Love, Unity, Inclusiveness,
Cohesion, Non Separateness and Immunity
or the Laws of the Heart

From the book by Dr Michel BERCOT

Heart and Energetics faced with the challenges of the XXIst century
Éditions Opéra, 1 allée des Vinaigriers, 44300 Nantes

"The Heart sees through the eye of analogical thought."

Michel Bercot

"I was sleeping, and I dreamed that life was nothing but joy I woke up and I dreamed that life was nothing but service. I served, and I understood that service was joy."

Rabindranath Tagor

"One day, a man wanted to kill an important person. Once he got home, he drew out his sword and ran it through the wall to check if his hand was steady. And he killed the important person."

The Gospel according to St Thomas

 

This book is a hymn to the evolution of conscience demonstrated by the evidence of a body of light or golden robe as externalisation of the divine Spirit.

While we are groping around for the recipes for a new world order, that Presence of the Heart simply suggests we should change our vision to read, through the world of appearances, what has been underlying it from time immemorial: its meaning. (p. 11) The meaning is that “something” that creates forms. And that “something” is the Heart .It is the creative process, no more, no less. (p. 12)

There is necessarily a biological application of non separateness which is probably the main discovery of quantum physics. … Non separateness concerns the whole of a system and not a separate system. (pp. 34-35)

"The heart is everywhere, if you confine it, you kill it or lose it!"

"It sees through the eye of analogical thought." (p. 297)

"It is the essential unity of the edifice of creation, the real structure of the living."

The dynamics of the Heart fits into the divine triangle D.K. always refers to:

LIFE – QUALITY – APPEARANCE.

Everything is linked together through the life of the Heart – heartbeats, bloodflow – so the functions of the Heart and the Sun are the same.

Vitality, the energy of the Heart

-      Everything is interconnected and that interconnection is vital because the life of all form, whatever its scale, stems from the pulsation and the energy of the greater form that it is part of: within that intimate structure, the heart and its laws express themselves.

-      The nature of the heart of a whole system is necessarily a star or sun. We will see that etheric centre, sun and heart are synonyms.

Let’s consider for a moment that particular scale of systemic organisation (a solar system): it contains an essential idea proved by a natural fact and closely related to vitality or vital energy. Considering the systemic organisation of the solar system can enable one to understand the idea of vitality, to recognise its source, and the nature of its energy. (p. 29)

Denying this view entails numerous misunderstandings.

One can then assert that every disease is a disease of the Heart, that is: an offence to the law of unity! (p. 34)

The study of the etheric body reveals clearly the true nature of the Heart and its laws, on this subtle level of physical expression. Its two main functions: vital and psychosomatic, make its objectives obvious. (p. 110)

The activity of these laws is made obvious within the biological organism, by the abundance of means that allows the easy flow of blood through the structure of the Heart, and constitutes a vital protective mechanism. (p. 109)

The Heart’s protective systems

The Heart can, through the blood flow, teach our plane of consciousness in a way that is revolutionary for our religious or scientific beliefs, which, in bird language, means it can illuminate it. (p. 110)

One of the major qualities of the heart is memory: don’t we talk about "learning by heart"! But the main purpose of the heart is Unity .Its laws organize it and maintain it. When they are not respected it inevitably leads to disunity and disorganization: within a form union produces health, disunity produces disease.

The heart has the intelligence of anything that happens in the body, its dynamic circulation can be compared with the movement of life: giving implies receiving, and vice versa, just as the diastole follows on the systole, the expansion of the universe on its contraction. (Marie Glémin)

It will be interesting to compare the chart about: THE LAWS OF THE HEART AND THEIR OBJECTIVES (p. 108) with the one entitled: DOMINANT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CURRENT PERIPHERAL VIEW (p. 267).

Michel’s theory – or more rightly observation – is based on the double dynamics of the heart: (p. 105)

-      Paternal Heart: carrying determining memories or programmes through the blood, the immune system and endocrine system.

-      Maternal Heart: carrying conditioning memories that influence the implementation of the paternal programme (structural aspect, or matter of the body: skeleton, skin, vascular system, joints, liquids…).

 

Which leads him to determining the 7 laws of the heart and their objectives (p. 108)

As they govern the way every vital structure (that of the whole universe) functions, the laws of the Heart serve primarily, not the integrity of that structure for itself – that is the health of the form – but its occupier’s indispensable expansion of consciousness: from the point of view of the Heart, that is the only purpose of the form. (p. 113)

We can conclude that, although we tend to think the contrary, the purpose of the Heart is not the health of the form but that of the Spirit: the Heart represents its active expression within the form it gives life to.

The health of the form, whether good or bad, is only – in both cases – a consequence of the determined activity of the Heart. It really means that the Heart is determined to produce disease as well as health. Whether the result for the body is health or disease depends on the conscience within the form respecting or not respecting its laws. (p. 263)

The orthodox view tends to make genetics the latest treasure house, and keeps us in the blind path of chance. On the opposite, the global view refuses to consider disease as bad luck, and the patient as a wheel in a lottery. As long as the vital structure and the laws of the Heart remain unknown, chance will fill up the gap…

Michel Bercot tells us that the etheric body reflects the level reached by the individual on the ladder of spiritual ascent.

Thus the etheric body is everybody’s spiritual identity card, revealing their acquired level of consciousness, but also the physical means of spiritual progress. It is the unique instrument of the process of inner alchemy. (p. 87)

The etheric body is the scientific basis of Transpersonal psychology which sets the question of the survival of conscience, that is of successive incarnations, a doctrine on which the most ancient religions on the planet are based and that was challenged in western countries by a dogmatic decree from the Church fathers in 496 at the Nicée council. Only a spiritual point of view can successfully activate former memories but we need to be able to decide exactly how spiritual such and such a person is. (p. 90-91)

We learn that endocrinal secretions are, in the biological body, symbolic of the person’s streams of "consciousness". (p. 77)

In Psychology

We need here to consider the soul from a scientific point of view, and no longer only from a religious and metaphysical point of view.

The network of psychic centres is the mechanism that makes possible, physically, the expansion of consciousness. Whenever a centre awakes, it becomes more magnetic, then more attractive to the flows of energy radiating from the neighbouring centres with which it may be in resonance. This creates new energy flows between that centre and those that are already awake, and makes it more active, with the inevitable risk of a temporary hyperactivity which can have pathological, psychological, as well as somatic consequences. This is a determining fact to explain the psychosomatic disorders characteristic of the process of evolution as well as the way it casts a completely new light on our understanding of diseases, by considering causes unthought of until now. (p. 79)

Acknowledging the responsibility of the etheric centres in some cerebral disorders: a particular stage in the expansion of consciousness induces in the etheric body the awakening of the head centres; their radioactivity increases, sometimes tremendously if no attention is paid to it; the brain cells then undergo unusual irradiation and the power of that energy – fire – can be destructive (as is a sudden overvoltage in an electric circuit). As the nature of that irradiation and its effects on the cell structures become understood, some disorders concerning the structure of the brain centre will be explained (e.g. the increasing troubles of the mechanism of eyesight, sometimes leading to blindness: in fact the optic nerves travel through the area precisely irradiated by the ajna centre). (p. 177)

Different causes of psychological troubles (p. 182)

Psychic phenomena themselves do not mean expansion of consciousness, they need to be understood rightly and controlled: that requires a mental development and a degree of inner integration that are often lacking during part of the way of evolution. (p. 183)

Our brain, the etheric body, and the subtle supraphysical forms then make up the triple diaphragm restricting our receptiveness to the spiritual worlds. Opening these diaphragms to those worlds is a way to qualify the flow of evolution and is in itself the technical process of the expansion of the human consciousness. (p. 45)

The Fractal structures of the physical universe (p. 44)

Three functions of the heart:

INTUITION = Union of the other two = the heart as an organ / rhythm

SYNTHESIS = Maternal heart = physiological structure / water

ANALYSIS = Paternal heart = Brain / I.S.

See depression, causes and consequences, p. 68.

Moreover, Michel gives us a very clear and relevant vision of the difference between materialistic science as carrier of the orthodox single way of thinking and the comprehensive vision of the Heart. The problem with orthodox or official medicine is that it denies cohesion, synthesis. We know that analysis is the death of synthesis; and it blocks intuition. We are inside the very problem the heart is faced with: the sin of separateness. (pp. 124-125)

If science takes up the belief that subjective conscience is only a matter of molecules, nothing will prevent moulding the inner Being to make him comply with the idea norms of the society around him… the dream of all the governments in the world that need to channel not only violence, but also all kinds of dissident minorities.

Won’t they be tempted to use chemicals to control aggressive people, social misfits, to stimulate creativity in passive people and "sheep" that live off society, thus making it weaker (p. 156). It is well known that molecular biology believes subjective conscience – thoughts and emotions – is secreted by the brain. Which leads to treating patients with synthetic molecules supposed to thwart the ill effects of natural molecules, considered as the biological cause of psychic troubles. (p. 174)

Nevertheless, Michel maintains that biology is the science of the heart, but that, as long as it does not know it, it is wrongfully called so.

Immunity is perceived by our peripheral view of life as a protective system against an outside assailant, simply because we read life with a kind of spectacles where only the left glass is transparent, which replaces the laws of the Heart by the laws of the jungle. (p. 280)

See the chart p. 267 showing the dominant characteristics of the current peripheral view, leading inevitably to single track thinking.

Dominant characteristics of the current peripheral view (p. 267)

Obviously, it does not mean we should deny the usefulness of orthodox medicine techniques, or the immense service they render during this time when no other method has had as good results, because of the current materialistic view of human being and disease. (p. 170)

Planetary ecology

Human and social bodies – analogies (p. 225)

These words say a great deal, through their symbolism, about the fact that those bodies have formed until now intelligent organizations, based on the power of the head, with its ambition to conquer, in the past, territories, nowadays economic wealth but they do not yet form living organisms based on the laws of the Heart. (p. 226)

Planetary body and human body (p. 220)

On that account ecology promotes the law of the heart and should be essentially the science of right human relations within a great whole, a sort of planetary socio psychology. (p. 213)

The main idea underlying ecology comprises the qualities of "right human relations, balance and sharing", the very qualities that control the stages of the process of transference of energy governed by the laws of the Heart, the process that is at the heart of the vital dynamics. (p. 214)

Ecology is doubtless the field where the "spirit of the etheric body" has been most widely understood. Lovelock’s conclusions (in The Earth is a Living Being he maintains that the Earth is a living being) can be taken as awareness, on the level of the planetary organization, of a vast system of synergetic phenomena whose causes lie in fact in its etheric body. They are a direct access to the concept of "collective being", then of collective conscience. (p. 211)

Michel points out once more the consequences and the nonsense of functioning on earth without the Heart, so in division.

An example to understand the Heart: Money

As for money, it is an energy of creative power, a symbol of vitality in the social body of nations. Its true nature can be reconsidered within the energy pattern. (p. 228)

Money energy pattern

Money is energy.
So it is not a commodity.
It cannot be marketed.

From the point of view of the Heart, one of the roots of the economic disease is the fact that money, the energy of the Heart, is handled according to the laws of the head, the laws of the dividing power. As the energy of the Heart, money is a nuclear energy, impersonal and neutral: its contaminating radiation can prove to be destructive or constructive, according to the laws we will trust to control it.

It is urgent to find a new vision: the vision from the Heart

(p. 257)

What is true of a planetary organ, the human reign, is all the more true of the organism itself. This can then be applied to the level of the planetary etheric body, and all the previous statements about large bodies on the subject of vitality can be considered from the point of view of conscience.

The discovery of the "paternal" function of the vital aura, characterized by its evolutionary dimension – expressed through progress and change, in the four kingdoms of nature and not only in the human kingdom – is likely to entail four major consequences: (p. 242)

A.    To transform the quality of human relations within our own Kingdom (p. 242)

1.     On a planetary level (p. 242)

2.     On a family level (p. 244)

3.     To transform the ideal of human fraternity into a natural fact (p. 245)

B.    To transform the motives of our relations with the other kingdoms of nature (p. 247)

1.     The essentially evolutionary character of physical forms (p. 247)

2.     The close connection between the degree of complexity of a physical form and the possibility for expanding its consciousness (p. 249)

C.    To be the source of a transcendent "ecology" on a cosmic level, which justifies a scientific approach of astrology (p. 251)

D.    To consider the nature of the soul or Heart from a more scientific and less metaphysical or religious point of view (pp. 253-254)

What is the difference between these functions and the antique notion of soul? Probably there is no difference. We see the Soul – Heart or Life Centre – as the quality of energy that is meant to maintain the cohesion and vitality of an organism, and to connect the vertical “Heaven” and the horizontal "Earth": one can understand why it is said, symbolically, to be "nailed onto the cross".

In order to make it possible for the energy of the higher levels to be transmitted to the lower levels, there must necessarily be as many "relay stations" for the spiritual soul , as there are levels of increasing condensation of matter ("the fall into matter" mentioned in metaphysics) and the etheric body is the physical expression of such a relay station: it has a corresponding level in the Heart of the biological body.

Thus, the spiritual soul could cease to be something to speculate about, and become a highly probable level of reality, worth every effort to recognize its existence. That is, obviously, what is really at stake in the recognition of the etheric body. It is also the basis of the Aquarian Era psychology, the psychology concerned with the spiritual soul of the human entity, and not only of its emotional level.

Seven suggested hypotheses

(pp. 300-301)

They are suggested with the intention of contributing to bridge a gap between occultism, up to now originated mainly from eastern countries, and contemporary science. They concern possible relations between two energies that are still enigmatic: vitality and gravitation. Their only ambition is to stimulate reflection.

The seven suggestions concern the level of reality named etheric body, acknowledged as the true physical form, the subtle pattern following which the biological body is "knitted". They give a great place to gravitational energy and the gravitation field – that have been underestimated, not to say evaded, on the biological scale, until now – and connect them closely to the energy of the Heart. They are linked to the following ideas:

-      Within the different parts of the void made up of condensed matter forming space, there exists a certain quality of energy of gravitational nature, which, just like gaseous or luminous energy, is a real substance with specific characteristics, the characteristics of an extremely fine, elastic, viscous fluid. It is the equivalent on the level of that so-called void, composed of subtle matter, of the gaseous medium on the level of the dense compound: solid – liquid – gas, and, in contrast, represents the solid. A reflection, and so, the opposite, of gas under pressure, this fluid is necessarily undergoing tension.

-      That substance reacts to the attraction of a "centre of force" similar to the etheric centres described above, but that belongs to a supraphysical level of reality; due to the impact of that centre there emerges a centre of gravitational energy in a vortex, the Heart of the form to come.

-      On its own level (physical), this created centre (or Heart) is able to exert a strong attraction on the gravitational substance immediately around, thus organizing around itself a space subjected to the influence of its gravitational field, then endowed with a specific topology: the creative process of the new form is on the way.

-      So each form, on whatever level, is produced by a gravitational structure that is its essential skeleton and is responsible for the topology of its space.

-      Every living structure can only be created within a structure of the same nature, but on a higher level, from which it derives its own substance. Between these two forms: "mother" and "daughter", the relation is from an organism to an organ. The smaller structure forms with the mother structure a non separable whole, creating a vital relation, which means to say that between the two forms there would circulate a current of gravitational energy indispensable to their life expression.

-      Such a genesis of forms implies that space itself ("void") is one such gigantic structure including myriads of visible and invisible cosmoses: space is then a gigantic etheric form within which any other form inevitably exists. Consequently, there is no space such as defined by relativistic physics (a void without a form), but there are a series of integrated, non separable forms, from the smallest particle up to the scale of the whole cosmos.

Une approche globale du coeur

Marie Glémin

L'homme est microcosme reflet du microcosme, le soleil source de l'énergie vitale, astre central au milieu des planètes est présent par son énergie au coeur de toute la création, de même la vitalité de l'être humain est ce coeur physique au centre de son organisme et cette énergie conscience irradiée par le coeur dans toutes les cellules du corps, la fréquence moyenne des battements 72 pulsations par minute étant intégrée dans un rythme solaire.

Essayons de porter plusieurs regards pouvant ouvrir à une meilleure connaissance (co-naissance) du coeur sachant que comme le dit le Petit Prince de Saint-Exupéry, "on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux".

Vision Physique : le coeur est une pompe

Le coeur est considéré comme une pompe refoulant le sang dans des canalisations les artères, les valvules cardiaques étant des soupapes laissant passer le sang dans un sens. Les liquides se déplacent des hautes pressions vers les basses pressions. La force d'aspiration exercée par le coeur lors du relâchement (diastole) après la contraction (systole) ainsi que les moteurs auxiliaires muscles des jambes qui en se contractant exercent des pressions sur les veines et poussent le sang vers le haut, ne suffisent pas à expliquer le retour veineux. Le travail fourni par le coeur, muscle de 300 g de la grosseur d'un poing serait comparable à une force capable d'élever en 24 heures un poids de 20 kg à 500 tonnes (suivant l'activité) à une hauteur d'un kilomètre. De plus, la circulation capillaire ne répond pas à une loi mécanique, mais apparaît obéir aux mêmes forces que la sève dans les végétaux, circulation lente qui est alors accélérée rythmiquement par le coeur pour répondre aux besoins. La pompe cardiaque n'est donc pas la seule responsable de la mise en mouvement du sang, et l'on pourrait envisager que le sang fait mouvoir le coeur, en cela le développement embryonnaire peut permettre d'appuyer cette hypothèse.

Vision Embryologique : système de perception interne-externe

Les vaisseaux sanguins se forment au début de la troisième semaine dans le mésoblaste à l'extérieur de l'embryon. A la fin de la troisième semaine les deux tubes cardiaques fusionnent pour former le coeur primitif.

Les battements cardiaques s'établissent donc après la circulation. Le système vasculaire, sorte d'antenne, peut percevoir des ondes gravitationnelles 10 à 38 fois plus faibles que les ondes électro-magnétiques. Le mésoderme cardio-vasculaire a une activité rythmique à trois semaines avant que le neuro-ectoderme (peau, système nerveux) ne soit formé. Le mésoderme est porteur d'une information plus originelle et établit le contact avec l'univers utérin (interne) et l'extérieur  : les vaisseaux sanguins rejoignent le coeur primitif en provenance de l'embryon, du pédicule de fixation (futur cordon) du chorion (futur placenta) et du sac vitellin (continuité avec intestin primitif) ; le système cardio-vasculaire apparaît comme un système de perception et de liaison intérieur-extérieur), et le coeur, comme un organe contractile sensible et adaptable au comportement du sang.

Vision sensitive : coeur, centre de croisement ciel/terre

Le coeur est un organe en forme de triangle pointe vers le bas (les hiéroglyphes égyptiens le figurent en vase donc comme une structure d'accueil) incliné vers la gauche (même axe que le soleil par rapport à la terre), le coeur par sa position, fait figure de médiateur situé à mi-chemin entre ciel et terre – tête et ventre, par sa structure il symbolise cette rencontre de la terre (4) et du ciel (3) :

-      4 cavités : 2 oreillettes (écoute vers le haut) 2 ventricules (écoute vers le bas)

-      3 tissus : endocarde, myocarde, péricarde correspondants respectivement aux 3 tuniques des vaisseaux : intima, média, adventice.

Le chiffre 12 (3 × 4) symbolise le déroulement cyclique spatio-temporel de l'univers et mène à la connaissance spirituelle.

Le coeur est situé dans l'espace limité entre les 12 côtes et les 12 vertèbres dorsales.

Le chakra du coeur est un lotus à 12 pétales.

Dans les traditions :

-      12 travaux d'Hercule pour arriver au centre de l'être.

-      12 chevaliers de la table ronde autour du Roi Arthur.

-      12 Apôtres autour du Christ.

-      12 tribus d'Israël.

-      12 mois, 12 signes du Zodiaque.

-      si le Maître (le coeur) ne répand pas sa lumière, les 12 charges sont en péril (SU-WEN)

Le coeur est :

-      la demeure de Brahma (Inde)

-      Le Trône de Dieu (Chrétiens)

-      Organe Royal (NEI_KING)

Les expressions populaires : avoir bon coeur, le coeur gros, un coeur d'or, un coeur de pierre, le cri du coeur, parler au coeur, etc., ainsi que les mots dérivés : concorde, courage, contre-coeur, cordial, accorder etc. indiquent le siège des sentiments. Chacun sait que les émotions accélèrent les battements du coeur et qu'un choc émotionnel peut occasionner un infarctus du myocarde.

