The Fourth Chakra – Anahata – The Heart Chakra
Introduction to Chakras / Chakras Diagram / Muladhara / Swadhisthana / Manipura / Anahata / Vishuddha / Ajña / Sahasrara
Anahata is the chakra of love, friendship, compassion and empathy.
It is situated in the area of the heart, in the middle of the seven chakras, between the mundane and the subtle. It is no longer preoccupied with the basic needs of survival and reproduction, and neither with worldly glory or power.
But if Anahata is not strengthened and balanced, we might feel resentment, bitterness, melancholy, and attachments.
A couple could make love in Swadhisthana or in Anahata. To make love purely in Swadhisthana is a sexual act not much different from that of a female cat in heat. When love is in Anahata, love transcends the purely sexual. Not that sex is not important, but love goes much further. Love in Anahata is more pure, it is a love which one “feels with one’s heart.”
A person in Anahata not only gives love, but knows how to forgive and takes care not to offend anyone. He or she is sensitive and emotive, not in the sense of crying when seeing others suffer, which is a characteristic Swadhisthana imbalance, but there is a sensitivity to human suffering. Tears may come, but the inclination is to be proactive. Like Mother Theresa, who acted in the face of human suffering. The giving of oneself to others, without expecting glory or material rewards, that is a person who lives in Anahata, and there are very few.
In Anahata, we know the world through the skin and the sense of touch, and we generate karma through what we do or refrain from doing with our arms and hands. Air is the Anahata element. The representative animal is the deer.
The Anahata geometric figure is composed of two triangles that intersect and form a star. A triangle, looking upwards, represents the masculine element, and the other triangle, looking downwards, symbolizes the feminine principle. Equilibrium is reached in Anahata when these forces are united in harmony.