I Heart Meditation

A half-hour meditation on moving from fear to inspiration. 

John Happel gives a meditation that tunes us to the basic steps of Heart Rhythm Meditation and using them as a tool to address some of the obstacles we face in achieving success in life.

A powerful meditation on the four elements, Earth, Water, Fire and Air and the element that underlies all things, Ether. In this 25 minute meditation Susanna Bair gives an excellent example of some of the most basic and useful tools in Heart Rhythm Meditation.

Puran Bair guides a meditation on the fire element and feeling the call of your purpose.

Susanna talks about how an individual can rise with purpose and how purpose relates to the whole.

Meditation with Susanna Bair - The Qualities of Earth Susanna Bair gives a 10 minute meditation the will help you embody and experience the qualities of earth.

Susanna Bair leads a shorter meditation for those who have never meditated on their heart, which culminates in an experience of the heart.

How can we dicern the true murmurings of our heart's guidance as opposed to acting from a place of fear, wounding or of protecting ourselves? A question from the community inspires a meditation on the question.

Susanna Bair leads a meditation on the Divine Feminine using the Four Element Breaths in ascending order. In the Earth Element we experience Healing Energy, Creativity with the Water Element, Courage with Fire, and Clarity through the Air Breath.  Susanna helps us to connect with our unique feminine purpose and power through this 30 minute practice.

Meditation is more IN than ever, and rightfully so.  Relaxation and restoration, in a sense, have become quite "counter-culture."  But Heart Rhythm Meditation is not only restorative and soothing, but also strengthening and empowering.  It's for this reason among the many forms of meditation out there, we begin process of focusing an entire podcast on this practice. It's common knowledge that meditation (generally speaking) is a power tool for self-development, but why is this and why is learning it such an uphill climb for so many people? What's going on there? What does sitting still have to do with developing yourself? Can't one just go running or get into the zone somehow else? Puran and Susanna Bair, masters of Heart Rhythm Meditation, illuminate these questions and help to set the stage for anyone considering making meditation a tool they can rely on to support their life aspirations. In "shopping around" for a meditation practice, they explain, one should not only consider the short term effects, but also the long-term results.  What can one become?  They explain how integrating a powerful breath with the heart can have the most profound of effects on one's sense of self and mission in life.  Go to our podcast page for the episode notes. If you enjoyed this discussion, CLICK HERE for a 10-minute guided practice from Susanna.

In this guided meditation from Susanna Bair, she helps you to establish the first basic tools for Heart Rhythm Meditation: 1) Posture 2) Conscious Breath 3) Rhythmic Breath.  She'll help you to visualize your breath as a stem and become firmly rooted in your body.  She invites you to search for you heartbeat and bring your heart to the front of your attention. "You want to make your breath your closest friend in life," she says. This meditation recording occurred in July of 2016, as the opening meditation 2016's two-week long residency intensive of the iamU - iamHeart's two year long intensive meditation studies program.     

Seeking the truth, especially in a world saturated by a divisive media, can be tricky.  Seeking the truth about what's going, even with a keen intellect, will only carry one so far.  Puran Bair, chancellor of IAM-University and iamHeart co-founder, speaks aptly about seeking the truth in this speech given as a commencement address to the IAM-U class of 2016: "It 's difficult for us to get a sense of what 's really going on because it 's fed to us through something called a media - which means something in between us and what 's going on, right? A medium. So we ‘re actually reacting to the presentation rather than through reality of the events." The solution he offers lies within the techniques of heart-rhythm meditation and specifically in a practice called "Contemplation", where you learn to connect with the hearts of others in a way that the intellect can't reach.  The hidden potential in others and in ourselves does not need a medium. You experience that person or situation direction.  By opening our heart, connecting to the hearts of others, we reconnect to something much more universal.  Something is revealed that wasn't evident before.

Join Susanna Bair in a longer meditation that explores the subtle realms within.  Tuning into the field around the physical body, you might observe the boundaries of the body merge with the vastness of the universe as you become more away of the breath and your heart.  Tune into the unconditional shower of light and love available to you at all times.  This is an intermediate level meditation presented in August of 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona. If this topic interests you, a retreat will be given in November of 2016 in Sedona, Arizona.  CLICK HERE to find out more.