Le coeur centre vital assurant la circulation, siège des sentiments pour l'Occident, des pensées pour PASCAL "les grandes pensées viennent du coeur" est d'une nature encore plus subtile pour la tradition chinoise.

Vision chinoise : coeur, muscle/entité spirituelle

Le coeur se dit XIN, il est représenté par l'idéogramme qui signifie coeur mais aussi esprit, intelligence, sentiment, attention.

L'idéogramme représente un coeur ouvert en haut (il communique avec le ciel) et est considéré comme médiateur entre puissances célestes et toutes les instances de l'organisme, témoin éminent de vie. D'après les textes :

Ling-Shu

-      Le coeur est le grand maître des 5 Zang (organes) et des 6 Fu (entrailles), le lieu de résidence des Jing SHEN (Esprit vital animateur de l'Essence)

-      L'œil est le messager du coeur, la langue est le bourgeon du coeur.

Su-Wen

-      Le coeur est le tronc d'enracinement de la vie, lieu des changements qui se font par les Esprits.

-      Tout le sang (logis de l'âme) dépend du coeur.

-      Le coeur commande les XUE MO (vecteurs d'énergie donnant l'animation aux vaisseaux sanguins).

-      Le coeur a charge de Seigneur et de Maître, la radiance lumineuse des Esprits en procède.

Livre des Rites

-      L'homme possède par nature sang et souffles, un coeur qui permet la connaissance, l'affliction comme la joie, l'allégresse comme la colère etc.

-      Le coeur : Feu, Prince-Souverain (endocarde, intima des vaisseaux) retiré à l'intérieur communique avec l'extérieur par le Maître-Coeur, Feu-Ministre (myocarde, média des vaisseaux, péricarde, adventice des vaisseaux)

-      Le Souverain coeur (XIN) agit par son ministre Maître-Coeur (XIN BAO LO) partout. Le Maître-Coeur correspond aux réseaux tissulaires graisseux et musculaires autour du tube cardiaque primitif, il joue un rôle d'intermédiaire entre coeur et reins et équivaut au système orthosympathique.

-      17 vaisseau conception (17 V. C. est un point situé sur le méridien au milieu du thorax, localisé sur la partie antérieure et médiane du corps) : TAN-ZHONG, point au milieu de la poitrine, maître de l'énergie, point Mo du Maître-Coeur, Mer des Souffles est le Palais Impérial par quoi le Coeur commande, il correspond à la zone du quatrième chakra, chakra du coeur.

 

Le coeur a l'intelligence de tout ce qui se passe dans le corps, sa circulation dynamique est comparable au mouvement de la vie : donner engendre recevoir et inversement comme la diastole suit la systole, l'expansion de l'univers sa contraction. L'homme vivant au rythme du coeur vrai est ainsi en possession de soi et de l'univers, action pour atteindre le non-agir, libre circulation des souffles, écoute permanente de ce mouvement qui se déroule. Le pouvoir du coeur permet le rétablissement de l'équilibre, la juste analyse des pensées et des sentiments, et ainsi comme au premier moment il est dans le calme absolu. Le coeur n'a pas un tempérament de gagnant ou de perdant, il bat dans l'ordinateur cosmique, le champ de pure potentialité, de pure connaissance et du pouvoir infini d'organisation et prend toute chose en compte. Les individus que nous sommes sont autant de coeurs où viennent se croiser les influx du ciel et de la terre, et le coeur de l'homme est le coeur du coeur de l'univers. Pour terminer voici le message donné dans "Les Dialogues avec l'Ange".

"Le battement du coeur de l'univers est un avec le battement de ton coeur, chaque organe est l'image d'une force de l'univers et c'est d'elle qu'il reçoit sa force."

Coeur de l'univers. Atome physique ultime.

 

Muscles et fibres en spirale du coeur humain

 

Similitudes de forme entre l'embryon humain et le coeur adulte

 

Section de l'embryon

 

Bibliographie

Diagnostic en médecine chinoise – Editions Auteroche

Le secret de la maison des Ancêtres – Editions Tredianel

Aperçus de médecine chinoise – Editions Desclee de Brouwer

Les mouvements du coeur – Editions Desclee de Brouwer

Su-Wen – Editions Maisonneuve

Embryologie – Tuchmann-Duplessis

Médecine Anthroposophique – Editions Triades

Dictionnaire des Symboles – Editions Laffont

Au coeur de l'humain – Bothm-Krishnamurti – Editions de Montagne

La spirale mystique – Editions Chêne

Les 7 lois spirituelles du succès – Chopra – Editions Aventure secrète

Dialogues avec l'Ange – Editions Aubier.

La spirale au coeur de l'humain

Poème de Marie-Louise AUCHER

Comme une goutte de silence est tombé le germe de vie

Comme une larme de synthèse, comme une perle humaine

Dans le mystère ignoré de tous tu attends ma certitude

Ne te retourne pas ! Ne regarde plus la lumière dont tu sors !

N'aie pas peur ! Ce passage est court et bientôt tu te reposeras

Confiant en mon sein, sans souci.

Mon tout petit, douce framboise tendre, sang de mon sang,

Brasier de vie, coquillage et corail,

Dans l'ombre, tu te gonfles de vigueur

Bleu entre l'été du ciel et la mer d'émeraude

Impassible et paisible, tu baignes en ces reflets

Il bat ton coeur, il bat à ton rythme et non pas au mien

Entrelacs d'orchestre ! Ton coeur et mon cœur

Tournent en spirale autour l'un de l'autre

Et au centre toi, tu écoutes ! Mais oui c'est déjà la musique

Car ton sang et le mien bruissent, affluent, refluent.

L'énergie glisse en tes canaux précieux

Un chant de fête tourne en spirale

Et toi tu le danses lorsque je t'écoute

Comme les forêts vertes, l'arbre de ta vie est planté

L'arbre du jardin... tu reçois l'inspir, vent de boucles blanches

L'inspir sera ta vie secrète, ô fils d'homme.

Ce mois-ci, enfant, c'est celui de la sagesse

Ta droite et ta gauche se rassemblent

Pour l'équilibre du milieu

La vie t'appelle, viens voir le soleil des hommes

Viens goûter le sommeil de leurs nuits

Viens respirer tous nos souffles,

Viens, la terre t'attend !

Coeur et énergétique face aux défis du XXI^e siècle

Présentation du livre
Coeur et énergétique face aux défis du XXIe siècle
du Dr Michel BERCOT
aux Éditions Opéra, 1 allée des Vinaigriers, 44300 Nantes

Pour les sensitifs, le corps énergétique fait partie de la réalité quotidienne ; ils le perçoivent par le toucher ou la vue comme un champ d'énergie qui émane du vivant ; thérapeutes, ils ont rapporté des résultats étonnants, obtenus sur les maladies grâce à son approche. Ce livre veut aller plus loin ; il explore "comment" cela marche et surtout comment la reconnaissance du corps énergétique restera l'un des grands tournants dans l'histoire de notre civilisation, éclairant tous les domaines sans exception.

Il découvre en lui le Coeur du vivant, la vraie structure invisible qui "bat" derrière tout ce qui existe, ce qui anime l'objectivité de la matière. A l'éternelle question "qu'est-ce que le vivant ?" qui laissent muettes science et religion, cet essai répond "le Coeur", mais une dimension du Coeur qui a échappé jusqu'ici.

A la lumière de ce nouveau regard, sont explorées bien sûr les causes profondes des maladies et celles, possibles, des échecs actuels, mais aussi nombre d'autres défis : problèmes écologiques planétaires et sociaux, ceux posés journellement par la mort et la naissance, problèmes économiques, limites de la psychologie actuelle, énigmes de la parapsychologie, autant d'impasses pour le matérialisme scientifique ou les dogmes religieux mais qui trouvent, sous l'angle du Coeur, des éclairages raisonnables et des solutions possibles.

Novateur, stimulant pour une réflexion affranchie de la pensée unique, c'est aussi un des ouvrages de fond sur le corps énergétique de l'homme.

L'auteur : chirurgien cardiaque, le docteur Michel Bercot a été formé à l'approche orthodoxe et scientifique de la maladie. Son premier contact avec l'énergétique a lieu lors de l'essor des transplantations cardiaques. Devant le désintérêt de la médecine pour les causes profondes des maladies, il explore les approches globales du vivant, sous l'angle de l'énergétique et de ses lois.

Enseignant et chercheur, il anime l'Association Internationale Énergie Vitale, organisatrice des trois premiers congrès internationaux sur le corps énergétique de l'homme, à Paris.

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Pour les thérapeutes sensitifs, le corps énergétique fait partie de la réalité quotidienne. Ils obtiennent des résultats étonnants sur les maladies grâce aux méthodes diagnostiques et thérapeutiques qui s'inscrivent dans sa logique.

Ce livre veut aller plus loin. Il explore "comment" cela marche. Regard sur les causes profondes des maladies et celles des échecs actuels de la médecine, mais aussi les défis posés par la mort et la naissance, les problèmes économiques, les limites de la psychologie, les énigmes de la parapsychologie.

En découvrant dans la structure énergétique du vivant, son COEUR, le réel animateur de la matière objective, bien des impasses pour le matérialisme scientifique ou les dogmes religieux, trouvent sous cet angle du coeur des éclairages raisonnables et des solutions possibles.

Novateur et stimulant pour une réflexion affranchie de la pensée unique ce livre est aussi un ouvrage de fond sur le corps énergétique de l'homme.

*******

En lisant la revue numéro 14 d'octobre-novembre 1999 de l'Association LES MONDES PARALLÈLES (toujours très porteuse) nous avons noté dans la rubrique : "Sélection de la rédaction", que le livre de Michel BERCOT, Coeur et Énergétique face aux défis du XXIe siècle, arrivait en tête. Un résumé en est fait dans la colonne : lire, voir, écouter, avec la présentation de la couverture du livre.

Nous ne dirons jamais assez qu'il s'agit d'un livre novateur, le premier livre-référence dans ce domaine de l'Énergétique, traité scientifiquement... et avec coeur.

La structure vitale – du coeur – et les défis économiques mondiaux

La structure vitale du coeur caractéristique d'un organisme vivant peut-elle contribuer à relever les défis économiques mondiaux ?

Dr Michel BERCOT

La construction d'une Europe économique unie apparaît aujourd'hui à beaucoup comme un mur menaçant alors qu'elle est par principe un nouveau pas vers l'unité. Au pied de ce mur, nous voici enfermés dans une logique contradictoire et impitoyable en même temps, où la stabilité de la monnaie nécessaire à une économie juste – et que pourrait créer une monnaie unique européenne – exclut le plein-emploi et garantit cette forme moderne de l'exclusion qu'est le chômage organisé. Travail pour tous et unité monétaire. Et nos dirigeants de porter leur dévolu sur la première tandis que les "employés" privilégient bien évidemment la seconde. Comment en serait-il autrement, au sein d'un système qui réunit un nombre impressionnant de conditions de maladie ?

Une vision globale de l'être humain et de son organisme physique en particulier s'installe progressivement et doit tout à la reconnaissance du corps énergétique comme la partie subtile qui fonde sur le plan physique le vivant : grâce à elle, sont de mieux en mieux perçues les lois responsables de la santé d'un organisme vivant, et donc les causes responsables de ses maladies.

Cette vision commence d'être rodée à l'échelle humaine individuelle : pourrait-elle éclairer quelque peu l'imbroglio où se trouve l'économie mondiale, c'est à dire la maladie de l'organisme social ?

L'idée est suggérée par les fortes analogies existant entre les deux échelles d'organisme, individuelle et sociale (voir plus loin) et son intérêt réside dans le fait que le corps humain n'a pas été fait de mains d'homme tandis que le corps social d'une nation obéit aux limites – et donc aux erreurs – de son savoir-faire. Quel fossé sépare donc les lois naturelles, les lois de la vie, de celles qui régissent le corps social et son économie, provoquant artificiellement sa maladie ?

1. Principes économiques fondant l'organisme physique humain

Nous savons aujourd'hui que la partie dense de notre organisme physique est totalement pilotée par sa partie énergétique. Celle-ci réunit en une seule fonction apparente les deux fonctions "coeur" et "nerveuse" grâce à une étroite interpénétration. Toutefois chacune d'elles garde sa spécificité et c'est la structure vitale et non l'aspect "conscience" qui est responsable de la santé physique. Rappelons très succinctement les principaux caractères de ce "Coeur", au niveau énergétique.

Le Coeur de l'organisme physique ou structure vitale

Un organisme vivant peut être compris comme la vie collective de minuscules entités, assemblées en un ensemble cohérent, ayant une activité individuelle au sein d'un projet collectif et obéissant à des lois d'harmonie. La structure vitale est la cause cachée à nos sens objectifs d'une semblable organisation.

1.     Vitalité : il existe une énergie de vie dite "vitalité" au niveau physique, responsable de la cohésion intérieure et extérieure de l'organisme physique et de sa disponibilité à la "conscience" qui s'y exprime et à l'action qu'elle suscite. La source unique de cette énergie est le Coeur d'un organisme d'échelle relativement gigantesque, le soleil et à une échelle plus petite, le Coeur de la Terre. L'énergie de vie, au niveau physique, est donc une énergie du Coeur.

2.     Solidarité : cette énergie vitale est distribuée dans toutes les parties des systèmes solaire et planétaire – et donc à chacun de nos corps énergétiques – grâce à l'interpénétration étroite de ces corps d'échelle différente : sous cet angle, nos corps énergétiques sont comme les alvéoles d'un gigantesque poumon subtil qui s'abreuve à la même source par une même "bronche" inspirant le "souffle de vie", le rayonnement solaire : les différents aspects d'un même organisme vital sont solidaires. Le sang est, dans la partie objective de l'organisme humain, le support de la vitalité.

3.     Partage de la vitalité : la structure vitale ou Coeur de notre organisme physique a pour fonction unique de capter, distribuer et ancrer cette énergie vitale dans toutes les parties de l'organisme physique énergétique et moléculaire, accomplissant, à son échelle, le même travail que le soleil à la sienne. Les fonctions solaire et cardiaque sont donc une seule et même fonction.

4.     Décentralisation : le Coeur n'est localisé nulle part dans l'organisme : il constitue une substance énergétique qui pénètre tous les organes : il est décentralisé.

5.     Légalité : une unique loi du Coeur régit l'organisme vital : la création d'un gradient modéré au sein du système de distribution, condition sine qua non pour qu'un flux dynamique soit immédiatement annulé, puis recréé construisant une activité cyclique (la courbe de pression en est une expression caractéristique bien connue). Cette dynamique du Coeur est présente partout, aux niveaux organiques, cellulaire ou moléculaires.

En terme énergétique, elle exprime la volonté d'annuler toute dette : tout mouvement de "sortie" est immédiatement compensé par égal mouvement "d'entrée" et réciproquement. Il s'en suit :

-      que le Coeur décourage toute dette : perceptible à toute échelle en biologie moléculaire ou en physique, cette attitude est la volonté du retour à un équilibre au sein d'un déséquilibre dynamique qui produit le mouvement en avant ou "évolution".

-      qu'en cas de dette liée à une manipulation d'énergie non conforme à sa loi, le Coeur organisera sa compensation ou, dit autrement, son remboursement, sa rétribution. Alors la mémoire, qui est une qualité du Coeur, l'inscrit dans sa substance : une telle "mémoire" constitue donc, par sa nature, un obstacle à la libre circulation de l'énergie vitale ; aussi à quelques niveaux qu'elles s'expriment, psychologique, énergétique ou cellulaire, ces "mémoires" constituent des "prédispositions" aux maladies, leur absence une prédisposition à la santé.

6.     Toutes les maladies de l'organisme physique humain trouvent leur causes dans un trouble de la communication et donc de la distribution (à l'échelle des protéines, des cellules ou des organes entre eux ou encore de l'organisme avec son environnement). Il est aisé de relier tout trouble de la communication au fonctionnement de ces deux aspects d'une unique loi du Coeur :

-      remboursement de dettes sous forme d'expression des "mémoires", les prédispositions à la maladie existant aux trois niveaux génétique, vital et psychique.

-      volonté de créer de nouveaux gradients en établissant de nouveaux ponts permettant de nouvelles activités là où ils manquaient : c'est ainsi, au niveau du corps énergétique, qu'il faut interpréter la construction de "ponts neufs" entre des centres énergétiques qui n'étaient pas encore éveillés et reliés entre eux : c'est la vraie "ouverture du Coeur" produite par l'expansion de la conscience responsables de très nombreuses maladies de nature évolutive.

Dans les deux cas, la "conscience" subjective ou être intérieur est le grand responsable de la projection, dans la structure vitale ou Coeur, de ces blocages, reflets de son ignorance des lois du Coeur qui sont aussi celles de la Vie.

Telles sont les données prouvées qui fondent l'économie d'un organisme vivant, établissant une frontière infranchissable entre elle et celle de nos robots (organes artificiels par exemple).

2. Qu'est-ce que l'argent ?

De manière curieuse, les économistes ne sont pas d'accord entre eux sur la nature de l'argent, certains allant même jusqu'à affirmer que l'argent est une facilité inventée par l'homme pour résoudre le problème de ses échanges matériels.

Outre le fait que l'homme ne peut rien inventer qui n'existe déjà dans la nature, la structure vitale d'un organisme vivant fournit une réponse sans équivoque : l'argent est une énergie et non de la matière dense. Cette énergie est à l'économie de l'organisme social ce que l'énergie vitale est à l'organisme énergétique et le sang à son organisme dense.

Deux tableaux (1 et 2) résument la vision du Coeur sur l'identité de l'argent.

Tableau 1 – Symboles et nature de l'argent

 

Tableau 2

Conclusions :

L'argent est une énergie magnétique chargée du pouvoir de matérialiser.

Ceci implique que l'argent est l'énergie du Coeur et qu'il est régi par les lois du Coeur.

3. L'organisme social est un organisme vivant de grande échelle

Les tableaux 3 et 4 résument les analogies précises existant entre un organisme vivant individuel et un organisme vivant collectif.

Tableau 3 – Organismes humain et social – analogies

 

Tableau 4

 

Conclusions :

1.     L'argent est une énergie : il n'est pas une marchandise.

2.     L'argent est l'énergie du Coeur : il est donc régi par les lois du Coeur.

4. Et maintenant : de quel modèle s'inspire notre système économique ? En d'autres termes jusqu'où s'affranchit-il des lois du coeur ?

Le diagnostic : ce système a une tête et pas de Coeur : il fonctionne comme un robot super intelligent et créatif, mais il fabrique des fictions : comme à l'échelle individuelle et selon la sagesse du dicton populaire qui veut "que seules les illusions tuent", ses "illusions" sont les causes de ses maladies.

Une analyse simple, cherchant à mettre en relief les caractères propres à tous les régimes économiques, quels qu'ils soient, capitalistes, socialistes, communistes, montrent que tous échappent à la structure et aux lois du Coeur sur les trois points suivants, chacun à des titres divers :

1. Leur centralisme autoritaire : il organise la concentration de l'argent dans des centres de pouvoir qui régissent majoritairement sa circulation en "circuit fermé", c'est à dire pour le seul bénéfice de leurs propres objectifs à l'intérieur de leur propre logique.

Aujourd'hui existent, d'une manière générale, cinq grands centres de ce genre :

1.     les puissances industrielles multinationales qui défendent la prééminence du capitalisme faussement dit "libéral",

2.     les caisses des états qui défendent celle du "pouvoir publique",

3.     les puissances financières incarnées par les banques centrales qui défendent leur droit à décréter la vérité d'un système à dette et à décider de l'importance de cette dette par l'intervention autoritaire sur les taux d'intérêts de l'argent,

4.     les syndicats divers qui organisent par tous les moyens de pression possibles qui confinent à un terrorisme doux, les désirs, légitimes ou non, de leurs adhérents et enfin,

5.     les puissances industrielles et financières puissamment organisées en marge des pouvoirs institutionnels, qui défendent leur droit à vendre des anesthésiques – rêve et mirages – à des millions d'êtres humains que la perversité du système économique rend encore plus vulnérables et met ainsi à leur portée, les différentes "mafias" qui "automatisent" les êtres humains par le moyen du sexe, de la drogue et du jeu.

