Layne's new book, Chakra Meditations , released by Sounds True . This is a book on the chakras that includes a cd with guided meditation, pranayama, mudra and bandha practices. The following essay on the Heart Chakra contains some of the material that was drawn on for the book.

With the way things are going in the world sometimes it is hard to go on with spiritual practices. Despair, anxiety and pessimism take away from our inner concentration and ability to align with higher forces for positive change. I find the war news devastating, yet I find the worldwide peace movement extremely hopeful. I think it is absolutely necessary to take public actions and contact our government officials to encourage peace yet I believe we have to work on the internal plane at the same time. We focus on the internal levels to bring about our own spiritual transformation into peacefulness which will project out into the world. I feel that it is crucial to bring the lessons of the heart chakra to the forefront at this time.

Each evolved culture in the ancient world recognized the fundamental division of consciousness into seven levels. These different centers of consciousness in the mind/body complex are known in the yogic tradition as the chakras. Different cultures identified with different levels of consciousness as the center of the self-identified mind. The Greeks before Homer identified the seat of the mind at the solar plexus. The Ancient Hebrews and Egyptians and contemporary Tibetan Buddhists identify the heart center as the seat of the mind.

The chakras are matrixes or intersections of energy and consciousness somewhat like relay stations. They control the nerves in their respective sections of the body and each has psychologically distinctive characteristics. More importantly the chakras function as switches to specific areas in the brain. When a chakra is fully functioning a corresponding area of the brain is activated.

There is not a different mind for each chakra but only one mind which is capable of operating at or through these different levels or dimensions of awareness. The mind is essentially one, pervading all the planes of awareness. When the mind pervades and activates all levels of consciousness from a higher level, it can reorganize and rebalance the working of itself on a lower level. When the mind operates from Ajna chakra, the sixth chakra, it can bring into balance the working of the lower chakras.

But in the average person the consciousness is not focused in Ajna chakra. Most often our awareness is focused in the first, second or third chakras or dispersed between those three. A person thinks and understands what is happening around them from the perspective of the chakra in which their awareness is most habituated.

The first chakra, muladhara chakra, is said to be the root center of physical experience. The basic issues and fears of this chakra revolve around security, food and shelter -- the fundamental concerns of physical survival. Our fears of physical survival, abandonment by the group, and loss of physical order influence all of our daily thought processes. So the primary desire of this chakra is for the security of our physical existence. This involves our physical family, the safety and security of the group one identifies with and the ability to provide for life's necessities.

Psychologically this is a very self centered place. You are concerned with your own thoughts and feelings here, sometimes to the exclusion of or indifference to those of others. Your survival and your possessions come first and it is best if no one gets in your way. Mentally you see the world as a solid reality to be conquered, controlled, acquired and hoarded. One of the main problems of the individual acting from first chakra motivation is violent behavior based on insecurity and fears about basic needs.

As a person evolves into the second chakra, Svadisthana Chakra, the focus of attention is drawn towards sensual desires and fantasies. Sexual energy is connected mainly to this chakra but also to the first and third chakras. When we operate primarily from this chakra we see the the world in terms of our desires and our main motivation is to make sure they are gratified. And the primary desire is for relationships. All of our relationships are a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.

The energy in this chakra is connected to the primal reptilian brain at the base of the skull emerging from the spinal column. The main responsibility of this part of our brain is to ensure survival and to maintain physical upkeep, hoarding, dominance, mating and preening. Instincts of territory or safety, habits, rhythms and routines are the domain of the reptilian brain. It is apparent that it is intimately connected to both first and second chakras.

The unrestrained third chakra personality is dominated by fire and intellect, moving towards her or his goals without considering the consequences in an extremely competitive, assertive and courageous fashion. When dominated unconsciously by the passions of this chakra, one begins to sacrifice family and friends in search of power, respect and recognition. Out of balance third chakra energy results in a person who is willing to run over others to achieve their ends. Control of others is maintained through the violence of anger, resentments, vengeance and inflamed emotions. The fire of unrestrained ambitious craving for power in the world scorches indiscriminately. Carl Jung states, "We still have to be polite to people to avoid the explosions of Manipura," for there is never enough fame, fortune, power, control over others and our physical environment to satisfy the out of control third chakra person.

It appears the most of the world's governments are operating from the first three chakra's fears and concerns.

