoyant or mystic is clairvoyantly seeing into other realms or experiencing the future, or seeing or likely to other places on the planet during waking state consciousness or in dream state, they are often looking in the spiritual Heart to get these images. I believe that many, or even a lot of people have these experiences while in dream state, they are just not alert to it. But clairvoyants can go there during ordinary waking state consciousness to find these images of other realms or other areas on earth or the future.

Q The average reader will probably wonder how your heart could possibly be in the room throughout you?

A Well, I think I wonder about that myself. It is section of that grand mystery of Life. I have had an identical experience with music, where I'll suddenly maintain my heart, standing for the reason that mystical Heart, and the notes to my pieces will be all around me. THEREFORE I suppose that I visit a similar place when I'm interpreting Chopin or writing my music. I don't know that we can really explain these things. When you meditate, in the event that you meditate, I think it really is easier to understand why. In fact, it might be very difficult to describe or describe it for people who do not meditate.

The spiritual Heart is normally believed to be situated in the seat of the soul. In my experience, it is roughly where the physical heart is, and more in the center of my own body. The soul itself is indeed beyond the limits and boundaries of our physical body, we cannot even begin to imagine the grandeur of the soul. So my own self, alongside my individual little mind - was sitting in that room with the fantastic sage Paul Brunton. He was close to the end of his life on the planet and he was fully enlightened. A Christian would probably say that he had reached sainthood. In the Indian traditions, they would say that he was fully enlightened. In his presence, I did so have this big mystical experience, where I experienced the contents of my heart throughout me in the area - as though I were in a very deep, advanced meditation or contemplation.

I had only been meditating, I believe, for some months when I met him. So that it was an extremely memorable and fortunate experience.

This human body that we are in, compared to the soul - and the physical brain in comparison to Consciousness Itself - are minuscule in comparison. So, I might have already been allowed to experience my Heart around me, filling the whole room to instruct me this. I might have been given the experience so that I possibly could see and recognize that we are all so much larger than we believe ourselves to be, that the Soul is immense. You can find other meanings to this occurrence as well, meanings that we would not have time for in this interview. It was a mystical experience. It isn't something we humans can easily find words for.

Q Additionally you said that you first met the Dalai Lama in your dreams, before you even knew who he was. Later you met him in person. Reveal your impressions of the Dalai Lama. Anecdotes...

A Our Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Well, he could be an extraordinary person. I've seen him and met with him in a group setting many times. Among the first things that struck me is his incredible love of life - and his tremendous joy. The next thing that I noticed was his extraordinary earnestness and seriousness whenever he speaks about prayer. He and his monks are constantly praying for the planet. He is an extremely humble and holy man. And I love that juxtaposition of these two attributes of his personality, the humor and the holiness. He is said to be the incarnation of Compassion, and everything that he says and does revolves round the higher Compassion.

When he speaks about the higher Compassion, it is usually coupled with Wisdom - the bigger Wisdom which roughly corresponds to the Wisdom of the Catholics and other religions: that we are not your body, that the material world is not Ultimate Reality. This higher Compassion isn't the normal, sentimental emotion most people call compassion; Paul Brunton would call that emotion, or the sentimentality of empathy, the lower octave of true Compassion. The Dalai Lama would say that true Compassion also includes this higher Wisdom. Through the use of Wisdom, we'd have Compassion for each and every sentient being, every being on the planet - just because they're in the body, and therefore, suffer. That is the true Compassion. This Compassion would likewise incorporate the view that you stop people if they're behaving badly, because in their bad behavior they're hurting themselves among others. So, in this definition of Compassion, Wisdom stands in the backdrop in a loving, detached way. The Witness position, let's say, of Paul Brunton, whenever we are able to clearly see what is truly best for everybody in the situation. That is true Compassion.

Overall, we humans come to the planet mainly from our personal thoughts and lower emotions. The big Teachers, such as the Dalai Lama and the sages, the saints - they are all trying to get us to come from a higher position, the higher octave of all the personal emotions. Brunton speaks relating to this at length in his Notebooks, and the Dalai Lama also has written many volumes of books.

As for anecdotes, I wouldn't even understand where to start. Mainly I recall his laughter, his joy. Next the sacredness that he brings with him. The clarity of his mind. The first time I was in the same room with him, I clairaudiently heard an extremely low tone all around the room, vibrating the complete room - perhaps it had been the power of his very being, or his mantra, his inner prayers. I had not heard that phenomenon before that day, nor since, not even while in his presence.

Q I remember a story you told concerning the Dalai Lama coming and clearing an area where he was going to speak, with a storm?

A Yes, that was in Boston, when he spoke at Harvard. A pal and I were staying at Mataji's ashram for a couple days. I believe Mataji took over for Ramakrishna. She had an ashram near Boston, and we'd made a decision to stay there instead of at a hotel in Boston. We had arrived at hear the Dalai Lama when he spoke at Harvard.