Chacun de ces centres de pouvoir a ses propres objectifs ; il se partage avec les autres, comme le feraient des vases communiquant, la richesse financière du monde par laquelle chacun assoit son pouvoir : ils sont donc condamnés à s'entendre grâce à de savants compromis.

Tout cela n'a rien à voir avec l'argent lui-même qui est la puissante  énergie du Coeur capable de matérialiser les idées nouvelles ou de statufier les idées anciennes lorsqu'un objectif matérialiste le confisque.

2. L'obéissance à des lois de compétition, qui sont celles que la science occidentale, matérialiste et réductionniste, a cru discerner dans la nature, sous l'impulsion de deux de ses plus grands penseurs mais surtout des écoles qui se réclament d'eux :

-      Charles Darwin qui voit, dans les lois de la vie, la sélection des organismes vivants par leur résistance à un environnement extérieur essentiellement hostile et où le plus fort gagne toujours.

-      Louis Pasteur qui a appliqué ce point de vue à la maladie de l'organisme humain tel qu'il le comprenait ; l'environnement est ici identifié à des micro-organismes pathogènes pour l'homme ; toutes les maladies sont alors liées à l'envahissement de l'organisme humain par ces invisibles organismes lilliputiens et, là encore, le plus fort gagne. Tous les phénomènes appartenant au vivant sont alors interprétés exclusivement dans la logique de cette vision compétitive : en résulte une attitude de compétition agressive entre eux et l'homme réduit à la dimension de son seul organisme physique, la tentative de stériliser l'environnement et une attitude protectionniste contre le facteur "extérieur" reconnu seul responsable des maladies.

Point n'est besoin de réfléchir beaucoup pour voir que ces mêmes principes fondent l'économie tel que l'homme la conçoit, aujourd'hui à l'échelle planétaire.

Les cinq centres de pouvoir précités, obéissent eux aussi, de gré ou de force, à cette logique de compétition et d'affrontement : otages de cette loi illusoire, ils en deviennent les acteurs robots, consentants ; aussi nécessairement, se montrent-ils mutuellement conflictuels puis agressifs, cherchant des alliances possibles entre eux dans le seul but de faire bloc et de vaincre les autres par le "poids" de leur unité agressive : il en résulte un universel mouvement de concentration et de centralisme souvent caché.

Au sein d'un système pervers fondé sur la force de la tête et dont la logique exige qu'il y ait nécessairement des gagnants et des perdants, du moins tant que le système survit à sa maladie, il est naturel que chacun cherche à tirer son épingle du jeu.

L'hypnose collective, privée et publique, est si puissante, et l'amour du pouvoir chez ceux qui dirigent si grand, que l'ambiance de compétition destructrice est considérée comme "normale" et que d'impossibles solutions sont cherchées en son sein !

Il y a fort à parier qu'elles n'ont aucune chance d'apparaître. Bien au contraire, apparaît au sein des corps sociaux national et international, une maladie qu'à l'échelle individuelle, on appellerait "auto-immune" et qui conduit à ce que l'organisme exclut certaines de ses propres cellules ou organes, comme s'ils étaient des étrangers pour lui ! Il ne semble pas que cette analogie soit très "forcée", n'est-il pas vrai ?

3. La construction d'un système monétaire reposant sur la dette organisée et où l'argent est marchandé : en d'autres termes, l'argent y est manipulé comme une marchandise, les dettes sont produites grâce aux lois fondant sa manipulation bancaire et ainsi, non seulement encouragées, mais organisées par le système lui-même.

Il est aisé de voir que ces perversions, relativement aux lois du Coeur, s'expriment dans tous les systèmes économiques, capitalistes, socialistes ou communistes ; seule la nature du centre de pouvoir monétaire varie : les financiers privés internationaux dans le système capitaliste, l'état dans le régime communiste et un régime hybride pour les régimes socialistes où les deux extrêmes tentent malhabilement de cohabiter avec une préférence avouée pour la "gestion publique" de l'argent par le centre de pouvoir étatique. Pour que ce centre de pouvoir qu'est l'état échappe à la perversité du système, il faudrait que nos démocraties en soient, ce qui, à l'évidence, est loin d'être encore le cas, ce qui impliquerait que ses hommes de pouvoir aient conscience des vraies lois du Coeur et renoncent à leur simulacre actuel.

Quel traitement ?

Sous l'angle de la vision du Coeur, il repose à l'évidence sur la neutralisation de ces trois facteurs desquels toute la maladie économique semble dépendre : le type de régime politique pourrait n'être alors qu'un simple choix de société : les trois sont a priori possible s'ils respectent les lois du coeur qui fondent la Vie : une synthèse des trois au sein d'une même nation est une voie possible, chacun rendant alors le service auquel il est le mieux prédisposé.

Une série de lignes directrices d'ordre très général est ainsi suggérée :

Premier constat : le malade – l'organisme social fondé sur ses lois actuelles – est condamné parce que les lois qui le fondent sont "antibiotiques". Tout acharnement thérapeutique ne saurait produire que la survie temporaire du système malade ainsi que le montrent les tentatives faites dans tous les pays et par différents types de gouvernements, aujourd'hui sans résultats. Cet acharnement thérapeutique produit dans l'opinion publique, dépression ou agressivité, lassitude, peurs et désenchantement divers conduisant à une perte de la confiance pour ses dirigeants et des tentations d'emprunter par désespoir d'autres voies, elles aussi condamnées pour des raisons similaires. La discorde en résulte toujours au lieu de l'unité, indispensable milieu de culture pour l'expression de la liberté.

Deuxième constat : de nouvelles solutions doivent être recherchées en dehors du système ; elles n'ont nul besoin d'être inventées puisqu'elles émergent tout simplement de la lecture globale d'un organisme vivant en bonne santé, à quelque échelle que ce soit, tel qu'il a été décrit plus haut : cette lecture révèle la présence du Coeur et de ses lois.

Ces orientations salvatrices pourraient s'organiser autour des idées suivantes :

1. Substituer les lois du pouvoir du coeur aux seules lois du pouvoir de la tête ou de l'intelligence : l'intelligence du coeur est une première façon de faire fusionner ces deux pouvoirs au lieu de les opposer, inversant leur relation : coeur en haut (inspiration), tête en bas (expiration créatrice).

Pratiquement cela conduit à remplacer la compétition agressive et destructrice par la coopération. Les autres hommes ou nations ne sont pas les virus que décrit la logique darwinienne et pasteurienne de l'économie...

2. Réformer notre sens des valeurs de l'argent et le système bancaire à dette :

-      respecter ce dont l'argent est le symbole : le pouvoir de l'Unique – et donc de l'unité – qui est aussi le Tout et en même temps chacune de ses parties : unité et liberté créatrice.

-      l'argent n'est pas une marchandise ; pas plus que le sang il ne peut être vendu et faire l'objet d'un commerce.

-      le système bancaire créateur de dettes doit être réorganisé vers un autre type de fonctionnement créateur et dynamique.

-      libérer l'argent et assurer les vrais moyens d'une créativité individuelle ou associative qui n'est pas le service que des citoyens réclament à la puissance publique sauf libre choix démocratique de ce type particulier de fonctionnement.

Il résultera nécessairement de ces dispositions l'indispensable stabilité de la monnaie et l'impossibilité de toute spéculation ; on sortira alors de l'absurde équivoque de ce qui semble aujourd'hui mutuellement exclusif : la monnaie unique avec la stabilité qui en résultera et le plein emploi. Ces deux objectifs contradictoires dans un système pervers cessent de l'être dans un organisme vivant.

3. Décentralisation visant à un meilleur équilibre entre les pouvoirs créateurs états–citoyens, collectif–privé : tout centre de pouvoir, public ou privé, à l'intérieur du corps social, devrait être limité, tant que les lois du Coeur ne règnent pas car il y est potentiellement dangereux : le fait que ce monopole soit exercé par un centre privé ou publique change en définitive peu de choses au problème, les régimes "démocratiques" étant encore bien loin d'éviter les pièges du pouvoir autoritaire, grâce à la manipulation aisée de l'opinion publique et l'ignorance des vrais problèmes où elle est tenue.

Le coeur n'étant pas localisé, le pouvoir doit être réparti aussi largement que possible au sein de tout l'organisme social : l'argent, qui en est le symbole, doit être libéré et irriguer tous les "organes sociaux" sans exception en fonction de leurs besoins vitaux et du service qu'il rendent à l'organisme entier, reconnaissant ainsi l'extraordinaire expansion de la conscience humaine actuelle et son corollaire, la puissance créatrice.

Les autres orientations trouveront un dynamisme accentué :

-      guérir toute zone de pauvreté sur la planète : un organe malade rend tout l'organisme malade.

-      autonomiser la masse des travailleurs en augmentant leurs salaires et les libérer du souci légitime, devenu hantise, de conserver les "avantages acquis".

-      réorganiser les systèmes de santé et de protection sociale.

-      réorienter l'argent : plus d'argent devrait être affecté à l'expansion de la conscience humaine et planétaire et moins vers la production de biens consommation.

-      ne pas confondre : les buts qui sont l'unification de l'humanité dans le respect de sa diversité culturelle qui nécessite et traduit l'expansion de sa conscience collective et les moyens pour l'atteindre, argent, production matérielle et échanges commerciaux.

La force de cette vision du Coeur reconnaissant la structure vitale d'un organisme physique comme l'essence du vivant, tient dans le fait qu'elle n'est pas une idéologie de plus mais repose sur ce qu'une telle vision livre à deux cerveaux droit et gauche qui acceptent de coopérer au lieu d'entrer en compétition, se livrant alors une guerre conforme à la même compréhension darwinienne et pasteurienne du vivant : toutefois le pouvoir de la tête doit être au service de celui du Coeur. Telles sont les voies suggérées par le modèle qui explique aujourd'hui le mieux la nature d'un organisme vivant en bonne santé ; "suggérées" est très en dessous de la réalité.

Pour l'instant, économistes et politiques continuent, tout azimut, de chercher des solutions à l'intérieur même du système, avec la complicité des centres de pouvoirs et aussi celle d'une opinion publique anesthésiée par les thèses darwinienne et pasteurienne qui persiste à croire que la paix et la santé sont acquises par la guerre contre l'autre pudiquement assimilé à "l'environnement".

Extracts from the book HEART (Agni Yoga)

 

Copyright, 1944, 1975
Agni Yoga Society, Inc.

 

This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced in English
or in translation to any other language
without written permission from the publisher
Second Edition Revised 1975

 

25. Without exaggeration it can be said that the majority of heart diseases originate because of wealth. Therefore, people who have embraced the Teaching depart from wealth to remain only its guardians.

62. The sun is the heart of the system; so, also, the heart of man is the sun of the organism. There are many sun-hearts, and the Universe represents a system of hearts; therefore, the cult of Light is the cult of the heart. To understand this abstractly is to leave the heart cold; but as soon as the Light of the sun-heart shall live, the need of the magnet's warmth will begin to shine forth like a true sun. It is said, “Cross Santana with the aid of the heart.” Thus one can come closer to an understanding of the heart. The heart's rhythm can be regarded as the rhythm of life. The Teaching about the heart is as bright as the sun, and the warmth of the heart speeds as swiftly as a sunbeam. Everyone has wondered at the instantaneousness with which a ray of the rising sun warms all things. The heart can act likewise. (…)

66. You know about the effect of human emanations upon plants. You also know about the effect of color. Now it is necessary to recall the influence of sound. The similarity of these effects is significant. If, for the expansion of the potencies of a plant, an open, bright-sounding heart is necessary, then, in the effects of sound, consonance and all the dominant combinations are necessary. A dissonance cannot strengthen the current of energy. Dissonances, as an antithesis, may be useful in their effect upon people for strengthening the rhythm of consciousness; but with plants, where consciousness is at its minimum, dissonance seems to be only a retarding condition. With minerals, dissonance may even be a cause of disintegration. Verily, a rose is a symbol of consonance, and the dominant of the radiation of the rose is linked with the glow of the heart. Not a few experiments have been made with sound on plants, but the ancients believed that the finest flowers grew by the temples where there were numerous harmonies of voice and music.

69. The complaints against insufficient guidance are customary. People are accustomed to cover their idiosyncrasies with complaints. But, precisely, humanity is not bereft of Guidance; it should pay attention to all that is given! Many impulses that arise through spiritual influence are lost not only without benefit but even become injurious by remaining misconstrued in the storehouses of consciousness. It can be stated that a minimum fraction of suggestion finds fitting application; especially obstructive are the habits that impel the consciousness into conventional paths. They also deplete the abilities of the heart when it is prepared to re-echo to the Highest Guidance. It is exactly the heart which knows the highest from the lowest; but the enfeebled, obscured heart will itself be at the lowest level, where even the lowest will appear to be the highest. Purity of heart is the most essential possession. Wisdom, courage, self-sacrifice cannot be contained in an obscured heart. But Guidance will suggest deeds of heroism, and such counsel must not seem extreme or austere.

70. Many of the most insistent transmissions are converted into uncertain wavering. One can observe how even worthy spirits often do not apply the given Indication in time, and how trivial are the obstructing circumstances. The actions and habits are incommensurate when compared with the transmissions from Above. Moreover, it is not necessary to imagine magic formulas to attract Guidance; it is close, and the magnet of a pure heart will clarify the path. The most essential acquisition is this magnet which attracts and opens.

Verily, it is joyous to be in the presence of the pure in heart!

96. Sickness rises from sin – says the Scripture. We say that sickness comes from the imperfections of past and present. One should know how to approach the cure of sickness. To the regret of physicians, the process toward perfection is the true prophylactic measure. It can be understood that the process toward perfection begins with the heart, and it has not only a spatial but also a narrow material meaning. Mothers carry their children close to their hearts as a panacea for calming them, but usually one is unaware that this holding close to the heart creates a powerful reaction. Thus, also in the Subtle World we gather people close to the heart for strengthening and for cure. Of course, the heart loses a great deal of energy through such strong application. But, then, more than once has the heart of a mother been represented as transfixed by swords and arrows, a symbol of the acceptance into the heart of all actual pains.

Not only in developed sicknesses but at their inception is the cure through the heart especially potent. At present, this remedy is almost forgotten, but it is no less powerful than a blood transfusion, for through the reaction of the heart the finest energy is transmitted without the unpleasant low admixture of blood. When one thinks about the process of perfectment, one must not forget solicitude for the heart that gives.

104. People do not want to observe the manifestations of the Subtle World, which are scattered everywhere. So, also, they cannot imagine that ethics is a practical pharmacopoeia for attracting the spatial energies by the simplest method. You will not tire of repeating about the necessity of realizing the application of the heart for the attraction of the highest possibilities. People forget to apply the most simple method of disinfecting life. Much is spoken of the significance of fire; but it's entirely forgotten that the living fire is the best purifier. People were given electricity, but they had to isolate the substance of energy, leaving only a dead light. A bonfire, wood, oil lamp, candles will purify space and destroy many contagious diseases. One can see that those who know have, together with electricity, also a real fire, which very easily attracts the Spatial Fire. Ask a physician what part a lighted candle plays in disinfection. He will probably regard this question as senseless, because he never thought of a living fire. Whence, then, come the oil lamps in temples, if not for purification? Whence, then, come the ancient customs of surrounding a sick man with fire? Thus, fire is sometimes a physician and guardian. The living fire in the oven often wards off the sicknesses of workers. The bonfire as a purifying symbol, verily, is a medical concept.

147. Repeat to physicians that they should observe people during the so-called healthy state. The most interesting manifestations for physicians will not be observed during contagious diseases. The principle of contagion itself reminds one somewhat of obsession, but, of course, the most instructive manifestations of psychic energy will not take place during a contagious disease. Nevertheless, this condition is never taken into consideration. How, then, can we expect expedient discoveries when the most important – psychic energy – is entirely unnoticed, not even disputed, even not denied, but simply unnoticed together with the most insignificant manifestations? The most successful method will speak again about psychic energy. Someone closing his room with all locks will secretly read of psychic energy, and without confessing it to anybody will nevertheless think about it.

167. When you place the point of a pendulum above a sandy surface in order to watch the cosmic vibrations, you will not push the needle by hand in order to forcibly accelerate its motion. Such forcing first of all would be stupid, because it would only produce a false indication – the same with the pendulum of the spirit, one cannot force its indications. The designs of the needle of the spirit are complex and only the striving of the heart can vitally and truthfully strengthen the indications of the pendulum. The Teaching of ancient Tibet speaks about the same pendulum of the spirit. Above the head of the tested one is placed a magnet; not only is the inner reflex noted but the magnet begins to swing, and the character of the movements is noticed as either abrupt or quivering; but they can also be circular, and this sign will be the most indicative of the correct condition of consciousness. Of course, this experiment is very lengthy and even a tormenting one, because it demands complete immobility, and you know how difficult this is to reach.

169. It happens that people are so savage in spirit that they can only live by condemning each other. This is not an inspection of another's armor with the view of helping; on the contrary, condemnation becomes the meaning of life. If one deprives such a condemner of his tongue, he will perish and wither like a plant without water. Such a manifestation can be investigated from a medical point of view. One can see in this condemnation a kind of obsessive vampirism, when the possession of more active vital fluids is needed to nourish the obsessed one.

This aspect of life ought and must be investigated with a scientific purpose. Of course, it is difficult to conquer obsession, especially because after obsession the gates remain open to visitors for a long time. Very intense observation is needed to protect the one who has admitted an obsessor through irritation, which opens wide the door. The heart is the best protection against obsession, but one must watch that the heart should not fall asleep.

194. Antennas can be adjusted for various waves, but their character is not disturbed because of that. Likewise hearts can catch various currents, yet their essence will be one. This can be observed especially about presentiments. Comparisons can disclose a remarkable scale of human hearts. It can be observed how one event may evoke unfailing effects, but how diverse they will be as to time and quality! One event can provide an entire volume of observations. One heart will grasp the cliche of the Subtle World, another will demand a physical current, and a third will respond only after the event itself. It is one thing to evaluate an event according to its merit, another to exaggerate it, and it is something else to unconsciously reflect it the rhythm of the pulse. No doubt the response of the heart is much more vital than one thinks. Presentiment is not superstition or imagination, but a physical fact. By a slight observation one can foretell an event, for the background of the event is not important; it is its potentiality that counts. Thus, the heart reverberates according to the most varied waves. Is it not instructive to ponder upon these manifestations?

210. “Are there not traits of egoism in the state of ecstasy, the state of Samadhi?” The ignoramus will ask this question. How could he know that this supreme state is not only unrelated to selfhood but antithetical to it! How could one who has never experienced the highest tension apprehend that that, precisely, carries the highest Bliss for the General Welfare! Nothing gives birth to such pure abnegation of self as that induced by the exultation of the brimming heart. Which of the human energies can compare with the energy of the heart, and which of the energies can act at long distances? The worlds have no boundaries for it and consciousness knows no limitations. Thus, a window can be cut through into the Invisible. But, as was said, the Invisible will become visible and we shall be ready to apply the Fiery Baptism in life. Therefore, let us give due regard to the significance of the experiment performed by the Mother of Agni Yoga here, without abandoning life. From the first spatial sparks, through all fires up to Samadhi, she will leave writings which will become the threshold of the New World. Therefore, I speak not only of tension but also of great caution. Armageddon does not lighten the conditions of ascent; what was achieved is therefore the more valuable.

Thus, I say, learn to harken to the fiery heart. Do not doubt that which is purified by Fire. Wise is the revelation of the foundations of the heart in life; and how greatly one ought to rejoice at this rock of Good.

Cling more firmly to Me. Cling to Me at each moment, on all steps. The daggers of Satan are aimed at one's back, but if there is a firm unity, the blade will break against the rock of Good. Firm striving, useful on all worlds, is needed.