We must become aware of how our basic fears rule our lives and prevent us from following our own paths, keeping us within the safe and hallowed grooves of the tribal culture. Know that all our concepts, all our thoughts are only that -- thoughts and concepts, and work towards an unbounded, conscious view, a direct perception of our world and ourselves. We must free our minds. We must get our consciousness out of the lower three chakra concerns and move our focus up into the heart chakra! We must think and act from the heart.

Fourth Chakra – Anahata Chakra – the Center of the Unstruck Sound

The fourth chakra, Anahata, is located in the region of the heart, in the center point of the seven chakras. When we raise our conscious energy to the fourth chakra we set foot on a true spiritual path. This chakra is a matrix of nurturing, caring energy and the seat of the higher emotions of love, compassion, kindness and empathy. Consciously centering our energy, thoughts and actions in the heart, helps us to transcend the lower chakra issues that can keep us mesmerized forever. Here we can attain an integrated balance between the three lower chakras and the three chakras above the heart. This is symbolized by the six pointed star -- the union of downward and upward pointing triangles representing the free flowing elemental energy of air. The energy that flows through the heart is relatively free of the attachments and obstacles associated with the lower chakras. As attachment falls away true compassion can arise.

Even before we are born, the first three chakras start functioning and they will be the driving force behind most people's lives. Many will never have goals any higher than the basic drives surrounding sex, money, power, prestige, fame, security and comfort. And for most the center of all these issues will revolve around sex. People seek recognition, fortune, power, possessions, beauty and bodily enhancements in order to obtain sexual partners. On these partners falls the responsibility to fulfill the rest of the lower three chakra desires: home, food, security, relationships and love. Above the Anahata, there are three chakras concerned with spiritual evolution: Vishuddha, Ajna and Sahasrara, the center of ultimate awareness. The heart chakra, stationed in between, functions as a bridge between the drives of the lower chakras and the higher chakras. On this threshold the energy of compassionate love arises drawing us upward into the higher spiritual path.

The Anahata chakra symbolized by a six-pointed hexagon, within a crimson twelve petaled lotus, represents the elemental energy of air. On the air rides the life force of prana. Air is connected with the sense perception of touch and its organ is the skin through which we feel the world. The heart center controls the circulatory, respiratory and immune system through the connection with the physical heart, lungs and thymus gland. The thymus endocrine gland is the center of the body's immune response system. From this center white blood cells sweep through the body looking for foreign invaders. They are then neutralized and expelled from the body. Developing and activation of the fourth chakra will bring the immune system to peak strength.

Our heart beats approximately 72 times per minute, adding up to 100,000 beats every day. Five to twenty five quarts of blood pulse over 60,000 miles of veins, arteries and capillaries every minute. A well energized and balanced heart chakra has a profound influence on our overall health. It regulates our breathing, the beat of the heart and the circulation of blood. Within this center air, prana and blood unite and keep the body and mind purified and energized. The heart center continually replenishes our life force with its pranic source in the air.

As the heart pumps it generates the strongest electromagnetic field produced by the body. This electromagnetic wave vibrates the 60 trillion cells in the body on an average of 60 to 70 times per minute. These frequencies of the heart beats are 100-1000 times greater than the electromagnetic frequencies of our brain waves. These electromagnetic waves can be measured radiating up to four feet out from the body.

Researchers have found that when people touch or are in close proximity, a transfer of these electromagnetic waves produced by the heart occurs. Using electrocardiograms (ECG) to measure cardiac energy and electroencephalograms (EEG) to measure brain waves an exchange of cardiac energy between participants was measured. The signal was strongest when people were in physical contact with each other, but it was still detectable when they were within eighteen inches of each other. It became undetectable when participants were separated by a distance of four feet, the average size of the heart's electromagnetic field. This indicates that we are constantly exchanging heart energy with people, particularly when we shake hands or hug them. As the heart chakra is energized and purified, love, faith, devotion, inspiration and harmonious balance develop. Through meditation practices we have the capacity to radiate this energy more widely and effect all those we come into contact with. As our heart center strengthens we can vibrationally bring other heart centers into entrainment with ours.

