Breathing in love

Sometimes I think there's a war raging between the brain and the heart, a war that is being fought down on Main St. as much as in the human soul.

As much as the heart longs for connectivity with another, reaching out with its own unique rays of love, seeking communion, the brain cooly cautions against getting too close, being too vulnerable to rejection.  The brain moves in the art and dance of aloof behavior in its own hypnotic trance of manipulation. The heart sings a love song, lamenting its terrible isolation and lonliness due to the power of the egoic brain to keep everyone tied up in their homes, separated from each other, alone, afraid and conformed to this machine-run world.  The heart cries for humanity and divinity.  The brain asks how to update the machine's programming. 

The brain is a selfish organ which believes it runs the show and wants all the accolades so it can puff itself up in its own estimation and worth. In many ways, the ego's chief organ is the brain.  The soul's is the heart. The heart, which is at least five times more powerful electrically than the brain, does the exact opposite.  The more it loves, the less it thinks of itself and finds its sole purpose is to be open and to share its substance of life-giving love.  It doesn't judge.  It doesn't criticize.  It doesn't plot or get lost in twisted schemes for narcissistic fame.  It simply surges with love, like the waves on the ocean, rthymically drumming, chanting love every second, every minute of every hour and day of its life, longing only for the return of its lover in a cyclical embrace of giving and receiving.  

Lately scientists are finding the heart contains cellular memory.*  The energy of life events are fused into the cells of the heart, as well as other organs, and are recalled or unpacked as memories. This was realized when  people who had received hearts in a heart transplant almost all were able to pick up memories and behaviors of the donor's life.  Some were able to even describe what happened just at their donor's death. In one case in which the donor had been murdered, the recipient was able to recall vividly who the murderer was and where he lived.  She then led the police to him and they arrested the guy. Some have complete change in music and food tastes.  Some, who didn't know the age of the donor, will exhibit behavior of someone much younger than them.  In one story, a man who had received a new heart came away with an extremely strong craving for tacos and spicy foods, which he'd never liked before.  He learned later the donor was a young Latino man.

It seems today, we have found our world run almost completely by the brain, cool, efficient, scientifically, at the cost of something deeper, more profound, warmer, more holy, more human.  As in all things, we may want to seek a kind of truce between these two mighty forces within us, and yet the heart has been the underdog for too long.  We obviously need more sensitivity, more magic, more love in our world.  We also need much more courage.  

It's interesting that the force of the heart, its conviction, loyalty, search and need for meaning, and depth and power of character have been championed throughout the ages.  The stronger, wiser, more integrated person, was hailed as the courageous one, the one who had "heart."  Usually the one with heart, as in Richard the Lionhearted, is the victor.  The power of the heart is unfailing. Simply, without sounding too hard on poor old brain, the brain is a machine, designed to serve the goals and needs of the heart, which is the voice of the soul.  It seems to me, we may have that a bit backwards today.

Perhaps, if you have been doing meditation you might know exactly what I mean.  In the beginning, as you seek the silence, the sheer rich velvet beauty of pure silence, you realize your overactive brain is chattering away in the background, as a petulant child anxiously awaiting its mother to get off the phone.  In that moment, you realize your need to refocus your attention away from the chatter, tune it out, but at the same time,  you understand the power and domination the brain has had over you all along.  Now you  realize the need to listen to the heart, to give the heart a chance to speak, to be. You realize the need for your soul to fall in love again, with life, with God, with each other. 

So the war is slowly eased as you, in silence, breathe in the love encased in the very air around you, and give it back as you exhale.  Rocking, saturating your body, heart and mind, with the pure essence of love, you feed your heart, you nurture your physical heart, which mysteriously harbors something of your soul.  You may not be able to change the world, delete the power of the ego brain, but you can strengthen your own heart, your own capacity to love - if only because you want to love and be loved and because you want our world to be filled with love. And not the valentine kind of love, but a powerfully charged world, conscious with a kind of electric connectivity on a soul to soul level.  And with that thought, just imagine  the magnificent wonderful world we might all live in together if we ran it on heart energy.

As for today, breathe deeply in love.

* The Heart's Code by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., (Broadway Books, NY: 1998)