244. Where, then, is the boundary of self-interest? The heart knows these boundaries, but the reason cannot separate the petals of the fiery lotus. When the guard is entrusted with the gates, when the shield is given to him, and when he accepts all the arrows intended for the Teacher in his shield, this in itself will be a personal action, but it will be opposite to self-interest. The heart is well aware of these beautiful personal actions when each hostile arrow grows into a new petal of the fiery lotus. These personal actions, not superimposed by anyone, ordained by no one, denied by no one, but condemned by all the evil forces, are the true rays of achievement. Precisely the condemnation revealed by wrath will serve as one of the true criteria. One should note that darkness does not condemn actual self-interest; this also provides a true criterion. One should not only know of the criterion that leads upward but also of that which draws downward; only thus can one value the shield of achievement.

246. Many errors have occurred because of a false understanding of the evolution of laws. When humanity approached the fundamental laws based upon ancient findings, it usually forgot to take into consideration all the stratifications of the ages, which are so important. Thus, if you describe a circle in the air with a stick, it will return to its primary position already altered and full of new sediments. The philosopher who maintains that the planet is regenerated with each rotation is correct. In any case, it alters with each rotation; so, too, does the law, which, remaining impregnable at the core, is constantly encircled with the spirals of evolution. These coats are very significant, hence it would be erroneous to adopt the law of millenniums ago in its complete scope. Hence, we insist upon constant study. One cannot be satisfied with a law that governed the planet during the glacial epoch. Similarly, one cannot compare the spiritual balance of a millennium ago with the present hour. Even chemically the strata around Earth have altered. Unapplied energies have been evoked, and thus chaos obtains new approaches.

255. You know that the living fire is the most disinfectant remedy, but the nature of fire is the same in all manifestations. The fire of the heart will be a high manifestation of fire; this means that this fire will be the best purifier and protector. Therefore, instead of various dubious and often poisonous antiseptic prescriptions, it is much better not only to have the fire of the hearth, but also to kindle the fires of the heart. It can be proved to what an extent the fires of the heart fight serious illness. Thus, our contemporary physicians will sooner or later have to pay attention to all states of the fires. By barking at the truths, long since known, physicians will not reach the panacea.

You judge quite correctly about the Vedic gods; thus, the microcosm resembles the Macrocosm. I affirm that the fire of the heart purifies the densest darkness. But along with purification the fire of the heart is impregnated with the qualities of a magnet, and thus it becomes the natural link with the Macrocosm.

264. Beyond all human boundaries flash the sparks of space. So, also, over and above earthly decrees the far-off calls come flying. Do you not awaken at times with unusual words in your consciousness, do you do not hear unearthly names? The meetings in the Subtle World are not few. Not few are the channels to the fiery regions. And often we are called by those whom we are destined to encounter sooner or later in the future. The earthly world is not impoverished if we ourselves do not limit it. Not a little did the ancients teach us about the possibilities of transformation and the link with the Highest Consciousness. It is unforgivable for us to remain in an animal state. For although animals sense the Subtle World, they do not cognize it. But people must realize their link with the far-off worlds; in this lies their distinction and power. Yet if people close their consciousness, they harm not only themselves but also existence in general.

267. You are familiar with the music of the spheres, the spatial bells, and the reverberating strings. It will be asked why, then, do not a multitude of people know these manifestations. But, then, why is a multitude of people satisfied with false intonation, absolutely refusing to realize the nuances of sound? Whereas even the rustle of tearing paper rends space, but the majority of persons do not even notice it. So it is with odor. The aromas of the Subtle World often penetrate to the physical world, but people primarily do not wish to notice them. Even the smoke of a conflagration is noticed by people only when it already chokes their throats. Not only insensibility but immobility as well makes the people blind and deaf. They do not possess even basic imagination; hence they distort the entire meaning of existence. Thus, for these shallow-minded ones the magnet of the heart is pure nonsense.

276. Fatigue is of course brought by neither spring nor autumn, but the densification of the currents is pressing upon the centers. It cannot be otherwise when legions of the obsessed and of the infuriated are rushing headlong. Thus, one should not be astonished when the obsessed ones in remote continents begin to pronounce the same formulas. This is one more example of the rule of the Invisible World from the one common Source. For Light and also darkness are monarchic. Inversely it is most instructive to observe the world thought; on both sides one can see a definite division, since each side will apply its own efforts and decisive measures. Thus, even from the earthly plane one can observe the division of forces and understand the movements of the armies.

277. One can think with the brain or with the heart. Time was, perhaps, when people forgot about the work of the heart, but now is the era of the heart, and we must concentrate our strivings in this direction. Thus, without relieving the brain of work, we are ready to recognize the heart as a moving power. People have contrived a myriad of limitations for the heart. The works of the heart are understood narrowly and often impurely. We must bring the entire world into the sphere of the heart, because the heart is the microcosm of existence. He who is not inspired by the great concept of the heart, will minimize his own significance. We give Our decree against irritation, but only greatness of heart will preserve one from the poison of irritation. We speak of containment, but where is the ocean of containment outside of the heart? We recall the far-off worlds, but it is the heart, not the brain, that can remember Infinity. Thus, let us not disparage that which is bestowed upon us as the receptacle of Bliss.

284. A simple dairymaid, while she churns her butter, already knows the secret of the formation of the world. She also knows that one cannot make butter out of water. She will say that one can churn milk or whip an egg; thus she already knows the matter that contains psychic energy. But precisely this circumstance will not seem convincing to the scientists. The dairymaid also knows how useful is a spiral rotation, but to some this postulate will seem prejudiced. Even if angered, think of the surroundings and transfer the physical laws to your own existence! Only thus will you survive Armageddon! It would of course be an error to forget the application of the heart as the counterbalance of all confusion.

303. It means that even in purely physical illnesses it is necessary to seek the cause in the quality of thought. Therefore, direct the thoughts of those who surround you gradually toward good. You already have an example of how much pain is caused by cursing and profanity, even at far distances. It is necessary attentively to direct the heart upon existing reality. Especially can those obsessed ones act who contact the aura, even slightly. Thus, it is very necessary to pay attention to the very first impression of people when the heart is able to give its sign. One can easily imagine what type of infection-carriers obsessed people may be, therefore it is necessary to avoid them.

331. Refinement of the heart predicates the eschewal of a meat diet; furthermore an understanding of the Subtle World not only indicates the harm of assimilating decaying products but also reveals what neighbors decomposition attracts. Truly, it is difficult to decide where lies the greatest harm – from the assimilation of meat or from attraction by meat of undesirable guests. Even the dried and smoked meats, which are relatively less harmful, nevertheless, by their odor, attract hungry ones from the Subtle World, and if they are welcomed by abominable speech, the most harmful associations result. As you have heard, many partake of food in silence, or accompany it by worthy conversation. Of course, no decay is permissible, even vegetables must not be permitted to decompose. People need little – two fruits, some cereal, and milk. Thus one not only may be purified internally but also rid oneself of many neighbors. Is it not necessary for the physicians who study the means of fighting cancer and gallstones to pay attention to this elementary prophylaxis? People speak of burning incense and the use of perfumes. But certain poisons are aromatic and kill the consciousness! This study also should not be forgotten.

341. Degeneration, fattiness, dilation of the heart occur because of the inadmissible conditions of life. Heart disease resulting from karmic causes is very rare. Dilation of the heart may be due to good but unused potentialities. Of course, fattiness of the heart is an inexcusable condition because each fattiness can be arrested at the start. Labor is the best antidote for the tendency to fattiness. One should observe at least a slight hygiene of the heart. Striving to work is the best strengthening of the heart. Not work, but a rupture in the striving of the heart acts destructively. True, strong hostile arrows are also injurious, but for these wounds you know the balm of Hierarchy. Only the use of this balm must be continuous! It is definitely a great error to forget the existence of such a medicine.

348. Contentment with each physical state and an insatiable onward striving of the heart constitutes the advice of a sensible physician. It should not be assumed that perfect ethics do not combine with medicine. It should not be assumed that thought alone can arrest the physical condition. This would be one-sided. We live in a chemical laboratory and form a part of it ourselves. Of a person who was critically ill, the ancients said, “He must be taken to the Fiery Mountain.” They thereby implied two meanings one was a reminder of the fiery body, which knows not illness, the other, a purely physical meaning, because the fire of eruptions contains a particular combination of energies which can stimulate certain nerve centers. It cannot be otherwise, since the flame of the heart responds to the most remote subterranean fires. The extent to which the flame of the heart controls the subterranean current is also a subject for study; if certain organisms of a definite element can discern subterranean waters, then fiery people of course maintain the unity with fire. It is precisely this element which greatly needs observation.

354. From Our point of view each vivisection performed upon the heart is inadmissible, just as it is inadmissible to seek the Ringse in a living organism, yet one can observe many psycho-physiological manifestations during the development of the heart. Thus, the fiery heart produces a light spot upon the upper tissue which, during the increase of fire, becomes almost white. The ancients called this manifestation the “sacred ashes.” This has nothing in common with the enlargement of the heart, but rather with its refinement. One can also understand why it is impossible to make a comparable experiment with an animal heart and that of man. If the human heart is the throne of consciousness, the animal heart must, of course, differ from it in certain functions. Moreover, a violation of the action of the heart after the ejection of one's subtle body would be a real crime. Each artificial pulsation of the heart will attract the subtle body and perpetrate an unpardonable act of decomposition and suffering.

371. I already have spoken of the significance of rays and currents that pierce space. Such considerations would not be difficult to verify scientifically, it would seem. Why not examine the atmosphere transpierced by every possible ray and forced saturation? It could be proved that a condition of oversaturation of the atmosphere is possible. Of course, this forced oversaturation of the atmosphere must produce abnormal results. Man cannot be subjected to constant strokes of lightning or a constant downpour of arsenic or any other poison. Aside from medical considerations, one should think of the crossing of waves. Even the simple rotation of an object produces strong disturbances. To what a degree, then, must the refraction of waves react upon the human heart! But apparently people do not think of anything beyond their own stature.

Indeed, many sicknesses result from the atmosphere, but supersaturation or poisoning of the atmosphere especially reacts upon the heart and brain reflexes. Thus, one should not evoke energies without knowing their sphere of influence.

377. A scientist may ask how one arrives at immunity of the heart. His question will be a correct one. The heart, with all its indisputable potentiality, will not reveal itself without a conscious immunity. The balancing of the heart with the consciousness gives impetus to the unifying substance. To this end, the scientist can begin a twofold approach he can purify the consciousness, for the physical ballast does not as yet help the consciousness. Only thought purified by art and liberated from servility can give efflorescence to the consciousness. Here I call attention to the condition of liberation from slavery. One must be liberated precisely from all forms of slavery. As to the second condition for the scientist, he must feel the heart as an independent apparatus and begin to observe the reactions and reflexes of the heart. Then will also come the first heralds of success – precisely the stars of light; they will teach still further observation.

Also one should learn constant vigilance amidst all tasks; this flexibility is necessary for distant travelers.

386. In substance, the heart is an organ of higher action and offering; hence each offering is of the nature of the heart. Each positive Teaching ordains giving. Such an affirmation is justly practical, because without giving the heart does not endure. Of course, it is necessary to understand giving in full justice. Giving should not be understood as only monetary or in needless objects. True giving is of the spirit. Let each heart pour out streams of spiritual gifts. Not without cause is it said that each throb of the heart is a smile, a tear, and gold. All of life flows through the heart. It is necessary to know to give constant work to the heart. Nothing can refine the heart so greatly as an infinite spiritual giving. Usually the spiritual offering is not valued, since everything invisible is not appreciated. But the source of riches – spiritual as well as material – is in the heart. If only it could be brought into each case where the throbs of the heart are precious.

390. Whoever loves flowers is on the heart's path. Whoever knows the striving to the summits is on the heart's path. Whoever thinks purely is on the heart's path. Whoever knows of the highest worlds is on the hearts path. Whoever is ready for Infinity is on the heart's path. Thus shall we summon all hearts to the realization of the Source. It is correct to understand that the substance of the heart belongs to the Subtle and also the Fiery World. One can perceive worlds within the heart, but not within the mind. Thus, wisdom is contrary to intellect, yet it is not forbidden to adorn the mind with wisdom.

408. The education of the heart must begin at the age of two. First of all, one may advise mother's milk or goat's milk – but using a wet nurse is a hideous practice. Besides, the mother's milk is often more digestible and already contains particles of the heart energy. But until now this was not taken into consideration; even the simplest people feel the truth more than the cold dogmatists.

428. Cor bovinum, in other words, ox heart, is the familiar condition of an enlarged heart. There are many causes for this, but only the chief cause concerns us. The enlarged heart may be caused by an overflow of unutilized heart energy. It can be said that people who suffer from an enlarged heart did not begin the education of the heart in time. The potentiality of their organ was good but the heart energy was not applied. Of course, an enlarged heart is preferable to a fatty one. Thus, the heart may be called the most individual organ. Hence, the methods for the education of the heart must be very flexible. From the earliest years one must pay attention to aversions and predilections. It is stupid to regard as ignorant nonsense aversions which are merely not understood. Often the entire structure of the heart is reflected in this. And very useful conclusions can be arrived at. But above all, one must beware of the heart that knows neither attraction nor aversion. It means that the heart is asleep. There are multitudes of such dormant hearts, and this leads to decay of the spirit. Thus, once again the most inconceivably spiritual is connected with the physical manifestation.

463. The disturbance of climatic conditions is evident. But people superficially remark about sunspots or the shifting of Earth's axis. Such assertions are made by the most cowardly, but they do not even realize what they are saying. The wiping out of civilizations, the annihilation of life by which the planet was visited more than once met with precisely the same theorizing. Thus, also, people did not care to notice the signs of disarray, and continued superficially to argue about prolonging the sapped-out conditions of life. Now, also, among innumerable misconceptions people ask why in studying the highest knowledge the heightening of sensitiveness and peculiar pains become inevitable. If they were told that because of their heedlessness the chosen ones suffer, they would not believe it. They will not admit that in themselves they represent condensers and transmuters of energy. Thus, when numerous such apparatuses are damaged, the distribution of energy is disturbed and only a few sensitive hearts take on the pressure which should have been apportioned throughout the entire world. The solar natures take upon themselves the pressure of the fiery energy, and must be responsible for millions of drones.

465. The impression of the aura on film does not depend upon the film itself, but on the photographer and the subject photographed. The usual satisfactory plate is adequate, but the qualities of the participants and the witnesses are especially important. Not even with the excellent qualities of one participant should one expect immediate results. The vina must be tuned in order to attain harmonies. But people dislike preparatory work most of all. In addition, another condition is necessary – one should be able to pass at least one day without the slightest irritation. Imperil corrodes the most significant reflexes of energy. An irritable person can be called a shell in the full meaning of the word. The most significant results are obscured by one crystal of imperil. Imperil should not be regarded as a houseplant, its odor is widespreading and blights all currents. Hence, when I speak against irritation, I do not refer to dogma, but to an indicated medical cure. As always, this consideration must be carried out beginning with the most minute.

For photographing the aura other, mechanical methods are also useful. Before taking the photograph it is useful to take musk, which stimulates the currents of energy. It is useful to have a black velvet screen and to manifest solemnity if it is feasible. It would naturally be absurd to crowd the room with casual, curious visitors. It is necessary to cleanse the very atmosphere of the room with eucalyptus oil. Thus, not only the occult conditions but the purely hygienic ones should be foreseen.

479. Yet patience is the source of Bliss. Nothing so tests the heart as conscious patience. You know the essence of that which now occurs. Can you resist the tensity of the spheres without the experience of patience acquired through many ages?

482. Would it not be regarded as a strong psycho-physical manifestation when the bed, the armchair, and the table shake from healing vibrations? It is not astonishing that sometime these are mistaken for the tremor of an earthquake. Skeptics will often identify this sensation as dizziness. Vibrations also provide material for experimentation. With even primitive apparatuses one can observe the vibrations of heavy objects. From such crude examples one can proceed to the organisms of people, which vibrate through all nerve centers. You are aware of these vibrations and accept them as entirely natural, but do not let us flatter ourselves with the hope that multitudes of people wish to know them. Yet all teachings are aware of them and speak definitely about them. Even primitive teachings gave an important significance to vibrations. Thus, when thinking of the heart, let us unfailingly remember the powerful healing through vibrations

484. A “black heart” was always considered as the symbol of great peril. Only the most unwavering courage could resist this misfortune, but such courage was rarely found. The degree of courage is tested by the force of the peril, and true courage waxes stronger in accordance with the intensity of the danger. She, Our warrioress, knows the degree of courage of which I speak. When the dark legions are attacking, the consequences vary. During injury to the entity, obsession results; whereas the purified spirit may be subject, not to obsession, but to illness. You have read how our Brother, already on a high step, nevertheless became ill from dark opposition. Such consequences must be remembered because the battle is great. Of course, the effects of the dark arrows may be lessened, but personal caution is needed nevertheless. The same striving must be applied for the acquisition of courage as a remedy against the black poison. Indeed, physical weakening does not mean spiritual weakening; on the contrary, the expenditure of spiritual riches sometimes becomes unlimited.

495. At times people are ready to admit the power of thought, but they do not apply this admission to themselves. They dream of great thoughts but will not discipline the small ones. They will ask how to transmute thought into action. One must begin by disciplining the smallest thoughts and then, only, create a thought that moves mountains. The advice about disciplining small thoughts is the inception of bringing health to the heart. Do not rely upon a variety of outer pranayamas. The path of Agni Yoga is through the heart, but the heart must be aided by disciplining thoughts. Disorderly thoughts are like vermin, they injure the subtle substance. Often they carry deadly poison. Precisely the smallest thoughts are like madness, and they form the chief obstacle to the rapport of the subtle and dense worlds. How to persuade friends that they should undelayingly accept and execute that which is said about small thoughts? After all, this demands only slight attention and the realization of responsibility.

498. Refutation of the Teaching may be of many forms. Some cannot assimilate the Teaching at all, just as they refuse in general to accept wise counsel. But it is much more dangerous for him who understands the value of the Teaching, yet who consciously refutes it, because he is already in the service of darkness. It is the same with people in whom already the most manifest strivings suddenly deviate. This occurs because of deficient education of the heart. This subject should be taken up in the family and in the school. It should be accorded the importance of more than an experiment; it should lead decisively to the development of memory, attention, patience, benevolence, and finally it should lead toward the observation of the heart's sensations. Thus will solemnity and love of the beautiful become inrooted. Thus will the boundary of Light and darkness be defined. Children love Light!

501. We shall suggest to physicians that they treat all unaccountable manifestations as belonging to the Subtle World – then there will be no errors. Let them only begin to measure and compare all so-called healthy hearts! I deem it essential to understand how unusual is this time and how necessary it is to become accustomed to it. It is also necessary always to remember about the current battle.

504. Verily, it will soon be necessary to save ourselves from the chaos of the elements. But even this disaster can be considerably mitigated by the education of the heart. We ask the physicians of various lands to concern themselves with the study of the heart. There are so many sanitariums for all kinds of illnesses, but there is no Institute of the Heart. This is due to a lack of education of the heart. For even ignoramuses do not give second place to the heart. Yet heart ailments outnumber cancer and tuberculosis. It is necessary to have sanitariums for heart ailments, where one could devote oneself to immediate observations. Of course, these sanitariums should be located in various climates and at various altitudes. One can see how an entire legion might be occupied with needed research work connected with mental problems together with agriculture and other specialities.

The Institute of the Heart will be the temple of the future race. The Institute of the Heart will enter into The Society of Culture, because the heart is inseparable from culture.

507. (…) Each heart beat fills us with a realization of existence, and with a true understanding of Be-ness. Mental fog results only from lack of respect for consciousness. These words should be inscribed in each school. Children may ask, “How is it possible to guard against deadening habits?” Then someone can point out the inscription concerning respect.

514. If a simple motion evokes memory, then special conditions of the Subtle World are necessary for illumination. One may notice with astonishment that sudden illuminations do not depend upon rational conditions. Illumination descends in quite unexpected moments. One can even notice a series of the strangest motions, pressures, and thoughts, as if coming from the outside. Psychiatrists should investigate this condition. Valuable observations could be accumulated that will help us to approach the conditions of the Subtle World. Of course, a sensitive heart will perceive this state of illumination by the quality of the pulse. The sacred knowledge has nothing in common with somnambulism and spiritualism; the state of illumination is an absolutely natural one. These fires of the past and the future have only to be noted. In the Subtle World one must also refine the consciousness. Hence, each educating of the heart is a gate to the highest worlds. We fear that these undeferrable advices will give place to everyday conventionality. Someone will say he knew this long ago and will go to the bazaar. You may then ask in overtaking him, “Why, then, do you not ponder upon the heart and think about Fire?”

