The State of Heart

The heart is the sun of creation - the ultimate magnificence, compassion and love of the god state. The heart reveals divine beauty, tenderness, prayer and devotion to us. Truly, without the heart there is no reason to live, for in the heart resides the light of our original divinity, our ultimate link with the love and grace of the creator. It is only in the heart that we can find the true meaning of our existence.

The heart holds the timeless memory of our transcendental origin and the knowledge of our final destiny. Through the heart we meet the essence of our soul, and through the heart we return to the abode of the beloved. It is the heart that makes our humanity sacred and bridges us with eternity. To open the heart - our existential center - is the key to our psychological sanity in the human dimension and our spiritual awakening as the soul.

The Heart

Although we naturally feel the heart to be the most personal facet of our existence, its multilayered reality includes an impersonal aspect as well; it is both the core of the soul's identity and the energetic realm of her abidance in the divine. As a 'state', the heart is similar to awareness in that it represents both a dimension within the impersonal energy of the inner state as well as the essence of I am. However, there is a difference between the sense of I am in the heart and the sense of I am in awareness: I am in the heart is even more personal, more primordial, for it signifies the original light of our identity, whereas I am in awareness is an expression arising out of that light. Through I am in awareness, the soul expands her self-identity from the heart to the mind - she awakens her center within the dimension of thought. But it is within the heart that the fundamental nature of the soul's existence dwells.

Awakening of the Heart

Sometimes we speak about awakening to the heart, and sometimes about the awakening of the heart. There is a difference. In speaking about awakening to the heart, we point to the realization of the absolute heart of existence and the eternal heart of the soul; the awakening of the heart signifies the opening of the human heart. Because the human heart connects the mind with the soul, its awakening is one of the most important steps in our evolution. In awakening our heart, we gain access to the ancient knowledge of our true self and enter the realm of the creator, the beloved parent of our soul.

Most humans try to protect their emotional vulnerability by building walls of insensitivity around their hearts. These shields may shelter them from hurt, but they also separate them from their inner beauty, tenderness and capacity to love. We cannot begin the journey into the heart unless we first dissolve the armor of resistance and self-protection encasing it that we ourselves have constructed.

Even though the spiritual heart lies beyond personality, the first stage of its opening is emotional in nature. We need to bring the forgotten heart of the child that we were once upon a time, and still are deep inside, into the present - we need to surrender to our inner sensitivity and open to the heart's purity. Only by humbly returning to our innocence in prayerful devotion to our divine essence can we truly reconnect to the truth of the heart.

Surrendering to the heart we open up the dam of our sadness. We must fully experience the inner pain that we have never stopped pushing away, and embrace it with love and forgiveness, allowing tears of grief and longing to flow from the hidden recesses of our being. These tears cleanse our heart, purify our mind and open us up to a loving communion with the divine.

The Energetic Experience of the Heart

The energetic opening of the heart is not in itself a complete awakening, but rather represents a shift into the heart that brings profound change to the quality of our existence. Energy moves to the heart center, inundating it with gentleness and sensitivity that gradually dissolves inner wounds and blocked energies born of fear, pain and the very knot of separate self.

The spiritual heart, located in the center of the chest, is where we find the energetic portal to the dimension of the soul and the divine. Initially, when working with the heart, one may feel an expansive warmth and tenderness in the middle of the chest. The more it opens, the more the heart's energy radiates both inwards, towards its own center, and outwards, circulating around the chest. One increasingly experiences the heart as a field of pure feeling, softness and love.

After the energetic shift to the heart is complete, the state of the heart is rendered permanent and can be considered stabilized. However, we do not put much emphasis on the idea of stabilization in the work with the heart because the journey into the heart never ends - it is an everlasting unfoldment. Upon stabilization, the heart simply opens to a new, more universal evolution and expansion into the divine.

A seeker who has shifted into the heart but not yet stabilized the state often experiences a contraction of the heart when identified with negative thought patterns and emotions. In someone already established in the state, the heart will never lose its energetic openness; thoughts and emotions of a lower nature may close the human and existential dimensions of the heart, but never the energetic one. Psychological confusion and mental agitation affect the emotional aspect of the heart, as the mind and the heart are interconnected, but they cannot touch its spiritual depth.

In those who are unconscious and lack the presence of awareness, the mind continuously eclipses the reality of the heart. Even if sensitive and compassionate, they cannot experience the heart at all times due to their fragmented consciousness. In fact, the heart of a loving but unconscious person is almost always closed, for to be unconscious is to have no soul. There can be no real love if there is no clarity of awareness and continuity of presence. Only a conscious person can surrender his mind-based intelligence to the silent depths of the heart.

