The Heart
The heart centre in yoga and other spiritual lineages is often referred to as the Lotus of the heart, referring to the fact that the heart has a similar journey as the lotus. Our hearts just like the lotus can only expand and grow into its fullest potential by trusting its innate and inherent truth, which is to move through the dense, dark and cold mud to meet the Light where it can open up to its fullest inherent given nature of potentiality and truth.
The human heart is no different. When a baby is conceived , the very first thing that grows from the clump of cells is the heart. At 7- 8 weeks gestation we can hear the heart beat, the first sign of life, and it is from the heart that the brain begins to grow like a little bulb sprouting out of the heart including the legs and the arms. As the brain continues to grow in size the heart begins to recede inward and the brain continues to grow above the heart.
This is a very fascinating occurrence , especially now that Quantum Scientists have discovered that the heart’s magnetic field is fifty times greater than that of the brain. This means that the heart picks up energy frequencies before it even is registered by the human brain. They have also discovered that the brain contains cardiac cells and the heart contains brain cells. This proves that there is indeed a very important connection between the brain and the heart, and that they work together to bring the person into a coherent state of balance and wholeness. Yoga, meditation and breathing exercises are all powerful practices to induce entrainment between the brain and the heart creating “flow” state within the individual.
The heart is like a “seed”. When we look at a seed of a flower, we can not see the divine blueprint that is held inherently within the seed. But that seed holds within it its entire Truth, its fullest potential and its inherent nature. The seed contains the Divine design. When certain conditions are present it will unfold as contained in the blue print of that seed. That seed when met with the right conditions of nutrient rich soil, water and light then has the “potential” to grow into a Sunflower, with golden coloured petals, brown centre and a specific number of petals. It will never grow into Rose bush for that seed did not contain the divine blue print of “rose”.
What if the heart is that seed that contains each individual human’s blueprint , its inherent nature and Divine design? The heart contains the inherent divine intelligence to communicate to each cell what they will become. This cell will become part of the liver organ, another cell will be an eye cell, and another cell will be a prefrontal cortex brain cell . It is like the heart cells are encoded with a specific Divine blue print chosen by the individual’s timeless Self (that part of you that is eternal ) to be able to experience unique to them their interaction with the outside world and their inner world. The heart contains the potentiality of the personality, the gifts, the innate strengths but also weaknesses as this proves to be the greatest opportunity for evolution and growth.
So if the heart contains each individual human being’s Truth, inherent potentiality , and gifts and we do not have an intimate connection to our heart because we are constantly conditioned and told that we must use the stuff between our ears (brain) , we can potentially run into some serious issues. We would not be in alignment with our Truth and this can create a lot of inner turmoil, unease and mental, energetic, physical and psychic imbalances. Especially in today’s world there is so much emphasis on the mind, that we are going further and further away from communicating to the heart. Depression, panic and anxiety disorders are at an all time high. Maybe we need to take a deeper and closer look at the heart ? If the mind is like the windshield wipers in your car, and you only pay attention to the windshield wipers because that is what you have been told and conditioned to focus on. You will actually never able to see the whole or the Truth of who you really are and you will continue to override the messages and nudges of your heart with your mind instead of allowing the heart to come online and bring about a state of coherency between brain and heart.
Today there is a lot of confusion about what the mind means. The mind is not just your brain. The brain is merely a filter or a computer for your awareness/consciousness to make sense of the input of the five senses and how to relate with the material/physical world around them. In the Yogic philosophies we see the mind as being comprised of the conscious & subconscious mind knowns as manas, the intellect or discerning part of the mind, Buddhi, the ego which creates a false sense of self, ahamkara, and the heart-mind, chitta. The brain is not mentioned here because it is not timeless, it merely is a physical apparatus that allows us to express our manas, buddhi, ahamkara and Chitta in this physical world.
