Hello, today we're here with HeatherAsh Amara and we're talking about spirituality.
HeatherAsh, I know spirituality is a word you hear a lot but maybe it's not a word that's
clear to many people.
Could you tell us more about what spirituality means to you?
Great question.
There's a big difference between religion and spirituality.
Religion is people choosing to come together with a particular creed and particular guidelines
around how to do that.
Spirituality goes through religion but is much larger than religion.
It's about our own individual sense of how we connect with something larger than ourselves.
And everybody has a different word for it.
The word might be God, it might be Goddess, it might be life, it might be Creator.
But it's that place where we recognized that we're not alone and that there's a greater
force that moves through us that informs us, and that can guide us.
Have you yourself experienced a spiritual awakening?
I can talk about an experience I had that was a very awakening experience when I was
seven years old.
And that was really what got me on to a spiritual path.
I was in India with my family, my family moved around when I was a kid.
We were walking down the street, I remember holding my dad's hand and looking at my sandals
and I was worried they're going to get dirty.
And I looked up and there was this young girl about my age, 7, dressed in rags coming towards
me.
Obviously very poor, very dirty and we looked at each other from the distance and all of
a sudden everything dropped away.
And I just felt her heart and I could feel her feeling my heart.
And I realized we were the same.
There was no separation at all.
And as we walked towards each other, there was just this pure love and then we passed
and my world was completely different.
Even though I never saw her again, I was changed because in that moment I recognized that these
bodies that we're in that looked different, that looked separate really aren't.
That at our core we�re all connected and connected in a really deep way.
And that outer source is love.
Is a spiritual practice something that can benefit people on a physical level?
Is there a connection between spirituality and health?
Absolutely.
Spirituality is not disconnected from the mundane.
So sometimes we get into this mind set like I have to do everything spiritually, and the
mundane is less.
But the truth is the mundane and the spiritual world are really connected and when we do
spiritual practice, the spiritual practice is something like meditation or a Toltec practice
we do called Recapitulation which is gathering the energy from the past.
It's any technique that we're using to help us come back into connection rather than separation.
And so, each of these practices helps us to become calmer, more peaceful, more loving
and that is practical because that changes everything in our lives.
So they're deeply connected.
Are there any spiritual books that you could recommend to somebody who's interested in
learning more about this topic but might not have a foundation in it?
So many good books.
What's your number one book?
Gosh.
I would have to say for someone that's just starting, The Four Agreements.
My dear, dear friend and mentor and beloved Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements is one
that has been read by millions of people around the world and it's super, super simple.
That's a good place to start.
And then my first book The Toltec Path of Transformation really expands on The Four
Agreements because it was me going "How do I make change?"
I know these agreements and they're helping me but I kept noticing myself falling back
into old pattern.
Even though I have a deep spiritual practice.
And so Toltec Path of Transformation was my then exploration around how do we make change
stick.
So you don't just get spirituality and then you're done.
Practice.
You must practice.
Spiritual practice is important.
Very important.
Thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today.
Thank you.
If you'd like to learn more about spirituality, please go to heatherashamara.com or watch
any of the videos on this YouTube channel that talk about spirituality and its practice.
