Heart Chakra Exercises

The heart cannot be forced to open. But if a practitioner is ready, then the heart may be sped along or “quickened”, as anyone who has read Irina Tweedie’s book, Daughter of Fire, is well aware of. One must be measured and gentle in this process. Ultimately it is only by Divine Grace that the heart fully opens. For most of us it is a process that happens over many decades of practice. Care must be taken not to rush this process. With that said, there were various practices that I found to be of great help. I’ll share a few of them here.

The Middle Pillar and the Heart

The Middle Pillar exercise is something I stumbled upon when researching the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a Western esoteric group. I won’t go into a whole explanation of that exercise but just know that what I will be sharing here is a version of that exercise, although condensed down to focus solely on the heart chakra.

To begin, find a comfortable posture either standing or sitting down. Let your posture be upright but also relaxed. Take a few deep, slow breaths and settle your awareness in the body. Feel yourself letting go of any tension in the body. Allow your breath to help you relax into the body. On the out-breath feel yourself settling deeper and deeper into a relaxed state.

When you feel sufficiently settled in the body and relaxed then begin to visualize a blazing ball of light above you. This is your higher self. On your next in-breath draw a thread of light down from this ball of light above you and bring it through the top of your head, down the central channel and into your heart. As you exhale allow the breath to flow out of your lungs naturally but continue to see the light in your heart.

Again inhale and draw a beam of light down from that blazing ball above you and bring it into the heart. On the exhale the breath goes out but the light stays in your heart. In this way you are building light up in the heart. With each inhale you see the light in your heart getting brighter and brighter. After about five of these breaths you will now add a step on the out-breath. You have drawn more light into the heart with the inhale, and now on the out-breath you will vibrate a holy word through your heart. I used a Hebrew phrase for one of the names of God but you may use anything that connects you to the Divinity within. As you vibrate this word through your heart try to feel it vibrating from the very center of your heart, through the immense light that you have gathered there. It’s important to keep the body and mind relaxed but focused. Do not overly exert yourself.

Feel the power of the word vibrate through your heart. As you vibrate the word through your heart you can feel and see the light building in intensity. Feel the love and gratitude and awe that this word invokes for you. Combine the feeling of love into the light that you have gathered in the heart. Continue to draw more light into your heart with the in-breath and on the out-breath vibrate the word through your heart. Continue this exercise as long as you like but be mindful to take resting periods where you simply rest in the light that you have gathered in the heart. You could say there is an active and passive part of this exercise. The passive part is to relax into the depths of this light in the center of your heart and feel the Divinity, love, and shakti there. Alternate the active part of the exercise with the passive part using your own intuition to gauge how long to spend in each.

Every now and then you can add the following step. After having built up the light in your heart and vibrating the word through your heart and feeling the love, gratitude and awe within your heart you can visualize sending this light from your heart to the heart of God. Then rest and wait for God to send the energy back to your heart. Then rest again in the heart.

If you feel contracted in the heart as you try to build light then use a more gentle approach. Bring only a little light into the heart and allow yourself to rest gently in the heart, feeling into the walls of constriction around the heart. Gently invite yourself into the pain of what might be causing the constriction. Feel yourself falling deeper into the heart, into the tightness, into the constriction. There is no rush to accomplish anything here. Take your time. Investigate thoroughly all the areas of constriction and remember to be gentle with yourself. To learn more about somatic practice you can explore that section here: Somatic Practice.

Mantra Japa

Mantra Japa is a devotional practice from the Bhakti Yoga tradition. Settle into a comfortable posture for meditation. Find a word that resonates Divinity for you. Any of the names of God in Hebrew, Sanskrit, or Arabic work very well . It should be a word that inspires devotion, love, gratitude and awe. Typically a guru would be the one to give the mantra or sacred word and they would activate it for you in your heart. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, guiding Teacher of the Golden Sufi Center, suggests that if you do not have a teacher you may say a prayer to activate the sacred word. In my case this worked very well. Now take this word into your heart and say a little prayer to God, something like this, “My Lord, would you please activate this word for me with your Divine vibration. May this word help to draw me deep into the heart where You and I are united as One”.

Once you have activated this word then you may begin the meditation. Link the sacred word with your breath. You may say the sacred word on the in-breath, the out-breath, or both. In my case I linked it with the out-breath, but feel what works best for you. Let your breaths be slow. Let the sacred word be felt in the heart every time you repeat it. Let yourself feel the love, devotion, gratitude and awe every time you repeat this word.