I don't know what year this is, but it was a long time ago. It was one of many Dalai Lama's first visits to the country. Mataji sent three folks ahead, to arrange a meeting between her and the Dalai Lama just before the lecture. She had never met him. So she sent us ahead to talk to his entourage, and arrange it. I usually thought this unusual assignment was a ruse of some sort - Mataji was fully enlightened, she didn't have to send three young human seekers to set up this meeting with the Dalai Lama. She and the Dalai Lama were perfectly able to arrange it themselves, through non-verbal communication, mentally. As it proved, the young woman driving us there had met Paul Brunton in dreams throughout her childhood - as I had visited with the Dalai Lama first in dreams being an adult. In those dreams, Brunton instructed her. She discovered who he was years later, when she saw his photograph in a book. That was probably why Mataji sent us ahead together, in order that my friend and I'd meet this young woman and hear her story. Also that I would experience the storm, to one day tell the story in this interview. Mataji, like Paul Brunton, was perfectly able to see in to the future.

In any case, the three of us all got into just a little car, a vintage, very beaten down car that we hoped would get us there. And we did get there early enough to arrange a meeting between the extraordinary Mataji and the saintly Dalai Lama.

Directly after we had finished speaking with his people, they readily decided to the meeting, and we were happy and happy that our mission have been accomplished so easily. I decided to go outside by myself to hold back for Mataji to arrive. It was a lovely, calm, early fall day. Sunlight was shining and there I was, on the beautiful Harvard campus; I had never been there. Students were sitting beneath the trees studying, or strolling to or from their classes along the paths. I walked out from the lecture building door just a little way and happily stood there, consuming the beauty of the scene. Suddenly, an enormous storm came up; an intense and surprising, shocking wind. Students' papers were flying everywhere, branches waving everywhere, the trees were almost bending. I tried to take shelter against a huge tree close to the door, wind and leaves flying, students now scurrying across the paths, bent over against the storm, trying to retrieve their scattered papers. It had been quite something. It felt like I had inadvertently stepped right into a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine.

It probably lasted for approximately several minutes. Then your storm stopped just as quickly as it had arisen. I said to myself: "Good Heavens, what was that?"

Then I laughed. I realized that it was most likely the Dalai Lama purifying the grounds of Harvard before he arrived. And that's still my view. He's a very powerful being, the Dalai Lama. He's got tremendous power. Yet, with regard to his teachings, probably his biggest message to the planet is kindness, to be kind to others. And when you have followed the messages from Our Lady, the Madonna, to the world - She has been appearing in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia for almost two decades to six visionaries - She also says to lead a kind, simple life. She says that people should make an effort to pattern our lives after St. Therese of Lisieux. And St. Therese of Lisieux never even left her convent! She had the simplest of lives. She had, at most, just a little table in her convent cell and a bed. Maybe a chair. At one point she had a vase in her room, but she thought she may be getting too mounted on it, so she asked them to eliminate it. She basically did her daily work and chores at the convent and was kind to the other nuns. Yet she became one of the biggest Catholic saints. In Medjugorje, Our Lady said basically: pick your way and lead a sort, simple life.

The Dalai Lama is currently a celebrity, he is an extremely famous man. He has written books and lectured in lots of countries. He is world known. And he could be still one of the most humble and simple of men. They state that he has one pair of shoes and two sets of his maroon robes. He remains completely untouched and unspoiled by the world. He considers himself a monk, yet he is both temporal and spiritual leader of his country. But he lives just like a simple monk. So, for the reason that sense alone, I think he is an unbelievable and saintly man, and a job model for humanity.

Our interview couldn't be long enough to essentially discuss the Dalai Lama. When I first saw him in person, I inwardly told Our Lady that I felt as if I had met Her Son. I felt as though I had seen Christ on the planet, that I had paid attention to Him speak.

Q Modern psychiatric science probably wouldn't be too friendly in their evaluation of mystical states and the saints and persons who experience them. Many modern psychiatrists may call what you refer to as "inner vision" and "movies in my own head" as delusional. How can these mystical, inner visions and movies be differentiated from a vivid imagination?

A That is a very astute question. And I think, in my case, probably the biggest "proof" an experience isn't just imagination or delusion is easily inwardly saw a location, and then I later saw that exact place in a book or magazine or in waking state consciousness. Or easily had a vision of the future, it then happened in the same way I had seen it unfold a few days or weeks later, which luckily it always did. EASILY clairvoyantly saw a lost animal in a specific spot, the animal was found there. When I clairaudiently heard Our Lady's voice speaking to me, my little dog Guinivere heard in addition, it - she was still sitting on the street corner, looking for the individual behind the voice despite the fact that I had already walked on half of a block. Most of my experiences have been validated the following on the planet earth plane. So if I had an inner vision of somebody doing something or saying something or realizing that they were in big trouble - I would find out later that yes, that had, actually, happened exactly as I saw it. So I actually was very lucky by doing so. Personally, I had plenty of validation. Otherwise, I probably would have wondered myself if my experiences were just imagination or hallucination.

