HEART, HEALING AND HOPE

By Jonathan Colbert

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Of these four, appreciation is singled out as the most powerful as a healing solvent. Appreciation is magnetic and attractive, rather than inert and repelling. Appreciation gives energy, rather than taking it away. Simple and true, it is a close kin to gratitude and thankfulness. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation during a time of great stress in America, that everybody should stop everything, and enjoy a time of Thanksgiving and appreciate what they really have. This is something we can all do. No matter how topsy-turvy life can get, even if relationships, institutions, economies, and traditions—even our health—are collapsing all around us, we can always access this fundamental feeling at anytime. Appreciation always has a way of putting things back into perspective.

Nonjudgment is another core heart feeling that also gives energy. It puts us into a neutral zone where we do not have to categorize other people nor ourselves. Are we not all simply monads in evolution? When we are walking or hiking in the wilderness and we chance upon a fellow sojourner, are we not simply glad to see them? Their muscles are sore and their bodies are thirsty just like ours. Nonjudgment, like nonviolence, is a positive heart power. And like appreciation it allows us to emotionally shift into neutral while sifting and calming the mind, in order to gain a renewed sense of perspective. On the level of the emotions, it is reflection of and a correlate to one of the Paramitas of The Voice of the Silence, that of Viraga, that pivotal and exacting virtue of detachment.

Forgiveness is a close relative of Nonjudgment. Victimized thinking is an energy drain for ourselves and those around us. In the Twin Verses of the Dhammapada, directly after stating that “all that we are is the result of what we have thought,” it points out that those who focus on having been abused or violated, tying their minds with the intention of retaliation, are hurting themselves more than they know. In his article “The Culture of Concentration,” Mr. Judge counsels that anger has an explosive effect on the astral body. Regardless of whether we feel justified or not, the dynamics of the human constitution cannot take this into account. The laws of physics and metaphysics remain in place and in effect, independent of our rationalizations. In a moment of calm and perspective, we can recognize that forgiveness is simply our most energy-efficient option. Many of the monks and other Tibetans, escaping from Tibet after making it over the high peaks of the Himalayas to the hills of India, manage to have audience with the Dalai Lama, share that their only fear during captivity was that they might lose their feeling of compassion for the Chinese.

Akin to nonjudgment is care. Care has to with to whom and what we identify ourselves. The tricky thing is that it can quickly devolve into what The HeartMath Solution writers identify as “overcare.” They write, “Because it’s born from care, overcare can be hard to see. What distinguishes overcare from care is the heavy, stressful feeling that accompanies it, while true care is accompanied by a regenerative feeling.” Real care for another person, a cause or an ideal is accompanied by a feeling of joy and buoyancy. As Robert Crosbie suggests in The Friendly Philosopher, we can achieve a “higher carelessness,” knowing that “it makes no difference whatever what we do; how we do anything is what counts.” Then he says, “It is no good being anxious; all we have to do is to do our best with each moment and live it as it comes.”

There is another core heart feeling that Theosophy might add as an ultimate core heart feeling. All of the core heart feelings mentioned above are those that come naturally to children. This is why children are so wonderful to be around. But what about the feelings of humanity itself in its youthful, golden time of the first awakening of Manas, some 18 million years ago: that of devotion?  Infused with the spark of consciousness from the Lords of Wisdom, the first feeling in humanity was a sense of solidarity and oneness with its spiritual creators, like a child’s first feeling for its mother. H.P. Blavatsky says in The Secret Doctrine, “DEVOTION arose out of that feeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his nature; for it is the only one which is natural in our heart, which is innate in us, and which we find alike in human babe and the young animal.” It does seem that devotion is a fundamental of a core heart feeling, and that when intelligently felt, in light of the Great Sacrifice of all the elder brothers, teachers and benefactors of “orphan humanity,” that appreciation, nonjudgement, forgiveness and care for one another are the least we could offer in return.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “I am the Ego seated in the hearts of all beings.” H.P.B. says in her article “Psychic and Noetic Action,” that the heart is “the organ par excellence through which the ‘Higher’ Ego acts.” This is the organ through which the logos within is heard, the “still small voice.” But the Higher Ego can only make contact with the heart and through it the “æolian harp” of the body—through a specific conduit: that of a properly aligned personal self. Alignment, like attunement, has to do with a subtle fidelity, a devotion to that which is within, above and larger than the personality. The Secret Doctrine speaks of the possibility of attuning one’s consciousness to “any of the seven chords of ‘Universal Consciousness,’ those chords that run along the sounding-board of Kosmos, vibrating from one eternity to another.” It also points out that in order to put into practice the idea that the seven universal planes correspond to the seven states of consciousness in man, the aspirant has to “attune the three higher states in himself to the three higher planes in Kosmos.” Such is our fundamental unity with all of life.

But can we appreciate the truth that all Monads in the universe mirror one another from their own point of view, without also feeling at some level that there is no such thing as a tear shed in a vacuum? Would not putting into practice our sublime doctrines be an attunement with the essence of the Heart Doctrine: “Let not the fierce Sun dry one tear of pain before thyself has wiped it from the sufferer’s eye”? Such attunement has to do with the magic of devotion, the primary and primeval core heart feeling in all of humanity. Just as the brain, the nervous system and the emotions can become entrained to the rhythm, power and instruction of the heart, engendering health and happiness in the body; just so, can the earnest student become attuned to the hope, the vision and the teaching of the Masters, thus making Theosophy a potent and living power in our lives and a joyous presence in the world.

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