As an energetic state, the heart shares the qualities of impersonality with the other aspects of the inner state, and along with them, constitutes the environment of our internal abidance in reality. The energetic awakening of the heart creates the ground for further inner expansion, but the actual conversion of our existence into a higher state of light and love requires a much deeper awakening and further purification.

Enlightenment of the Heart

Far more profound than the energetic opening of the heart center, the enlightenment of the heart enables us to contact its living depth and realize our pure subjectivity, the intrinsic knowledge of I am. The enlightenment of the heart is comprised of two aspects: the awakening of the soul and the purification of intention. Because we elaborate on the awakening of the soul in great detail further on, we shall confine our discussion here to the purification of intention.

To undergo inner transformation it is not enough merely to be 'in touch' with the heart; the purification of intention requires that the mind submit to the heart. The negativity of the mind can only be purified when the core of its identity yields to the truth of the soul. If the mind is not aligned with the soul, it can endanger the awakening of our higher self, for its subconscious tendencies are not based on the principle of light. It is conditioned to serve our lower nature and perpetuate our false self. Only when the mind's intelligence awakens to the higher purpose of our existence and gives up its egotistical self-infatuation can it finally surrender to the soul.

The purification of intention is the coming together of our human intelligence with the truth of the heart, a process that takes place deep within the soul's consciousness. It does not bring about the complete transformation of the mind, but it is a significant turning point. The triumph of our higher nature over our subconscious tendencies ushers in a new era of our evolution - the mind finally begins to serve the heart. Prior to the purification of intention, the mind and heart pulled in opposite directions, but the enlightenment of the heart liberates us to honor that which is in harmony with the truth of higher wisdom.

The Layers of the Heart

The outermost layer of the heart is directly tied to the human personally through the emotional body. For this reason, the first essential step in our human expansion into the heart is to shift from living fully identified with thoughts to living through feelings. Feelings are simply closer to reality than thoughts, because they touch that part of us which is existentially more real and more intimate with the soul.

Most humans experience the heart only when a deep feeling provoked by the external reality is channeled through the emotional body. Outer impressions are digested by the mind, and once assimilated, reside there as memories, creating a virtual reality through which our emotions are filtered when we think about our relationship to the world. When we are moved through an intense encounter, we are not experiencing the heart itself, but its response to emotional stimuli. We may feel joy in our heart when we are in love, or compassion when we encounter deep suffering, but these feelings are external to the reality of the heart itself. As long as it is lost in the phenomenal, the heart cannot recognize its own subjectivity.

To be connected to one's feelings is in itself very meaningful, but when our consciousness is ruled by lower intelligence, our feelings can easily be channeled in the wrong direction. We can take as an example those who are brainwashed to feel their hearts when experiencing patriotism or religious fervor. They might even be ready to die for an imaginary idea that deeply affects their emotions. This type of heart opening has no connection to the wisdom of the soul. Unfortunately, the deep emotions of most humans are usually no more than unconscious impulses triggered by unintelligent messages generated by the collective mind.

The next level of depth within the heart, though still linked to the emotional body, is where we experience the heart itself. We may feel a deep sense of sadness or happiness in the heart, unrelated to anything in particular. The emotions are still engaged, but they are flowing towards the heart center, identified more with the heart's essence than any psychological content. Previously, all of our emotions were directed outward; now they begin to move inwards towards our pure subjectivity.

A tragedy, such as the death of someone we truly love, can take us back to the lonely reality of the heart in which we experience the pure quality of existential suffering. If we can access only the first layer of the heart, we will identify solely with the event that touched it. But if we are able to connect to the heart in a more profound way, we will experience it in its subjective purity. Significant moments like these can push us deep into the personal dimension of the heart. The more we are in touch with our heart at these times, the more we may question our relationship with the world, and disillusioned with our reality, dwell in existential emptiness. Times like these when we are able to feel and experience our existence in the primal space of aloneness are actually precious opportunities to realize the mystery of being oneself and encounter the light of pure subjectivity.

And so, layer by layer, we move from thought to feeling, and from a place of deep feeling become conscious of our primal bond to the heart. In due course we come to a pristine experience of the heart - we move beyond our dependence on external influences to help us feel. At last we can meet our subjective presence in the heart, the knower behind all feelings - our very soul. The soul exists between the emotional body of the human and the inner dominion of the beloved. She either travels a trajectory outwards towards the world through human emotions, or inwards through the heart and her own existence to the divine. The divine dimension is the final depth of the heart - the eternal source of all hearts, the absolute love from which the heart of me emerges.

