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 everything 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 all around me in the area, surrounding me. I could do bit more than look around the room at all that has been manifesting from my Heart, intrigued and wondering."

A The passage you just 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 go 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.

So the divine images, the images that are given to the soul by the Divine, are first received by the soul in what I'd call the spiritual Heart. I'm not the only person to use that term -- I didn't come up with 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 going to other places on earth while in waking state consciousness or in dream state, they are generally looking in the spiritual Heart to get these images. I really believe that many, if not a lot of people have these experiences during dream state, they're just not aware of it. But clairvoyants can go there during ordinary waking state consciousness to get these images of other realms or other areas on earth or the near future.

Q The average reader is going to wonder how your heart could be in the room all around 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 will suddenly maintain my heart, standing in that mystical Heart, and the notes to my pieces will be all around me. So I suppose that I visit a similar place when I am interpreting Chopin or writing my music. I don't know that we can really explain these things. Once you meditate, if you meditate, I think it really is easier to understand why. In fact, it may be very difficult to describe or describe it for those who do not meditate.

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

I had only been meditating, I think, for a few 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 permitted to experience my Heart around me, filling the complete room to instruct me this. I would have been given the knowledge so that I could see and recognize that we are all so much bigger than we believe ourselves to be, that the Soul is immense. There are other meanings to the occurrence as well, meanings that we wouldn't normally have time for in this interview. It was a mystical experience. It's not something we humans can simply find words for.

Q You also said that you first met the Dalai Lama in your dreams, before you even knew who he was. Later you met him personally. 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 an organization setting many times. Among the first things that struck me is his incredible sense of humor - and his tremendous joy. The following point 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 those two attributes of his personality, the humor and the holiness. He could be reported to be the incarnation of Compassion, and precisely what he says and does revolves around the higher Compassion.

When he speaks about the higher Compassion, it is always coupled with Wisdom - the bigger Wisdom which roughly corresponds to the Wisdom of the Catholics and other religions: that we aren't your body, that the material world isn't Ultimate Reality. This higher Compassion isn't the ordinary, 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 would have Compassion for every sentient being, every being on the planet - just because they are in the body, and therefore, suffer. This is the true Compassion. This Compassion would also include the view that you stop people if they are behaving badly, because within their bad behavior they're hurting themselves and others. So, in this definition of Compassion, Wisdom stands in the background in a loving, detached way. The Witness position, suppose, of Paul Brunton, when we have the ability to clearly see what's truly best for everyone in the situation. That is true Compassion.

On the whole, we humans arrived at the planet mainly from our personal thoughts and lower emotions. The big Teachers, including the Dalai Lama and the sages, the saints - all of them are looking to get us to come from a higher position, the bigger octave of all the personal emotions. Brunton speaks concerning this at length in his Notebooks, and the Dalai Lama also has written many volumes of books.

For anecdotes, I wouldn't even know where to start. Mainly I recall his laughter, his joy. Next the sacredness that he brings with him. The clarity of his mind. The 1st time I was in exactly the same room with him, I clairaudiently heard a very low tone all around the room, vibrating the complete room - perhaps it had been the energy of his very being, or his mantra, his inner prayers. I hadn't heard that phenomenon before that day, nor since, not even during 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 has been in Boston, when he spoke at Harvard. A pal and I were residing at Mataji's ashram for a couple days. I really believe Mataji took over for Ramakrishna. She had an ashram near Boston, and we had decided to stay there instead of at a hotel in Boston. We had arrived at hear the Dalai Lama when he spoke at Harvard.

I have no idea what year this was, but it was many years 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 speak to his entourage, and arrange it. I usually thought this unusual assignment was a ruse of some kind - 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 found out who he was years later, when she saw his photograph in a book. That has been probably why Mataji sent us ahead together, in order that my friend and I would meet this young woman and hear her story. Also that I'd 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 folks all got into a little car, a vintage, very beaten down car that we hoped would get us there. And we did get there early enough to set up a meeting between your extraordinary Mataji and the saintly Dalai Lama.

Directly after we had finished speaking with his people, they readily agreed to the meeting, and we were happy and happy our mission have been accomplished so easily. I decided to go outside by myself to wait for Mataji to arrive. It was a lovely, calm, early fall day. The sun was shining and there I was, on the stunning Harvard campus; I had never been there. Students were sitting under the trees studying, or strolling to or from their classes along the paths. I walked out of your lecture building door a little way and happily stood there, taking in the beauty of the scene. Suddenly, a huge 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 an enormous tree near the door, wind and leaves flying, students now scurrying across the paths, bent over against the storm, attempting to retrieve their scattered papers. It was 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 the storm stopped in the same way quickly since it had arisen. I thought to myself: "Good Heavens, that which was that?"

