Heart-Consciousness

[Ninae]

I'm starting to get drawn more back into being focused in this energy/consciousness center and it feels more comfortable and more "right". It's the center of the feelings where you expereience genuine happiness, love, affection, fullness, unity-consciousness, and generally where you find deep joy and fulfillment in life.

It's where I was always centered the strongest from childhood, it was at the expense of some other things, like the ego wasn't that energised, or the the root-center which gave some problems with grounding, etc. But it didn't matter so much as living from the heart gives life so much meaning and makes you invulnerable in a sense. Although you're sensitive in that you have an open heart and can be easily hurt you also have access to a lot of love or healing energy so you can be restored easily. In this center you relate to God as love, whereas in the root-center you perceive God as power.

Anyway, I started to withdraw after I had some serious trauma which gave me some deep blockages in the heart so I didn't have so much energy flowing through it any more. This mostly went to strengthening the mind, also some to the third eye or the center for extra-sensory perception, and with time also the ego as this hadn't been really developed through growing up like it is in most which gave me some problems with getting by in the world. Mostly with self-projection/self-protection, but this isn't so necessary when you work so much from the heart, as you tend to inspire love in others so you feel pretty safe and valued all the same.

Lately I'm just starting to feel more and more tired of ego-games and like that is falling away from me. It's like the better you master it the more meaningless it becomes. I think it's mostly interesting as long as it's a challenge and there are things to accomplish, but when you start to have good control of the way you project yourself and have a way to get the upper hand in most interactions it has kind of run out its course. At least for me, I know there are many who relish successful ego-expression and can live a whole life for it, but it's starting to bore me now.

I feel like I want to start living more from the heart. And I don't mean just symbolically, I mean so I can feel a real energy-change and that it's more energised. But it takes more than wishful thinking and is a bit of a project like the other consciousness-centers. I just thought it would be interesting to have a thread for it, as heart-expansion is one of the things people really long for and have a need to develop at this time (even if it's sub-conscious), and it's one of the BIG goalposts in the development of consciousness.

 

[Mysterie]

i think i know what you mean by moving from your heart

how do you think it can be done? constant awareness on the heart centre? doing heart based practices like metta and tong len?

i used to try and maintain my focus on my navel area (lower dan tien) when i used to have lots of energy stuck in my head/crown/forehead

 

[murphythecat]

meta meditation is the best way to open the heart center

i think i know what you mean by moving from your heart

how do you think it can be done? constant awareness on the heart centre? doing heart based practices like metta and tong len?

i used to try and maintain my focus on my navel area (lower dan tien) when i used to have lots of energy stuck in my head/crown/forehead

 

[Ninae]

Yes, there are some of those things you can do. Like breathing from and mediating from the heart, even massage of the area, and also things like crystals and aromatic oils, etc. There's a lot of material on how to open or energise the different energy-centers.

But in my experience, the main way it's done is by going through life-experiences and inner psychological processes, as well as certain lifestyles or ways of living you can get into. This can work both to open/block and energise/de-energise the centers. Although I think the actual development of the centers happen very slowly through many lifetimes, and also one lifetime can see some real changes.

Also, heart-music can open the heart. That is, music that appeals to the heart, like Mozart and love songs. Melodic music. The heart is where real appreciation of art comes from. The heart loves beauty in all expressions, like beauful colours, and gracious dance, etc.

And especially being in nature, maybe the best you can do to nourish the heart as it combines beauty and forms of life/consciousness to love. When you're really centered in the heart you can feel a sense of bliss from being in nature. While when it's closed it will seem cold and gray to you (or when you're in darkness you will cast a shadow over nature).

That's all I can think of for now. Apart from loving interactions with people and animals you love, of course. That's what the heart really thirsts for.

 

[murphythecat]

meta meditation is not breathing from the heart.
its only meditation concentrating on feeling of love generated from the heart.
you close your eye, you think about someone you love very much and look at that loving sensation in your heart (centered right in the middle of the upper chest). you then focus on that feeling. you have to feel it, then you can give that love and try to cover your whole body with that love, then your neighbor, people you meet in the street, people you dislike, and always try to feel more and more love for the beings in your life. ect.
or you can picture a fountain in your heart, with clear and pure water. that water is the source of life for plants around you, for nature all around, for your friends, and you have to feel it.
ect
theres many different subject you can choose. meta meditation was my first intro into meditation, and at the beginning of each session, I do some meta meditation for 5 minutes. it really calms the mind fast.

Yes, there are some of those things you can do. Like breathing from and mediating from the heart, even massage of the area, and also things like crystals and aromatic oils, etc. There's a lot of material on how to open or energise the different energy-centers.

But in my experience, the main way it's done is by going through life-experiences and inner psychological processes, as well as certain lifestyles or ways of living you can get into. This can work both to open/block and energise/de-energise the centers. Although I think the actual development of the centers happen very slowly through many lifetimes, and also one lifetime can see some real changes.

Also, heart-music can open the heart. That is, music that appeals to the heart, like Mozart and love songs. Melodic music. The heart is where real appreciation of art comes from. The heart loves beauty in all expressions, like beauful colours, and gracious dance, etc.

And especially being in nature, maybe the best you can do to nourish the heart as it combines beauty and forms of life/consciousness to love. When you're really centered in the heart you can feel a sense of bliss from being in nature. While when it's closed it will seem cold and gray to you (or when you're in darkness you will cast a shadow over nature).

That's all I can think of for now. Apart from loving interactions with people and animals you love, of course. That's what the heart really thirsts for.

 

[Ninae]

Thanks, I like to do that when I daydream.

You're also right that love equals life. We exist as an expression of God's love, or that makes up the flame of life within us. If God withdrew his love from you, you would just collapse lifeless.