Susanna and Puran Bair discuss from their view and their experiences in teaching meditation what one can reasonably expect from short, medium, and long-term practice of Heart Rhythm Meditation.  The benefits start at the level of revitalizing the bio-rhythms and expand into almost every facet of life when practiced in the long-term. This recording is also available as a video-collage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFzKVMQXlpg music from bensound.com.

Building loving relationships, especially romantic relationships, is a progressive process analogous to the three stages of human development (Mind, Heart, and Spirit). Relationships pull us from our own view of how the world works and enable, maybe even necessitate, a shift in our perspective to accommodate the perspective of our partner. This process usually is painful and the mind resists it, but the process catalyzes growth for both participants in the relationship and eventually leads to intimacy. As Puran Bair discusses in this presentation from March of 2016, relationships are central to becoming fully human.

Puran Bair gives a short meditation inviting you to expand your sense of self by tuning into the inner emotional qualities of the heart. 

In the search for a partner or a relationship, one recognizes the qualities of another by understanding that attraction comes from the shared qualities of two hearts.  The mind sees differences, but the heart sees the radiance of the other because it too radiates.  Puran Bair leads a meditation which guides us between the interplay of the mind and heart in intimate relationship.

IAM Heart co-founder Susanna Bair leads this guided meditation to help you apply meditation to your life. It is possible to improve your life in three primary areas: Health, Relationships, and Accomplishments.  In what area is the most pressing need of your life right now? Wherever your pressing need lies, there too you will find your growing edge.  Susanna shows us how we can connect with the wave-like ebb and flow of our breath to allow inspiration to bubble-up to the surface.

Reaching the third stage on the path of the heart - the stage of Spirit - means a surrender into the majesty of one's being.  The individual reaches the state where one realizes the unity of all things with themselves.  In relationship, this state is the recognition of the eternal beloved expressed in the individual they share life with.  The ideal of who one could be becomes expressed fully and the universe and the individual harmonize in speech, thought, and action.  The individual who reaches Illumination finds within themselves the capacity to decode the message which constantly comes from within (from the heart), and feels emboldened to act on those messages with a certainty of their necessity for the improvement of the whole.  Upon reaching this stage, the life of service begins.  A through "Map to Illumination" can be found in the book Follow Your Heart by Puran and Susanna Bair.

After the first three steps on the path of the heart [Stage 1 - The Mind], a person begins to become restless after a period.  Harmony does not satisfy a deeper longing for greatness and so from the dissatisfaction emerges a new ideal and a new vision of who or what one can become.  This process begins Stage 2 - The Heart and the journey continues until expertise develops.  Things people can accomplish while in this expertise step become most remarkable, and the intentional focus and concentration one has required to perform a certain goal become as second nature; the heart leads the way! In one's career or in one's relationship, expertise can feel like one has reached the zenith and it certainly can be appealing to remain on this step because control, creativity, power, and intelligence are coordinated; one becomes the wielder of their own destiny.  When one dares to peer from the peak of personal accomplishment into the abyss of personal abandonment, one finds there is no bottom.  Some might call this "the Dark Night of the Soul."  In the path of the heart, the step is called "Unlearning."

All are travelers, and the destination is the same for everyone: Illumination.  The goal of human development is to manifest in one's body, mind, and behavior the pure qualities of Love, Harmony, and Beauty; to explore the potentials within one's being; to accomplish the purpose for which one was created.  The map is universal, though it has been charted by the wise in all traditions in all ages. Time is limited in this world. Because of that limitation, some people are reluctant to commit to things, others commit to things easily, but fall away from their commitments easily also. Commitment is the beginning to a heart driven movement toward completion of goals, wholesome relationships, meaningful careers, and even spiritual realization.  Before Harmony is reached in any of these places, one experiences testing.  These three steps comprise the first stage on the path of the heart.

Puran Bair speaks gives a mystical interpretation of the symbols presented in the Christmas Story.

Susanna Bair guides you in a deep meditation of beauty, surrender, and majesty.  This meditation is will touch your heart.