In the center of this chakra is heard the Anahat, the unstruck sound, the transcendental pulse of creation . When our thoughts dissolve and our consciousness centers into this chakra we perceive the unstruck sound buzzing hum of the energy of the universe. This buzzing bee-like hum is symbolized by the primordial mantra, Aum. According to the Spanda Doctrine, (the Doctrine of Vibration from the 13th century Hindu and Buddhist culture of Kashmir) reality is a living, pulsing energy emanating from the vibration of ultimate consciousness. The word, Spanda, represents both the rhythmic pulse of absolute consciousness and the inner pulse of personal consciousness. The radiant pulse or sparkling vibration, called the Sphurrata, is the light of consciousness buzzing in our heart center. The Anahata is the great chakra vibrating simultaneously in the heart of all beings.

In his book, The Heart's Code, Dr. Paul Pearsall explores the emerging field of energy cardiology and cellular memory. Pearsall studied heart transplants and how the history of the donated heart could affect its recipient. He began to perceive the heart as far more than just an organ that pumps blood. The heart appeared to him as a generator of informational energy and the cells as the storehouses of info-energetic memories. He found evidence in the experiences of heart transplant recipients that the heart "thinks" and the cells of our body remember. Some heart transplant recipients report recovery of the memories and experiences that belonged to their donor, which to Pearsall indicates they are tapping into the life energy of the heart donor. Pearsall presents compelling evidence that the heart thinks, remembers, has emotions and communicates with other hearts, helps regulate immunity, and contains stored information that continually pulses through the body. His research showed that the heart, rather than the brain, could be the seat of consciousness which is what many ancient religions tell us.

In ancient Egyptian the words mind, soul, heart and ear were used interchangeably to indicate consciousness. The Chinese word, xin, means both mind and heart. The heart was perceived as the spiritual center of the human being and the seat of the soul. According to the Upanishads the Atman, defined in various texts as the eternal self, the supremely conscious self, the transcendental self, resides in the innermost space of the heart. The Atman also symbolizes the soul, the air and the breath. The Bhagavad Gita describes the sacred self in the heart center as the "still flame in a windless place." This is the seat of the sacred or the soul within us. In Catholic traditions Jesus Christ is often painted with a heart so brilliant it appears as a bright flame.

In Tantric thought the fourth chakra is where the ishvara deva resides, the innermost deity, the personal god or goddess. The ishvara is the bindu, the place where the powers of creation are gathered in one supreme unity or pulse. We are contained within the greater heart of creation and at the same time the spark of creation pulses within our heart. Ishvara becomes the center of all things, the ultimate reality grounded in the heart. His/Her hands perform the mudras of dispelling fear and granting boons. The best boon is that of strengthening concentration. Knowledge that our soul dwells within us as the Eternal Self, as a spark of creation, is the doorway out of confusion and into liberation.

The cosmic soul is truly the whole universe, the immortal source of all creation,
All action, all meditation.
Whoever discovers Him, hidden deep within,
Cuts through the bonds of ignorance even during his life on earth.

* Atharva Veda, Mundaka Upanishad

When we choose to identify with the eternal imperishable self, that has been obscured by our thoughts and mental conceptions of reality, we free ourselves from a diminished understanding of the world. We realize that we have been mesmerized by our own versions, confusions and representations of reality. We must crack the cocoon of our habitual thoughts. Our cocoon of thoughts is the sum total of our concepts about reality, about the way the world is, that we trap ourselves within. The crack is a cessation of habitual thinking which allows our individual awareness to escape the outgrown shell of the cocoon, breaking forth into the vastness of the boundless, undefinable matrix of awareness. But vastness can be overwhelming and often we prefer the confinement and familiarity of our habitual thoughts. We must constantly encourage ourselves into freedom from our habitual thought patterns.

Our drumming and chanting can be the crack in our point of view that has kept us locked up. It is a crack in our limited understanding, through which wisdom can seep. When we cut our thoughts, the clouds of confusion part, light shines into us and the mind freed from concepts dawns. The limited consciousness that we have always recognized as our self falls away when we comprehend our place as a conscious human being within the heart of consciousness. This is the chakra of the fundamental and intuitive insights into life.

The Upanishads say the heart is the seat of the soul, of waking consciousness and the seat of prana, the breath of life. Since ancient times the soul and thought have been identified with breath. Anima is the Latin word for soul, air and breath. The Latin term spiritus signifies both breath and spirit, which is continued in breath related words like inspiration and expiration. The Hebrew word ruach, the Arabic word, ruch and the Greek pneuma are words that denote both spirit and breath. For the ancient Hebrews the breath was the very mystery of life and awareness, a mystery inseparable from the holy wind or spirit, the ruach. The heart was considered the seat of consciousness for the ancient Hebrews and the Egyptians. Contemporary Tibetan Buddhists still consider the heart to be the seat of the mind. Jung writes, In the Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, of a Native American leader, "who thought that all Americans were crazy because they were convinced that they thought in the head. He said: 'But we think in the heart.'"

