Spiritual heart – an engine transforming aspiration into progress.
The spiritual heart is a place within ourselves where we can feel our inner being. It is not part of our physical body as it is in the case of our physical heart pumping blood. The spiritual heart is an energy crossroad. It is at the place where we point towards when we say “I” (well, most of us do; some people point at their heads :)). The spiritual heart lies in the middle of the chest, so it’s not at the same spot as the physical heart (muscle) which lies slightly to the left and a bit lower. We can also easily misplace spiritual heart for our emotions. We feel emotions in the navel area (upper part of the belly) but sometimes even little higher. So we may get the impression that certain impulse is coming from our heart whilte in reality it is an emotional reaction. By practicing meditation we learn to distinguish where these impulses come from.
In yoga and Indian texts they call the spiritual heart Anahata Chakra. It is one of the seven main chakras – places where we can notice our life energy (Prana, Cchi, Qi). By meditating at the Anahata Chakra we can bring forth our inner strength and purify other chakras at the same time. In our common daily life full of stress and emotional problems our life energy gets easily stuck in these chakras. That’s why meditating in spiritual heart is so important because it helps to clear blockages. In Tai-Chi they call the same place Middle Dantien. It is considered to be an important center of power as well, so we can see that it is something special indeed. If you would like to learn how to meditate in your heart visit some of our classes.
To learn more about differences between the heart and the mind you can watch the following short clip (in English).
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”
~ Albert Einstein
Inside the heart the power of intuition resides. Intuition makes us feel the truth. We don’t need to know it with our mind; we don’t need to have a rational explanation for it. The explanation we might discover much later in fact. You have surely encountered the feeling of intuition before. One morning you get up and suddenly you are aware of something. You just KNOW what to do or where is the truth. You see clearly into specific issue. You know what is the truth. You have not reached this conclusion using logic. You simply feel it and deep inside you know that it is so. With meditation we can deepen this ability and use it more often.
Now a short poetic intermezzo from Persian/Turkish mystic Mewlana Rumi:
“The deliciousness of milk and honey is the reflection of the pure heart:
from that heart the sweetness of every sweet thing is derived.
The heart is the substance, and the world the accident:
how should the heart’s shadow be the object of the heart’s desire?
Is that pure heart the heart that is enamored of riches or power,
or is submissive to this black earth and water of the body,
or to vain fancies it worships in the darkness for the sake of fame?
The heart is nothing but the Sea of Light:
is the heart the place of vision of God–and then blind?”
~ Mewlana Rumi, persian-turkish mystic from 13th century
From the spiritual point of view the heart is the seat of the soul. Actually the soul is trying to penetrate the whole body, but in the heart it is at home. Even then we mostly fail to see or feel her Light. We have to put out a lot of effort to achieve that. In fact this is the real reason why we meditate: to let the inner light of our soul reach to the physical level. This Light slowly transforms our life. Sometimes we can even see this Light in the face of some people (we then say that they “shine”).
„Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.“
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, 19th century
As we mentioned at the beginning, the heart is the engine that transforms aspiration (our inner cry to always make steps forward and grow) to progress. We can look at progress as a continuous transformation of our instincts and desires from the animal world into their counterparts from the divine level. Fear is transformed into courage, insecurity into confidence, jealousy into feeling of oneness, hate into love, etc. Well, we all know this from the fairy tales. Although in most fairy tales the hero already starts by having these good qualities and only uses them to overcome evil, while in our case we have to reach this state first. And achieve them inside ourselves first, not in others! So we have to become heroes and heroins as well
