In many cases, heart disorders have psychological causes. In its reactions, the heart shows an intelligence of its own. It is the ‘vessel’ of our feelings – and it is ennobled to become the temple of our immortal soul, the meeting place with the eternal spirit.
The hermetic thinking of Paracelsus recognised the ‘vertical’ world view, in his expression: “Just as the sun acts on the earth, so the heart acts on the body.”
Just as human beings are multidimensional, so are their hearts. The heart is the centre of our microcosmic being. It is the physical life engine of our organism, the vessel of our emotions, and is ennobled to become the temple of our immortal soul – the meeting place with the eternal spirit. Under the mask of the personality, hides our true essence, which we experience best when we delve deeper into our own hearts. There we sense who we really are.
The heart is guided by its own reasoning, which the mind does not know. In order to gain true knowledge, we cannot follow the speculations of the head and our mind. True knowledge lies dormant in the divine spark of our heart. Through immersing ourselves in the silence of our hearts we become the ‘thinker who does not think’.
The conscious centre of our heart generates light and warmth in our body, just as the sun gives light and warmth.
The Logic of the Heart
Let us explore the wonders and complexity of the heart, and go beyond the mechanistic thinking of modern science, that has accepted it as a simple ‘suction pump’.
On an organic level, the substratum for what we call ‘heart intelligence’, was found to be a composite of 40,000 neurons (nerve cells), which are interconnected with the brain and function as an exchange of vital information. It is the neural system of the heart that influences how the higher brain areas process cognitive and emotional information, and above all, that which is recorded in the memory of various brain areas, especially that of the amygdala. Here we see that our heart ‘thinks’ individually and, interestingly enough, often does so, faster and without the conscious awareness of the brain.
During research on the ‘intelligence of the heart’, an interesting discovery was made on how feelings of joy, love and gratitude lead to a measurably relaxed balance of the heart and breathing rhythms, while fear, stress and anxiety disturb this equilibrium.
Harmony or discord in these organic rhythms, that is, synchronization or chaos, play a significant role in our health, and equally, in our physiological ageing process – a role that has so far received little attention. The resonant behaviour of our spindle-shaped muscle cells, which in a healthy heart contract simultaneously under the impulse of the sinus node, is a prime example of economic and health-promoting cooperation. This behaviour is reminiscent of the great synchronicity of swarm behaviour.
Right down to the function of its individual cells, the heart shows us ‘loving’ behaviour, for each cell functions in unity, synchronizing its inherent rhythm with that of all the other cells, and setting the tempo of the heart under the impulse of the sinus node.
Our heart therefore, shows us that cooperation towards achieving a common goal is an indispensable attribute for any form of life, and a contributing value in the evolution of living things.
This immanent knowledge is revealed in the functioning of the individual cell of the heart, as it is when we see the spontaneous synchronization of two differently beating hearts that are brought closer together and a harmony of rhythm develops, even without touching. This is evidence of a resonant behaviour in the electromagnetic field that surrounds them.
The heart is, as it were, a barometer of our feelings. This is reflected in countless sayings and proverbs, to be found in all cultures through history.
“A light heart lives long”, says an Irish proverb. There is talk of the longing heart, the courageous heart, the heart full of love, but also of the broken heart, the wounded heart, the heart full of hate or fear. A heart can be downcast, but it can also be in ‘heaven’.
Mental Distress and the Ailing Heart
All these sayings make it clear that there is an interconnectedness between our soul’s health and that of the heart organ. In the art of healing, it has become increasingly obvious that a physical heart problem can be connected with a problematic emotional state of the heart.
Let us look at the psychosomatic backgrounds of some of the most common heart disorders, where such a connection becomes clear. In doing so, we also recognise why they play such a prominent role in our times. Of course, the interaction of psyche and body is different for each person. So, we can only point out the connection in a simple, ‘woodcut’ manner, as it were. And there are often initial warning signals that the heart sends out. You can listen to the signals and change something in your life. But if you don’t, diseases of the heart can develop. And they can be serious. The following remarks refer to such cases.
Angina pectoris – a constriction of the heart muscle – can be associated with the mental attitude of narrow-mindedness, which, in its extreme expression, must find an avenue of release, and can therefore manifest on the physical level. The anguish shows the rigidity in which the sufferer’s mentality is caught, but which he or she may not be aware of. The heart constrictions together illustrate the strenuous struggle of the affairs of the heart in which a person is entangled, without their conscious awareness. The physical distress is the symptom that slows them down in an attempt to focus their attention on the cause of their heart problem – their narrow-mindedness. The heart calls out for expansion, it wants to break free of its rigidity, which the person concerned has allowed to develop over the years by keeping their emotions tightly bound.
To do this they must first recognise the impasse into which the inflexibility of their thinking has led them, before an openness and transformation are possible. Since they are literally in a life-threatening situation, this is a difficult learning task. However, there must be present the clear perception of the message contained in the symptomatology, before the readiness for inner change can develop.