The prana in the breath is what connects the seven chakras, the five elements, and the electro-chemical changes that take place in the two hemispheres of the brain. On the element air rides this life force of prana that supports consciousness and animates our minds and bodies. This force is what links the physical dimension of our being with our mental dimension and our mental dimension with the spiritual dimension. If you accumulate prana within the mind/body complex you can more powerfully integrate the physical, mental and spiritual dimensions within yourself. We feel the prana within ourselves as our energy. When we have less prana we feel tired, more prana makes us feel energized.

Many ancient disciplines used rhythmic breathing to accomplish the spiritual goal of uniting our ordinary consciousness with our higher self. Here in the heart and lung center we take the chi or prana riding on air and transform its energy directly into our minds and bodies. We breathe the prana filled air into our lungs where it is absorbed into the blood which is pumped throughout the body by the heart. The sacred breath, the inspiration of the mind/consciousness of Goddess/God permeates all of nature providing awareness and guidance. We exist within it and it within us. "What the plants are quietly breathing out, we animals are breathing in; what we breath out, the plants are breathing in. The air, we might say, is the soul of the visible landscape, the secret realm from whence all beings draw their nourishment." David Abram.

"Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan - the holy air - which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan - spirit, life, breath, renewal - it means all that. Woniya - we sit together, don't touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence." (John Fire Lame Deer.)

"If prayer is pure and untainted, surely that holy breath that rises from your lips will join with the breath of heaven that is always flowing into you from above . . . Thus that part of God which is within you is reunited with its source." 19th century Hasidic writing.

"In the thirteenth century Zohar, the most important of all Kabbalistic texts, the central figure, Rabbi Shim'on bar Yohai, insists that the union between humans and God is best effected through the medium of the breath. According to Rabbi Shim'on, King Solomon learned from his father, King David, the breathing techniques involved in invoking the holy breath, the inspiration of the divine. "By learning and practicing the secrets inherent in the breath, Solomon could lift nature's physical veil from created things and see the spirit within." In a manner reminiscent of a Navajo or a Lakota ceremony, Rabbi Shim'on's son, El'azar, begins a prayer session by exhorting "the winds to come from all four directions and fill his breath, "and instructs his companions to circulate the air inhaled from all four directions interchangeably within their bodies." David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous.

"As the psyche, being air, holds a man together and gives him life, so breath and air hold together the entire universe and give it life." Anaximenes, sixth century B.C. Milesian philosopher. The ancient Greek word, psyche, signified the soul, the mind and also breath or a gust of wind. It was derived from the verb psychein meaning to breath. "The followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and most of the Italian philosophers, say that there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and with the gods, but even with brute creation. There is in fact one breath pervading the whole cosmos like a soul and uniting us with them." Sextus Empiricus, Advanced Mathematics, 2nd c. A.D.

In the twelve pointed lotus mandala of the heart chakra is a six pointed star formed by two interlocking triangles in perfect equilibrium. The fourth chakra understanding expands in all dimensions and directions as this six pointed star.

This hexagram is the symbol of air and the ancient symbol of the bee goddess. The sacred bee, the Bhramari Devi, creates her honeycomb in hexagonal shapes and buzzes within her geometrically perfect hive. Within the hexagon is a downward pointing triangle, representing the creative energy of Shakti. The upward pointing triangle is Shiva or ultimate consciousness. This represents the perfect union of the macrocosm with microcosm, male and female, positive and negative, the interpenetration of the sacred with the material world and the balancing of the three lower chakras with the three highest chakras. Within the hexagon is a downward pointing triangle. Inside this triangle burns the unflickering eternal flame of our individual soul. This is the All-Shining One, a pure light radiating from the heart chakra.

Inside the Anahata chakra lies the Vishnu granthi, the second psychic knot. This knot results from the tangles of emotional attachments and the confused actions we take based on these emotions. These knots dissolve as the heart chakra awakens and emotional confusion subsides.