523. It must be understood what a petty thought is. Like an insect it undermines the strongest intentions. The firmest character can be shaken by the pricks of small thoughts. This is seemingly repetitious and has become a bore, but when the time for action comes, people shower themselves with a cloud of chips of small thoughts. The noblest decisions are eradicated under the layer of shameful thoughts. Achievement is impeded primarily not so much by doubt as by inchoate thoughts, generated by old habits. I affirm that it is not difficult to liberate oneself from habits if we can sufficiently project the consciousness into the future. Often people measure the future according to the present and thus clip the new wings. Even birds know about the change of plumage, and accommodate themselves to corresponding conditions. During the molting of their feathers they isolate themselves in the underbrush in order to soar again renewed. Thus, let us take an example from these younger brothers. They can sing to us an excellent song of the heart.

534. It is wrong for people not to pay attention to the effects of eating during irritation and agitation. Very strong poisons are formed by this unwise procedure. Many days must pass before this poison will dissolve. It should be remembered that hunger is far better than harmful food. During irritation and excitement I advise milk in all forms as a customary antidote. Soda strengthens the action of milk. The ability to recognize disquietude is already a considerable step toward the education of the heart. If disquietude occurs, one should be able to nullify it; but often disquietude is confused with fatigue, then let us not overlook musk or certain varieties of phosphorus, the substance that is called sperm oil, and cod-liver oil and fresh kumiss which are popular among northern people. Also, you remember to what an extent the Teacher sends rays at night, but even these rays act far more powerfully when they are recognized. The silence of the ancients during the meal had a sacred significance. But the understanding of sacredness also comprised the cure. Thus, the heart and nerves can often be strengthened by a rational partaking of food. We are not Luculluses, but each vital function must be rational. Many workers have poisoned themselves. Moreover, the Chinese sometimes fed the enemy with the liver of an irritated rooster – thus resourceful are human wiles. But in the New World everything must be directed to good.

535. Observation of the heart must begin from childhood. In this way one can become aware of certain periods when the spirit gradually takes possession of the body. Likewise, through constant observation one can perceive how the proximity of beings from the Subtle World influences the heart. Many unexplainable heartbeats are of course due to the influence of the Subtle World. Many cessations of the pulse can recall the danger of obsession. Many tremors of the pulse are characteristic even from the age of seven, they reveal the completion of the entry of the spirit. Such evidence should have been known to physicians long ago, but instead of observation they begin to apply all sorts of narcotics, laying the foundation for an early destruction of the intellect. Thus, one should not inflict coarse ignorant measures upon the heart. It should be remembered that if the heart is the mediator of the highest worlds, then the methods for sustaining the heart must be refined. It is unwise to pity the coarsening of humanity and neglect the care of its chief organ. The heart of humanity is sick. First of all, one must render healthy the sphere of the heart, certainly, if the people with to avoid a catastrophe.

536. Among the fires of the heart the most vivid is the flame of self-sacrifice. Precisely this armor diverts the hostile arrows and creates the renowned invulnerability. The fire of courage is only a part of the flame of self-sacrifice. Of course, self-sacrifice does not mean necessarily to offer oneself as a victim, but it corresponds to the readiness to conquer for the work of the Highest World. One can also notice a decline of the fires upon the slightest deviation from Hierarchy. As a whirlwind extinguishes the torches, the deviation into the abyss of Chaos destroys the fires of the heart. Is it not strange to see at one table the deviating ones and those who walk to victory? They seemingly share together equally the earthly food, but their spirits are already in opposite regions. The purified heart senses these contrasts. Often the heart hesitates to decide by the outward appearance, but the substance is clear to it.

537. The pure heart affirms Hierarchy easily, and the ascent of such a heart is like a manifestation of adamant. Nothing will ever cloud the path of the pure heart, and even from the medicinal point of view such a purified heart will have a better future.

538. I affirm that the Teaching is considered by many the best path of Light. One should get accustomed to the fact that the giver does not see where the drop of Bliss will fall; just as a rain cloud does not know where the drop will fall. Thus it is also at present. Therefore, chiefly do not grieve and do not judge short-sightedly.

539. (…) One would probably laugh now if it were recalled that entirely different fragrances were applied to the crown of the head, the region of the heart, and even to the extremities. A refined understanding of the needs of the body safeguarded many generations. For instance, it can be recalled how solicitously the Egyptians treated the condition of pregnancy. Now people rarely study the tastes or the strange demands of pregnant women. But formerly, at the inception of pregnancy the temple physicians defined the necessary mineral and vegetable reactions according to astrological data. Thus the labor itself was eased considerably. But now, instead of wise preliminary measures people apply coarse narcotics, not desiring to understand that the bond has not yet been severed with the child. The heart of the mother is at times very strained, and each narcotic reacts upon the milk – thus, nature is in need of corresponding reactions.

543. (…) We speak now about the education of the heart; but will we not hear from the most stupid that they knew about it long ago? Whereas they think more about cutting their nails than about the heart. Heart attacks are most often caused precisely by failing to think of the heart, and we are ready to succumb to any overindulgence rather than admit to ourselves respect for the heart, as the center of existence.

547. Healing against the will of a patient exacts an unlimited amount of strength. Even without opposition, simply through lack of understanding, much strength is dissipated. Nevertheless, even this exhausting method of healing may be successful despite the non-understanding of the patient. Many cases can be cited when Initiates suffered greatly after having healed forcibly. Naturally in these days, the tension and dissipation of strength are unusual. Hence, if you feel tension or fatigue do not be ashamed to lie down. During the unprecedented battle the heart must be guarded. This advice is given to all. One should visualize the entire smoky surface of Earth, in order to understand the need of a protective armor.

548. When agitated it is best to eat little. Valerian and milk with soda are also good. The heart should be eased. It is a great error to take narcotics and alcohol. Naturally, through the study of Yoga, agitation should be transmuted into exaltation. When We see the causes, the effects, and possibilities, is the great possibility of healing by heart energy not great? However, like a precious drop, let this energy not be wasted through an unnecessary action. Hence, I repeat how greatly mutual understanding is needed during healing. It is difficult to realize to what an extent the spark of consciousness brings closer the salutary decision. The heart should be educated to acquire consciousness during all actions. Regard this as a law. It is intolerable that a man should bow like a blade of grass under the turbid waves of Tamas. That which could not have outlived yesterday must be consciously removed today. One must watch oneself and welcome the most difficult tasks as a purifying covering. One must always act thus, especially in the days of Armageddon.

550. Christ himself transmitted the healing power by his touch. He gave help in life through the heart. Thus, it must be remembered that all forced conjurations are unfit, in accordance with the law of the Lords. The heart's prayer issues directly, even without need of the conventional canon. (…)

563. One could cite an entire list of plants from antiquity that were prescribed for projecting the energy of the heart for external reactions. But aside from strophanthus, I shall not now name any of them in order to avoid abuse. Not only does strophanthus regulate, it also concentrates, the energy of the heart. Therefore it may be taken without harm and apparent need, every two weeks. One may take six drops in succession for three days – once a day at evening. Of course in the case of heart disturbances it can be taken twice a day.

568. (…) Utilize the mountain air; do not tire yourselves, even a diver must not dive if fatigued. One can compare the descent into human refuse precisely with a diver's work. He is ready to help the drowning person, but he himself is in need of air. I do not exaggerate, you are in need of air during Armageddon. Prana is like nourishment for the heart. One cannot help you through ignoble ways; the remedies must be in accordance with the task. But often people do not accept the language of the heart; then the tension of the heart energy is needed – in other words, the expenditure of spiritual treasures. Already, not a few are projected into the world. In accordance with the law of Existence they increase, but this does not ease the burden of the heart. Hence, let us be cautious and remember about the diver.

570. The scent of Balu will recall to you the curative purification of space. When the lower strata are so sullied, the emanations of the heights carry fragments of the sediments of prana. Prana cannot be produced artificially, but its natural sediments purify space.

573. The correct measure of giving is the criterion of love and responsibility. To give too little is contrary to love, but it is no better to give too much. Niggardliness is unworthy, but generosity that leads even to treason is not goal-fitting. As insufficient food leads to hunger, so excessive food leads to poisoning. It can be stated without exaggeration that the extent of treason has increased considerably due to excessive giving. The Teacher who gives and trusts must take into consideration a great number of conditions. He must take into consideration not only the personal merits of the one who receives but also the qualities of his immediate surroundings and karmic and astrological conditions as well. The subtle heart prompts one how to discriminate in this complex current of conditions. Therefore We value so much this criterion of the heart. The path of the Bodhisattva contains this essence of measure. No logic will safeguard the giving one from excess, but the heart knows this heavenly balance.

576. The cork mannikins of a familiar electrical experiment remind one more than anything else of people without heart. Under the influence of the currents they are ready to come to life temporarily and even to rise, but as soon as the current stops the cork essence takes control and they again become lifeless. But should humaneness infuse one only under the influence of a current? The heart propels one upward, if it is open.

We are not necromancers to resuscitate lifeless bodies. The current of the heart must constantly and independently strive upward, and then will the meeting with the Hierarchic current produce a benevolent spark. Indeed, one has sometimes to revive even cork mannikins for a single action, but this will be only a passing action without consequences for a true ascent. It is sad to see the corks jump and to foresee the fall that splits them in two. It is sad to know how the labor of raising them is wasted, but the heart is given to each one in all its limitlessness. So much is already given, so much already experienced, that it is terrible to go back to tossing corks! Thus, let us once again think about the solemn constant ascent when one can fully trust such cooperation. Only with such mutual labor can one accustom oneself to, and love the variety of manifestations. Only a few can understand this, because the cosmic multiformity frightens the untempered heart. But how shall we hide from such astounding multiformity? How shall we learn to love it and to have done forever with the limitations of a cramped trend of thought? Let us counteract it with the heart as a shield. For the shield was carried in the left hand. Thus, let us understand the heart as armor.

577. In the works of old hermits one can find the statement, “Good is fragrance, evil is a poisonous stench.” Of course this remark is usually understood as symbolic, but a profound physiologist will understand that in this definition is also contained an instructive chemical experiment. The transmutation of energy into fragrance is a very definite fact. When the fragrance of freesias or violets is evident, one can presume the proximity of the physical or subtle energy of the Beneficent Principle. On the other hand the smell of decay accompanies everything low on the physical and on the spiritual plane as well. Hence, one can perceive this chemical reaction and thus approach still closer a transcendental physiological discovery. Thus, one must know how to approach the cosmic manifestations consciously. We consider smell and its purified concept as a very refined state. Among the senses, smell is one of the most intimate identifications for everything that approaches. Many will not understand that the heart can be the moving force of the refinement of smell. The approach of every being arouses in a flaming heart a particular action of the inner sense of smell. Heart suffocations often occur from such approaches. Neither wind nor the purification of the air help where the very energy of evil builds a seeming funnel, but of course beneficence offers relief. Likewise, the sensation in the fingertips is not only a protection, but also a receptor for hostile sendings. A ceaseless battle causes disturbances of the rhythm of the heart, hence every caution is useful.

579. Absorb forever – the so-called gift of discrimination is not a gift but the result of labor and experiment. The foolish word intuition expresses nothing but limitation. Not through intuition but by many accumulations can one acquire discrimination. To affirm that discrimination is not based on anything is analogous to the statement that imagination is not a reflection of former experiences. The time has come when that which is seemingly most abstract enters into the chain of events. Man has encountered many situations and has thus refined his judgment. Be assured that he who has no discrimination passed through a coarse existence and made no effort to free himself of it. Thus he deprived himself of the benefit of cognizing through the heart. The heart of man is not young, for its substance is permanent. Some will rejoice at this permanence, because in this concept is eternal life. Some will rejoice that one's own consciousness is also one's own responsibility. Thus the Tablets of Truth enter life. Do not tire of reading the Teaching of Life of all ages. The open heart will rejoice at the intermittence of rhythm. Also, having such foundations we shall understand that the impetus that guides humanity cannot be visible in daily life. In this comprehensiveness let us also find the path to joy.

582. The Brothers of Mercy could enter into the worst nests of pestilence without being contaminated, because they had committed their consciousness to Christ irrevocably and undividedly. Such communion of consciousness created flashes of fire for unassailable purification. Such a Western example can call to mind numerous similar undivided actions which awaken the fire of tension of the heart. Of course, you know of the ancient custom of beating one's chest in an hour when the straining of the consciousness was demanded. Not without cause, or only for the purpose of inflicting pain, did the hermits strike their Chalice with a stone. Through such a primitive method they kindled the fire of the heart. All methods of flagellation and irritating the skin with hair shirts belong to the same primitive methods of straining the heart, when the entire being, through pain, is strained toward one direction. But surely, we shall not resort to such primitive means when we know that the highest protection and ascent are comprised in the indivisibility of aspiration. Through the heart one can transport one's consciousness along the Chain of Hierarchy, thus multiplying one's strength and becoming invulnerable. This means that for such essential achievements three elements are necessary heart, Hierarchy, and the realization of non-separateness. Let us accustom ourselves to constantly feel the heart. Then let us not forget to retain the Image of the Teacher in the third eye, and let us understand the meaning of indivisibility of aspiration. The last may often be the most difficult. People are unwilling to drive away the bats of abomination from around them, and thus they split even their incipient aspiration. The result is a shaggy ball of such aspiration without progress. One should not repeat dismal roulades which contaminate space and impede the link with Hierarchy.

A good scientist writes of immunity but he neglects to consider the center of the heart as the focus of finer energies. Invulnerability lies in the heart. One may even strike upon the Chalice if there is a lack of solemn aspiration, but I do not advise recourse to such primitive methods. It is better to remember the three necessary concepts and accept them fully as a vital principle.

584. Much of that which is quite familiar remains uninvestigated. Have perspiration and saliva been exhaustively examined? We read of poisonous saliva. We know of beneficial saliva. We have heard of the varied properties of perspiration, and yet neither of these secretions has been investigated. The sweat of labor and the sweat of overeating will not be alike. The saliva of anger and the saliva of aid are different, but these symptoms are primitive. Every human state produces a special chemical reaction. In studying this truly cosmic multiformity of the microcosm, one can arrive at an understanding of the physical and spiritual worlds. With an intelligent man the reactions will be varied. One can learn how greatly the sweat of prayer and of high, heartfelt aspiration differs from the sweat of self-interest. The sweat of him who runs to help is completely different from the sweat of the hastening murderer. In comparing such contrasting reactions, the products of psychic energy can be traced. Thus the future scientific achievements are close. Of course, the investigator himself should manifest sufficient sensitiveness. He will have to detect different emotions and, through honest comparison, clarify many confused conceptions. The connection of secretions with changes in the aura will also enrich the experiment. Besides, there will be no need of vivisection or other tortures. The investigator could visit all possible localities of human activity and collect natural and not forcibly induced testimonies. The most difficult will be investigating the products resulting from prayer and higher aspiration – in other words, with the most important expressions. But also in these manifestations the one who desires will find the real treasures. You have noticed the evidence of perspiration in connection with the movement of the heart, this especially is a rare example of the aspiration of the heart. Thus, advise young physicians and scientists to pay attention to the urgency of these observations of the fiery diseases of which We have already spoken. These observations will be very useful. One should not forget about the coming fiery epidemics. Many elaborate reminders are spread throughout the history of humanity. Especially now, when the utilization of unstudied energies has reached significant proportions, one should think of the possibility of the rebounding blow. The scientists should pay attention to the peculiarity of many diseases. They cannot be explained merely as a condensation of the social vortex. The causes are far deeper, and Our Advice about the education of the heart is very timely.

586. The pledge of leadership can provide that collective force which a commander gives on the field of battle. An experienced warrior is not confused by the fluctuations of success. Pulsation is inherent in each growth – a level exists only in an absence of motion. Thus, the living heart is not placid. But during cosmic tension one can suggest to the heart not to overstrain itself. The link of the individual heart with the cosmic pulse is very evident. The Universal Heart can be sensed through laboratory methods.

592. Suicide is a profanation against the heart, and the extreme limit of ignorance. A premeditated murder is likewise against the heart.

596. You are finishing the first book about the heart, therefore you must be reminded of certain foundations which I suggested more than once. The chief requisite for the application of the heart's energy will be an understanding that physical effort is unnecessary. Also by command of the brain and will, the physical nerve centers act, but the sending by the heart is accomplished without outer tension. The heart can act only when spiritually liberated from physical tensions. Let us not forget that the Western school usually follows the path of the brain, whereas the East, where the foundation is not as yet lost, knows, as formerly, that the power is contained in the heart. Although healing through the heart predicates the touch of the hand, it is neither the hands nor the eyes, but the emanations of the heart that give help. Distance is of no significance for healing through the heart, whereas a sending by the brain must endure barriers of various outside currents. The exercise of the command of the heart demands the least effort and adjustment. Pure thinking, constancy, benevolence, bring the heart energy into action. Let the karmic merits increase the tension and refinement of the heart, but each striving to Hierarchy opens the heart according to one's strength. One must firmly remember about the only path of salvation – through the heart. The affirmation of the law of the heart has traversed the entire history of humanity. It can be observed how within a few centuries people turn again toward the one path.

600. A second book about the heart may also be given, but first let friends and enemies affirm themselves by the book now finished. In his own way – friendly or hostile – each one can draw upon the Advice about the heart. But even if he only remembers about the value of Being, one already has helped himself. (…)

Extracts from ESOTERIC HEALING

Volume IV of the Treatise on the Seven Rays by Alice A. Bailey

Healing is an exact and an exacting science. Esoteric healing is equally scientific, based on a number of requirements, including knowledge of the constitution of man as a spiritual being and of the biology and anatomy of his physical form. In this book the seven ray techniques of healing are described; the laws and rules of healing are discussed; basic causes of disease are shown; and requirements for healing are given in detail.

Tables

(pages 50, 51, 45)

 

 

 

 

Heart Centre – Description

(pages 156-158)

The Heart Centre is located between the shoulder blades and is – in this day and age – the centre which is receiving the most attention from Those Who are responsible for the unfoldment of the human consciousness. It might be truly said, brother of mine, that the rapid unfoldment of this lotus is one of the reasons why the world war could not be avoided. In one sense, it was a necessary happening (given the blind selfishness of the bulk of humanity) because it had become necessary to do away with all the old forms of government, of religion and of the crystallised social order. Humanity has now reached a point of group awareness and of group interplay of a deeply spiritual kind, and new forms were required through which this new spirit could function more adequately.

The heart centre corresponds to the "heart of the Sun," and therefore to the spiritual source of light and love.

It is brought into functioning activity after the second initiation. That initiation marks the completion of the process whereby the emotional nature (with its outstanding quality of desire) is brought under soul control, and the desire of the personal lower self has been transmuted into love. It is the organ for the distribution of hierarchical energy, poured out via the soul into the heart centre of all aspirants, disciples and initiates; in this way this energy is made available and brings about two results:

1. The regeneration of humanity through love.

2. The relationship, firmly established, between a rapidly developing humanity and the Hierarchy. In this way two great planetary centres – the Hierarchy and Humanity – are brought into a close contact and relationship.

As the Bible says: "the love of God is shed abroad" in the human heart, and its transforming, magnetic and radiatory power is essential for the reconstruction of the world and for the establishment of the new world order. (…)

Thinking in the heart becomes truly possible only when the mental faculties have been adequately developed and have reached a fairly high stage of unfoldment. Feeling in the heart is often confused with thinking. The ability to think in the heart is the result of the process of transmuting desire into love during the task of elevating the forces of the solar plexus into the heart centre. Heart thinking is also one of the indications that the higher aspect of the heart centre, the twelve-petalled lotus found at the very centre of the thousand-petalled lotus, has reached a point of real activity.

It is that centre, therefore, in the physical body through the medium of which the Hierarchy works; it is also the agent of the soul. When I here use the word "soul" I refer not only to the individual soul of man but to the soul also of the planetary Logos, both of which are the result of the union of spirit and matter, of the Father aspect and the Mother aspect.

Heart – Spiritual Love

(pages 158-162)

The heart centre registers the energy of love.

