Content
Role of the Heart, Love and Empathy
Empathy and Motherhood
Empathy and Compassion
Role of the Heart, Love and Empathy
Theophile the Elder pursued his approach of Positive Psychology:
– To understand how compassion can take place, you must refer to the Qi energy Chinese medicine mentions.
The five elements of the heart.
Theo. – Chinese medicine says that energy (Qi) runs through our whole being, thus nourishing our system as well as our psyche. It conforms with the individual’s unity. A moving harmony shows through the five elements. I have been taught that each one of these elements figures an organ manifesting a specific emotion. Fear relates to the kidney, anger relates to the liver, joy to the heart, anxiety to the spleen and sadness to the lungs.
The Elder – As we have already seen, the five elements are multidimensional. It is therefore normal that they should appear in the individual’s physical and energetic constitution.
Theo. – The networks of the meridians cover our whole body. We know fourteen of them, but actually there about sixty, if we take into account the many branches they involve, from top to bottom and from surface to depth… I imagine they can compare with the antennas and networks involved in the Internet and Intranet sites.
Human body meridians.
The Elder – It is also via these meridians that cognitive and emotional empathy can function. Empathy will set up a cognitive and emotional resonance between our own self and the other person’s self. Neurosciences talk of perception through a system of mirror neurons.
Theo. – According to you, what will make empathy come to the fore?
The Elder – Attention will, and since we have hinted at the energetic Chinese medicine, note that this attention goes through Shen, the energetic heart. In the So Wen, Shen is what defines small or big workers in acupuncture. “The small worker inserts needles, the big one guides the breaths”, as it says. And it all works through Shen (the heart), which is considered as the managing power in an individual.
Theo. – Is it the same attention as the one we use when meditating on the heart?
The Elder – It is exactly the same, when you know how to guide it towards the depths of the light in the heart. Now, that same attention, when guided towards a person, brings light onto what the person is, what he or she feels and has to go through. Depending on our abilities and on the work we do, its manifestation will be differently received and interpreted.
Theo. – Is that what the mentalist does?
The Elder – Yes, but he is not only cognizant. He may also feel an emotional empathy as well as compassion. There are no limits but the ones we inflict on ourselves.
Theo. – That is no easy matter!
The Elder – Quite right! That is the reason why, whatever the job we choose to do, we must learn how to acquire skills and capabilities.
Paying attention is something you learn and acquire through meditating silently. Attention is a sort of bringing to light what a human being is, and that will be revealed to us depending on the quality of our attention. Love is what best reveals our empathy.
Theo. – Love for our job, for art, nature, other people?
The Elder – For humankind, for the beauty in nature, for the marvel creation is, etc. Love for everything, a limitless love.
Theo. – In music, it is what makes the difference between a mere interpreter and a musician who is inspired and able to carry us away.
The Elder – Love is what makes the difference, whatever your job, whether it concerns caring for people’s health and therapy, or art, craftsmanship and any other domain.
Empathy and motherhood
Theo. – We have already talked about the exceptional love that exists between a mother and her baby. Would you also define it as empathy?
The Elder – The love that unites a man to a woman begets a child. Don’t we say that a child is the fruit of love? I have attended weddings arranged by my spiritual Master. Then I could see a column of energy falling down over each one of these two beings; as the energies were interweaving, they simultaneously descended from the top of their heads (the chakra with a thousand petals), then they crossed the Heart chakra, to finally reach the Sacral chakra. In a second phase, the bride’s and the bridegroom’s chakras would start resonating. Then, beautiful streams if light were just flowing from one to the other. My Master would call it a Vedic marriage. Such a sacred union will create the vehicle destined to receive the incarnating soul.
Theo. – I suppose that such a union will give birth to advanced souls.
The Elder – To the most advanced ones, yes. Silence…
During the nine months gestation period, the baby is in total union with its Mother. That union is a reminder of the union each and every soul lived with God before being created.
Theo. – And one more time, you place love at the origin of everything!
Can the baby in its mother’s womb also receive transmission?