In traditional depictions of this chakra Shiva appears as a male deity playing a damaru drum that maintains the rhythm of the heartbeat. The goddess, Kakini Shakti sits next to Shiva and is the all pervading in the energy of this chakra. She is depicted with four heads representing a balanced and increased flowing of energy into four aspects of the self -- the rational self, the physical self, the sensual self and the emotional self. In her four arms she holds a drum, a trident and a noose and makes the gestures of dispelling fear and granting boons. Kakini is the doorkeeper of this chakra. Kakini, like air, penetrates all places and provides energy to the entire body through the emotional frequencies of devotion and loving kindness. She is exalted, happy and creates art and poetry of a refined spiritual level that elevates the mind to higher realms of consciousness. Her art is synchronized with the rhythm of the heart, and thus with the rhythm of the universe. This force of art exists beyond past, present, and future. Swami Satyananda Saraswati states that this chakra is directly connected to the part of our brain which is responsible for the creative sciences and the fine arts including dance, painting, poetry and music.

Above Shiva and Kakini sits Kundalini Shakti. Dressed in white she is serene and centered peacefully within herself. She manifests selfless spiritual devotion and one may communicate and entrain with her upward moving energy. She is the embodiment of Anahata Nada, the unstruck sound, the all pervading power behind the universe which has been described as white noise. The buzzing sound of Kundalini is heard in the heart as AUM, the seed of all sounds.

When Kundalini awakens her sweet murmur is like the indistinct hum of swarms of love mad bees. It is she who maintains all the beings of the world by means of inspiration and expiration. She produces the humming sound resembling a swarm of bees. She is the source from which all sounds emanate and the source of Speech. Meditate upon the Devi Kundalini as your Ista devata, who is Creation itself, in whom are creation, existence, and dissolution, who is beyond the universe and is consciousness itself. She is the One who goes upwards in the spine to the Sahasrara, the crown chakra, in a buzzing coil of energy. This description of Kundalini is from the Sat Chakra Nirupana, written down in India during 16th century AD.

The black antelope or gazelle, the power animal of this chakra, is as elusive as the speed of the wind. The gazelle lives upon the surface of the earth but is not a domesticated or sacrificial animal. She is shy and vanishes quickly, leaping as if she had wings. She is as light as air and birdlike, almost liberated from gravity, symbolizing the lightness of thought and feeling. She is elusive and hard to catch like many of our less than conscious thoughts and ideas that shape our reality. The gazelle is alert and sensitive to each and every sound and is the embodiment not of restlessness but of concentrated awareness. The deity of air, Vayu, rides on the gazelle.

When Yang, the Bija sound created by the frequencies of energies in the Anahata, is chanted properly it will vibrate the heart, unblocking any obstructions in the cardiac region. When the heart is opened an unrestrained flow of energy is freed to move upward towards the crown chakra. The twelve petal sounds are: KANG, which vibrates the right shoulder joint, KHANG, the right elbow, GANG, the right wrist, GHANG, roots of the right fingers, WOANG, tips of the right fingers, CJANG, the left shoulder joint, CHHANG, the left elbow, JANG, left wrist, JHANG, root of left fingers, EYONG, tip of left fingers, TDANG, right hip joint, TDHANG, the right knee.

"See your prayer as arousing the letters through which heaven and earth and all living things were created. The letters are the life of all; when you pray through them, all Creation joins with you in prayer. All that is around you can be uplifted; even the song of a passing bird may enter into such a prayer.." Hasidic commentary on prayer.

Harish Johari describes the gifts of meditation of the heart chakra as mastery over language, poetry and all verbal endeavors. "The person becomes master of his own self, gaining wisdom and inner strength. Male and female energy become balanced, and the resolution of the two energies interacting outside the body ceases to be a problem as all relationships become pure. The senses are controlled, and the person flows freely, without hindrance from any external barrier. One centered in the fourth chakra has evolved beyond circumstantial and environmental limitations, to become independent and self-emanating. His life becomes a source of inspiration for others as they find peace and calm in his presence."

The primary fears aroused in this chakra are: fears of loneliness, commitment, and "following one's heart"; fear of inability to protect oneself emotionally; fear of emotional weakness and betrayal. Loss of fourth chakra energy can give rise to jealousy, bitterness, anger, hatred, and an inability to forgive others as well as oneself.

The primary strengths to draw on are love, forgiveness, compassion, dedication, inspiration, hope, trust, and the ability to heal oneself and others.

