The Heart

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The heart is amazing and there is much to say about it. More information is becoming available about the heart from a scientific perspective, and it tends to corroborate what spiritual teachings have been saying for thousands of years.

The heart has its own independent intelligence, its own nervous system, called the heart brain. It has around 40,000 neurons. The heart doesn’t need the brain to function. As long as there is blood flow through the heart, it will beat. The heart has a large electromagnetic field that envelops the body and all its cells, and extends into space around it. It is very sensitive to energy and carries much information/energy that communicates with life around it.

There is a two-way street of communication between the brain and the heart. The heart communicates to the brainstem but also to the higher centers of intelligence, influencing perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. It produces a hormone that influences the blood vessels, kidneys, and adrenal glands, as well as other regulatory regions of the brain. Notably, it produces oxytosin, known as the love or bonding hormone.

The heart plays an important role in the communication network that connects body, mind, emotions, and spirit. It affects perception, awareness, and intelligence.

The coherence of the heart has a positive influence on the brain and other systems in the body. In fact, it can entrain the brain and other systems and bring them into coherence with the heart.

 

For information and research about the heart, go to the HeartMath Institute at www.heartmath.com.

The above information is from:

Science of the Heart Volume 1  https://www.heartmath.org/resources/downloads/science-of-the-heart/

Science of the Heart Volume 2: https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/

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The Physical Heart

 

There are three aspects to the heart: the physical heart, the heart chakra, or emotional heart, and the Secret Chamber of the Heart chakra or sacred heart.

Let’s look at these three aspects of the heart.

The physical heart consists of cells. The cells of the heart have memory and they also have feeling. We can tap into the physical body with our attention and discover how the physical body or organ feels.

We have two levels of emotion. One pertains to the body-mind. The emotion is felt in the body through sensation and there is a story attached to it (mind). So we are aware of this emotion. But there is a deeper level of emotion that we generally are not aware of. It pertains exclusively to the body. For example, we can communicate with an organ, a knee, or a finger, and we can receive impressions from that body part and how it feels. This is known in hospitals regarding heart surgery. The heart will feel anxious.

The cells of the body have memory, awareness, and feeling. Even science has begun to corroborate this. In his book The Biology of Belief, biologist Bruce Lipton says that cells can learn and create memory. There are neural receptors on the cells and so mind is distributed over the whole body. When we do body-focused therapy and tap into the body with our focus and attention, we experience this. This knowledge is as old as the world and much older.

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The Heart Chakra

 

What is a chakra? A chakra is a wheel of spiritual energy and it represents a dimension or an aspect of the mind of God. It is a specific way of interacting with and experiencing life. The chakra is a bridge between the tangible and intangible and it sends and receives energy. The chakras form the rainbow bridge, the connector between matter and consciousness.

This heart is associated with emotion - such as (self) love, joy, empathy, grief, sadness, betrayal, and abandonment - and located in the center of the chest above the sternum. Let's call this the emotional heart for the sake of clarity.

The chakras have a light and a dark side. In other words, they can be blocked by the veil of the mind and our pain. This is why we can connect to the emotional heart and receive a specific expression of our pain. And this is what can obscure or block the experience of the sacred heart.

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The Secret Chamber of the Heart

 

The Secret Chamber of the Heart chakra is in the heart area but it is not a place or chamber in the physical heart. You can dissect and cut up a heart, but you will never find this chamber because it exists at another dimension and is not physical.

The sacred heart does not have a light and dark side. It does not have its own veils, ever. Our own mind and pain can obscure this chakra, but this veil doesn’t originate here.

In the sacred heart, we can access our own higher consciousness. We could call it the Christ consciousness, Buddha nature, or something else. The chakras are aspects of this sacred heart and are unified and integrated in this heart. This consciousness is always the same and not subject to our thoughts, emotions, or the circumstances of our lives. So when we talk about the peace, calm, and love of the heart, this is the aspect of the heart we are talking about. This heart pours forth love. The flame of life and joy that lives here shines through it out into the world and transforms it.  It is wide open and connects and seeks connection with everything in life. It imbues everything with life and love and the world becomes a magical place. This heart is humble and sensitive, sensitive to life and its value, and sensitive to communication with all that exists. It experiences life in a holistic way, unified, which is felt in the body. Living in this heart brings a holistic, complete experience of the totality of being that unifies mind, heart, and body.

Blocks in the emotional heart, such as coldness, being closed, lack of empathy, and feelings and memory of the physical heart, as well as other spiritual and psychological issues, can block our connection to the sacred heart. Also, we may have little or no relationship with this heart, and the flame of life and joy that burns there may be very small and not activated.

This is why it is important to meditate with the sacred heart. We create a connection with this holistic heart that encompasses everything, including the body.

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How to Develop a Relationship with the Heart

 

We can meditate and go to this sacred place in the heart. There are many different meditations. You may want to do a Buddhist meditation, for example reciting the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum. This mantra describes the indestructible essence of being in the heart. It has been translated as Praise to the Jewel in the Lotus, which refers to the heart. According to the Dalai Lama, the mantra means the transformation of impure body, speech, and mind into the pure body, speech, and mind of a buddha, through the practice of a path that incorporates the indivisible unity of method and wisdom. This indivisible unity refers to the two aspects of duality, which are one and inextricably intertwined, such as the feminine and masculine, or energy (method or practice) and consciousness (wisdom and result).

There are many other Buddhist meditations that you may want to research.

We can also simply focus our attention in the heart and let the heart bathe us in its energies. If there are blocks, they may present themselves and the work then becomes dealing with the blocks. The heart may also give imagery, and if this happens, we can follow the imagery and accompanying sensations with attention and see where this leads, not to get lost in this but to mindfully allow them to come to a conclusion through the body.

We can activate the heart by focusing there and breathing in and out of it. The breath and mind (the same duality mentioned earlier) are closely intertwined, and when we breathe in and out of specific locations in the body, we bring greater awareness there.

We can also activate the heart by focusing on people and things we love. We begin by focusing on our breathing to get calmer and more grounded. Then we can focus our attention in the heart and look at and open ourselves to a tree, the sky, anything we love, and feel that deeply through the heart. Feel it with all of us, holistically. Experience our lives and our environment from a deeper place that is beyond the veil of the mind and language, which involve opinion, like or dislike, criticism, and analysis. We can go beyond this and feel what something is - through the heart.

We can go to the heart and commune. We can ask a question. Then we are silent and listen, open to any response. That response can come right away but sometimes not. Continue to pay attention to life and what comes your way when no longer focusing on the heart because an answer may be communicated in many, sometimes unexpected and unorthodox, ways. For example, your answer may come when out in nature, or seeing an animal, even an ant, engage in a certain behaviour. It can come from a child, a friend, or an enemy.

Life consists of complex relationships and anything communicates. The wind whispers, the ocean roars, the mountains tell their stories, trees and flowers speak, and animals talk to us. Stars, suns, cosmic winds, and galaxies communicate as well as planets and the land under our feet.