The whole world hinges on connections at all different levels, and a connection is essentially a kind of interaction. For example, the atoms in a single molecule interact with each other via chemical connections. The connection that appears in the open Heart also brings about interaction with the Higher Levels of Being. And this interaction has two main aspects (besides awareness of the existence of the levels themselves)—one relates to knowledge, and the other to the will.
Just as the connection to the Ultimate is unique for each person, so the knowledge that he receives through the Heart channel relates specifically to what he is concerned about at that particular moment. This is how intuition works—it answers the question that is most important right now and troubles a person most. Intuition has the same appearance as the impulses of knowledge, which may act through the Heart. In an ordinary state a person just cannot feel these impulses happening and only rarely receives flashes of intuitive knowledge across large interstices of time, and not just whenever he wants to. With an open Heart, the intuition channel is also open and is constantly active. In this state a person can always sense whether or not he is traveling upon the correct course for him and how any given situation will turn out for him. He may also know this about certain other people, but only those with whom he has a good energy connection.
It should be pointed out here that people involved in predicting the fates of others are not using the heart center channel, but the abilities of the fourth, mental, body and the sixth center, often called the “third eye”, that is connected to it. The sixth center and the mental body each have their own capacity for perceiving all different kinds of information, and it is because of them that so many different predictions are made, and also the miracle of insight. They are all enthusiastically exploited by mediums and the like. As we know, predictions rarely come true, because the mental body is subject to a set of laws and cannot know all the possible iterations of fate and its alternative outcomes. An activated fourth body by no means indicates the presence in that person of an open Heart. On the contrary, those who fall into the trap of the abilities that it possesses thereby retreat from the possibility of getting to the Heart.
Intuitive knowledge never fails, although it may not always have a logical basis. It is almost always connected to the will—either the desire (or the necessity) to do something, or the desire to find out how a situation that you have gotten yourself into will turn out for you. In fact, the knowledge that comes through the Heart channel always appears in the form of an answer to your own personal question, even if it has not actually been formulated as a question. This is how interaction with God and His kindness manifests itself.
And also: In so far as the knowledge that arrives along the heart channel does not touch the mind and does not pass through its structure (as distinct from information delivered through the sensory organs, for example), it always takes the form of a feeling. A specific feeling, indicating by its own shift the correct or incorrect choice, or giving a sense of conviction that everything is proceeding as it must. This “as it must” touches directly upon a person’s fate and his will, which is first and foremost connected to his desires.
Desires themselves, as we know, are formed in the mind, and this is patently obvious. Say a person believes in the existence of heaven and as a result of this he wants to go there. Or a person has the idea that all people are equal, and he wants for everything in the outside world to work out exactly the way it does in his own head. And he is ready to fight for this. Yet in all this the energy of his desires has nothing whatsoever to do with the mind.
If you look for where in the body the energy of desire comes from, you may convince yourself without too much difficulty that you can feel it somewhere in the chest cavity. The original impulse of the life force which is later transformed into desire, also comes to us through the heart center. This force is a part of the Downward Stream of Creation, which I have written about before, and which I shall perhaps write further on in more detail. It feeds on all living things and is the main impulse that gives all living things the will to life. So whenever we receive an impulse from the life force, we feel it near the heart center. At first it is pure energy, without any shape, but the mind quickly directs it to the channel of desire.
It must be understood that after a certain point in life we rarely get new desires. Generally speaking, the desires we do have simply change their form, while in fact maintaining their original essence. Yesterday I wanted one kind of food, today I want another; yesterday I had a desire for a particular woman, today it is a different one... The object changes, but the essence of the desire itself remains the same. It is therefore almost impossible to capture the precise moment at which this impulse crosses into the channel of desire, quick as it is, and all desires await their allotment energy as they dwell within the mind. And they receive it according to how relevant or important they are to the person.
In so far as all the subtle bodies are bound to the physical body, their ability to function depends directly on the state of it. If, for example, a person is hungry, then because his physical capacities are exhausted and the body is tuned to survive, the impulses from the life force are truncated, and desires weaken.
A weak body simply cannot physically receive them. Something like same thing happens during illness and in old age—the weakened body is incapable of taking on powerful impulses from the energy of desires, as they may kill it.
Similar processes occur when a person has a large number of suppressed or unrealized desires. Desires push us into action, they help us to exert effort, and they objectively appear in the form of what is called the human will. When they are suppressed, a person overflows with this energy and cannot receive new energy in the same quantities as before. But I have described all the consequences of suppressing energy in terms of its impact on the body and on the psyche before.
Man’s design is very complex, and this complexity stems not only from the biochemical and other processes coursing through his body, but mainly from the fact that man is an open, multilayered system. His openness, especially, is something we can see with our own eyes in the functions of the heart center. Through it we have contact with all of Existence and with Life itself.