Are you having difficulty sleeping?  This talk may put you one step nearer your recovery of deep and heartful rest.  Puran Bair, co-founder of IAM Heart, discusses the many factors that influence irregular sleep and provides a powerful collection of tools and practices to recalibrate your bio-rhythms, calm your nerves, and ultimately energize your heart.  The subject of sleeping has never been so enlivening! This recording was given at the Osteopathic Medical Foundation on "March 13, 2013"  

"Let's raise our energy to a higher vibration!"  This lecture by iamHeart cofounder Puran Bair will give a whole new meaning to this oft-heard, new-age catch-phrase. Energetic frequencies influence physical reality in a major way! High frequencies scatter and clarify, while low frequencies gather and collect. Darkness and light are created through a confluence of vibrations of different types. Thus, darkness and shadow is another aspect of Light. How does this relate to the meditation? The heart is influenced by and generates both high and low frequencies. For example, heart rate is a low frequency (~60 beats per minute), but the heart also pulses out a spectrum of magnetic energy into the field around one's physical body. Breath, an even slower rate (4 - 12 cycles per minute), influences the rate of the heart; when full and rhythmic encourages optimal Heart Rate Variability.  Through meditation, you gains more control over the processes and signals that would otherwise be unconsciously churning in the background. Furthermore, many heart-sourced electromagnetic frequencies, when directed consciously, have healing capacity. Healing through magnetism (Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields) is a relatively new discovery to the allopathic medical science, yet has long been only understood by esoteric meditative traditions and energy healers. Healing responses in physical tissues can be encouraged by sending magnetic frequencies to specific areas in the body or drawing energy from over-active fields around the body. The most sensitive instrument for detecting AND projecting these frequencies is not an expensive piece of modern electronic machinery, but is astonishingly the human hand! Through heart-centered meditation, in tandem with energy-healing techniques, we can develop awareness of and sensitivity to the varietal frequencies within PEMFs. Listen to Puran discuss how, through the power of the heart and through tuning into PEMFs, one can be an amazing catalyst of healing. This Lecture was recorded November --- 2015 at the IAM Heart retreat, "Light on Healing"  

-A gentle and encouraging Intermediate-Level Meditation. Susanna Bair brings gentleness, compassion, and beauty to the awakening process. This is an ideal practice to do in the morning, as it brings you from the ethereal realm of sleep into embodiment for the day.  This is I Heart Meditation's first introduction to the four fundamental energies: AIR, FIRE, WATER, and EARTH. Instead of discussing them conceptually, we thought be ideal to experience them from within. How is this done? By inhaling and exhaling in different patterns through the nose and mouth.  Susanna will guide you!When breathed in this order (Air, Fire, Water, Earth) sequentially, the practice is called "Creation-Order" breathing.  The practice brings spaciousness, vitality, softening, and groundedness to the practitioner.  Susanna then extends this practice to draw into one's heart the healing energy of "Hurqalya." This meditation was recorded on November 14, 2025 in Sedona, AZ at the IAM Heart retreat "Light On Healing."

Concentration is the first "stage" on the way toward creating a meditative state of consciousness.  First concentration, then contemplation, THEN meditation!  Engaging the mind with the various tasks which are required to breathe rhythmically, powerfully, and with control, we inherently build stamina for concentration.  Susanna explains how without the faculty for concentration, we may not get very far in our aspirations - whatever they may be.

Believe it or not, "enlightenment" is a real thing.  Yogis, sages, and mystics of many traditions have presented different methodologies for attaining this great state of consciousness marked by inner luminosity, stillness, and radiance.  Not many people know, however, that there are further stages of realization beyond enlightenment.  Many traditions call this further stage, Illumination.  Attaining one of these levels of consciousness may give a temporary experience of the heights of one's inner greatness, but in this episode, Susanna Bair draws our attention to how these great states of attainment might influence us in our personality, priorities, and experience of everyday responsibilities.

Meditation is not a religion.  Meditation is not a belief system.  Meditation is a methodology for changing one's outlook on where the boundaries of the "Self" really lie. Practitioners often notice subjective or even measurable improvements in health and may use it for stress management and use meditation as a retreat from modern overload.  Susann Bair describes how the benefits of meditation go much further than benefiting the individual practitioner.  Hear from her how an individual's meditation practice has the capacity to positively affect the global consciousness.