I QUICKLY laughed. I realized that it had been most likely the Dalai Lama purifying the grounds of Harvard before he arrived. And that's still my view. He's an extremely powerful being, the Dalai Lama. He's got tremendous power. Yet, with regard to his teachings, probably his biggest message to the world is kindness, to be kind to others. And if you have followed the messages from Our Lady, the Madonna, to the planet - She's been appearing in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia for nearly twenty years to six visionaries - She also says to lead a sort, simple life. She says that we 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 attached to it, so she asked them to remove it. She basically did her daily work and chores at the convent and was kind to another nuns. Yet she became one of the biggest Catholic saints. In Medjugorje, Our Lady said basically: pick the journey and lead a sort, simple life.

The Dalai Lama is currently a celebrity, he could be a very famous man. He's got written books and lectured in many countries. He is world known. And he could be still just about the most humble and simple of men. They state he has one footwear 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 the temporal and spiritual leader of his country. But he lives just like a simple monk. So, for the reason that sense alone, I believe he is an incredible and saintly man, and a role model for humanity.

Our interview couldn't be long enough to really discuss the Dalai Lama. When I first saw him in person, I inwardly told Our Lady that I felt as though I had met Her Son. I felt as though I had seen Christ on earth, 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 might even call what you refer to as "inner vision" and "movies in my head" as delusional. How do these mystical, inner visions and movies be differentiated from the vivid imagination?

A That is a very astute question. And I think, in my case, probably the biggest "proof" that an experience is not only imagination or delusion is easily inwardly saw a location, and I later saw that exact place in a book or magazine or in waking state consciousness. Or easily had a vision into the future, it then happened just as I had seen it unfold a couple of 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 standing on the street corner, searching for the individual behind the voice even though I had already walked on half a block. The majority 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 knowing that they were in trouble - I would learn later that yes, that had, in fact, happened just as I saw it. So I actually was very lucky in that way. 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. For anyone who is having high mystical experiences, you are being thrown into another, higher consciousness. You're already probably more sensitive than a lot of people. And if people let you know that you will be crazy plus they keep telling you you are crazy, you might just begin to believe you are. But there are also people who are delusional. One easy way to determine the truth of their clairvoyance would be to see if the predictions become a reality. The saints were never wrong.

In the Catholic Church, visions and clairvoyance won't cause you to a saint. And the Church is incredibly careful about testing and evaluating such abilities. First, they go through the general behavior, virtue and rationality of the person. Many visions cannot be verified. Some of the saints have seen 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 things that could be proven wrong later? The Catholic Church observes see your face carefully and analyzes their entire life 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 actually is no imaginative person. Therefore, it appears unlikely that her visions would be produced by her very own mind, by her imagination. But she also says that whenever we have visions of any sort, we have to categorically discount them, merely to be on the safe side, in the event it's the imagination or Old Nick producing them. She also says that if it is just a true experience, you'll just know it. Part of that knowing is something intangible that cannot really be verbalized.

Part of it's the staying power of the mystical experience. It'll stay 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 concur that this is true.

In the same way at the birth of Christ, once the angel seemed to the shepherds, most of the children our Lady, the Madonna, has appeared to throughout history are shepherds. As in Medjugorje, in these current visions of Our Lady on the planet. (She says they will be Her last appearances on the planet.) The children in Medjugorje were on the way to care for the sheep when Our Lady first appeared to them. In Fatima, the children were tending the sheep when the angel first seemed to them. Not to mention, Christ is named the Shepherd, and we have been His flock. Throughout history, She's mainly seemed to children shepherds and shepherdesses. In one instance, the children were very uneducated, they could 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 didn't even know. The kids repeated it verbatim afterward, without changing a syllable, even years later. This again shows the power of true mystical experiences, they are indelibly imprinted on our consciousness. That is quite not the same as our ordinary experience.

Q How can we see the inner purpose of nov a sparrow? You'd a major accident that nearly ended your daily life. It has partially disabled you. And it even erased for some time your clairvoyant abilities. Yet you say you don't 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 boost your daily life and consciousness?

A That is another deep question, rather than that easy to answer.

Q Nov 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 tiny chart of our life in those strands.