This is a fascinating and important topic. When you are having high mystical experiences, you're being thrown into another, higher consciousness. You're already probably more sensitive than most people. And if people let you know that you are crazy plus they keep telling you that you are crazy, you may just begin to believe you are. But additionally, there are individuals who are delusional. One easy solution to determine the truth of these clairvoyance would be to see if the predictions come true. The saints were never wrong.

In the Catholic Church, visions and clairvoyance will not make you a saint. And the Church is extremely careful about testing and evaluating such abilities. First, they look at the general behavior, virtue and rationality of the individual. Many visions cannot be verified. Some of the saints have observed their guardian angel. How do that be verified? Is this person rational all of those other time? Do they appear to have a hysterical nature? Do they see or predict items that could be proven wrong later? The Catholic Church observes that person carefully and analyzes their life time on earth, which I think is very wise.

St. Teresa of Avila, in her books, her Autobiography and in THE INSIDE Castle, speaks of the things. She says that ordinarily she is no imaginative person. Therefore, it seems unlikely that her visions would be produced by her own mind, by her imagination. But she also says that whenever we've visions of any sort, we have to categorically discount them, merely to be on the safe side, just in case it is the imagination or Old Nick producing them. She also says that if this is a true experience, you'll just know it. Part of that knowing is something intangible that may not be verbalized.

Part of it's the staying power of the mystical experience. It will stick with you for the others of your life, word for word, image by image. That has always amazed me. But anyone who has had mystical experiences agree that this is true.

Just as at the birth of Christ, once the angel appeared to the shepherds, almost all of the children that Our Lady, the Madonna, has appeared to throughout history are shepherds. As in Medjugorje, in these current visions of Our Lady on earth. (She says they'll be Her last appearances on the planet.) The children in Medjugorje were on their way to care for the sheep when Our Lady first seemed to them. In Fatima, the kids were tending the sheep once the angel first appeared to them. And of course, Christ is called the Shepherd, and we are His flock. Throughout history, She has mainly appeared to children shepherds and shepherdesses. In one instance, the kids were very uneducated, they might probably neither read nor write. They spoke a local, rural patois, and Our Lady gave them an extremely long, complicated message beautifully stated and using words they did not even know. The children repeated it verbatim afterward, without changing a syllable, even years later. This again shows the energy of true mystical experiences, they are indelibly imprinted on our consciousness. This is quite different from our ordinary experience.

Q How can we see the inner purpose of nov a sparrow? You had an accident that nearly ended your daily life. It has partially disabled you. Also it even erased for a while your clairvoyant abilities. Yet you say you do not believe in accidents. In view of the destruction and disability it brought into your daily life, if that accident was Divinely orchestrated, then what possible purpose could it have served to improve your life and consciousness?

A That is another deep question, and not that easy to answer.

Q The fall of a sparrow?

A Yes. That was from a quote from Christ Himself. He told His disciples that every hair on our head is numbered and that there is Providence in nov a sparrow. Now the scientists agree, they call it DNA, the little chart of our life in those strands.

Definitely, I think my car crash was Divinely orchestrated. If there was negative intent, which is also possible, certainly God allowed it. And in my belief framework, if He allowed it, it will be allowed for the purification of my soul - and/or for the souls of others, or for the sake of the world. Our life on earth, in my mind, is just a continual deepening.

A continual deepening to be and understanding. Certainly, I would also hope that it is a deepening of holiness; and there are specific experiences that we receive to help deepen wisdom and strength.

It has been more than fifteen years because the accident, and I certainly have had enough time to think about why it might have been allowed to happen. Personally, I might prefer that I either didn't have to learn those lessons or that I could learn them a different way. But I am certainly not going to question the greater vision that God and the soul possess. Luckily, the small person, the person in your body, Laurie Conrad in this situation, was not in control the day of the accident. Or any day. God and the soul come in charge. We can start to see the poverty of our own judgment even in your own lifetime on the planet: things that we wanted so very badly whenever we were young now seem so undesirable, and even harmful. Has that ever happened to you? Well, I look back and just inwardly say: "Thank God you did not get what you wanted". Because either it was not good for me personally or something much better came along. So, even within enough time frame of our earthly existence, we are able to begin to have that summary of events and the worthiness of events, even while they happen. How could we possibly second guess the wisdom of the soul and of God? You cannot. If I look within with total honesty - that is always the easiest way to think about events - as hard as it has been for myself and those around me, some of the biggest lessons of my spiritual life probably came because of this accident.

