The Role of the Heart
As the ancient teachers see it, the heart is the fruit or the flower of the plant of which the soul is the seed. The heart is the whole object of creation. The beauty of the flower or the fruit is the proof of the beauty that was only a potential in the seed. The production of the fruit is the purpose to which the whole life of the plant culminates. If a plant lives but produces no fruit or flower, it has failed. But if it makes a fruit, the plant will continue to live through the seed of that fruit. Beneath the rose is the rose hip, its seed.
Beyond the soul is the soul of the soul, the spirit, which is one. So we reach unity, point Alpha, by going through our own souls. Beyond the heart is the heart of the heart, the Universal Heart that is in all hearts and of which all hearts are a part. We reach unity again, point Omega, by going through our own hearts. Our hearts accumulate our life experience and convey it to the Universal Heart, which absorbs it all. The purpose of our lives is to contribute our life experience to the One who ultimately experiences it.
Out of the flower of the heart a new seed is produced. All that is assimilated by the heart results in changes to our DNA which is the new seed expressed to the next generation. Did you not know that DNA can be changed by life experience? Luther Burbank showed that 75 years ago when he produced roses with no thorns by talking to them and saying, “You don’t need your thorns here. I will protect you.”
Burbank was a mystical botanist. The plants believed him because what he said was a reality in his heart’s energy. His protection became a real experience for them, and their DNA was changed. Today you can buy Burbank roses that are descendants of the roses that lived in his presence, and they still have no thorns, so many generations later.
Healing and accessing our hearts enriches our lives and makes our connection with each other more beautiful and meaningful. But the ultimate reason for doing this work with our hearts is that it affects the heart of humanity and causes an evolutionary development that is our gift to our children and to all children. Once the heart of humanity is touched, a change in the DNA of humanity is created. We can affect many more than our own direct descendants. That’s the significance of “The Hundredth Monkey” incident where the learned behavior of monkeys on one isolated island spread instantly to monkeys on another isolated island.
The other part of the role of the heart is that it contains within itself all that we need to accomplish our mission of developing the heart. The tools for building the heart are contained in the basement, so to speak, of the temple that the heart can become. It is our attention to and exercise of these tools that cause the heart to develop. The tools are courage, compassion, collaboration, creativity and compelling idealization. These correspond to the Height, Depth, Width, and Forward dimensions of the temple of the heart that will be constructed.