The Elder – Yes, it can, though not directly. It receives transmission through its mother’s heart. The mother’s body is the temple the baby is going to live in for nine months. It is a transitional space between the spirits’ world where it dwelt as a soul, and our own world. Once it is born, the baby will take another year to fully inhabit its own body.
Theo. – Is that why a baby has to be in its mother’s arms so much?
The Elder – Or in any other loving person’s arms. The baby needs to feel ceaselessly that bond it has with its mother. It is a first class empathic bond, and it functions both ways.
Theo. – I guess that is also why a pregnant woman needs to be so careful.
The Elder – She will also give her child her thoughts and her feelings as a nourishment. What she has to go through may have a positive or a negative effect on her child. So the mother’s energies and love protect the child from her own environment. She must be particularly careful about what she ingests, whatever the form it takes, and choose carefully the persons accompanying her. Her mission is a sacred one.
Theo. – Few women are aware of it, I fear.
The Elder – But they all know, inwardly. Regarding attention and empathy, a mother must permanently maintain the link to her child. That link is like a ‘radar’. If she is attentive enough, she will consciously and unconsciously be aware of her baby’s needs.
Theo. – Which can be quite useful in case of emergency!
The Elder – Provided she does not allow herself to be confused by her feelings or her fears, as it often happens. Practicing meditation will help considerably.
Empathy and compassion
Theo. – OK, but how can we be empathic and compassionate in our day–to–day dealings with other people?
The Elder – Compassion comes from empathy, which I think is a pure expression of love. They share a same feeling of self–forgetfulness. When you start resonating with the heart of another human being, it triggers a wave of energy, a wave of light, which we call empathy. If the person is suffering, then you will naturally feel some compassion. The love you can feel, then, is so strong that you just forget about yourself. It is a love that has entered another dimension of your being.
Theo. –The Divine one? Yet, something still worries me: when we develop that great sensibility within our selves and synchronize with other beings, can’t their sufferings affect us? Isn’t it dangerous?
The Elder – It is pretty much a question of practice and of finding the right balance. Empathy makes you feel directly the other person’s suffering and how distressed he or she can be. You must know how to proportion the perceived intensity, without adopting the hardened attitude of some health care practitioners who don’t want to see people’s sufferings win over them. That often leads to emotional exhaustion.
Theo. – The burnout, isn’t it? How to avoid it?
The Elder – By keeping up with ‘the Flow’, which will trigger optimal experience.
Theo. – Which means?
The Elder – It’s for you to say. No analysis, there. Put yourself in the required state. Imagine you are facing a patient you don’t know yet. It is a case of emergency. The patient is suffering, is anxious…
Theo focused on his heart;
He rapidly cleaned all the centres in the heart region (first star).
Then he quickly got absorbed into the second level, deep into the heart (second star), and he let light enter all his centres, and all the cells in his body.
He was in tune with himself, well balanced, so that he could fully focus on the patient who was coming to see him.
(All that took only a few seconds).
He made his heart be fully empathic with the patient’s heart.
His attention was focused only on him or her,
He greeted the other person with a benevolent smile.
He was fully attentive. Then the patient started telling him about what was worrying him or her.
The symptoms mentioned got themselves into working order.
An energy pattern began to appear in Theo’s mind.
The Elder – What conclusion do you draw from it?
Theo. – Since I was fully attentive, I could simultaneously perceive the three levels in the being. I could feel the presence of some organic or energetic disturbance, even though it had not been mentioned. I could easily perceive an obvious emotional disorder and read it. The patient’s body, his or her chakras, showed it is there. The fact attracted my attention, though I did not search that way. My mind began to establish the connections with all that was said and was left unsaid. A care guideline began to emerge.
The Elder – Pulse–taking will further help us enter into resonance more easily with the patient’s energy. It will give direct access to his or her energies (the science of the Chinese pulse control, and of the twelve levels and five qualities of energy).
Theo. – Yes, of course!
The Elder – Did you notice your observer’s position? He was at the top of your being, while integrating the different parts within a global vision. That is Shen’s magic.
Theo agreed and then he plunged into an inner observation of himself.
Theophile the Elder
An excerpt from Dialogs with Theophile the Elder
Theophile the Younger’s initiation