In the work of the initiate, as he works out the divine purpose according to the plan, the ajna centre becomes the directing agent or the distributor of the blended energies of the divine man. The heart centre corresponds to "solar fire" within the solar system, and is magnetic in quality and radiatory in activity. It is the organ of the energy which brings about inclusiveness.

Its dense physical externalisation is the thymus gland. Of this gland little is known at present, though much will be learned as investigators accept and experiment with the hypotheses which the occult sciences present, and as the heart centre develops and the thymus gland is returned to adult functioning activity. This is not as yet the case. The nature of its secretion is not yet established, and the effects of this gland are better known from their psychological angle than from the physical. Modern psychology, when allied to medicine, recognises that this gland when overactive will produce the irresponsible and amoral person. As the race of men learns the nature of responsibility we shall have the first indications of soul alignment, of personality decentralisation and of group awareness, and then – paralleling this development – we shall find the thymus gland becoming correctly active. At present, the general imbalance of the endocrine system militates against the safe and full functioning of the thymus gland in the adult. There is as yet an unrecognised relation existing between the pineal gland and the thymus gland, as well as between both of these and the centre at the base of the spine. As the Spiritual Triad becomes active through the medium of the personality, these three centres and their three externalisations will work in synthesis, governing and directing the whole man. As the pineal gland is returned to full adult functioning (as is not the case with adult man) the divine will-to-good will make itself felt and divine purpose be achieved; when the thymus gland similarly becomes active in the adult, goodwill will become apparent and the divine plan will begin to work out. This is the first step towards love, right human relations and peace. This goodwill is already making its presence felt in the world today, indicating the coming into activity of the heart centre, and proving that the heart centre in the head is beginning to unfold as a result of the growing activity of the heart centre up the spine.

It is the organ of fusion, just as the head centre is the organ of synthesis. As the heart centre becomes active, the individual aspirant is slowly drawn into an increasingly closer relation to his soul, and then two expansions of consciousness take place which are interpreted by him as events or happenings:

1. (…)

2. He is drawn into close service relationship with humanity. His growing sense of responsibility, due to heart activity, leads him to serve and work. Eventually he too becomes the heart of a group or of an organisation – small at first but becoming worldwide as his spiritual power develops and he thinks in terms of the group and of humanity. These two relationships on his part are reciprocal. Thus the love aspect of divinity becomes active in the three worlds, and love is anchored on earth and takes the place of emotion, of desire and of the material aspects of feeling. Note that phrase.

In the early stages of unfoldment, of both the individual and the race, the inverted heart lotus with its twelve petals reaches downwards towards the solar plexus centre. This last centre, since Atlantean days, has been reversed, and its petals are now reaching upwards towards the next centre up the spine, the heart centre, owing to the slowly mounting energies from the solar plexus centre which are seeking to escape from the "prison of the lower regions" through a process of transmutation.

As a result the heart centre is beginning slowly to unfold and also to reverse itself. The reversal of the "lotus centres" is always brought about as the result of a dual action – the pushing from below and the pull from above.

The reversal of the heart lotus and its upward unfolding is due to the following factors:

1. The growing potency of the hierarchical approach.

2. A rapidly establishing soul contact.

3. The response of the unfolding heart lotus to the pull of the Master's Ashram.

4. The surging upwards of the transmuted energies from below the diaphragm, via the solar plexus, in response to spiritual will.

5. The growing understanding by man as to the nature of love.

There are other factors but these are the ones you will most easily understand if you will regard them as symbolic and not too literally.

Eventually, at the close of the next root race, you will have the full expression of love and the lotuses up the spine will appear – all five of them – differing only in the number of petals found in each.

Finally at the close of the great world cycle when all the lotuses have reversed themselves, all will be opening and presenting free channels for the inflow and the transmission of the three major divine energies and the four lesser forces. (…)

The reflection of the Spiritual Triad in the personality

The reflection of the Spiritual Triad in the personality is complete when the Ajna Centre is entirely under the control of the soul. There is no attempt in this diagram to picture the correct number of petals in each lotus.

 

A. A. Bailey also wrote (page 127):

The entire focus of humanity's consciousness is being changed; the selfish life (characteristic of the man centred in his desires and consequently in the solar plexus centre) is giving place to the decentralised life of the man who is unselfish (centred in the Self or soul), aware of his relationships and responsibility to the Whole and not to the part. This sublimation of the lower life into the higher is one of deepest moment to the individual and to the race. Once the individual disciple, and humanity as well, symbolising the world disciple, have mastered the process of transference in this respect, we shall see the new order of individual service and of world service established, and therefore the coming in of the awaited new order.

Heart – Activity

(pages 169-170)

There is a downflow of energy from the ajna centre to the heart from the soul, just in so far as the aspirant is in touch with his soul. This leads to three things:

a. A stimulation of the heart centre.

b. A responsive reaction from the heart which evokes a stimulation of the ajna centre and produces eventually the recognition of group consciousness by the personality.

c. The evocation of the heart centre in the head.

All this, however, is facilitated by the advanced development of the solar plexus in the aspirant, which has its own effect upon the heart and a reciprocal effect upon the ajna centre. There are, consequently, two important triangles to consider:

Just as there is, astrologically, a Science of Triangles, so there will later be developed a science of triangles in relation to the human system. But the time is not yet. I but give occasional indications of such a science upon which the intuition of disciples may play.

Use of the downward trend to active the Heart

(pages 215-216)

Once the head centre is awakening and the disciple is consciously active in the work of directing the energies to the centres and thereby governing his personality life, there is a scientific undertaking of energising the centres in a certain ordered rhythm which is again determined by the rays, by circumstance and by karma; thus all the bodily energies are swung into correct spiritual activity. With the process involved we cannot here deal, beyond pointing out that this downward trend can be roughly regarded as falling into three stages:

1. The stage of energising the creative life, via the throat centre, thus bringing:

a. The head centre and the throat centre,

b. These two and the sacral centre,

c. All three, consciously and simultaneously, into conscious relation.

This relation, when properly established, will solve the individual problem of sex, and without recourse to either inhibition or suppression, but by bringing about right control and making the disciple, at the same time, creative in a worldly sense, and therefore of use to his fellowmen.

2. The stage of energising the conscious life of relationship via the heart centre, thus bringing:

a. The head centre and the heart centre,

b. These two and the solar plexus centre,

c. All three, simultaneously and consciously, into close cooperation.

This serves to establish right human relations, right group relations, and right spiritual relations throughout a man's entire life expression. Just as the stage of regulating the creative life has a paramount effect upon the physical body, so this stage affects the astral vehicle with great potency; emotional reactions are transformed into aspiration and service; selfish individual love is transformed into group love, and then divinity rules the life.

3. (…)

Heart – Diseases Causes

Particular care has also to be evidenced in the cases of disease of the heart: embolisms, for instance, which prove fatal are frequently due to a violent expression on the part of the patient of the will-to-live, bringing on a flooding inflow of the life principle. This makes its impact too suddenly upon the heart, causing equally sudden movement in the blood stream, and thus of the embolism, producing death. I am putting this into entirely untechnical terms and laying myself open to expert criticism, but I am doing so in order to convey to the lay reader a general idea of the risks involved, and thus produce caution in the enthusiast.

(pages 542-543)

Disciples and initiates are prone also to suffer from this disease, owing to the awakening into violent activity of the heart centre. In the one case, the life energy flowing through the heart is employed past all human tolerance in handling human affairs; in the other, the heart centre opens up and the strain put upon the organ of the heart is too great, and heart disease supervenes. A third cause of heart disease is due to the premature or deliberately planned lifting of the energy of the solar plexus to the heart, thus putting an unexpected strain upon it.

(pages 238-239)

Heart – Laws and Rules

(pages 546-547)

The Law of Dominating Good will be brought into activity by the spiritual will of man. What does this mean? It means that only when truly large numbers of men are controlled by the Spiritual Triad, have built the antahkarana and can therefore use the spiritual will, can disease be stamped out and only good control. It will of course be a gradual process, and in the early stages almost imperceptible.

Again, why is this? Because evil crime and disease are the result of the great heresy of separateness, and because hate and not love controls. Forget not that he who loveth not his brother is a murderer – ever the symbol of hate. As yet, the sense of universality and of identity with all is not to be found, except in advanced disciples and initiates; the mass consciousness and the demonstration of the herd instinct must not be confounded with the sense of Oneness which marks the right oriented person.

Heart – Reciprocal Relationship and Healing

(pages 98-102)

In healing work, certain rules should be mastered and followed by the healer. I have given three important rules already. Briefly they are as follows, and I am dividing the first one into its component parts for the sake of clarity.

1.	b.The healer must seek to link his soul, his brain, his heart and auric emanation. Thus can his presence feed the soul life of the patient. This is the work of radiation. The hands are needed not. The soul displays its power.

2. The healer must achieve magnetic purity, through purity of life. He must achieve that dispelling radiance which shows itself in every man once he has linked the centres in the head. When this magnetic field has been established, the radiance then goes forth.

(…)

I would ask you, therefore, in any group work of healing, to keep the will (and even keen desire) in abeyance. Only initiates of high degree are permitted to cure by the power of the will, focussed in the WORD OF POWER, and this only because they can test the capacity of the patient, the tension of the disease, and know also whether or no it is the will of the soul that the disease should be cured.

(…)

The Sacred Art of Healing

I do not intend, in this treatise, to deal with the pathology of disease, with its systems and their maleficent indications. These are fully covered in any ordinary medical treatise and textbook and I, my brothers, am no trained physician or medical authority, nor have I the time to be engrossed with the technicalities. What I am concerned with is to give the world some idea of the true and occult causes of disease and their hidden origins, and with the work of healing, as it is carried on and sanctioned by the Great White Lodge.

The work is, in reality, that of the judicious use of energy, applied with love and science. All that I tell you is the result of experiment. Such healing falls into two categories: in magnetic healing and in radiatory healing.

 

About healing, A. A. Bailey wrote (pages 648-649):

The healer must seek to link his soul, his heart, his brain and his hands. Thus can he pour the vital healing force upon the patient.

This is the technique of the lowest type of true spiritual healer, and for this reason two of the aspects of the dense physical body are included: the brain and the hands. The healer works, therefore, through a triangle and two lines of energy. The situation can be depicted in the following diagram:

(…) There are two ways in which he uses his hands, and two methods which he employs, the laying on of hands, the use of the hands in action.

Heart – Stream of Life

(pages 428-429)

Here I would like to present a somewhat different picture, indicating what is known by the departing soul. If this involves repetition of what you already know, there are however certain basic repetitions and statements I wish to make. Let me tabulate them with brevity. Will you regard them as foundational and factual.

1. The time for the departure of an incarnating soul has come. The soul has in the past:

a. Appropriated a physical body of a certain calibre, adequate to the requirements and age of that soul.

b. Energized that physical body through the medium of the etheric body, thus galvanising it into life activity for the duration of the soul's set term of physical enterprise.

2. Two major streams of energy enter the physical body and produce its activity, its quality and type of expression, plus the impression it makes upon its environment.

a. The stream of dynamic life. This is anchored in the heart. This stream of dynamic energy enters the body, via the head, and passes down to the heart, where it is focussed during the life cycle. A smaller stream of the universal energy or prana, distinctive from the individualised life force, enters the physical body, via the spleen. It then rises to the heart to join the larger and more important life stream. The life stream energises and holds in coherency the integrated physical body. The stream of pranic energy vitalises the individual atoms and cells of which that body is composed.

b. The stream of individual consciousness. (…)

Responsivity to the heart of all things

(page 161)

When a man, through alignment and contact, has put his heart into close rapport with the soul, he then becomes responsive to the heart of all things which, as far as humanity is at present concerned, is the Hierarchy.

Heart – Treatment

(pages 601-602)

It will be wise, for a very long time to come, for the spiritual healer to work always in collaboration with a trained physician. The healer will provide the required occult knowledge. The time when any nice, kindly and spiritually minded person sets up as a healer should be well-nigh over; any healing practice should be preceded by years of careful study anent the nature of energy, of the ray types, of the centres; a minimum of at least three years should be given to this; when to this is added the science of the trained medical man, graduating from our best medical colleges, you will then have a new and much better treatment of the human vehicle than is now the case. Then the healer's orthodox and occult knowledge, his visualising capacity and his power of thought direction will be real and practically effective.

Heart and Music

(pages 709-710)

Healing by the means of sound will be one of the first healing unfoldments to be noted at the close of the next century.

Study of the cardiovascular system

Charles-Rafaël PAYEUR
© Éditions de l'aigle

Warning

The author neither gives medical advice nor recommends any method as treatment modality. He advises the reader who might have to face a health problem to meet a doctor duly entitled to make a diagnosis or advise a treatment or a therapy. Charles-Rafaël Payeur only presents a symbolic approach of the human body and a psycho-spiritual reading of the numerous pathologies that might affect the human body; this in order to help the reader live a healthier life or better co-operate with his/her family doctor. Should you use a piece of information contained in this booklet, be aware that by doing so, you commit only yourself. The author and the publisher decline any responsibility for the consequences of your acts.

[3]

Section I – Symbolism

[5]

I. Anatomy

In order to better understand the fundamental stake of the cardiovascular system, we are going to study the general symbolism of its central organ: the heart. Various anatomic elements will allow us to better define what it precisely personifies. As we did in our previous studies, we shall of course emphasis on general considerations, then analyze in detail some macroscopic and microscopic elements that characterize it. Then, we shall briefly study the symbolism of the blood vessels closely related to the heart.

A. The Heart

To make a better approach of the symbolism of the heart, it is essential to study first its general shape. The shape always reveals the deep nature of an organ and of its associated functions. We now know that the shape is never arbitrary and provides us with invariable elements that help us better understand what an anatomic structure, whatever it is, personifies. At this level, we shall find elements likely to lead us in a relevant way to understand better how the heart functions. As we usually do, we shall also make the analogy between the organ studied and an element likely to enlighten us. [6] For each case that is of interest to us, we shall develop the symbolism of the soul and see what it reveals. But first we are going to study in a more precise way what the general shape of the heart teaches us.

1. Shape of the organ

Our previous studies taught us that the shape of an organ carries a special meaning because it establishes the organ in a given existential condition. The shape of the heart is similar to a cone, geometrical figure resulting from the association of a basic circle and an axial straight line as says Dr. Francis Lefébure:

"It is true that this cone is not perfectly regular, and this enabled anatomists to distinguish various sides. But these sides are not flat. They are rounded and jointed by rounded edges, in fact an increased curvature. The study of these details has a meaning only if it allows us to reinforce our overview; if that is not the case, we’d better throw a superficial but sensible look. [...] Let the surgeon talk of the sides of the heart to facilitate his/her operation. But let us admire, while studying the laws that link the various forms of the nature, how nearly entirely conic the heart is, particularly during the systole."

(Francis Lefébure, Les Homologies, Le Courrier du Livre, Paris, 1978)

[7]

Figure I. The general shape of the heart

The general shape of the organ results from the association of a circular basis and of an axial straight line; this is very interesting. As a matter of fact, let us recall that the Ancients always associated masculinity with the axial straight line and femininity with the circle. As an example, we can easily notice that the form of the phallus is essentially rectilinear as the body members associated to action are (main male feature): arms, legs, fingers... In that, it is the opposite of the spherical shape of the vagina fundus which surrounds by its fold the extremity of the womb which is also circular. This circular shape can be found in the parts of the body associated to the reception principle (main female feature): eyes, ears, head...

From the microscopic point of view, the male gametes keep the same rectilinear feature. Thus the spermatozoon [8] shape strives towards a straight line more than any other cell of the body does. Even the nerves take a treelike appearance due to the presence of dendrites. If we keep to our symmetry connection with the female principle, we notice that the ovum is nearly spherical. We shall even assert that no other cell of the body is as perfectly spherical as the ovum is. We shall then conclude that, due to its general conic shape, the heart evokes a union process between the male emissive principle and the female receptive principle. More than that, not only it results from this union but also it is the tangible and obvious expression of this union.

As union of the male emissive principle and the female receptive principle, the heart evokes the capacity to place oneself in an [9] attitude of giving (male principle) and of welcoming (female principle). It was very soon associated to a relationship dynamic line and especially to love realities, an experience that amounts to giving of oneself and being welcoming to others. Of course we shall have the opportunity to come back to this essential aspect in the course of our study.

2. Analogy with the soul

Because it evokes a union process between the male and female principles, the hermetists establish a close relationship between the heart and the soul, the human being having a spirit, a body and a soul according to the principles of the compound anthropology. Why this relationship? Mainly because the male principle has always been related to the spirit which is characterized by its emissive and active nature while the body has always been related to the female principle due to its fundamentally passive and receptive nature. The spirit is the inner part of the being, naturally turned towards the outside, its complementary dimension. Therefore, it passes the life it receives from God on to the body. The female principle is traditionally associated to the body which is a part of the being ontologically receptive. As pure exteriority, it tends effectively to turn towards the inside, its complementary dimension. The spirit conveys life and the body receives it fully.

As for the soul, it is issued from the dynamic union of the body and the spirit, it is "the spirit commanding the body" as says [10] Father Varillon (there seems to be some kind of confusion in his mind between the soul and the spirit). The body is not limited to the physical dimension, as many people think, it also has an energetical, emotional and mental dimension. Therefore, the union of the spirit and of the "energetical body" provides the organism with vitality; the union of the spirit and of the « emotional body" gives birth to the feelings, the emotions, the affections and the desires whereas the union of the spirit and of the "mental body" gives birth to the cognitive faculties such as the thought, the intelligence or the discernment... The soul (in the traditional meaning of psyche, anima) could therefore be defined as the whole of the energetical, affective and mental faculties of the human being, all these psychic dimensions being remarkably evoked by the heart.

The heart is closely linked to life: it is probably the vital organ of the organism as it maintains the circulation of the blood, life principle. The cardiac arrest is one the first symptoms leading to a death report. Phrases such as "to cut to the heart" instead of "to kill" or "as long as my heart will beat" instead of "as long as I shall live" speak for themselves. Let us point out that, according to the Egyptian Ancients, at least according to Pline, death comes after heart degeneration:

"their knowledge had led them to acknowledge that, until the age of fifty, the human heart becomes every year heavier of about two drachma – i.e. about eight grams – and that, from the age of fifty onwards, it looses these [11] two drachma every year. This is why, « for lack of heart », the human being does not live older than a hundred years..."

(Jacques Bril, Petite fantasmagorie du corps, Essais Payot, Paris, 1994)

The soul also governs the emotional faculties that lead human beings to have feelings, emotions and desires. Therefore it has always been looked at by the Ancients as the centre of these faculties. This is clearly evidenced in the dictionary:

"1° The heart is, by metaphor, the centre of the sensations and emotions. "To agitate, to make the heart beat" means "to disturb". "A pain, a grief that breaks my heart, makes my heart bleed or burst or sink, that cuts me to the heart". "To have a heavy heart". "Heart that sighs does not have what it wishes". "The fear turns my heart to ice." "To feel happy-hearted". [...]

"2° The heart is the seat of the desire, of the mood. "To accept, to acknowledge, to agree with something big heartedly, light heartedly." "With all one’s heart": with all one’s energy. "To put all one’s heart into something. "His/her heart isn’t in anything anymore". "To take things to heart". [...]

"3° The heart is the seat of affectivity (feelings, passions). "The sentiments that the heart feels." "To listen to one‘s heart". "To be tender-hearted." "To be a noble-hearted or good-hearted man/woman". "A heart overflowing with tenderness or gratitude." (Le Petit Robert, Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française, Paris, 1976)

At last, the heart governs cognitive faculties such as the thought or the intelligence. It is closely related to knowledge. [12] For example, "to learn, to know by heart". Of course, the kind of knowledge we are talking about is fundamentally different from a rational knowledge issued by the brain reason. A famous saying confirms this clearly: "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." More precisely, it is linked to the intuitive intelligence which, as the ancient Chinese philosophy says, "shines" in the so-called "cavern of the heart". The Ewes that live in other lands – in Ghana, Togo, Dahomey – used to say also that the heart is the seat of intelligence.

