Opening Our Heart
“The goal of this journey is not to change our thoughts or emotions. It is to stay in the seat of Self while accepting the shifts that are taking place.” Michael Singer, Living Untethered
Emotions are the sensation of experiencing a change in the flow of energy in our heart. We generally don’t notice inner feelings until they change. We comment on them to ourselves or others when they’re extreme, like I feel down today or I’m on the top of the world today. Like thoughts in our mind, most of us have a baseline of emotion that is very familiar and that we don’t pay attention to unless it changes.
The heart is more sensitive than the mind, and we have much less control over feelings than thoughts. Emotions are variable. Some feel like the sensation of wind flowing over you like a gentle breeze. Others are more like being out in a fierce storm. It can take an effort to handle our feelings when they are intense.
Emotions are very sensitive vibrations emanating from the heart and can shift easily. The heart emanates a particular vibration of energy, then the vibration of emotion rises into your mind, and the mind starts talking. What the mind says when the heart is closed is not you, it is just the mind expressing the state of the closed heart.
The heart closes for a reason, it will change. The heart opens for a reason, it will change. If we let it, our heart will go through fluctuations as different situations cause it to open and close. It is important to be able to witness the opening and closing, and to know what situations and people affect the flow.
From witness consciousness, we observe that we try to possess what helps our heart open, and we try to protect ourselves from things causing it to close. Instead, practice objectively observing the heart’s behavior rather than running after what it wants, or running away from what it doesn’t want. In this way we can reduce some of the exhausting effort to control how we feel.
When we feel love, our heart is opening and emanating a beautiful flow of energy. As long as the other person’s presence helps our heart open, we feel love for them, and the reverse is also true. Associating a person with our heart opening can leave us vulnerable to confusion and manipulation.
A few years into learning to meditate, I experienced my heart opening. Before that when I would hear people talk about their experiences, I would feel sad, thinking that wasn’t going to happen for me. Then it did. Because my meditation teachers were clear that my experience was a spiritual heart awakening, there was no confusion on their part. I wanted more and I did associate what I was feeling with them. When I meditated with them, my heart opened wider and I felt a beautiful flow of shakti (life energy) in my heart. It took many years of meditating in a variety of circumstances to really know that the flow of love I felt was my own heart. This is likely a factor in why so many students are taken advantage of sexually by their teachers. I am immensely grateful for the ethics and clarity of my teachers.
Other people can cause the heart to open or close, but the action of opening and closing is something our own heart is doing. Samskaras are imprints or unfinished business that we’ve stored in our heart. It is our present experience landing on our samskaras that cause our heart to open and close.
Energy flowing through our heart fluctuates because of the samskaras we have stored in our heart. We store things that are too overwhelming to handle at the time and a lot of this comes from childhood experience and beliefs we formed about ourselves from those experiences. When a blockage is hit, the energy in that activates and we start feeling the emotions and thoughts associated with the past experience. Our inner state is dominated by the unfinished energy patterns stored inside of us.
Shakti/ chi/ life energy can’t rise above the heart because of activated samskaras. They block the flow of energy like boulders in a stream block the water, leaving no choice but to try to find a way around it.
Our inner experience has four elements: the world coming in; thoughts in the mind; emotions of the heart; and Shakti or Chi.
There are three flow patterns: blocked, partially open, or fully open.
When we are fully blocked by samskaras, we don’t feel our heart and emotions. We mostly hang out in our head or feel numb.
When the flow of energy is blocked above the heart, energy flows out through the heart center connecting with whatever stimulated the opening experience. It is this deeper energy flow passing through the open heart that we experience as the sensation of love.
When shakti makes it all the way through, our experiences are higher than human love but we don’t leave human connection behind. We connect with people at a deeper level.
Our moods, attractions, and repulsions are dependent on our past (samskaras). As we reach a state of clarity, there are no moods. We are not swept away by emotions. One way to increase clarity is to cultivate the skill to be able to objectively watch our heart open and close. There are many blockages. We have many experiences of our heart being closed and open. There is only one witnessing consciousness.
Somatic Inquiry Practice
Bring to mind something that creates an experience of your heart closing and notice the sensations.
Trace the samskaras that are activating blockages in your heart: traumatic memories & associations, core deficiency beliefs …
Remain as witness, seeing clearly, and offer yourself loving kindness.
Observe your heart opening, notice the obvious and subtle changes in energy flow.
Remain as witness, seeing clearly the experience you are having.