You may find that in the beginning you say the word with each breath, but as your meditation deepens you may find that you only need to say the word once ever other breath, or every five breaths, until the meditation ripens completely and there is a merging in your heart with the Source from which the word originated. Then the word may drop away completely for a time, as you rest in the Source that it has taken you back to. The sacred word is bringing you back to where all words come from. It is taking you back to Silence. It is taking you back to your Self. If you find that repeating the sacred word has become only a mental process, meaning you have left the heart out of it, then again come back to the heart. Come back to the love, devotion, gratitude and awe. Always do the repetition of the word from the heart. If it is done from the mind then it has no power to pull you deeper into the heart.

Learning to Feel Divine Guidance

There is a place in your heart that is all-knowing. You may consult with this part of yourself when traversing a challenging time in your life, or when a big life decision is on the horizon. It takes a bit of practice and a settling into Silence in order to hear and feel the guidance. But once you get the hang of it it will be an invaluable tool.

To keep things simple in the beginning only work with questions that have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Find a quiet space to settle into your heart. Feel the love, tenderness, gratitude, gentleness, compassion, devotion of your spiritual heart space. Allow yourself to relax fully into this space of the heart. When your mind has dropped into the heart and has become silent, you may ask your question to the Divine within your own heart.

I always pray to this Divinity as Holy Father or Holy Mother or a combination of both, but I was brought up in the Christian tradition so work with whatever feels good to you. It is the same Divinity no matter what name you give to it. Ask your question to this Divinity in your heart and then just relax and feel the response. You may also hear the response although for me that came much later in my progress with this method. But at first begin to feel what the response is.

How does your heart feel after asking your question? Does it feel closed or open? Do you feel like a spark of energy has moved through your heart after asking your question or does it feel like there is a lack of energy there? A ‘yes’ is usually going to feel open, energetic, alive, joyful. A ‘no’ is usually going to feel closed and muted. If you are having a hard time feeling anything then ask the Divine to make the guidance really loud and clear. If you are still having a hard time feeling anything then return to the silent space of the heart and stay there until a clear answer comes.

Some of the things that may interfere with receiving clear guidance is if there is an emotional charge around the question, or if the mind is too busy and you have not settled deep enough into the heart before asking your question you will receive interference from the mind. As much as you can try to ask your question from total neutrality. Surrender the outcome completely to the Divine. Do not hold a wanting or desire for any outcome. When you are resting in quiet neutrality within the heart you will begin to feel and hear the Divine response.

Connecting to Saints, Gurus, Sages, Avatars

At some point in my journey I started to notice that if I held a particular enlightened being in my heart I could connect with them and feel their presence. This would happen spontaneously without me trying to do anything. I began to realize that the power of devotion automatically connects you to what you are feeling devotion towards. For instance if I was feeling love and devotion towards Papaji, I would often feel his presence in my heart. It’s important to note that I never felt the presence outside myself, it always came from within. If I found that I was feeling the shakti of one of my teachers because I had been thinking about them, the feeling always comes from within the heart. It then became clear over some time that this phenomena happens because we are already inherently connected with all beings through the heart. Within the heart is something like an energetic unity consciousness field. When you begin to access this field then you can access any enlightened being, saint, sage, or avatar that you want. It makes no difference if they are in body still or have passed away.

If you want to connect with a particular enlightened being find a quiet place for meditation. Settle into a meditation posture and relax into the body. Connect with your breath for a moment. Let your breath be easy and natural. Then begin to feel into the heart. Hold the particular being you want to connect with in your heart. Feel your love, devotion and gratitude in your heart for this being. Allow these feelings to well up in your heart. When you feel ready, visualize all of your love, gratitude and devotion as a ball of light and send it to the heart of the being you want to connect with. Then relax, continue to maintain presence in the heart, and await their response.

Connecting Heart to Heart

This practice requires a partner. Your partner does not need to be physically near you. You may do this exercise over the phone or zoom. If you and your partner are together then orient your seating arrangement so you are facing each other.

Find a comfortable position to sit in. Begin to take a few deep, slow breaths. Feel the breath filling the lungs and exiting the lungs. Feel your body. Use the exhale to let go of any tension in the body. Let yourself become relaxed. Then begin to feel into your heart. Feel the love, devotion and gratitude you have there for the Divine. Begin to build that up in the heart. Then, when you both feel ready, begin to send that feeling of love in your heart to your partner. As you inhale allow yourself to receive the love and light from your partner. As you exhale feel that love and light exit your heart and flow to the heart of your partner. Continue this practice for as long as you like but give a moment at the end to rest in your heart. This exercise builds a tremendous amount of light in the heart in a very short time span and it can help to integrate this light into your heart by just spending time in silent meditation afterwards.