The Heart.

Concentration is the key to astral projection; if you can focus your concentrated mind on one thing at the moment sleep arrives you will consciously split from your body, it's that simple.

Actually it's not simple at all, it just sounds simple! Being able to concentrate and focus on one thing is harder than it sounds, and being able to hold that concentration as you fall to sleep is even more of a challenge. The good news is it is a skill that can be learned and gets better with practice. And being a learned skill means anyone can do it, even you!

One of my favorite practices to project is concentration on the heart, and I projected with this practice earlier this week. Not only does the heart provide a steady, rhythmic beat which you can anchor your attention upon, the heart is said to have a special esoteric significance as well (which I will get to a bit later).

When I first began this practice I found it very difficult to perceive my heart beating at all, but with perseverance it now comes easily to me. If you have difficulty yourself, here are some techniques that may help:

1. Make sure you begin with a really thorough relaxation. The more relaxed I am the easier it is to perceive my heart, so I make sure to really focus on relaxing my body and removing any tension before I begin the practice.

2. If you can't perceive your heart at first, take a few deep breaths – this stimulates the heart and increases the intensity of the beats.

3. If you still can't perceive the heart, then simply imagine the heart beating inside your chest until you begin to actually perceive the beats.

4. Look for the pulse in other areas of the body such as the finger-tips. When you become aware of your pulse, combine this with your imagination of your heart beating until they become one.

Once you detect the beating of your heart, focus your full attention on the rhythmic beats. Gently hold your attention there and if thoughts arise then let them go and return to the rhythmic beating. This is a soothing, relaxing practice.

There are some variations to this practice. You can either focus just on the heart itself, or you can focus on the pulse in different areas of the body. You can keep moving your attention all around the body detecting the pulse as you go, until you can feel your whole body pulsing.

You can also combine this practice with a visualization of the heart, exploring what the heart looks like, it's color, its texture, its various chambers, arteries and veins and how it works (you may like to study some pictures of the heart to assist with the visualization). Keep your focus squarely on your heart until you project.

The Heart Chakra.

The heart chakra is one of 7 major chakras or (energy centers) of the astral body, and each have their own corresponding psychic faculty.

As the name suggests, the heart chakra is located in the center of your chest in the area of the heart. The psychic faculty related to this chakra is intuition, the faculty more familiar to the majority of people, and certainly a handy faculty to have! Intuition is that hunch you get, that subtle feeling that tells us information that is beyond the rational mind. Intuition is also essential to correctly interpret dream symbolism and to understand what dreams mean.

The heart chakra and its faculty of intuition can be temporarily activated with the use of the mantra 'O'. A mantra is a series of sounds, vowels or words that have a vibrational affect upon us. Just think about the affects various sounds can play on our phyche – imagine the soothing sound of a meandering stream, compared to the agitating sound of a car alarm!

The Mantra 'O' is pronounced as 'oh', only elongated; 'Ooooooooooo'. You gently inhale through the nose, and as you exhale through the mouth you pronounce the mantra. You generally start out loud, and gradually take the mantra internally. (If you are practicing this in a group you don't need to be in time with each other).

At the same time as you pronounce the mantra, you can visualize the chakra spinning. It spins in clockwise direction, lying flat like a plate on a table. You can either visualize it as a glowing disc, or as a lotus flower with 12 petals. It is represented by the color green, so you may like to incorporate this into your visualization also.

To permanently activate this and other chakras, a serious spiritual work must be undertaken (more about this gnostic work can be found at Gnosticweb).

The Esoteric Significance of the heart.

God as Father is Wisdom. God as Mother is Love.
God as Father resides in the eye of Wisdom…
God as Love is found in the Heart-Temple…
Love is infinite tenderness… love is the life that beats in every Atom as it beats in every sun.
…Love is felt in the depths of the heart.
- Samael Aun Weor

We get assistance with our spiritual work from spiritual beings, and the ones that work most closely with us are our own Divine Parents, our Divine Mother and Divine Father (the female and male aspects of our being). Our Divine Mother teaches and guides us, helping us through the psychological gymnasium of life, while our Divine Father offers us protection. It is also our Divine Mother that has the power to destroy egos.

We can see numerous depictions of the Divine Mother in the various religions - the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism, the Goddess Kali in Hinduism, Isis in ancient Egyptian religions, and many Pagan religions have a Mother Goddess, just to name a few.

When in the astral, you can ask your Divine Mother for a spiritual teaching as She knows what we most urgently need to learn. If I want to travel somewhere, I usually ask my Divine Mother to take me, and as I do so I take a little jump. When I do this it feels like I am being pulled backwards at great speed and *poof* I am instantly there.

An atom of one's Divine Mother is said to be located in the heart. I like to use a visualization of the heart as a spiritual place to get touch with my Divine Mother.

There are two variations on this practice. One is to visualize the heart as a temple that you can explore and inside find your Divine Mother. The other is to visualize it as a beautiful garden, and in the middle of the garden a Divine Lady is seated on a throne. I like to incorporate these visualizations together; I begin by focusing on the beating of my heart. Once my mind begins to slow and I go deeper into the practice I visualize my physical heart. I explore my heart in detail, then I make myself very small and go inside my heart. As I get to the center there is a spark of bright white light, and I go into the light and find myself in a bright, beautiful garden, and at the center of the garden is a temple where I can find my Divine Mother and speak with Her. It is important to incorporate all your senses while doing this visualization.

While I have successfully projected by concentrating on my heart itself, I have yet to project while visualizing my heart as a spiritual place. However there is much to be said about this practice even if you don't actually project – aside from this being an amazingly beautiful practice, in deep meditation I have been able to connect with my Divine Mother and gain valuable information. It has also helped to build my relationship with Her.

But I think it would be AMAZING to actually go there in the astral, so this is something I am going to keep working on!