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The sacred heart is an odd topic in esoterica. I never knew quite what to make of it. The Catholic depictions can be a little intense: A literal anatomical heart visible in the chest, haloed in flames and thorns. Yeesh.
But I turned this morning to a page in Glenda Green’s Love Without End–randomly as I sometimes like to do. It was, of course, to one of his much more palatable descriptions of the sacred heart. Thus this post. I should say that even in all the years since I first read this book, the sacred heart has remained somewhat out of reach for me as a concept, despite losing its gory thorns and bloody lance. But more on that in a bit. For now, some inspiration to break up the heaviness of the past few weeks’ topics (my three-part series on cancer).
First, let’s consider Jesus’ teachings on the mind, the soul, and infinity, which frame the teachings on the sacred heart. Unlike in Buddhism, Jesus does not advocate silencing the mind, but rather putting it in its right role as servant to the heart.
The Mind
The mind, he says, operates through duality or polarity. It does this literally through the electrical impulses which pass back and forth throughout the brain, nervous system, and body, carrying and storing information through positive and negative charges. (That’s straight science). He actually describes the brain as a big DNA computer. “The second part,” he says, “is an electro-magnetic field permeating and immediately surrounding your body.” [1] This seems to refer to the aura and the subtle body–the nadis and the fine circuitry that yogis have identified and mapped through the millenia. When operating in service to the heart, he says, the mind is an able administrator and recorder. In fact, when guided by the heart, it can become “brilliant and blissful.”[2]
The Soul
The soul, on the other hand, “is the totality of your love, awareness, experience, ability, memory, emotions, and potential which comprise your immortality.” At the subatomic levels, I suppose the adamantine particles which truly belong to you embody or carry the substance of your soul, magnetized and guided by your love. Read “The Adamantine Particles: Building Blocks Of Reality” (Episode 10) for more on those.
The Heart
In contrast to the mind, which operates best within known and limited parameters, the heart operates within infinity. It beholds the infinite abundance of the universe and, believing in that abundance, can lead the mind to create beautifully and abundantly. For the universe’s infinite potential is freely available to all! Ah, how to live that way? I’m trying to figure that out!
Infinity
Infinity, he says, has nothing to do with quantity but quality. This is something I’ve found, quite by accident. I would describe it as more of a feeling, or a perception of a timeless quality, a soft golden radiance eternally flowing, rather than a mathematical calculation of bigness or vastness or a lot-ness. Jesus suggests ways to behold the quality of infinity by:
- Watching the sun rise or set. You can gaze directly at the orange glowing ball of the sun as it climbs the lip of the Earth, or as it slips below it. You have to wait until it’s partially hidden, and at that point it will be comfortable to look at directly. When it’s above the horizon, it’s painful to look at directly and you shouldn’t! (Don’t do this if you have macular degeneration or other eye problems.)
- Gazing up at a clear starry sky. I love how awesome it is to look at the Milky Way when it’s really powerfully visible (late at night during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere somewhere without light polution or clouds). You feel viscerally how we are wheeling through the universe, the grandeur of that. Arizon was a great place to see it. I’m sure Death Valley is too.
- Gazing out across a wide ocean, especially from out upon it out of sight of land.
The Sacred Heart
“At the center of your soul is the Sacred Heart. This is the point at which you are one with God. The heart sees infinity within and without. It can behold perfection.”[3] I like that so much better than the Catholic vision.
From Wikipedia: “The Sacred Heart is often depicted in Christian art as a flaming hear shining with divine light, pierced by the lance-wound, encircled by the crown of thorns, surmounted by a cross, and bleeding. Sometimes, the image is shown shining within the bosom of Christ with his wounded hands pointing at the heart. The wounds and crown of thorns allude to the manner of Christ’s passion, while the flames represent a furnace of ardent love.”[4]
Jesus says that the sacred heart “is the lens through which your soul integrates all of your earthly emotions and all of your divine awareness into a focused point of infinite possibility. This point is on the threshold of physical existence, at a point slightly below and behind your physical heart.” [5] In the narrative of Glenda’s conversation, he commands her to locate it and she does so immediately. She experiences a radiant sense of power and life within herself, and it’s just easy. I, however, have grappled to find it for myself.
Recently I realized that I have carried for a really long time tension at the top of my diaphragm, and it actually has made it hard to breathe freely sometimes. It’s kind of a vulnerable topic, because as you instinctively sense, it’s like a self-defense tension. It has eased in recent weeks or months, but I’ve wondered if this is why it’s been so hard for me to find the sacred heart in my body? Elsewhere, Jesus talks about the guardians of the sacred heart, which fiercely protect this most cherished part of ourselves. So I thought maybe my tension is those guardians stuck in a defensive posture, so I’m armored up. But maybe it’s also like armoring that’s around my own negative beliefs because we can be our own worst enemy. He also, by the way, says this portal is only for you. No one else goes in there with you. Here you connect and communicate directly with God, without intermediaries or companions.
The last point I want to share is some of his simple (but not easy) prescriptions for strengthening the heart as a way to heal our lives:
Strengthening the Heart
From Love Without End: Jesus Speaks by Glenda Green [6]
- Strengthen all your positive emotions through daily gratitude and admiration. [I haven’t always liked the “gratitude exercise,” but have found it works well when I focus on my sincere gratitudes and not on my virtuosity. Also, pitying others who don’t have what you have sucks. It’s comparing and it keeps you in duality.]
- Disempower your negative emotions daily through forgiveness. [Hanging in there with sincerity rather than trying to “be good,” and not mistaking pity or excuses or approval for forgiveness.]
- Cultivating innocent perception–that is, seeing what is there, rather than editing it to suit your aesthetic or ideological preferences. [This takes more practice for most of us. Sitting in a spot in nature and just observing with new eyes all the sights, textures, sounds, and smells is one way to work with this. Artists who work diligently to record reality, also seem to have an easier time with this. It’s very incompatible with cancel culture, by the way.]
For more exercises, read 10 Ways to Strengthen the Heart As A Muscle.
So that’s it–What is the sacred heart? Obviously most of this is not my material, but I know you probably aren’t going to go read that book. And it’s an amazing book. You can go to https://www.lovewithoutend.com/ to buy a copy of Love Without End. I like the Expanded World Edition, which includes a story that wasn’t in the first edition about Mary Magdalene! There is a truth and resonance to this version of the story that I feel like speaks for itself. You can also find Glenda Green’s book at Amazon.com.
References
- Green, G. (2011). Love Without End: Jesus Speaks. Fideli Publishing and Spiritis Publishing. Smashwords ebook edition, p. 33.
- Ibid., p. 32.
- Ibid., p. 29.
- Sacred Heart. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:47, March 12, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sacred_Heart&oldid=1073250794
- Green, p. 29-30.
- Ibid., p. 31.
