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Healing

Wheels of Life: Heart Chakra

For your reading pleasure, the forth installment in my chakra series, abridging the hell out of Anodea Judith’s incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking classic, Wheels of Life:

Heart Chakra

The love we experience at the level of the heart chakra is distinctly different from the more sexual and passionate love of the second chakra. Sexual love is object oriented – the passion is stimulated by the presence of a particular person. In the forth chakra, love is not dependent on outside stimulation, but experienced within as a state of being. In this way it radiates outward, bringing love and compassion to whatever comes into our field. It is a divine presence of empathetic connection, rather than an extension of our need or desire. Hopefully, through force of the will, our needs have been fulfilled or transcended. Love can emerge with the deep sense of peace that comes from lack of need, with a joyous acceptance of our place among all things, and the radiance that comes from inner harmony. Unlike the changing nature of the second chakra with its transitory passions, love from the heart is of an enduring quality, eternal and constant.

Love is a unifying force – it draws things together, and keeps them in relationship. From this unity, we can touch an underlying continuity that allows our separate parts to be held in relationship to something larger. From our parents we needed to learn that they would be there, day after day, in order to grow into security. A binding force allows something to hold together long enough to evolve its patterns to deeper and more cohesive states. Love allows change and freedom, but keeps coherence at the center.

There are many things, however, which reduce the flow of loving energy from one person to another. Undue attachment to one person can reduce the flow of energy that could come from many others. Jealousy reduces the flow of love as it dictates that they must flow within narrow limits. Homophobia, ageism, and racism restrict love. Any of these demarcations destroy the understanding of oneness and interdependence that is integral to the heart chakra. If we see love as infinite, and approach it from abundance instead of scarcity, we see that in truth love is self-perpetuating.

Withholding usually decreasing what we receive as well. It’s a viscous cycle. “I don’t think John likes me. He’d probably think I was silly if I said how much I admired him.” Meanwhile, John is thinking about how cold and detached you are.

Rejection is one of the most basic human fears. This is not surprising when you consider how important it is that our core center remain healthy. Rejection threatens our basic internal balance and sense of self-acceptance. If the heart chakra is the integrator, then rejection may cause us to “dis-integrate.” Our positive feedback system is short-circuited. We turn this “non-love” against ourselves and start to self-destruct. Instead of feeling connected we are cut off, separate, isolated. For some it is easier to live without love altogether than to risk opening, sharing, and failing.

Learning to love takes energy on many levels. We need all of our chakras functioning in order to create and maintain it. We must be able to feel, we must be able to communicate, we must be able to have our own autonomy and power, and we need to be able to see and understand. Most important, we need to relax and let it happen. The heart chakra is yin, and sometimes the most profound love is that which can simply let things be the way they are.

More than anything, love is a deep sense of spiritual connection, the sense of being touched, moved, and inspired to heights beyond our normal limits. It is a connection with a deep, fundamental truth that runs through all of life and connects us together. Love makes the mundane sacred – so that it is cared for and protected. When we lose our sense of connection with all life, we have lost the sacred, and we no longer care for and protect that which nourishes us.

The heart chakra, as the exact center of the personal mandala, suffers the greatest loss, and causes the greatest damage if it should fall too far out of its place. Imbalances within the heart (the central core) can throw the entire system off balance. Not only is balance between the upper and lower chakras and between mind and body necessary, but also between inner and outer, between self and transcendence. In order to love there must be a certain transcendence of ego and loss of separateness that allows us to experience a greater unity. We give up some of our individuality in this union.

In balance between all things, we need to get out of polarities of “good” and “evil.” We need not be puritanically good to stroke our delicate egos, nor need we be selfishly evil. True love flows from one center to another, allowing each the freedom to dance their own part in their own unique way.

Affinity is a term used in chemistry to describe the tendency of one substance to enter into and remain in combination with another substance. This occurs because of an intrinsic fit within the atomic structure of the substance.

The result of affinity is bonding. When two substances with affinity for each other come together, they bond, forming a more permanent connection. Each has something the other is lacking. On a simplified level, it is the attraction of opposites seeking to balance themselves.

Human bonding can be so similar to chemical bonding that we often refer to it as “chemistry.” We may not always understand why we feel drawn toward someone, but the feeling is there, nonetheless, and it is often irresistible.

The most important aspect of affinity, however, lies not in our chemical attraction to others, but in the development of affinity within the composite parts of the self. When we have this sense of affinity, we emanate a vibration that is loving, accepting, and joyful. This allows, and even encourages others to find their own sense of affinity.

Self-acceptance is our first chance to practice unconditional love. It doesn’t mean that we have to give up striving to be better, but that our self-love is not conditional on some future or imagined change. When this occurs within our heart, it then becomes easier to accept others, faults and all, with the unconditional love of the heart chakra. With acceptance and compassion for ourselves, it then becomes easier to make personal changes.

Opening the heart chakra and developing compassion, connection and understanding for those around you naturally gives rise to the urge to heal. The realization that we are all one dictates that, like a Bodhisattva, we cannot advance alone while others are ailing. We find we must take the time to heal others as we advance along our path. This brings into balance the lure of spirituality and the need to remain in the physical world.