Through the inner path of prayer, we lay the foundation for awakening and enlivening our spiritual mind and spiritual heart. In this state, we develop spiritual sensibility and a spiritual feeling in the heart. As a result, the heart becomes consistently conscious to us.
To facilitate this process, we can consciously practice the perception of the heart. There are several helpful exercises for this purpose.
Perceiving the heart area
A simple and effective exercise is to consciously perceive the area in the body where the spiritual heart is located during meditation.
We make the heart region the primary object of our meditation.
The spiritual heart is located in the middle of the chest, slightly above the physical heart - not on the left, but in the center, where the upper half of the breastbone is located.
The aim is explicitly not to generate feelings, but only to mindfully perceive what is there in this area.
The breath moves the upper chest area and we can feel this movement: when we inhale, the chest expands - this expansion is the easiest to feel.
We can gently place a hand on this area to support our awareness.
It is normal not to be able to perceive the spiritual heart immediately—this process can take weeks or months. Yet, this exercise promotes the awakening of heart consciousness.
I myself practiced this exercise daily for six months. During mantra meditation, you can consciously focus on the heart area while breathing in and starting to recite the mantra.
In this way, the inner focus on this area becomes firmly established.
Connection between breath, grounding, heart perception, and mantra
Later, I began to combine the different aspects.
- When I breathe in, I perceive the heart region and say the first part of the mantra.
- As I breathe out, I let the energy sink downwards and say the second part of the mantra.