“Only with the heart can one touch the sky.” Rumi.

That piece of flesh that pumps blood from the first moment of our gestation, that we call “heart,” is not the spiritual heart we read about in mystical and religious traditions. Rather, when we refer to the heart, in terms of spiritual work on ourselves, we speak of the “center of desire” that moves us to do what we want. If there were no desire, people would die of unimaginable boredom. In Kabbalah, the heart is a black spot that lies in the center of the chest. We must fill it with the highest spiritual desire that we can conceive. The Egyptians weighed the heart against the feather of truth in a ritual that measured whether the deceased was worthy of the afterlife or not.

All spiritual traditions teach a similar principle. The heart is the place that can come into contact with the divine. In the heart, there is a source of immense energy and power. It is a divine internal flame for saints, yogis, and spiritual adepts around the world. It is the place that the Hindu Upanishads call the light of the hidden spirit, the “highest and most secret place of the heart.”

 “The light that shines beyond all things on earth. Beyond all of us is the light that shines in our hearts.” – Upanishad Chandogya

Buddhists call the heart “the seed of Buddhahood,” the Buddha nature that exists in every living being. 

“Due to this essential nature of the heart, there is the possibility of attaining Buddhahood.” – Uttaratantra Shastra

There are many important references in the Bible about the heart being a meeting point with God.

“But when you pray, go into your room, close your door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6:6

When you focus on your heart before beginning meditation, prayer or simply making an important decision, you make powerful contact with a higher source of wisdom. This source has love, intuition, sensitivity, and more precise guidance than the everyday mind. In recent years, science has discovered that the heart has its own intelligence. It communicates with the brain, affecting consciousness and the way we perceive the world. For example, when a person is feeling positive emotions such as gratitude or love, the heart beats coherently, transmitting a clearer message.

As the noted psychophysiologist, Rollin McCratey, observed, “By learning to change our emotions, we are changing the information encoded in the magnetic fields that radiate from the heart, and that can affect those around us. We are fundamentally and deeply connected with everyone else and with the planet.”

Connecting with your heart allows pure love, compassion and tenderness to emerge. This enables the true essence of forgiveness to manifest.  Indeed, the Fourth Way places importance on managing our heart through the non-expression of negative emotions. The destructive energies of negativity can poison us from within when such emotions manifest.

The spiritual heart is like a flaming sword that can burn us if we use it incorrectly. The various sources quoted in this article show a common unity of points of view from many spiritual paths. All schools are the same, differing only in their methods and emphasis on one or another aspect.  The true spiritual path begins when we focus on the heart, and not on the lower centers. Only a path that has a heart will be able to have the necessary strength for our evolution. The heart is where we discover the sacred and learn to touch higher states, higher centers.

Miguel Angel Reyes has worked for four decades with the Fourth Way. He is currently leading a Facebook group in Spanish for those interested in the ideas. See it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gurdjieffouspenskyenlapractica .