Well, I possibly could say, I think, that when I was flat on my back all those months and years, it had been the first time that I felt union with the Higher Love, the Love from the universe. That the universe, the full total of the Hearts of all creatures that populate the universe, does indeed hold this extraordinary Love for every and all of us. And yes, needless to say, it is the higher Love, the Divine Love from God expressing Itself through all the souls of most creatures - but it is also from all those combined souls and the universe itself. I was shown this in a vision of sorts, and I could still see it hung in my mind's eye, just like a little movie. A cosmic Love. It's the Divine Love from God, but then gleam cosmic or universal love that I felt pouring into me and around me. It was as if every creature on the planet wished me well, was sending me love and healing. And that, I believe, in my vocabulary, would be a high mystical experience. To feel that universal Love from all creatures. In fact it is there for all of us, every moment of each day. We are not conscious of it, alert to it. And I was conscious of it because I was knocked flat on my back for so long with a certain type of injury. I have the feeling that anyone who's that seriously injured, or that seriously ill, is considering that opportunity.

I remember reading, long ago, reports and stories that said people who have polio, in iron lungs, sometimes experienced an unbelievable peace. I think it may be much like what I experienced. Regardless of the terrible difficulties and the horror of it, I also felt the deepest peace I had ever felt in my life. Granted, I knew how to meditate, I had been meditating for several years.

And I mainly meditated while I was lying there half conscious and feeling half alive. But, I think that even if I did not understand how to meditate, I would have been thrown into that beautiful inner place anyway. And it was an extraordinary peace and love coming in, even concurrently that the vehicle, the body was dysfunctional and miswired. I had fairly severe head injuries. I possibly could not understand what individuals were saying if you ask me or really speak for nearly a year. I had amnesia. You may already know, I still can get into a semi-coma state if I overload myself with work or ideas, when i did this past week.

At that time, after the accident, the body, the vehicle was totally dysfunctional - but this other place was so vast and so deep, so filled up with Love. And I don't know if I could have ever experienced it without that accident.

I think another invaluable lesson or virtue I learned after my accident was the difference between humiliation and humility. In the monastery they ask for poverty, chastity and obedience, that is another way of saying humility. When I was first injured, it had been very humiliating. Not for long, as the emotion was too problematic for me to bear. I have been a smart, capable, respected and independent person with a big career - and all that changed in an instant. Suddenly, I couldn't do anything, not for myself or others. I couldn't dress or feed myself. I couldn't sit up. Doctors talked about me as if I had not been there. I could not necessarily speak or understand what people were saying. I possibly could not form words interiorly, this means I could not pray. I had forgotten most of my own personal history and when I tried to walk I fell over. Six years later, I was still crossing the road following grade school children with little bright-colored back packs slung on the backs because I couldn't tell where in fact the cars were. I couldn't play concerts for seven years.

Therefore i had to very quickly figure out how to inwardly stand in another place, a location which I would call humility, being humble. And what I mean by that's being humble before God - because humiliation only comes when we compare ourselves to other humans. Comparing ourselves to others can be neurotic, and it could be dangerous. Humiliation is a lot more than counter-productive, it really is ruinous.

But when you're truly humble, you're simply just kneeling before God. And when I just humbly knelt before God inwardly and said to myself: "Well, I am terribly injured and God wants this from me", the energy of the Divine came through me, the Power of the universe came through me - and suddenly I felt stronger and more peaceful than I had ever felt.

With regards to healing others, following the accident, I now did not even need to receive healing requests consciously, in order for visitors to be entirely healed. Before the accident, I often had to work quite diligently and pray much to obtain miraculous healings for others. I think this new, more automatic healing for others began because this higher, divine Love, healing energy - anything you desire to call it -

Q Presence.

A The Divine Presence was now coming through me. I was just naturally radiating it, because I was so filled up with it.

So there have been tangible rewards. I was now feeling an incredibly deep peace and Love and strength - among others were being spontaneously and miraculously healed without my even working at it consciously. This is still true.

But this difference between humiliation and humility is, I believe, very important for everybody. And we must learn it, I believe, if we truly want to stand before God. Or we're able to say, so as to stand in your higher self, stand with the soul, in a constant way. Not just the mystical glimpse occasionally that you might be given in meditation.

Laurie Conrad may be the Writer of two books: "Realms of Light: Clairvoyant Experiences of Life After Death" and "The Spiritual Life of Animals and Plants", both collections of true stories. "Visits With Angels", another volume of true stories, is scheduled for publication this year 2010. She is currently working on a new book, "We Meet in Dreams/ THE REAL Nature of Dreams", also scheduled for publication this year 2010. Website:
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