[14]

Table of correspondences between the soul and the heart

[17]

The heart is also the seat of emotions, passions, affections and feelings. Therefore, this emotional dimension becomes seat of expression of the Holy Spirit, is transfigured and becomes principle of tenderness and sweetness. Before lovers used to exchange hearts in wax, gingerbread, silver or gold to express the tenderness and love that bounded them. A heart, very often with a dove, used to decorate the traditional wedding puddings in the country families of all Europe: jugs and dishes, bed-warmers, iron stands, and so on. Nowadays, it remains the symbol of love relationships as many popular phrases say "to offer one’s heart", "to win a heart", "to listen to one‘s heart", "loving heart", "faithful heart" or "flighty heart"...

At last, the heart is closely related to knowledge, intuitive intelligence and memory.

Hereunder is a table of the correspondences between the Holy Spirit and the Heart:

Table of correspondences between the Holy Spirit and the Heart

At last, as mediation force, the soul of course puts human beings in relation with each other. "Saint Irénée, in the second century, as the most clear-sighted anthropologists nowadays would do, presents the body, the soul and the spirit as the three functions, the three relations or else the three manners of being of the human being. Through his body, the human being is open to the world and to the matter, through his soul, he is open to the others, through his spirit he [18] is open to God." If the spirit is open to God and the body to the world, the soul is therefore opening to the others. Thus, it becomes the privileged seat of love, strengthening its analogy with the heart as organ of love. [19]

B. Cardiovascular system

1. Central position

The heart is situated in the middle of the chest, its right side being under the right side of the sternum and its spike under the left nipple. It becomes then a kind of meeting point between the right and left sides of the body. The right side incarnates, from a symbolic point of view, the active dimension and the left side the receptive dimension. This is why many cultures have associated the right side with the male principle and the left side with the female principle. "Comments made by rabbis specify that the first man (Adam) not only was androgynous, but also man on the right side and woman on the left side. God split him into two parts when He created them man and woman. The Christian Middle Age did not escape the tradition and said that the left side was supposed to be female and the right side male." [20]

Therefore, we come back to the heart as union principle between two complementary realities. From a simple biological point of view, it is the central organ above anything else as it is situated at a balance point between two opposite poles: the breathing system and the digestive system.

 

[23]

Its central situation led me to situate this organ, from a metaphysical point of view, between the reality of the self and the reality of the other. As a muscle, it incarnates a participative union dynamic line between me and the other, between me and the Totally-Other. From the biological point of view, this is eloquently evoked as this organ governs the blood circulation between the cell and the outside world. Traditionally, the cell evokes the self as structure bearing the genetic luggage characterizing the individual. Owing to the heart dynamical action, it will enter into relation with the other, i.e. the one that is situated outside the body. The air breathed in by the lungs and the nutritive substances assimilated by the digestive system embodies the resources of the other (symbolized by the oxygen and the nutriments). These resources then will be brought into the intimacy of the cell (of the self) and the cell, in turn, will pour its own products (carbon dioxide among others) that will be offered to the other. Thus, the heart ensures a real dynamic line of participation between the self and the other, dynamic line that may be summarized as follows:

The heart situation between the self and the other

 

[26]

2. Binary structure

A thick central wall splits the inside of the heart into two halves, the right half and the left half. This organ works as two separate pumps, the right one acting as a pulmonary pump and the left one acting as a systemic pump. What does this mean from a symbolic point of view? Of course it refers to the two main characteristics of the heart: giving and receiving. As a matter of fact, the right half of the heart essentially belongs to an exteriorisation or gift dynamic line whereas the [27] left half is associated to an interiorization or welcoming dynamic line. Let us look at this more thoroughly.

The right part of the heart embodies essentially a dynamic line through which the blood, coming from the cell tissues (that symbolize the self), enters into the right auricle and goes to the right ventricle to be orientated towards the lungs. There it releases the carbon dioxide resulting from the metabolic activity. This process naturally evokes a dynamic line of gift through which we offer others a bit of what we are. This is an outline of blood circulation associated to the right part of the heart:

Figure II. Blood circulation associated to the right part of the heart

[28]

Functions associated to the left part of the heart are part of a welcoming dynamic line as oxygen-loaded blood (a substance coming from the outside) enters into the left auricle and goes then towards the corresponding ventricle that orientate it towards the cells of the organism. This process evokes a dynamic line of welcoming of others and interiorization. You will find thereafter a significant diagram:

Figure III. Blood circulation associated to the left part of the heart

The heart binary structure

 

[47]

This analysis leads us to make the following synthesis on the heart psychological stakes:

The four cavities of the heart and their psychological stakes

Find also hereafter a table synthesizing the initiatory stakes of the heart: [48]

The four cavities of the heart and their initiatory stakes

 

[54]

3. Unwilling feature of the cardiac muscle

The heart is the sole striated muscle whose way of functioning is not driven by willingness. This of course reminds us of the close link that exists between this organ and love. As a matter of course, the ultimate stake of the heart is to express the divine power within the created. Love lays beyond any personal willing: "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." As human beings come from the Creator and not from the creature, they will never be able to have control on this reality or submit it to their willing, just as they will not be able to get hold of God. If they try to do so, love will disappear because this reality necessarily involves freedom.

Hereunder is a table that synthesizes the symbolic elements associated to the macroscopic structure of the heart and the corresponding stakes:

Table presenting the macroscopic elements of the heart and their stakes

 

[78]

C. Cardiac cell

The microscopic observation of the heart and of the vessels is also likely to make some fundamental symbolic elements associated to the archetype of this system appear. To better realize this, we shall underline some of the particularities that are specific characteristics of the heart cell and some of those that are specific characteristics of the blood vessel structure.

The cells or cardiac fibres do have a particularity insofar as they are anastomosed (in biology anastomosis means the communication between two vessels, two nerves or two canals of the same kind (this is the sole example of anastomosed muscle fibres in the whole organism). So we can observe a cardiac fibre and never find its end, this showing in an admirable way this close union principle between two realities, forming one reality although each element remains distinct from the other (this is fusion without confusion).

Figure IV. Diagram of a cardiac fibre

[78]

The cells of the cardiac muscle are winded in form of a propeller round the axis of the organ. From the symbolic point of view, this is very interesting as the SPIRALE which is thus formed is a curve articulated around an axial straight line. It results thus from the association of a circle and of a straight line, the propeller having the property of the circle, insofar as, while going all along it, we eternally turn around a central point. It also has this property of the straight line, insofar as, going all over it, we move away from this central point.

"It holds simultaneously two of the main features of the circle and of the straight line. In plane geometry, it is the median term, impolarized between the two poles “circle” and “straight line”."

(Francis Lefébure, Les Homologies, Le Courrier du Livre, Paris, 1978)

Therefore the form adopted by the cardiac cells fits in with the symbolism we have already developed concerning the cone (this latter can be looked at as a spiral that developed itself in the space around an axis). In the same perspective, Dr. Lefébure adds the following:

"The spiral signs the cardiovascular morphology in the blood eddy inside each ventricle: the blood entry orifices (mitral valve and tricuspid) being close to those of the way out (sigmoid valves), and the ventricle having a conic shape, the movement is necessarily an eddy movement. The eddy is the mechanic translation of the spiral. The display of the large vessels such as pulmonary veins and the knuckle of the aorta entering and leaving the heart is such that the blood makes a curl in all of this. This comes from its embryology, the prime cardiac tube having rolled itself into a sort of knot. Moreover, the big vessels of the members roll themselves around their axis: thus the femoral artery is anterior to the groin [80] while its prolongation (poplited artery) is posterior to the knee level; thus it took the shape of a spiraled propeller."

Of course, all this evokes, from a symbolic point of view, a capacity to face others in an attitude of gift and welcoming, putting them in the centre of one’s existence and evoluating around them. Hereunder is a table of these symbolic elements associated to the microscopic structure of the heart and the corresponding stakes:

Table showing the microscopic elements of the heart and their stakes

 

[81]

II. Physiology

The cardiovascular system has several distinct physiological functions, among which eleven are particularly characteristic. These functions are the functions of maintenance, of systemic venous circulation, of [82] systemic arterial circulation, of contraction (systolic function), of pulmonary arterial circulation, of coronary circulation, of automaticity, of release, of circulation at the capillary level, of valve functioning and of pulmonary venous circulation. Let us see in detail what this means.

A. Maintenance and venous circulation function

1. Pericardium

The heart and the root of the large vessels are contained in a strong fibrous envelope called pericardium. This membranous bag is composed of the serous pericardium and of the fibrous pericardium. The external side is rough, fibrous and little supple. It is fastened to the diaphragm and linked to the sternum by fibrous strips. The internal part of the serous pericardium, which is thin and smooth, has two layers. The parietal leaf lines the inside of the fibrous pericardium and the visceral leaf sticks to the heart surface. Between both of them is the pericardic space that contains some drops of pericardic liquid that lubricates the surfaces and facilitates the heart movements during contraction.

From a symbolic point of view, this structure evokes naturally a capacity to be welcoming and give respecting one’s own existential limits in one’s relation to others (the limits that structure one’s deep vocation). If we want to give to others anything other than what we are, we will inevitably encounter failure even if we are motivated by noble desires. [83] In the same way, if we are welcoming to others without respecting oneself, we will develop negative consequences that will damage the relationship.

2. Venous circulation

As for the large circulation, or systemic circulation, the veins draw the blood back from the tissues of the organism towards the heart. This blood is first drained by the veinlets that join together later to form veins that ultimately pour out in the two large vena cava (the largest veins of the organism) that at last bring the blood to the right heart auricle.

The upper vena cava starts at the top of the thorax and runs into the right auricle. It is formed by the meeting of the right and left brachio-cephalic veins, that are themselves formed by the meeting of the under-clavier veins (that drain the blood of the upper members), jugular veins (that drain the blood of the head) and of several minor veins. The upper vena cava also receives blood from the azygo veins that drain most of the thorax blood. Therefore it collects the blood of the upper part of the trunk, of the head, of the neck and of the upper members.

The lower vena cava starts in the lower part of the abdomen and pours into the right auricle. It is formed by the meeting of the two iliac veins which receive the blood of the veins of the lower members and pelvic organs. The lower vena cava also receive the blood from the sushepatic and renal veins which drain the liver and the kidneys.

This function evokes a capacity to let go, giving up all self confinement (even ultimately dying to oneself), to open oneself to others in a beaming or giving perspective.

B. Systemic arterial function

At the main circulation, or systemic circulation, level, the role of the arteries is to feed the cells of the organism.

 

[84]

C. Contraction function

From a symbolic point of view, this function which enables the heart to drive the blood forward towards the lungs and the whole body of course evokes a capacity to receive (left ventricular systole) and to give (right ventricular systole), showing thus dynamism, vigour and energy by this fight against all the forces of inertia that try to lock human beings up in a deadly condition where they give up all dynamic lines of gift or welcoming.

D. Pulmonary arterial function, coronary circulation and automaticity function

1. Arterial function

At the small circulation or pulmonary circulation level, the arterial system drives the blood forward from the right ventricle towards the lungs where some products issued by the metabolism are released. From a symbolic point of view, this function of course evokes a capacity to give, in a dynamic outpouring, through a full beaming of one's being or through a gift of oneself in love.

2. Coronary circulation

As any other organ, the heart depends on the arteries for its feeding in oxygen and on the veins for bringing the blood, full of the products issued by the metabolism of the cardiac cells, towards the right ventricle. The right coronary artery feeds the right auricle (included the sinus knot and the auriculo-ventricular knot), part of the left auricle, most part of the right ventricle and the lower part of the left ventricle. The left coronary artery [86] (which is composed of an anterior interventricular artery and of a circumflex artery) feeds the left auricle, most part of the left ventricle and most part of the interventricular septum. Many collateral arteries link the branches of the right and left coronary arteries. The coronary veins are situated on surface compared to the arteries. The largest vein, the coronary sinus, opens in the right auricle. Most of the coronary veins throw themselves into the coronary sinus, excepted the anterior coronary veins that pour out into the right auricle.

Figure V. Coronary circulation

[87]

From a symbolic point of view, this coronary circulation evokes a principle which is unique insofar as its role is to keep the heart going, i.e. the dynamic line of participative union as such. Thus, an alteration of these vessels, as it is the case in myocardial infarction for example, will indicate a more or less conscious willingness to bring into question this dynamic line of the heart, refusing to keep a relationship of authentic exchange with the others and, more, a dynamic line of love, trying to preserve some ostracism.

3. Automaticity function

At the myocardial level, specialized cells enable the conduction of electric impulses. These cells control the rhythm and the cardiac frequency (a propriety called automaticity). In some circumstances, any myocardial muscular cell can as a matter of fact control the frequency and the rhythm of the contractions. However the sinusal or sino-atrial knot, also called Keith and Flack knot (situated at the endocardic surface of the right auricle near the superior vena cava) usually determines the cardiac frequency. The release of the sinusal knot launches an impulse through the right and left auricles, which involves a contraction of the latters.

The auriculo-ventricular knot or of Aschoff and Tawara (situated in the lower part of the right auricle septum) then deals with the influx conduction. It is normally the sole electric connection between the auricles and the ventricles. First it slows [88] the influx, thus delaying the ventricular activation, which enables the blood to fill the ventricles in from the auricles. Then the conduction goes through the auriculo-ventricular knot and a net of fibres called auriculo-ventricular fascisculus (or His fascisculus) in order to spread its influx in the ventricles, involving their contraction.

Each beating heart is activated by electric impulses issued by the natural pacemaker of the heart, the sinusal knot, situated in the upper part of the right auricle. These electric impulses are issued at the rhythm of one hundred per minute and activate the heart contractions (The pulse is the frequency of cardiac revolution per minute. It is to be taken where the arteries are on surface (never with the thumb). At birth, it is up to one hundred and thirty-five revolutions per minute. By teenagers, it falls to eighty revolutions per minute and by adults it is approximately of seventy-five per minute. The frequency of cardiac revolutions of the athletes can even fall to fifty-five per minute.). From a symbolic point of view, all this of course evokes a capacity to receive and to give without letting oneself be destabilized by anything, always finding in oneself new strengths. This function embodies a capacity to constantly renew one's dynamic line of participative union with others.

E. Function of release

After the contraction phase during which the auricles contract themselves first (auricular systole) pushing the blood towards the ventricles that contract themselves in turn (ventricular systole), propelling the blood out of the heart through the arteries, then follows a phase of release or diastole (whose duration is of about four-tenth of a second) enabling the heart to get filled in with blood (the blood coming [89] from the cells filling the right part of the heart and the blood coming from the lungs filling the left part of the heart). From a symbolic point of view, this function of release evokes of course a capacity to receive and to give in a dynamic line of abandonment and getting oneself invested by this irresistible attraction that others have on oneself (welcoming them and giving of oneself to them in the greatest release).

F. Function of mediation, circulation in the capillaries

We have already said that the capillaries link the arteries to the veins insofar as their walls are composed of a thin layer of cells that release oxygen and nutritive substances (coming from the arteries), these elements spreading themselves in the tissues of the different body organs while the products issued by the metabolism of the cells enter into the capillaries and are then going into the veins. From a symbolic point of view, this function of mediation evokes an exchange process where each one gives what he/she has (on a psychological level) or what he/she is (on an initiatic level) to the other.

 

Hereunder is a table showing the main functions associated to the heart and their psychological stakes. [91]

Table showing the main functions of the cardiovascular system and their psychological stakes

 

[93]

III. Kabbale

The heart is called lév in Hebrew [Lamed-Beith] or sometimes lévav [Lamed-Beith-Beith]. This last word, pronounced libév, also means "to inflame", "to stur up the flame", "to enchant", "to fascinate" or "to charm". The three letters of this word also form a root from which the verb nilbav [Noun-Lamed-Beith-Beith], which means "to become sensible", is originated. At last, the proper structure of the word speaks for itself and we are going to look at this closely. To understand better the heart-associated stakes, let us start the symbolic analysis of the various words extracted from the Hebrew word and the letters that compose it.

As mentioned before, the Hebrew word lévav [Lamed-Beith-Beith] which means the heart also means "to enflame" or "to stir up the flame" when it is pronounced libév. "To enflame" evokes the act of lighting a fire while "to stir up the flame" is associated with the act of reviving or rekindling it. Which fire can be lighted or revived at the heart level? First, it is of course the vital fire associated to the metabolic activity of the organism. The metabolism is based on a process of oxydoreduction during which a real fire, fed by oxygen, involves the decomposition of the food molecules and the extraction of a great energy. Second it is the fire of emotion or desire, associated with the affective dimension of the being. Expressing feelings has always been linked closely to the activity of a burning fire. It is the fire of passion. So, "to declare one’s flame" evokes, in the popular language, the fact of expressing one’s loving passion, one’s loving desire. At last, it is the fire that sets [94] the intellect ablaze, that enlightens the conscience with its light and free it from darkness. This fire is the very symbol of enlightening and knowing. Through these three forms of fire, we find the three modalities of the soul.

There is also a fourth fire that the candidate must light in his/her heart. It is the fire of love taught in the Sacred-Heart doctrine. A revelation received by Sainte Gertrude in the fifteenth century is particularly interested on this account. As she was asking Saint John why he had written nothing on Christ’s heart, the apostle answered:

"I was due to announce to the borning Church the doctrine of the uncreated Verb of God the Father; but concerning this sacred Heart, God is waiting to let it know in the last times, when the world would start to fall in decay, in order to revive the flame of charity which will have got cold."

(Works of Sainte Gertrude, mentioned by H. Montaigu in his work, Paray le Monial, Paris, 1979)

In human beings, the heart is really the place where love, issued from its meeting with others (and through it with the All-Other), can inflame itself, and set its soul ablaze on the three levels that compose it (vital level, emotional level and mental level), and bring it to exercise the sacred ministries of king, priest and prophet (if we want to use again the preceding analogies).

On the other hand, we know that the Hebrew word lévav [Lamed-Beith-Beith] meaning the heart also means, when it is pronounced libév, "to enchant", "to fascinate" or "to charm". It is significant to realize that for the words "to enchant" ("to submit to a supernatural action", according to Le Petit Robert, alphabetical and analogical dictionary of the French Language, Paris), "to fascinate" ("to make use of an irresistible seduction", according to Le Petit Robert) [95] and "to charm" ("to captivate through a strong appeal", according to Le Petit Robert), one must be gifted with graces (a word coming from the Latin word gratia that means "God’s help" and is "a kind of charm, of pleasantness that can be found in a human being", according to Le Petit Robert). Grace is not a product of human nature since it is a strength of a supernatural origin that invests the soul when this latter is no more a simple breath issued from the spirit and body union, but a breath of love issued from the intimate and plenary communion between man and God. A beautiful and clever person may live without being invested with grace.

Therefore we come across again with the essential stake that we have associated with the heart. Let us add that grace, as light of the soul, will express itself at the three levels. There will be acts stamped with grace (vital level), feelings stamped with grace (emotional level) and words stamped with grace (mental level). More, not only grace originates in a union between man and God, but it also has a power of attraction on others, involving a dynamic line of communion between two beings, the one who is fascinated being called to dispossess oneself of one’s self to participate into the reality of the one who charms him/her. Therefore, we find again this dynamic line of union between two realities so closely associated with the heart.

We also said that the stem word [Lamed-Beith-Beith] forms a root from which originates the verb nilbav [Noun-Lamed-Beith-Beith] meaning "to become sensible". As the verbs "to enchant", "to fascinate" or "to charm" evoke grace, the [96] fact of "becoming sensible" is directly associated with wisdom which is also a gift of God. The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us that God is the sole wise able to communicate an authentic wisdom to men enabling them to know His reality and to let it know to others.

Wisdom as transforming knowledge appears in men who have turned themselves entirely to God, opening themselves to His knowable reality and enriching themselves from it. Of course it is not simple reason, it is an intuition or an inspiration. In other words, it is not a brain knowledge, but a cardiac knowledge. Again, we come across the image of the heart as vector of knowledge, a concept we have precedingly developed.

 

[98]

IV. Initiatic and psychological stakes

A. Psychological stakes

1. Self assertion

The first psychological stake associated with the cardiovascular system very certainly lies in the development of an aptitude to fully assert who we are. The candidate is therefore called to express with strength and without any compromise all the dimensions of his/her personality, doing it essentially in a perspective of testimony.