The sacred truth of the fourth chakra is that it is the power center of the human energy system because love is the true power that will enable us to attain our goals. While the world assumes that force, might, and violent aggression are the most potent powers on earth, they can never guide our consciousness into the true source of it's own power. They can never establish us in the calm, creative compassionate understanding that is the true source of happiness.

The following paragraphs are from a contemporary western analysis by Caroline Myss: "The challenge inherent in the fourth chakra is similar to that of the third but is more spiritually sophisticated. While the third chakra's focus is on our feelings about ourselves in relation to our physical world, the fourth chakra focuses on our feelings about our internal world -- our emotional response to our own thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and inspirations, as well as the attention we give to our emotional needs. This level of commitment is the essential factor in forming healthy relationships with others."

"We are not born fluent in love but spend our life learning about it. Its energy is pure power. We are as attracted to love as we are intimidated by it. We are motivated by love, controlled by it, inspired by it, healed by it, and destroyed by it. Love is the fuel of our physical and spiritual bodies. Each of life's challenges is a lesson in some aspect of love. How we respond to these challenges is recorded within our cell tissues: we live within the biological consequences of our biographical choices." Carolyn Myss.

Within everyone of us are the misconceptions of who we are. We all have traces of dysfunctional self-images, patterns of negative thinking and painful memories that have accrued through our experiences in life. Even though we may recognize these rhythms of behavior as unhealthy until we transform them they can damage our health, relationships and professional lives. We transform them by loving ourselves. We begin by releasing the wounded aspects of the self that wields authority over our thoughts. Emotional and mental wounds tie us to the past.

My favorite Chinese fortune cookie said: "To understand everything is to forgive everything." We free ourselves and heal fastest through the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a spiritual act and a physically healing act. Until we fully forgive we cannot open ourselves fully to the healing power of love. Old emotional wounds continue to hurt only ourselves not those that inflicted the wound. To free ourselves from the injuries of the past we must care enough for ourselves to forgive the past. We must release our attachment to our wounds which liberates us from the perception of ourselves as a victim which generates the desire for revenge. Through forgiveness we clear our minds of the control that being abused or victimized had over us. We do it for ourselves not for those who wounded us although in the process we probably help them also. "To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend." Mohandas K. Gandhi.

The sacred truth of this chakra and the reason that it is "the power center of the human energy system" is because love is the most powerful and transformative energy that exists. It is the manifestation of the Divine, it is the goddess or god. When we say Aphrodite or Inanna or Hathor was the goddess of love, and tradition hands down that these goddesses were also connected to sexual love -- we are really viewing her through the modern confused lens of erotic and seductive sexuality, not as the primordial force of love. In the ancient world, practices that we now call Tantric that involved healing and religious sexual practices were originally rituals that channeled great energies of healing, love and ecstasy.

How can we understand this within a culture based in the puritanical suspicion of the great pleasure and great power that is available to us through our bodies. Today to be 'spiritual' we have to talk of 'pure' and 'unconditional love' -- saintly love, kindness and compassion and it is a love distinctly separate from the body. It's as if the only way we can cope with feeling the power of love manifesting through our bodies is either as a physical sexual love or a high pure love that we experience through the part of our mind centered in our intellect. Often it is an either or situation, a split between mind and body. Certainly there is great love to be experienced mentally for others and we can also love with our entire minds and bodies without sexual contact.

What does it mean to live "in love"? Is it an unembodied, "spiritual" religious love? Is it a reflection of feeling loved by others? Or is it a radiant mind-pervading-body equals body-pervading-mind, grounded in the energy of earth and heaven, love? Can it also be the ecstasy that arises from exuberant dancing and praying to rhythmic sound -- the experience of the sacred coming into the body in a wave of ecstatic energy?

A very basic and powerful practice of the heart chakra is tong-len, a traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice. Through this practice our focus shifts from interest centered on the personal self and its selfish interests, to understanding that the greatest source of satisfaction in life comes from helping others experience well being and happiness. Begin this practice by visualizing a being that you love unconditionally, perhaps a child, or an animal, that you truly wish to relieve of any type of suffering. Visualize breathing in their pain or suffering as a dark smoky cloud leaving their body. Breath the dark smoke into the white light of the heart chakra where it is instantly transformed into sparkling bright prana. Exhale that sparkling white cloud of prana, sending it towards them. See the beloved being enveloped in a healing and bright white mist. Continue breathing in the dark smoke and exhaling out white light until you feel that they are completely purified and established in peace and happiness. Next focus on someone else whom you love but might have issues with. After that include individuals who might have hurt or betrayed you. Followed by individuals you do not like and might possibly even hate. Finish the meditation by focusing on your community, then the larger region of your state, your country, the planet, the solar system, and the entire universe. All is bathed in the white mist and prana exhaled from your heart chakra.

