During this season of light, it is appropriate to write of love and the heart chakra. This essay on the heart is the fourth in a series on the chakras. The heart chakra is the bridge between the lower three chakras, which reflect our concrete world, and the upper three chakras, which bring us into the conceptual and etheric realms. It is the center of love. While the sexual love we experience is located in the second chakra, and receives stimulation from outside the body, the fourth chakra reflects our internal state of being: our love for ourselves. When this chakra is balanced, we feel a sense of peace that radiates outward. “Unlike the changing nature of the second chakra with its transitory passions, love from the heart is of an enduring quality, eternal and constant.” [1 ]
The most important aspect of the heart chakra is love, a word of great complexity. It is a term that means different things to each of us. Love brings together individuals as partners, families, and friends. It is the tie that binds. From parents, this love allows us to establish deep patterns of security and self-acceptance. This helps us move toward relationships that offer acknowledgement, appreciation, and safety. When relationships include approval, compliments, and empathy, as well as physical and emotional nurturing, the energy of love can be all encompassing. We feel enormous satisfaction within.
When love is conditional, however, the flow of heart energy becomes weak or completely turned off. Such states as jealousy, fear, and anger restrict the flow of love. Any emotional state that puts restrictions on love alters what we offer others, as well as that which we do or don’t receive from them. Rejection is one of our basic fears. It influences our sense of self-acceptance, causing us to feel alone and cut off. When rejected we find the flow of love energy depleted both externally, and internally. Also, the energies of the lower and upper chakras lose their connection to each other, become unbalanced, and have difficulty supporting each other. “Love is not a matter of getting connected; it is a matter of seeing that we already are connected within an intricate web of relationships that extends throughout life. It is a realization…that we are all made of the same essence, riding through time on the same planet, faced with the same problems, the same hopes and fears. It is a connection at the core that makes irrelevant skin color, age, sex, looks, or money.” [2]
Another aspect of the heart chakra concerns relationships we have. For example, the desire to accomplish things physically motivates us to take good care of ourselves. The love of our family keeps us together. The love of an activity like basketball, keeps us in relationship with a team and people who share this common interest. Relationships are established between the information we gather from the world at large and what is important to us. This, in turn, enables us to form a variety of relationships. The degree of balance we possess determines the degree of meaningfulness in the relationship. Balance is fluid, changing with our perceptions of life. Since balance is not necessarily consistent, relationships may not be either. When we, as individuals, stay well balanced, we bring a precious gift to each of our relationships. Regarding interpersonal relationships, most will endure when both parties possess an overall balance within themselves. When we work toward maintaining this internal balance, our external relationships are more apt to be steady.
The state of all the other chakras falls out of balance when the heart chakra does. Not only are the chakras thrown out of alignment, but so, too, the mind and body. In order to stay balanced, the heart must be in control, and the ego must work for love’s greatest good. Giving over our heart to another may feel wonderful, but we may then lose our sense of self and lose the stability that will anchor the self and the love. “You have to balance love and individuality, and actually sacrifice a portion of each.” [3] Love out of balance will not endure.
Finally, the heart chakra must be balanced between what is given and received. To give, but not receive throws this beautiful chakra out of wack. It is an act of love to be selfish enough to take care of oneself. It is necessary to maintain one’s own equilibrium for the benefit of all. One cannot truly love another until one loves oneself. ” Love is not something that is attached to an object. Love is a state of being in harmony with oneself… Love is the natural relationship between healthy living things. We need only to believe that it is around us at all times and in all things to find it within ourselves. [4] So examine the state of your heart. Make sure it is in balance for your own good, as well as the entire population of the world. When love is freely given, everyone benefits. Blessings.
1. Judith, Anodea. Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Chakra System. Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota. 2015. p. 193
2. Ibid., p. 201
3. Ibid., p. 206
4. Ibid., p. 207