The Essence of Love

The word 'love' is grossly misused and misinterpreted by adolescent and sentimental human psychology. It is a term not only worn-out and commercialized in society, but in religion and spirituality as well. What does it mean to love? What is love?

The essence of love is the heart as it is. Love does not have wants, for it reflects the pure perfection of divine wholeness. It is not a commodity, nor a means to satisfy our inexhaustible emotional needs. Love is a limitless space that contains all-that-is beyond any subject-object relationship. Unless we realize the state of oneness and dissolve the illusory separation between ourselves and existence, there is no way that we can know true love. As love is the nature of the self, only through unity with the self can we merge with the natural state of love.

The Center of Feeling

Despite the excessive development of the mind that makes most humans so abysmally out of touch with their feelings, the fact remains that it is how we feel that matters to us the most. It is not by chance that, when greeting our neighbor, the first thing we ask is: 'How are you?' How we feel determines the very meaningfulness of our existence. The heart is the center of feeling, and in fact the center of our perception. Whether we are conscious of it or not, all that we experience is registered and interpreted in the heart. Most people simply do not feel what their heart feels; they feel what their mind 'feels'. Their actions and responses are not rooted in the knowing of the heart, for their connection to the heart is blocked. To go beyond our superficial psychology and contact the truth of the soul, we must consciously open to our deepest feelings so that how we experience reality reflects the living wisdom of the heart.

The Wisdom of the Heart

Because the heart's deep wisdom originates from the soul, our higher being, it operates in a different way from the intelligence of the mind. The wisdom of the heart is not based on methodical reasoning or the analysis of events, but on the direct discernment of right from wrong. The decision-making process within the heart relies on intuition, feeling and pure knowing.

We should not, however, make impulsive decisions based on overpowering feelings in the name of listening to the heart. Spontaneous emotional reactions do not necessarily have anything to do with the wisdom of the heart. Unless we are awakened and purified, our instinctive emotional responses are most likely tied to our lower nature and disconnected from our spiritual heart.

Higher wisdom is born from the integration of the intelligence of the mind and the sensitivity of the heart. To access the heart's inherent wisdom, we must see its clear reflection in the mirror of the mind's intelligence. The mind has to tune into and decode the inner voice of the soul, and with discrimination and understanding, articulate the heart's guidance.

The Gate to the Divine

Although the spiritual heart is felt in the body, its unmanifested essence resides in the inner realm. One side of the heart points to creation where human reality reigns, the other, to the unborn side of the heart where the creator resides. In order to enter the divine realm, we need to melt the boundaries between our individual heart and the universal heart. Only by becoming drunk with the divine, and in that intoxication forgetting oneself, can one merge with the beloved.

No one who is locked in the prison of self can bask in the glow of the inner sun of creation. Through our surrender into the final depth of our individual heart, we become submerged in the ocean of the universal heart, where our eternal parent awaits us. Finally we realize that the true heart is not contained within our individuality - it is the totality of existence, the divine realm itself.

The Horizontal Expansion of the Heart

Through being we experience non-separation; through the heart we realize oneness. If the pull of being overrides the energy of the heart, the soul is alienated from the reality of creation. Hence, the pull towards the source must be balanced with a horizontal expansion of the heart. The unity of being and the heart enables us to experience a perfect equilibrium between the horizontal and vertical dimensions.

If the heart is not awakened, the gravity of the now pulls the soul into the beyond through the gate of being, bypassing the heart. But if the heart is open, the gravity of being does not draw any energy away from the heart center; being and heart are experienced as one. The balanced combination of their energies gives rise to a double, yet unified, expansion into the beyond. Being actually becomes the vehicle that transports the soul into the divine realm. The fruit of this dual expansion is the directionless state of all-embracing presence - the realization of everythingness. It is only due to our ignorance that we need to awaken each aspect of the inner state separately in order to realize them as one reality. From a higher perspective, the absolute and the divine are indivisible.

Abiding in the Heart

The most meaningful experience of the heart is natural absorption within its depth. To be absorbed in the heart is to merge with the heart. When we merely feel the heart, our separate self is still too distinct - our very presence makes absorption impossible. Only through conscious surrender can we reach the necessary degree of absence to become one with the divine. By the simple act of sitting and letting go into the unity of being and the heart we grow roots into the divine dimension. The heart absorbs our separate self into the presence of the soul and her absence in the supreme beyond. We disappear into the heart and reappear in the state of wholeness.

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