Ep. 138 – The Three Faces of the Heart

So the left side of the heart often about a hand's width to the left of the sternum.

This is the personal heart.

For many, many years, up until quite lately, really, when I go deeply into meditation, there's very often a pain in the left side of my chest.

This left heart, the personal heart, it's the heart of feeling, devotion, intimacy, relational love, grief, longing, vulnerability, the Hindu bhakti, human tenderness, the heart that calls out to the beloved.

It's relational.

It's about inhabiting our humanity.

Eventually, this quality deepens to something beyond human, into pure presence, and then dissolving into I'm feeling presence.

But for many people, working with the left heart, working with this heart quality on the left side, is where a lot of purification goes on.

And in Christianity, we talk about the sacred heart of Jesus.

You might even see right behind me there, I got this cross that I got in New Mexico with that sacred heart of Jesus.

Even above there, right up there, is Hanuman, where he's tearing his chest open.

And in the middle of his chest is Ram and Sisa.

It's that quality of heart where we're in relationship with with the deity, with humanity, whatever the situation is pointing to in the moment.

The melting heart of Mary, Hanuman's torn open chest.

And in the work with end-of-life issues, the living-dying project work, this is where grief lives.

This is where grief becomes workable.

This is where devotion is warm and not theoretical.

In Sufism, They have these centers called Latayaf, that's the plural, Latifa is the singular.

They very clearly talk about these centers.

What are the signs that you have landed in the left side of the heart? There can be warmth, tears, emotional opening, softening, an ache, that pain in the heart.

It's not like a sharp pain, it's like an ache.

That it's not a bad ache, it's a good ache.

It's like, to me it's almost like a feeling of there's a door to the heart and it's been closed and it's like creaking open.

The hinges are a little bit rusty and as it opens up there's like there's an ache.

It's a yes to our humanity, if you will.