The manas, is like a sponge it absorbs all information, all experiences and impressions wether you are conscious of it or not. The manas is expressed throughout your entire body, it is like the water inside the sponge. It is everywhere. You will have experienced this when you close your eyes and suddenly you recall certain experiences that before were in your subconscious mind . I often refer the manas to your phone who listens, records and absorbs all impressions all day long. So is it too with the Manas. When you open up for example your Facebook account on your phone, suddenly advertisements appear randomly off the very things you have spoken about or heard about during that day. This is how our manas works, it spits out random sensations, feelings and thoughts (which are impressions). Manas is imbued throughout our entire body, this also explains why memory is not just locatable in the brain but is everywhere. This is why a certain movements in the body, a certain smell, or a specific sound can create thoughts , sensations or awaken a memory.
The intellect or buddhi, is the mind that discerns and knows what is right or wrong for you. This is the knowing part of the mind, where we know what is true for us and what is not. The Buddhi is the mind that allows us to grow in wisdom, it is the refined part of the mind where we have sifted out everything that is not true for us. Through learning knowledge can we continue to expand and increase our intellect. The intellect can serve our intuition.
The ego mind known as Ahamkara is where so many of us get stuck and it is the ego mind that creates a complete separate identity from our own inner knowingness, and sees itself separate from the whole and leads us astray from the “seed” potential in the chambers of our hearts. In other words the ego is that part of you that wants constant validation, that divides, that judges, criticizes, is insecure, is needy, and choses to stay in fear, doubt, anger and shame. The ego wants to be seen and therefor becomes hungry for fame, wealth, and power. The ego mind even sabotages itself as it never trusts because it constantly lives in a state of fear, lack and insecurity.
The heart-mind known as Chitta is located at the heart and this is where the “seed” is located , this is where our Truth resides. Each and everyone’s Truth will be unique and different but no less important than someone else’s Truth. In all of the Yogic philosophies great importance is placed on Chitta, as it is said that our True Self, Divine Blueprint or our Truth resides in the Chitta and the more we can align ourselves with Chitta the more we can blossom into our greatest potential where we can experience great bliss, peace, ecstasy and where we can ignite our own inner Divine Light. When we are aligned to our heart-mind, the Chitta, we become creators of our own life and we become co-creators of this Universe. The more we align ourselves to the soft voice of our heart the more we can access the courageous sovereign Divine being that is able to manifest and create anything in life. We will have complete access to our own inherent Truth and manifest this Truth on Earth. Now how do we begin to align ourselves with Chitta so that we can release the Ahamkara, or ego mind? We must learn to be able to sit quietly and allow the brain to become calm and balanced by breathing deeply and slowly. We will begin to notice a faint soft gentle and loving voice coming from the heart space, that is nudging us in a certain direction, that sees our greatness and gently guides us towards realizing this. Unfortunately at first our Ahamkara or ego, will override the soft voice of the heart, by bringing you back into fear, doubt and insecurity. You will feel like that soft voice is “stupid”, wishful thinking etc. The ego mind tries to hold on fiercely and will do anything to keep you status quo and to believe that you are a victim of life and not a creator and co-creator. It takes great discipline and courage to continue the practice of dropping into the heart space and to align your life to the heart space. It will be a constant battle between the ego mind and the heart mind. Therefor a personal meditation is so crucial for strengthening our relationship to our heart. The more we live from the heart-mind the greater our mental health, physical health and emotional health will be and the more we can access our inherent Divine blueprint that allows us to access our inherent gifts, and strengths. We will begin to feel more alive, there is a deep inner knowingness about who we truly are and what our purpose is in this life. We realize that there is nothing more powerful than the energy of love and compassion. For love heals, transforms, forgives and transcends all.
This year, 2021, begin to align yourself with the Truth of who you are by aligning yourself to your heart. Living a heart-centred life that will allow you to deepen the love for yourself, and others which in turn blossoms compassion. This has been the message by so many spiritual teachers, prophets and saints.
“The kingdom of Heaven is within you”, “No thief can steal the jewels in your heart”.
Bring your attention each day to your beautiful heart! Remember to be mindful where you draw your attention to as energy follows. This is the Law of Nature.
