Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Cultivating the Sacred Heart
To open and warm the heart toward the Divine and toward all beings, so that compassion and love become a lived, embodied state rather than an idea.
In 4 lines: Rest attention in the heart-centre and breathe consciously into it. Speak to the Divine honestly, without shame, and invite warmth to kindle in the chest. Let that love radiate in widening circles — to yourself, your dear ones, the difficult, all beings. Through prayer and silence, let yourself be drawn into the love at the centre of things, and carry that warm heart into your day.
What it is
This is Andrew Harvey’s devotional, heart-centred practice: deliberately turning attention to the physical-spiritual centre of the chest and warming it open — toward the Divine, toward oneself, and toward all beings.
Where his Sacred Activism path is the outward arm, this is the inward fuel. Harvey treats the heart as the organ of mystical knowing, and across his work — especially The Direct Path and his Christ-path teaching — he gathers heart practices from many traditions: a Sufi heart practice, a Tibetan heart practice, Buddhist tonglen and metta, the Jewish practice of expanding the circle of love, and the Christian Sacred Heart of Jesus meditation.
The common move is the same: breathe into the heart, address the Divine there honestly and without shame, and let warmth and love radiate outward until compassion is a felt state in the body, not merely a thought.
Distinct from the siblings here. Buddha’s metta bhavana and Fredrickson’s loving-kindness protocol are the lovingkindness lineage; HeartMath’s heart lock-in is the biofeedback/coherence version; Ram Dass’s I am loving awareness rests as awareness; Bartlett’s dropping into the heart is an energy move. Harvey’s version is explicitly devotional and mystical — the heart opened toward the Divine and addressed intimately — and is offered as the warming “fuel” for sacred action rather than as stand-alone calm.
The Method
A faithful rendering of Harvey’s heart practice:
- Sit, settle, and bring attention to the heart-centre. Rest awareness in the middle of the chest. Take a few slow breaths, letting the body soften.
- Breathe consciously into the heart. On the in-breath, imagine drawing breath, light, or grace into the heart-centre; on the out-breath, let it spread through the body. (In the Christ version Harvey calls this “breathing in the Christ.”)
- Address the Divine honestly, without shame or fear. Speak inwardly to the divine presence — by whatever name is real for you — “as honestly as possible,” holding nothing back, since (in Harvey’s framing) the Divine already knows what is in your heart. This intimate, unguarded speech is central.
- Invite warmth and let it grow. Allow a felt warmth, tenderness, or love to kindle in the chest. Do not force it; invite it, and let it build.
- Radiate the love outward in widening circles. Let the warmth flow to yourself, then to those you love, then to the difficult and the suffering, then to all beings — the “expanding circle of love.” Here it naturally meets metta and tonglen.
- Rest in being held. Through “prayer, silence, and ardent devotion,” let the practice become receptive — sensing yourself drawn into “the love at the centre of creation,” rather than only generating feeling by effort.
- Carry the warm heart into the day. The aim is that the opened heart becomes the steady ground from which you meet people and act (linking to the Sacred Activism practice). (Sourcing note: “breathing in the Christ,” speaking to the Divine “without shame or fear” and “as honestly as possible,” and “the love at the centre of creation” are drawn faithfully from Harvey’s heart-practice teaching; the multi-tradition list (Sufi, Tibetan, tonglen, metta, Jewish circle of love, Sacred Heart) is his own gathering in The Direct Path.)
Source & Lineage
Andrew Harvey set out these practices in The Direct Path: Creating a Journey to the Divine Using the World’s Mystical Traditions (2000) — which provides instructions for eighteen sacred practices — and in his Christ-path and heart-yoga work (e.g.
Son of Man; Heart Yoga, with Karuna Erickson). The practice is a deliberate synthesis: Sufi qalb/heart devotion, Tibetan tonglen, Buddhist metta, Kabbalistic widening of love, and the Catholic Sacred Heart.
Common refinements
Forcing the feeling. Straining to “produce” love makes the chest tighten. Invite and allow; let it build of itself.
- Staying in the head. Reciting loving words without letting warmth become felt in the body misses the point (The Inner Creates the Outer).
- Skipping the honesty. The intimate, unguarded address to the Divine is what makes Harvey’s version devotional; sanitised, careful prayer loses its power.
- Opening too fast. For the grieving or recently wounded, a flooding heart-opening can overwhelm. Go gently, keep the feet/breath grounded, and shorten the practice if needed.
- Refinement: if warmth won’t come, start with someone you already love easily (a child, a pet, a friend), let the heart soften there, then widen the circle.