Therefore it is important for the candidates not to smoother in them who they are, and to dedicate themselves to assert what they bear in their deepest inner being. Therefore, while putting their light on the streetlamp, not only they will beam their deepest being, but they will give rise to a similar desire to express their real nature to those who surround them. To make a testimony of what we are, it is also effectively [99] to invite others to do the same through the power of example. More then, it is by expressing themselves that they will develop a capacity to assert themselves more strongly, creating a real confidence in themselves according to the principle that the more a capacity is used, the more it develops itself. The more the deep values of the self are expressed, the more they grow stronger and give confidence to the candidates. The candidates will gain a remarkable beaming power that will give them a certain authority. Faithful to themselves (to the inner spirit that guide them), they will also tend to be loyal and sincere in their relationships to others.

 

[104]

The second attitude is the attitude when the person goes through using strength: it is the aggressive attitude that is described hereunder by Dr Fanget:

"To have an aggressive attitude, it is to express, even to impose your needs, your desires, without taking into account others’ needs and desires. It is, for example, to smoke during meetings without asking permission. It is to put the radio on very loud without caring for your husband’s sleep. It is to park your car in front of a garage giving as a pretext that you will be only a few minutes long. It is to phone to somebody starting to talk about your own problems without asking if you are disturbing."

(Frédéric Fanget, Armez vous! Pour mieux vivre avec les autres)

Hereunder is a synthesis of the aggressive behaviour:

[105]

Then comes the asserted behaviour where "you express your needs, your desires, simply and directly, taking into account others’ needs and desires. It is the 50 / 50 rule: you have 50 % of the rights, but your partner has also 50 % of the rights. You will be able to say to the lady who overtakes you while you are queuing up in a store: "It’s long waiting and I understand that you are in a hurry, but I would appreciate that you stay behind me please." You won’t hesitate to ask your colleague to give you a lift home a day when your car is being repaired, if he/she has time of course and if this doesn’t trouble him/her... You will dare ask your partner to respect your tastes for old movies while respecting his/her liking for action movies: "Listen, we have a problem: you wish to watch the last John Woo and, I, the “Seventh Seal” by Bergman. So, I suggest that we meet after the pictures and have dinner together." You will ask your neighbours to park their car in another place than in front of your door or tell them that their dog’s barking is a nuisance for you."

However it is important not to mix up asserted behaviour and aggressive behaviour although the affirmation of oneself, the way it is sometimes lived (and the way it has been lived during the last decades to allow minorities to make themselves heard) very often leads to such a confusion. To avoid this, Dr. Fanget made the following table:

Differences between the aggressive behavior and the asserted behavior

A sound self affirmation involves, in a second step, to get along better with others. "If you have a too passive behaviour, you will be looked at as a sucker, the person who is used when needed and not respected. [...] An excessively aggressive behaviour will give you the image of a nuisance", of an eternally unsatisfied person that cannot live without conflict. And this can have consequences on the friendship level, on the love level and on the professional level." "If you assert yourself and respect others, very likely others will get along with you very well. This will enable you to widen the circle of your friends and also probably to enrich your human relationships. However, this last point, although desirable, is not always obtained as it also depends on others’ good will. It is likely that you will not have friendly relationships with everybody. But a good level of self assertion will allow you to resolve possible relation problems easier."

2. Recognition and welcome by others

To love according to this phrase written by Saint-Exupéry in Lettres à un otage (Letters to an hostage): "Brother, by differing from me, you do not wrong me, you enrich me."

 

[110]

3. Exchange with others (to take and to give)

The third psychological stake associated with the cardiovascular system is a consequence of the first two stakes as it involves the development of a sharing relationship where the personal riches, [111] fully asserted, are put at the disposal of others who learn to develop qualities and new capacities. Others, who are ontologically different from us, bear resources that we can acquire and develop in the frame of a privileged relationship, allowing everyone to get to some expansion of himself/herself. This probably express itself in a very significant way in the experience of attraction that men feel towards women and women towards men. Men go effectively to women so that they awake in themselves the feminine part of their being while women go to men so that they awake in themselves the male energy. Each one receives from the other what he/she does not have and the relationship becomes a relation of mutual enrichment through the sharing of complementary qualities.

 

[114]

B. Initiatic stakes

1. Self denial

The first stake, related to love, can be found essentially in the development of a capacity to give, and more precisely, to give of oneself. If it is generally admitted that gift is an essential dimension of love, too often we forget that it does not mean only to give something but to give of oneself. Of course, it is true that love is gift of our riches and that we cannot conceive a love relationship without offering what we own (materially, psychologically and spiritually). How could we ever think of a love relationship where each partner would keep his/her own bank account and his/her own resources, asking the other to take an equal part into the common purchases? But there is a still more fundamental gift without which there is no love. It is self giving in the way the husband and wife offer themselves to each other up to the point when they do not belong to themselves, when they are dispossessed of themselves.

The first spiritual stake of the cardiovascular system invites us to self denial without any reserve and teaches us that the joy of giving is very often greater than the joy of receiving. "the man in love, who seeks to realize himself in giving to the one he loves, the mother who gives herself to her children and lives only for them, are able to understand those words. Because they are in communion as far as it is possible with our God’s mystery, source of all love." Not only we are invited to give our own goods without any reserve, but also we are invited to self giving, making a real offering of our whole being.

 

[117]

The Father teaches me to give according to others’ needs and not according to what I would like to receive. How often can we observe a father who wants to give his son the best of himself imposing his advice and resources so that the son may realize what is best to the father’s eyes and do what the father has not succeeded to carry out himself.

Of course this is a noble wish, but the son will answer that he has not necessarily the same goals and wishes to live differently. "How many quarrels and splits between fathers and teenagers originate from this. This father forgets that one "doesn’t make" a child for oneself, but for him/her. That the child does not belong to anyone but to himself/herself and to God. And that the goal is to "educate" him/her, i.e. "to lead him/her out", so that he/she may carry out his/her own human project, his/her new and unexpected adventure. There again, fascination of the same refusal of the difference. I who is a bachelor, I have no right to blame anybody and I might have been a bad father. But I have heard enough confidences by wounded parents and repelled sons to know that the risk lays here."

 

[118]

This need for putting one’s riches at others’ disposal has been wonderfully expressed in the symbolic tradition by the image of a pelican that bleeds itself white for its babies. According to a very ancient legend, it happened that the pelican, when coming back to its nest, found its babies unconscious and lifeless. The bird then shouted "its pain loudly, bended to the small bodies covered with blood, ripped its chest with its beak and soaked them with its blood. Then, under the warm fatherly sap, the dead baby pelicans started to quiver, came to life again, started to flap their wings happily and curled up against their father who, twice, gave them life." In this legend, the behaviour of the bird which opens its chest to take care of others evokes the real self sacrifice where the nutritive substances that feeded it so far exclusively spurt out to feed others (these nutriments that can be found in blood being moreover the result of a long work of ingestion and digestion, the "quintessence" of its work).

 

[119]

2. Welcoming others

"To love means to give up living in oneself, for oneself and by oneself." Thus welcoming others will always begin in a movement by which the candidate will withdraw from himself/herself into himself/herself to generate a wide space, inviting others to become the centre of his/her own life.

 

[122]

By practising such a welcome behaviour, human beings will cease focusing their conscience on themselves and will get free from the close circle of their personal self. In other words, they will escape the power of their self-centred and instinctual urges which, bringing them to relate everything to themselves, used to cut them from all exchanges and real communion with others. This behaviour however should not be felt as a constraint but lived in a natural way, coming from a deep heart surge. This will lead them to the third aspect of the spiritual stake associated with the cardiovascular system.

3. Taking part into others’ reality

The third spiritual stake of the cardiovascular system corresponds to an experience of participation into the nature of others, the ultimate desire of any love experience being to be able to feel what the other feels, to be able to live what the other lives and to be able then to participate fully into his/her reality. Any person who really loved knows what it means, the greatest pain in love being precisely to remain a foreigner to the other, not to be able to experience him/her. Welcoming, in the meaning we have just defined, brings us necessarily to participate into the reality of the beloved person as we make her the centre of our life. The fullness of love leads us [123] to an experience of transcendence that allows us to go beyond what we are in a participation without confusion. "The vow of love is to become the other, while remaining I, so that the other and I are not only united but also really one. The human experience of love is a mix of joy and suffering. Tremendous joy of saying to the one we love: you and me are not two, but one. Pain of being forced to recognize that, when saying so, we say not what it is, but what we would like to be and cannot be."

Love generates a deep communion that creates a true unity; however this unity is always a dynamic line between two persons who take on their differences.

 

[126]

4. The heart, gathering place of love

To conclude this chapter on the spiritual stakes of the cardiovascular system, it is important to say that the heart of the person who placed herself in such a psycho-spiritual dynamic line necessarily becomes identical to the mysterious Graal vessel, this sacred gathering place of love coming from heavens. The very structure of the heart aims it to this sublime vocation. By cultivating a spirit of gift, welcome and participation into others’ reality, the candidate will change his/her heart into a real matrix in which love will take root and grow, accomplishing thus the poet’s wish: "Ah! If only my heart would become a crib, again God here on earth would be a child" This is in this perspective that the devotion to the Sacred-Heart was established in the Christian tradition. Called "God’s House" or "Heavens’ Door", it is an admirable evocation of the coming of the divine light into human beings.

 

[130]

As far as we are concerned, we see in that, of course, the very symbol of love, the poured blood changed into a rose being the most beautiful evocation of love. Let me mention this section of Philippe Mailhebiau’s book on the rose: "The Rose essential oil is a wonder of nature; it might not be the sole one but it is exceptional. The simple fact of smelling it refines our sensitivity, takes us into an unknown world, seems to break up the darkness of our worries, of our fears, of our sorrows. It lets us know love, not only human love which is already a gift, maybe the most beautiful in existence, but also spiritual love, let us say divine love if this word were not overworked. The authentic perfume of the Rose seems to come from another world; an initiatic tradition says that it was a gift made by the Venus planet.

Whether we believe or not in legends and [127] beliefs, the Rose seems to be a subject for meditation, for contemplation, a source for elevation.

 

[133]

We cannot prevent us from paralleling this devotion to Christ’s Heart and the Eastern spiritual path of hesychasm with its "Heart’s Prayer". The latter aims at making the Master live in the faithful’s Heart and eventually identify both hearts: the mean used is the repetitive invocation of Jesus’ name or any of the other names of the Lord (Morya, Bouddha, Rama, Saï Baba, and so on.)

 

[135]

V. Planetary archetype

According to the Christian hermetism, the planetary archetype associated with the cardiovascular system is the Sun. By the Ancients this star used to occupy a central position comparable to that occupied by the heart in the human body. "The sun, Plutarque says, with the strength of a heart spreads out and pours out heat and light as if they were blood and breath". Macrobe says: "The name Intelligence of the world given to the sun answers that of the Heart of the sky; source of the ethereal light, the sun is, for this fluid, what the heart is for the living being. Al-Jili also thought that the heart is to the faculties what the sun is to the planets: it is from the sun that they receive their light and their impulse. [...] The symbolism of the centre and of the sun is wonderfully engraved on the famous marble of the Orques Charterhouse (Sarthes), published long ago by Louis Charbonneau-Lassay. He is an extraordinary witness of the intellectual deepness reached by the monks of St Bruno in the understanding of the Heart’s mystery. This marble represents the Heart beaming in the middle of two concentric circles; the circle of the planets, the innerest one, and the circle of the zodiac, the most external one."

More precisely, the Sun used to embody, and still embodies, a capacity to beam its deep identity without taking into account the prejudices and stereotypes imposed by the society (or the illusions inherent to the ego). Sometimes, it happens that we are mistaken [136] concerning self-affirmation when we see it as a kind of conceit or tremendous proud. This is a big mistake as self-affirmation precisely allows the individual to exist fully. Moreover, as it brings the individual to beam faithfully the values of his/her deep being, the sun favours the development of a remarkable power that will express itself naturally in the form of a charismatic authority whose legitimacy is obvious.

From a spiritual point of view, the Sun at last evokes a capacity to express and radiate with enthusiasm the strength of the Spirit. The Hebrew name for the Sun very clearly demonstrates that as it is the word shèmèsh [Shin-Mem-Shin] that means "to officiate as a priest". Christ, who was the great priest of the works of the Spirit ("Having a great sovereign priest that came across Heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us stand fast in our profession of faith.", Hebrews IV, 14), was associated from the third century onwards to the "True Sun" (Verus Sol). In the fourth century, the famous Byzantine poet Romanos the Melode made Him say in the Canticle of the Courtesan: "I, the Sun". Let us mention Berulle, who, in his Meditations on Santa Magdalena in the seventeenth century, speaks of "Jesus, this rising Sun".

Hereunder is a table summarizing the symbolic elements related to the Sun and the stakes embodied by the cardiovascular system. [137]

Table showing the symbolic elements of the Sun and the stakes embodied by the cardiovascular system

 

[144]

It is as vector of the fruitful and vitalizing divine power that he was looked at as real thaumaturgist. When a subject of the King of France suffered a disease that could not be healed by doctors, he/she used to go to Paris, on the doctors’ advice, to be healed by the Sovereign. At particular times of the year, generally corresponding to religious feasts, the king effectively used to receive sick people and heal them through a particular ritual process. As an example, Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to 1715, had many opportunities to carry out this healing process and many recoveries were obtained. "The doctors were so often witnesses of these recoveries that, particularly concerning lymphatic tumors who were royal prerogative, the first surgeon of the Dauphinesses, Dionis, "advise all the people that suffer this disease to try to heal through a so soft spiritual mean before trying to get healed through the doctors who will not save them from pain..."

 

[153]

VI. Synthesis

So fundamentally, the cardiovascular system embodies a capacity in human beings to welcome and to give. From a psychological point of view, it evokes more precisely the development of a capacity to affirm oneself (function of witnessing), to open oneself to the resources offered by others (by using them to ensure the development and opening up of one’s being) and to turn oneself to them by exchanging and sharing. From a spiritual point of view, it will embody a capacity to give of oneself to others, to welcome them fully in oneself to grant them a central place in our existence, and to experiment what they are in a transcendental movement beyond all survival instinct.

Table showing the functions of the cardiovascular system and their stakes

 

[155]

Section II – Diseases – Symbolism and therapeutics

[159]

Myocardial infarction

Symbolic reading

Medical description

As all the other arteries, the coronary arteries may be affected by atherosclerosis. Sheets of atheroma gradually cover the internal walls of the vessels, narrow the blood flux and favour the development of blood clots. This coagulation of course stops the irrigation of the part of the heart concerned and involves the necrosis of part of the cardiac muscle; this conveys in most cases a great and persisting pain and ultimately leads to cardiac arrest.

Symbolic interpretation

This disease originates in a problem at the level of maintenance of the heart. This function means, on a symbolic level, a capacity to maintain a participative union dynamic line. Myocardial infarction is therefore closely linked to a problem of that kind. More then, this disease results from an obstruction at the coronary arteries level. Any obstruction phenomenon is of course associated with a blocking process (refusal to carry on or to go on in self investment). Therefore this disease seems to result from a refusal to maintain with others a participative union dynamic line. [160]

Why then this refusal? There might be two main causes. The first one might result from a tendency to receive no more from others (neither their resources, nor their selves), maybe trying to free oneself from a too oppressing relation (or judging that one does not deserve this relation anymore). The second one might result from a wish to give no more to others (neither one’s riches, nor one’s self), thinking that they are not worth it or do not deserve it anymore.

More then, this disease is characterized by a strong and persistent pain in the chest. The pain of course evokes a state of acute crisis. Why such a crisis? In both cases, by trying not to maintain a dynamic line of exchange or participation anymore, the individual confines himself/herself in a dangerous death condition (by cutting himself/herself from all the resources necessary for his/her development and from love as experience of fullness). [161]

At last, myocardial infarction affects the heart situated in the centre of the chest. We can therefore infer from the two deviant behaviours we associated to myocardial infarction that they might be stimulated by a difficulty to establish, in one’s relation with others, a matrix middle able to meet everybody’s needs.

Therapeutic approach

Therapeutic approach of the ground

Myocardial infarction affects the heart which is situated in the middle of the chest.

Table showing the body areas affected by myocardial infarction

[162]

Thus the sick person looking for reharmonization will have to try to harmonize in herself the psycho-spiritual stakes that correspond to the body area mainly affected. Myocardial infarction is aggravated by the fact that the sick person has difficulties in building for herself an appropriate matrix middle.

Therapeutic approach of the system

We know that myocardial infarction affects the heart. The sick person will have to harmonize in herself the corresponding psycho-spiritual stake.

Table showing the psycho-spiritual stake of the cardiovascular system

[163]

Therapeutic approcah of the under-system

At a more precise level, myocardial infarction affects the coronary circulation.

The sick person will be invited to develop in herself the psycho-spiritual stake that could be summarized as follows: "To centre myself and radiate what I am becoming the privileged vector of an extraordinary fertility."

[164]

 

 

[165]

Arterial hypertension

Symbolic reading

Description médicale Medical description

Arterial hypertension occurs when the pressure exerted by the blood propelled on the walls of the arteries increases. It is not necessarily pathological. During sport practice, the heart must send more blood into the arterial system in order to meet the energetic needs of the organism, contracts itself more vigorously and increases the arterial pressure. Stress is also a cause of hypertension and involves the contraction of the blood vessels, and consequently the increase of the cardiac activity. At last, the old age is a factor of arterial hypertension as the arteries get hard and increase the resistances to blood circulation towards the organism. In order to maintain sufficient blood output, the heart must therefore contract itself more vigorously.

Arterial hypertension becomes pathological when the blood pressure in the arteries of a person relaxed and quiet remains unusually high. Very often it does not provoke any symptom and therefore it is detected most of the times during a routine examination. Some of the complications due to non-treated hypertension are cerebro-vascular accidents, cardiac insufficiency, kidney lesions and retinopathy. [166]

Symbolic interpretation

This pathology comes from a problem at the cardiac activity level (and particularly at the systolic function level). The latter is linked, on a symbolic level, to the development of a capacity to receive (systemic arterial circulation) showing dynamism and energy, fighting against all the inertia forces that confine the individual in a death condition where he/she does not welcome anymore. Therefore, the arterial hypertension will be closely linked to a problem of that kind. More then, this disease results from an increase of the cardiac activity. Any increase phenomenon is of course associated with an exaggeration process. Consequently this pathology seems to result from a tendency to exaggerate, the individual tending to mobilize his/her energy in an abnormal way against inertia forces that prompt him/her to withdraw into himself/herself and break an harmonious participative dynamic union line with others.

Why then this exaggeration? It may have two main causes. The first one might result from a feeling of incapacity to welcome in an appropriate manner the resources offered by others (or to give them place within his/her existence). This feeling will encourage him/her to place oneself exaggeratedly in an opening behaviour towards others. The second one might result from an excessive dependence upon others or upon their resources, the individual seeking to open himself/herself to others in an excessive way. [167]

This pathology is scarcely accompanied by symptoms. However, it increases the risk of cerebro-vascular accidents and of numerous other diseases. In other words, it develops a ground hostile to any personal development and to any experience of transcendence. Why such a situation? Insofar as the individual focalises all his/her strengths to place himself/herself in an excessive manner in an opening dynamic line towards others, he/she misuses them and exposes himself/herself to various disorders involving a weakening of the organism. If he/she maintains also an excessive dependence upon others or upon their resources, opening himself/herself in an excessive manner, he/she will not develop a capacity to affirm his/her identity (the latter, not being expressed, will die).

[168]

At last, arterial hypertension affects the whole arterial system. So there is no ground specifically favourable to its development.

Therapeutic approach

Therapeutic approach of the ground

We have just said that arterial hypertension affects the whole arterial system. So there is no ground specifically favourable to its development.

Therapeutic approach of the system

We know that arterial hypertension affects the heart. The sick person will have to harmonize in himself/herself the psycho-spiritual stake.

Table showing the stake associated with the cardiovascular system

[169]

He/she could write for his/her greatest benefit the following positive affirmation: "I receive from others and I give to others (or at least express to them) what I am."

Therapeutic approach of the under-system

More precisely, arterial hypertension affects the heart systolic function.

The sick person will be invited to develop in himself/herself the psycho-spiritual stake that might be summed up as follows: "To get centred and radiate what I am, being able to invest myself strongly, freeing myself from any death inertia."