In this teaching from 1986, A. H. Almaas discusses the Liberated Heart. Some of the points discussed are:
- The capacity to feel and to feel freely
- Reactivity versus feeling
- Higher emotional center versus lower emotional center
- Higher emotional center expresses the qualities of essence bringing out the aesthetics of the present moment
- The barrier to the operation of the true heart can be viewed from two perspectives – phenomenological and psychological
- Both boil down to the issue of attachment
- What are the roots of attachment?
- Ego is attachment
- When appreciation is continuous, the higher emotional center is operating
- If you are attached, the you don’t want to see the relationship as it is objctively
- The conceptual mind splits experience into good and bad, pleasure and pain. This influences the heart to function within this splitting.
A couple of definitions that may help with understanding this talk:
Essential Heart
What we call heart is not exactly what we usually think of as the heart. More precisely, our usual understanding of heart is a very limited way of knowing the real heart. At the beginning of our inner work, we experience our heart as emotions and feelings. At deeper levels, we experience our heart as the essential heart with love, compassion, joy, and all of the qualities of essence. The essential heart leads to the aspect of truth, the solid gold of truth, which is the source of the essential heart. Beyond the aspect of truth is the heart of non-attachment, which does not distinguish between heart and mind. Knowing and feeling coincide as pure sensitivity. – A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 176
Object Relations
According to object relations theory, the development of ego structure through the process of separation-individuation happens primarily by means of the internalization of object relations through the formation of inner images of self and other. The “object” is generally the human love object, and an object relation is simply the relation between self and object, usually an emotional relation. “Object relations” then generally refer to the mental representation of this relation, which consists of three parts: a self-image, usually called a “self-representation”; an object-image, usually called an “object-representation”; and the emotional relation or affect between the two, such as love, anger, fear or desire. – A. H. ALMAAS, THE PEARL BEYOND PRICE
Splitting
The story of the defense of splitting in relation to Being is a long and complex one. Here we will note only that resolving the primary split in the ego, the split between the bad and good representations, involves integrating the essential aspect of Power. The defense of splitting entails splitting away one’s Power, because it is associated with the all-bad self-representation, and projecting it outside. The result is identification with a self-representation that is all-good but powerless. This all-good, innocent, and powerless sense of self is experienced as confronting a world that is all-bad, hateful, and powerful. In this situation of powerlessness one experiences an excruciating vulnerability in one’s contact with the world, vulnerability to powerful and destructive objects. – A. H. Almaass, The Pearl Beyond Price