Definitely, I believe my car accident was Divinely orchestrated. If there was negative intent, that 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 with regard to the planet. Our life on the planet, in my mind, is just a continual deepening.

A continual deepening of being and understanding. Certainly, I'd also hope that it is a deepening of holiness; and there are certain experiences that we are given to help deepen wisdom and strength.

It has been more than fifteen years since the accident, and I certainly experienced enough time to take into account why it might have already been allowed to happen. Personally, I might prefer that I either didn't need to learn those lessons or that I was able to learn them another way. But I am certainly not likely to question the higher vision that God and the soul possess. Luckily, the tiny person, the person within the body, Laurie Conrad in this instance, was not in control the day of the accident. Or any day. God and the soul are in charge. We can start to see the poverty of our very own judgment even in your own lifetime on earth: items that we wanted so very badly when 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 had been not good for me personally or something far better arrived. So, even within the time frame of our earthly existence, we can commence to have that overview of events and the worthiness of events, even as they happen. How could we possibly second guess the wisdom of the soul and of God? You cannot. EASILY look within with total honesty - which is always the best way to reflect on events - as hard since it has been for myself and the ones around me, a number of the biggest lessons of my spiritual life probably came because of this accident.

Well, I could say, I think, that whenever I was flat on my back those months and years, it was the 1st time that I felt union with the bigger Love, the Love from the universe. That the universe, the total of the Hearts of all creatures that populate the universe, really does hold this extraordinary Love for each and most of us. And yes, of course, it is the higher Love, the Divine Love from God expressing Itself through all of the souls of all creatures - nonetheless it is also from those combined souls and the universe itself. I was shown this in a vision of sorts, and I can still see it hung in my mind's eye, like a little movie. A cosmic Love. It is the Divine Love from God, but then gleam cosmic or universal love that I felt pouring into me and around me. It was as though every creature on earth wished me well, was sending me love and healing. And that, I believe, in my vocabulary, will be a high mystical experience. To believe that universal Love from all creatures. And it is there for all of us, every moment of each day. We are not conscious of it, aware of it. And I was conscious of it because I was knocked flat on my back for so long with a certain sort 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 with polio, in iron lungs, sometimes experienced an incredible peace. I think it might be much like what I experienced. In spite of the terrible difficulties and the horror of it, I also felt the deepest peace I had ever felt in my own life. Granted, I knew how exactly 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 so not know how to meditate, I would have already been thrown into that beautiful inner place anyway. And it was an extraordinary peace and love coming in, even at the same time that the vehicle, your body was dysfunctional and miswired. I had fairly severe head injuries. I could not understand what individuals were saying if you ask me or really speak for almost per year. I had amnesia. You may already know, I still can go into a semi-coma state if I overload myself with work or ideas, as I did earlier this week.

At that time, following the accident, the body, the automobile 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 would have ever experienced it without that accident.

I believe 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 method of saying humility. When I was first injured, it was very humiliating. Not for long, as the emotion was too problematic for me to bear. I had been an intelligent, capable, respected and independent person with a large career - and all that changed immediately. Suddenly, I couldn't do anything, not for myself or others. I couldn't dress or feed myself. I couldn't sit up. Doctors discussed me as though I was not there. I could not really speak or know very well what people were saying. I possibly could not form words interiorly, which means I could not pray. I had forgotten the majority of my very own personal history and when I tried to walk I fell over. Six years later, I was still crossing the street following grade school children with little bright-colored back packs slung on their backs because I couldn't tell where in fact the cars were. I couldn't play concerts for seven years.

And so I had to very quickly learn how to inwardly stand in another place, a location that 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 human beings. Comparing ourselves to others could be neurotic, and it can be dangerous. Humiliation is more than counter-productive, it really is ruinous.

But when you're truly humble, you're just simply kneeling before God. And when I simply humbly knelt before God inwardly and said to myself: "Well, I am terribly injured and God wants this from me", the Power 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.

Regarding healing others, following the accident, I now didn't even have to receive healing requests consciously, in order for visitors to be entirely healed. Prior to 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 - whatever you want 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 with it.

So there were tangible rewards. I was now feeling a remarkably deep peace and Love and strength - and 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 everyone. And we must learn it, I think, if we truly want to stand before God. Or we could say, to be able to stand in your higher self, stand with the soul, in a continuing way. Not just the mystical glimpse here and there that you might get in meditation.

Laurie Conrad may be the Author 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 actually is currently working on a new book, "We Meet in Dreams/ The True Nature of Dreams", also scheduled for publication this year 2010. Website: