[Music] namaste and welcome back my name is aaron abke and in today's episode of spiritual intelligence we're finally ready to start exploring the first state of mastery and we've already come a long way together in our first five episodes but now we're going to be getting into the real meat and bones of this series and if you remember from episode 2 we said that the definition of mastery is the ability to access the most desirable state of consciousness needed for any given situation at will and that's what we're going to begin learning how to do
today so i would like to invite you to join me in this episode of spiritual intelligence as we learn how to activate and cultivate the first level of mastery the i am state [Music] as we've been saying throughout this series the three states of mastery can be practiced at any level of sq but the first state of mastery starts to become one's default state of being at the illumination sq level which correlates to the throat chakra and i call this level the i am state for reasons that you're about to see but it's also commonly
known as mind heart coherence and most commonly it is known as inner peace inner peace is mind hard coherence and mind heart coherence is the i am state so using what we've learned about brain waves and the nervous system we're going to explore what this state of mastery really is and how it is accessed to put it very simply the i am state is an intimate tuning into self where the focal point of one's awareness is now no longer on sensory perceptions and the changing circumstances outside of oneself but the focal point has now become
that inner knowing or feeling i am or i exist so it is essentially a meditative state which means that one needs to have cultivated lots of alpha wave activity within their brain and this is why it is the first state of mastery because it essentially is the ability to carry the meditative state out of meditation and into regular life because remember life is the sadhana your daily life is the real spiritual practice and so the i am state simply helps you to engage with that sadhana on a much more powerful and intimate level so when
we connect with that inner knowing i am we create a fearless desireless state of being the i am state is fearless because you carry the knowledge of eternity within yourself and if you know that you're eternal then nothing in the world can disturb you anymore and the i am state is desireless because the simple awareness of being carries all of the fullness of life within it so if you truly connect with it then there's nothing in the world that can satisfy you any longer the only desire remaining is to stay even more intimately tuned in
and connected to one's own being so at the first level of mastery one no longer wants anything from life or fears anything from life and when this pushing and pulling on the flow of life ceases within oneself then one is essentially living in a meditative state so this is obviously something that needs to be cultivated gradually over time but the more that we connect with the i am knowledge within us the more we fall in love with it and begin to trust it to lead us and guide us through life and this is because when
we connect with the i am knowledge this automatically puts us into the state of mind heart coherence and this is a state of consciousness where the mind stops trying to run the show all by itself with high beta wave activity and intellectual analysis of everything that's happening and instead it begins to relax and gradually allows the heart to lead the way we could say that the heart represents the feminine principle within the body and the mind represents the masculine principle within the body so this is why i call mind heart coherence the i am state
i mind am heart when the two merge together we create the i am state and because the heart is feminine in essence that means it is non-conceptual and non-linear when the heart speaks it speaks with intuitive knowledge and when the mind is endowed with the power of intuition from the heart life is transformed into a magical experience and the longer we stay in mind heart coherence and our waking reality and learn how to stabilize it the more blissful it increasingly becomes very similar to meditation another way we can think about the i am state is
as loving awareness because the heart loves everything it sees and it knows no separation when we are in the i am state everything is intuitively felt as one with you the i am state turns ordinary awareness into loving awareness and according to indian masters over the ages in all the sacred scriptures awareness is not truly pure until it is loving it is the love that makes awareness pure because as long as awareness has any biases or stipulations about anything it's seeing it has not been truly purified yet so the i am state is when the
mind has been purified by the love of the heart and we'll get to that a little bit more later in this episode but this essentially only happens when the mind learns over time through practicing how to be subservient to the heart now if you've been watching this series then you already know how much i love to merge eastern wisdom with western science so let's look a little bit closer now at the science of this mind heart connection now for a long time it was believed by scientists that only the brain had neurons only the brain
could send and receive information but then it was discovered that the gut actually has even more neurons than the brain and likewise scientists have only recently discovered in the early 1990s that the heart also has its own unique neurons just like the guts in the brain and scientists call these sensory neurites of which we have over 40 000 of them in our heart and they carry a kind of intuitive intelligence that is always sending information up to the brain however when the brain is not in coherence with the heart but in a state of stress
or anxiety then the mind ignores these signals from the heart and tries to run the show all by itself and this is what causes all of our suffering the state of our nervous system follows the relationship between the heart and the brain so when we are in mind heart coherence the mind comes to rest within the heart and the mind perceives reality through the loving awareness and intelligence of the heart and this is why mind heart coherence also triggers over 1300 positive biochemical reactions within the body such as anti-aging immune response cardiovascular enhancement nervous system
relaxation and many others so what we're basically saying here is that when we allow our feminine energy to lead our awareness it actually enhances the capabilities of our masculine energy exponentially the two are designed to work in synergy with one another not be in competition so our creativity our intelligence our memory and our cognitive capacity are all upgraded when we allow the heart to lead and this is because our ability to think and to perceive stimulus comes from our brain's cortex but the cortex cannot function unless it is in an aroused state or awake but
the catch is that the cortex cannot wake itself up what wakes it up and keeps it awake is something called the reticular activating system or the ras and this is a very important system of the brain because consciousness cannot happen in the brain if the ras is severely damaged or destroyed and so without the intuitive wisdom of the heart the reticular activating system gets easily triggered to stress and frustration and anxiety and this puts us in the wrong kind of awake state but when the heart and the brain are incoherent the ras creates that state
of detached alertness and mindfulness within the brain and due to the extensive studies done on this through advanced meditators this is all common knowledge now in neuroscience and what these studies have shown is that when we are in mind heart coherence our learning and memory improve by up to 500 percent and this is because when we stress over every single variable that comes our way in life the brain is burning up a ton of prana and as we said in episode 4 the brain already uses over 20 percent of the calories in our body so
through practicing this in meditation and learning how to tap into it we can begin learning how to tap into the i am state in our ordinary waking reality as well and this is what slowly teaches the mind that it doesn't need to rely solely on its own intellect but that it can trust the heart to lead the way and light the path now that we've covered the science let's talk a little more about the metaphysics of the heart the famous indian sage ramana maharshi commonly taught his devotees that the self finds its dwelling place in
the body within the heart center not the physical heart organ but the spiritual or energetic heart which we call the heart chakra the heart organ is the physical manifestation of the spiritual or energetic heart and interestingly enough biology tells us that the physical heart sits just slightly on the left side of the chest and ramana maharshi would teach that the spiritual heart sits just slightly on the right side of the chest and so since the heart center is the seat of the self it has all of the same qualities as the self and i like
to call this the three laws of the heart the first law of the heart is that it is impersonal there is no ego within the heart so it does not have the ability to want anything for itself to hold personal grudges against others or any kind of personal motive whatsoever the heart knows only universal and unconditional love the second law is that the heart is non-conceptual the intelligence of the heart is binary meaning that it only says yes or no and so the easiest way to know when your heart is speaking is when you simply
feel a deep urge to do or to not do something the heart will never explain itself like the mind it will not tell you why the answer is yes or no it will only provide you with the feeling and that's why it takes practice to trust the wisdom of the heart because we're accustomed to trusting the intellect of the mind which always has a million explanations for anything that it wants but when the heart moves it just moves it doesn't explain itself it simply says yes to whatever reflects love and oneness and it says no
to whatever reflects fear and separation the third law is that the heart is unconditional it knows no bargaining or reward the heart is never looking to get anything for itself it does not love others for its own sake or require anyone to sacrifice anything in order to be loved most romantic relationships are built on specialness which is the ego's version of love i love you because you're attractive or successful so being with you makes me feel special but as soon as you stop making me feel special i don't love you anymore and i'm gonna go
find someone new to make me feel special again this is not the kind of love that comes from the heart the heart asks nothing needs nothing and wants nothing from anyone it is like the sun in that it just shines equally on the sinner and the saint so you can see why being able to live from this state permanently does require a certain level of self-mastery and so this is why the im state is the prerequisite to the flow state and the channeling state because each one of the three states of mastery is really just
a higher manifestation of the previous one and the im state serves as the foundation for all self-mastery and even the chakras reflect this fact because before we can move into the powers of the higher mind we have to purify the mind and intellect with the heart and in between the heart and the mind is the throat chakra and this is why the throat chakra represents perfect balance between masculine and feminine or mind and heart this is non-duality in essence and the sanskrit name of the throat chakra also reflects this fact the name of the throat
chakra in sanskrit is vasuda and the word shuda means purification the word v means total or complete so the literal name of the throat chakra in sanskrit is total purification so when the mind has been purified by the heart then we are within the sq range of illumination which is classically known as enlightenment and this is also a gradual unfoldment just like every other level of sq at a 126 level one will begin to notice that very few things are taking one out of mind heart coherence anymore and you're never out of it for very
long and this continues to gradually diminish until at a 150 level of sq one is residing naturally effortlessly and permanently in mine heart coherence it has been solidified and once you have achieved this perfect balance of masculine and feminine mind and heart then you can begin to transcend balance and move into the higher states of psychic awareness at the third eye and the crown and these represent the next two levels of mastery now as you know i never leave you with just the information alone but also with the ways to practically begin implementing it so
before we close let's quickly talk about three ways or practices if you prefer to begin cultivating the i am state the first practice for cultivating the i am state is learning how to place your attention on the heart learning how to rest awareness in the heart and feel the heart is the quickest way to get into coherence so when you're learning this state you can begin by closing your eyes in any moment and placing all of your awareness on the heart you can even place a hand over your heart if tactile feedback helps you to
concentrate and then connect with the feeling of i am that irrefutable inner knowing that i exist to place your mind inside your heart means to feel your existence not to think about it so do not think i am feel i am if you do this then you are in coherence the second practice is to work towards mastering the art of doing what you feel like doing rather than what you think you should do the sage is one who follows every intuition that he feels because what you feel in your heart is the movement of life
and in order to hear it more clearly it must be practiced by honoring what you feel rather than what you think you become viscerally aware of the nature of every urge that arises and over time the urges that are based in the ego or anything that would hinder liberation are burned up in awareness for instance if you're sitting at a table of friends who are gossiping about someone and you feel the urge to get up and leave the table but your mind is afraid of what your friends will think about you learn to trust that
urge and follow it leave the outcome in the hands of life living from the heart allows you to see your mistakes more clearly and it is the nature of a mistake to be corrected once it is recognized and the third practice is to simply love everything when you connect with love you are in coherence so you could begin this practice by thinking of anyone you love or anything that you're deeply grateful for and this will get you into coherence but the real secret of the i am state is to become a lover of reality if
you love everything that life delivers and you see it as perfect then you can be certain that your mind has come to rest in your heart and this is the illumination state of spiritual intelligence duality has vanished and everything is seen as god appearing [Music] so now that we have covered the first state of mastery i want you to practice accessing this state as often as you can incorporate this into your daily spiritual practice and strive to engage with your life from the i am state as much as possible and with time and practice you
will see that this is a state of consciousness that you never want to leave in our next episode we're going to cover the second state of mastery which begins at the third eye level called the flow state and just like we did today we're going to teach you all about this state of mastery and how to practice accessing the flow state for whenever you need it so i want to thank you for watching this episode of spiritual intelligence i'm aaron abke and i'll see you in our next episode [Music] [Music] you