We know that the person suffering from angina pectoris, is generally forced to limit all strenuous activities and focus on their well-being, which also means that they are equally confronted with their mortality and the contemplation of the essential questions of their life. The key to self-help therefore, lies in our ability to retreat into the ‘chamber of the heart’, and in inner silence, reconnect with the soul, thereby reawakening our mindfulness and turning us into beings with an open, receptive heart. Then the heart becomes vigilant again in listening to the voice of the silence – the soundless voice of our souls’ intuition, which wants to show us the path that will bring us back to our sense of purpose and mission in life.
Angina pectoris often leads to the crisis of a heart attack, which can be fatal in 1 out of 5 cases. If the patient survives, then a part of their heart, their life-centre, has died, and they will bear a scar. On the one hand they will have experienced a deep psychological trauma, but on the other, a great opportunity for a conscious shift in life. This can lead to a spiritual awakening as a result of the existential threat to let go that confronts the stubborn ego. The person that is prone to a heart attack often experiences the pressure of an existentially hostile environment that feels highly competitive. Driven by the expectation to succeed, they have allowed themselves to be caught in the grinding wheel of constant stress and an overly constrained performance tension.
It is strange, how people today allow their hearts to be literally torn apart for the sake of achieving performance goals, success, recognition or money.
A consequence of such a traumatic experience, can be the birth of a deeper awareness that the impulse for recognition and success, through performance and its resultant addiction, means nothing more than a deep-seated longing to love and be loved.
Cardiac arrhythmia is also a common health disorder in our modern chaotic times. It is an indicator that the person concerned no longer lives in the presence of the moment, but is constantly driven to run ‘ahead of time’. They push themselves on in a forced way that does not allow for any space or moments of reflection. In this way, the human heart loses its rhythm.
The balance between activity and recreation, tension and relaxation, is lost, and has then given way to a permanently hyperactive lifestyle. Here the heart reacts by triggering a rhythmic tumult, in order to call the person back to a normal rhythm of life. The tempo of life is fragmented, and the person is swept along by the tides of chaos, which is expressed tangibly by a disturbed rhythm of the heart.
A salutary solution lies in the ability to once again become aware of the living present, that is, to live in the calmly flowing equilibrium of the here and now. This brings the necessary inner peace, in which the voice of our eternal self can be heard again. In this way we begin to understand the causes of such disturbances, which are bound to manifest in the heart, the rhythmic indicator of our lives, and the efficacious remedies to stabilise our rhythms can then have their beneficial effects.
Heart disorders are most often accompanied with fear, and this often leads to a diminished capacity for achieving cardiological health, as the mistrust born of fear undermines any such efficacy. Thus, superficial diagnostic findings usually bring only short-term reassurances, because the ego feels threatened by the confrontation of its mortality. It is difficult to free oneself from such a reaction, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to recognise the presence of such fear, and then to voluntarily surrender to the safe guidance of our immortal soul, in the certainty that peace, wisdom and love reside within it.
The people who have crystallized their hearts, often suffer physically from heart ailments. They need a lot of strength to transgress their diminished mobility. Often, they have suffered offence, experienced painful losses, or had to endure serious failures, as a result of which they have locked their hearts with fear. They have hardened their hearts and isolated themselves in the ‘safety’ of loneliness. Any liberating possibility for these people must begin with the realization that only in forgetting and forgiving all that has been done to them, will recovery be possible. Forgiveness has a great liberating effect for ourselves, as it was our ego that felt misunderstood, attacked or offended. Our true soul breathes in the love which does not judge, which tolerates everything, and in its mercy, forgives everything.
From the viewpoint of the impact of psychosomatic conditions that contribute to the ailments of the heart, we can clearly see that when our heart has fallen out of ‘alignment’, there is always a corresponding ‘visitation’ of our true soul being behind the apparent affliction of our heart. These impulses from our eternal soul core are, at the same time, momentary ‘purifications’ that temporarily nullify the noise of our ego, which is constantly drowning out the whispers of our true inner being.
From a spiritual perspective, all sufferings and illnesses of the natural human being thus become a springboard for a new life opportunity that finds its meaning in experiencing and longing for the supramundane reality.
Sacred Impulses from the ‘Vertical World View’
Thus, we may understand that in this special ‘sun-gold-organ’ of our heart, there is also present the gateway to spiritual awakening. ‘Gold’ therefore plays an extremely beneficial role in all holistic, regenerating heart therapies. In direct analogy, the contrasting of light and heaviness in the sun metal – and the parallels between the vice of arrogance and the virtue of humility – reflects our immediate life task – the transformation from pride to humility; the overcoming of our self-centredness into selflessness that takes place in our hearts, the centre of our microcosmic world. In the heart arises the devotion to the Christ-Power in us which serves the redemption of humanity and its earth, and from whose power of Love Mercy for all living beings arises.
This attitude of mind is expressed in the wonderful words of the heartfelt prayer of Klaus von Flüe (1417-1487):
My Lord and my God, take from me all,
that keeps me from Thee.
My Lord and God. Give me everything
that helps me toward Thee.
My Lord and my God, take me
away from myself
And make me entirely Thine own. Amen.
