Da’at or Heart chakra is where emotion enters into the process of manifestation as the result of infinite love mixing with the physical. This is the place where we know something to be true regardless of the facts and despite what fear and our gut are telling us is reality. It is the deep knowing which defies common sense, connects unconditionally, is the home of hope, and asks us to defy the odds. Its wisdom works to breach the gap between what our minds think and what our bodies experience with varying rates of success. It is where we begin to weave manifestation into being hence the theme of this energy center is “Not My will or Thy will but Our will be done.” This part of who we are is where some of our most current dramas emanate, from mass shootings, refugee relocation, ongoing wars and terrorism to name a few, and yet deals with some of our most ancient of myths and prejudices. It is also where we retreat when connecting directly with individuals becomes too fraught or difficult. Charles Schultz summed this up distinctly when Linus said “I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!”
Da’at corresponds with the Heart Chakra when the Tree of Life is diagrammed on the body. It is in Da’at which things “get real” for the first time, moving from the spiritual and theoretical into the physical and therefore urging us to experience the world and respond to it through emotion. In Da’at we move from the realm of thought and inspiration and decisions to action. We experience for the first time a connection with the world around us as well as our own becoming. We enter into the world and begin to feel.
The emotions in Da’at are not the ones we think of when we think about being emotional. They are not the knee jerk emotions which occur when we react to something. Neither are they the fury of being wronged nor the joy of winning the lottery. The emotions here are not about the individual or their reaction to an individually experienced world but a response to the greater connection between all things, the larger picture of existence. For example, these are feelings of shock and sorrow at a mass shooting in a school or mall, the devastation of a terrorist bombing of a civilian population, or the mass rape of women in war torn populations. They are the joy of a mass step towards safety, equality, or justice, like the Martin Luther King Jr. giving his I Have a Dream speech on the Mall in Washington D.C. or the New Zealand parliament standing together with the spectators and singing a Maori love song as they pass the Definition of Marriage act allowing gay marriage. These emotions can seem bigger than us, sweeping in scope. They are the passions which spur us to revolution and reform. They root us in place, take us out of ourselves, and remind us there are more than just our individual experiences of the world. To understand this aspect of Da’at, think back to a time when you experienced these feelings – September 11th, witnessing the birth of a child, 11-M – the Al Qaeda train bombings in Madrid, the crossing over of a loved one, or the July 2005 bombing in London to name a few examples. Those moments when you were completely aware of yourself and yet immersed in a greater You – that’s Heart Chakra.
This ability to see the world in large scale, to feel the interconnection at the level of humanity rather than through small groupings and arbitrary divisions is angelic in nature. Angelic emotion is not the same as human emotion. While humans care about each lily in the field, each sparrow as it flies, glorying in the fullness of their lives and grieving at their demise, angels know all is energy, all is change, nothing is ever lost, all is part of the great tapestry of becoming and so care about the individual, glorying in its suchness, but not grieving for its end because there is no end, only transmutation! Within each of us we have the capability to hold within our hearts this love for all humanity, for all life and all creation; however, to do so requires we also retain our connection with the universal energy which is dispassionately compassionate. While physical life values each individual manifestation as unique and precious and valuable, universal energy knows linear time is a fabrication. All is energy and all is of source and returns to source. Da’at is where the physical world, the lived experience meets the universal energy of everything and is where the Akashics phases into material form. Through our heart chakra, the energy of Da’at, we can partake of our own angelic nature thereby loving more than an embodied human would normally do. To manifest with Da’at is to consciously open your heart to this knowingness which is why the mantra of Da’at is – “Not my will or Thy will, but Our will be done.”
Da’at is where physical manifestation begins. This isn’t a metaphor but a reality which science is beginning to uncover and prove. In the recent past it was thought at the point of no temperature, the Zero Point, all life and all movement stops. Yet when scientists lower the temp to ultimate zero they find movement. Particles still move. This is how they are beginning to understand the Akashic Field scientifically. Akasha coming in and out of physical existence is the movement which is being seen at the Zero Point. Da’at is the liminal point passing things into and out of existence moment to moment, being the cross roads between the supernals and the physical Sephiroth. There the always now transforms into finite beads of experience defined and delineated by linear time. Eventually these are returned to the Akashics as completed events which are eventually converted into new aspects of the tapestry of the infinite now as they return up the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life.