Puran Bair discusses the psychological and physiological forces at play when an individual incurs stress and the biological symptoms thereof.  Heart Rhythm Meditation is the tool to help correct and restore our cells from stagnancy and other imbalances which become stored within bodily tissues when our sympathetic nervous system remains "ON" from influx of stressors.  Proper breath reignites these unconscious metabolic processes. This presentation was given on April 11, 2013.

A guided meditation leading you into the next step in proper instruction for meditation: the Full Breath. Deepening the breath allows one to rejuvenate, circulate, and de-stress.  Powerful, controlled, and slow contraction and expansion of the abdominal muscles and diaphragm soothes the central nervous system.  Specifically, it massages the Vagus nerve, the nerve most responsible for the "flight of fight" response.  By smoothing and deepening our breath in this way, we communicate to our central nervous system that we can relax, slow down, and harmonize inner rhythms from chaotic to rhythmic.

Holding your breath in meditation is just one of many techniques to purposefully intervene into the breath.  Susanna Bair uses the analogy of deep-sea diving to explain how Heart Rhythm Meditation can be used to gain awareness, even mastery, over fears which usually are held within unconscious realms of our psychological or emotional bodies.  Breath, we learn, has the capacity to sooth and transform our relationship to trauma.

Meditation requires attention and builds focus.  The first thing in beginning meditation practice is to attend to one's breathing: noticing the inflow and outflow.  Then we give the mind something to focus on: in this practice we bring the inhale and exhale into balance so that the duration of each mirror one another.

All meditation instruction in the world involves at least an awareness of the breath.  Instruction to pay close attention to the intricacies of the in-flow and out-flow of breath is central to any meditation practice.  Heart Rhythm Meditation not only involves breath awareness, but the added intervention to build stamina toward breathing with energy, balance, and power.

Puran Bair - author of three books on meditation and co-founder of the Institute for Applied Meditaiton - discusses scientific discoveries in quantum mechanics to describe inner experiences long understood by mystical traditions of the world. Puran continues his lecture and answers questions from the audience. This is Part 2 of a 2-part series.

Breath is a fundamental aspect of our being. Susanna Bair explains through practice of conscious breath in meditation, one may gain clarity and understanding of the breath's role in our lives.  Conscious, diaphragmatic breathing in rhythm with our heart-beat not only gives us physical rejuvenation, but also rejuvenates our deep inner resources enabling us to take on challenge and stress more gracefully.

Inhalation and Exhalation; Expansion and Contraction;  Rising and Falling; Tension and Release.  Susanna takes us into a space where we can listen to the "music of life" by following the breath's connection to the heart.

The human heart is so much more than a pump!  Susanna Bair reminds us of the heart's connection to thoughts, emotions, and the unconscious.  Where does the heart come from and what becomes of it when we pass away? This mysterious answer cannot be wholly understood with the mind, but we can begin to uncover an understanding of the answer by carefully listening to the messages coming from our hearts.

Puran Bair - author of three books on meditation and co-founder of the Institute for Applied Meditaiton - discusses scientific discoveries in quantum mechanics to describe inner experiences long understood by mystical traditions of the world. Is the Universe digital or analog?  Puran explains the implications for the exciting scientific identification of the "microcosm."  Puran continues by describing how our physical hearts, as generators of electromagnetic fields, act as both input receivers AND output amplifiers like the incoming/outgoing capacity of radio-tower to transmit and receive simultaneously.  He then explains how we might draw upon the field of energy which surrounds us constantly and direct it consciously toward oneself or another for the purpose of healing.  This is Part 1 of a 2-part series.

Susanna elegantly calls your attention to the fundamental rhythms of life - breath and heartbeat - in this guided meditation for beginners.  An inner experience of connection and stillness involves a welcoming attitude toward thoughts and emotions.  Concentration can be strengthened and emotional centering can be cultivated through harmonizing our breathing rate with our pulse.

Heart Rhythm Meditation is a powerful meditation technique which honors and appreciates our emotions and keeps our consciousness centered in our body.  Susanna Bair describes the benefits of meditating with the goal of aligning heart with breath.