Hermetic/alchemical meditation

8. The Heart Centre

In this series of elementary meditative exercises, no special postures are required but that in which one is most comfortable, nor are any special breathing rhythms used. Meditation should be undertaken when one is not too tired, and the best situation is probably lying down in a quiet, nearly dark, room, and it is essential to have privacy and no possibility of being disturbed.
All these exercises begin with the Philosophic Egg or retort meditation, described in the first issue, which leads one into an inner meditative space. Within that space, we shall perform short exercises, and then close the meditation with the retort exercise reversed, that is leading one out of the inner space back to normal consciousness.
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The Heart Centre

In some of these meditative exercises we have worked with the soul counterparts of physical organs in the body. For this meditation we will relate to the heart.

Place oneself in the retort of one's being through our basic meditational exercise. When one is within the inner space become conscious of the rhythmic beating of the heart. Allow this perception to grow until the heart is at the centre of the retort experience. Then using the Separatio-Conjuctio technique, try to become detached from the physical perception of the heart's beating and instead to touch inwardly on the spiritual essence of the heart.

As this experience develops, begin to picture the heart as at the centre of a lemniscate, a figure of eight, and having four divisions at the meeting point of the four arms of the lemniscate. Feel how a current flows out and upwards from the heart centre reaching out spiritually to the heights of the Cosmos, and how it turns around and returns to the centre bringing an essence of the cosmic realm with it. Let this sense of a cycle of cosmic nourishment form itself into various pictures - streams of light, or flowing of energies.

Ncw picture the lower part of the lemniscate, how it reaches down deep into one's being and carries this Cosmic nourishment into the depths of one's soul, into the realm of one's will, one's actions in the world. The lower limb of the lemniscate turns at the periphery of one's being and returns to the centre carrying with it, as a feedback, an essence, the fruit of one's actions.

Then unify the whole picture and experience the heart as this fourfold centre of ones's being within the lemniscate. To conclude this exercise allow oneself to slip back into physical perception of the heart's beating, and at the same time realise that the physical heart is the physical body of the soul heart, the heart centre which one touches upon in performing this meditation.