Da’at is also emotion which breathes life into form, which activates potential and sets it on course for its unique becoming. This is why the essence of the Heart chakra is knowledge rather than intellectual understanding. Some people call this heart knowing or soul knowing, but it is the deep knowing which comes from the essential self. It is an incontrovertible truth which cannot be shaken even when tested. The breath of life is experienced as love which encompasses all beings and singles out no individual. It is the life force which suffuses all manifested beings. As Da’at is a meeting place between the universal and the unique individual manifestation, it must navigate this impartially, balancing and harmonizing all components. Its mantra “Not my will or Thy will, but Our will be done” speaks to this. Neither the universal energy nor the individual reigns supreme, but both working together as peers, as equals and partners allows the angelic love to pour forth. Without this balance there can be a tendency to act out of fear, to retract back into abstraction or to become callous and uncaring in the face of destruction and suffering. Being either too connected emotionally or not enough can keep us from the unfolding of manifestation.
Not everything is blissful in the heart, however. The more a person comes into a deep comprehension of Da’at some of its negative aspects appear: knowing just to know without regard for the consequences (science for science sake), knowing and disregarding this knowing (overly attached), knowing and doing nothing (unconnected), and knowing as in rape and consumption (destruction of connection). All of these point to an unbalanced life and are ways in which there is an imbalance between the universal and the personal, either a lack of or overabundance of emotions which drives us.
Knowing just to know is like the notion of a scientist who seeks to discover things for the sake of the science, not heeding the uses the discovery might be put to. Think Oppenheimer and “I have become a destroyer of worlds.” This has become a common trope in movies such as The Terminator franchise, Jurassic Park, Real Genius, Bourne Legacy and others. Negative consequences occur when we reach beyond our understanding of what our knowing can do or we can do with it.
Knowing better and doing it anyway can be seen not only in individuals at various times in their lives (ahem…teenagers…ahem) but also in corporations and governments. Using loopholes, lax laws of other countries and simply ignoring the law they then design, test and manufacture new products knowing the cost in human lives and to the ecosystems affected. Profit trumps negative effects almost every time. This harkens back to the Kabbalistic notion of demons and Lilith coming through a semi-Sephirah of Da’at in its supposed role as the portal for evil taking and leaving destruction in their wake.
“ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke. Knowing and doing nothing, not acting by having an emotion, choosing or refusing to do nothing when an emotion is experienced is the opposite of connection, the refusal of interconnection, the negation of manifestation energy. This is not to be confused with setting correct boundaries by saying no to a wrong action or request, but points to where a response is requested, is appropriate and then is refused. Like seeing someone drop something and not saying anything to them about it or noting a cashier undercharged you and accepting it. Inaction is action, a refusal to manifest good connection.
The opposite of this knowing is acting in order to destroy: acting against the good of all manifestation, against individual manifestation, creating negative emotions, destroying connection in order to fulfill personal emotional satisfaction and gratification. This is the nature of rape, theft, and of corporate consumption. An overabundance of emotion out of harmony with the supernals, over aligned with embodiment and used for purely selfish ends.
This brings me to one of the most liminal aspects of Da’at which balances on a knife’s edge between the sublime and the negative, so cold and empty it swallows light. Heart chakra, along with everything else, is the center where we experience what has been termed the dark night of the soul. This is where, having purified ourselves to the point where we see clearly, we confront our own selves without obstruction or distraction and are forced to reconcile all we are with the pure universal energies on the other side. Like looking at yourself in a mirror under fluorescent lighting the picture is rarely flattering yet fully illuminating. Meditating with Da’at in this aspect is fabulous in getting us to shift our perception, not of our attachment to the physical, but our relationship to the All.
For religions and spiritualities the dark night is that place where all movement stops. It is the crossroads where we are confronted with a number of choices. We have reached a point where all the connections we have had no longer exist or no longer fit or support us. What we have been, what we have been told to expect, and what we have been taught have failed, have turned out to be lies and yet the road ahead seems unclear. Every direction seems the same, each seems bleak and hopeless and we are adrift, unmoored, disconnected, unfriended, unchampioned and rudderless.
It is called the dark night of the soul because it represents the struggle to see clearly, to find the way in the darkness, the struggle we go through to rebirth ourselves into a new self. Heart chakra being a liminal place, it is comfortable holding space for this type of transition. Being filled with many kinds of love and ready at any moment to provide the path to our becoming it is the perfect most patient place to support us in our struggles.
Is it necessary for us to struggle? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Dark nights are desperately difficult and I wish them on no one, but they are also where the most brilliant creations come into being and where some of the most astounding transformations happen. You get out what you put in, I guess.
Da’at is co-creation at its center. “Not My will or Thy will but Our will be done.” We are an agent of manifestation and yet not master of it. Energy moving through us urges our inclination to experience the world and respond to it through emotion. In Da’at we move from the realm of thought and inspiration and decisions to action. Like dance partners we come together with the energy, blending with it, harmonizing to bring our will into harmony with it even as it brings itself into harmony with us. Without us manifestation cannot come into the world yet without the ability to manifest, without the life force energy flowing through us, we cannot live here. We would be incomplete.
Blessings,
Teri