Another practice that is very beneficial for opening the heart chakra is bhramari pranayama. This is actually a meditation practice rather than a literal pranayama practice since it is not directly controlling the flow of prana in the body. The heart chakra, place of the the unstruck sound, is also referred to as the "cave of bees". When we practice bhramari we make the humming sound of bees which aligns us with this inner sound. This practice develops deep emotional and mental relaxation and is also extremely beneficial in cardiac disorders.

Take a seated position, relax the body and close the eyes. The mouth is closed but the teeth are slightly separated allowing you to experience the buzzing more distinctly in the brain. Take a slow deep breath into the chest and on the exhale produce a smooth and continuous humming sound for the full exhalation. The humming should be controlled and sound like a bee buzzing. The front of the skull resonates. At the end of the exhalations, breath in deeply and repeat the humming breath. Each inhale and exhale is considered a round. You can start with five to ten rounds in the beginning. Your awareness should be focused on the humming sound within the head and you should keep the breath even and steady. When you have completed the rounds, finish the practice by focused intent listening on the inner subtle sounds within the head. The best time to practice bhramari is early in the morning or late at night but it can be practiced at any time to relieve anxiety or mental tension. Bhramari releases anger, reduces blood pressure, relieves insomnia, speeds up the healing of body tissues, improves hearing and strengthens and refines the voice. Bhramari should not be practiced when suffering from severe ear infections.

Another powerful practice is a meditation on the heart as the primordial drum. Take a comfortable seated posture with the spine erect. Tune into and relax the chest area -- the region of the heart chakra. Become aware of the pulse of your heart. To bring the sound more into focus you can feel the pulse on your wrist. Feel the energy, the prana, the electricity pumping from the heart to every part of your body. Feel the pulse of the heart echoing in every cell of your mind and body. With every pulse of the heart the entire body is being magnetized, energized, revitalized and rejuvenated. Each cell is washed and energized with freshly oxygenated blood. With every heartbeat feel the pumping energy of the heart transforming into electromagnetic waves, radiating out endlessly into the vastness of space. Mind and body pulse as one heart, one drum, resounding throughout all of reality. Feel the spiritual and physical heart synchronize and harmonize within you. Now feel the pulse of the mind and body aligning with the pulsing heart of the universe. Our individual consciousness is a point in the matrix of this luminous pulsing awareness that is the web of reality. We are one point of this pulsing consciousness but simultaneously we are the entire web pulsing everywhere. The source of all that is pulses throughout everything. There is only one of us here resounding and echoing to the cosmic drum of all that is.

"When a Navaho person wishes to renew or reestablish, in the world, the harmonious condition of well being and beauty expressed by the Navajo word hozho he must first strive, through ritual, to create this harmony and peacefulness within his own being. Having established such hozho within himself, he can then actively impart this state of well-being to the enveloping cosmos, through the transforming power of song or prayer. Finally, according to Gary Witherspoon's book, Language and Art in the Navajo Universe, "after a person has projected hozho into the air through ritual form, he then, at the conclusion of the ritual, breathes that hozho back into himself and makes himself a part of the order, harmony, and beauty he has projected into the world through the ritual mediums of speech and song." David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous.

Heartmath, a non profit organization devoted to studying the heart, found that when people practice meditations that engender feelings of love, kindness and appreciation, that their levels of DHEA, the anti-aging hormone increased 100 percent. At the same time levels of cortisol, a hormone generated by stress, decreased by 23 percent. They also found that as people focused on experiencing love in their meditations the rhythm of their heartbeat synchronized with their breathing rhythms. Heartmath director Rollin McCraty, found that meditation with feelings of love synchronized the body's internal systems, affecting the immune system, the hormones and even cognitive performance.

Consider this: we keep the heart center closed because if we kept it open to each and every person, being, situation we come in contact with, we would have to release our selfishness and radically change our behavior. When Mother Theresa opened her heart to the dying person who fell in her arms on the street she could no longer close her heart to the suffering all around her. She said from that moment on, she saw Christ in every person she met and in becoming a nun she had dedicated her life to Him. To serve him was to care for him in all his guises.