The Psychic Being Resides in the Secret Heart Centre Behind the Body’s Physical Heart

We base our perceptions generally in our external being, and recognise the physical body, the vital force, the emotions and the mental thoughts as being ‘who we are’. We learn about the anatomy and physiology of the body, the organ systems, the circulatory system, the nervous system, the digestive system, the immune system, etc. When we experience something that we feel in a particular area of our awareness, we immediately try to associate it with one of the external parts of the body.

Yogic psychology determined long ago that not everything we experience is due to the external physical body and its senses; rather, there is a subtle energy system that is not part of the physical organs or nervous system, but which operates through what are called ‘chakras’, essentially energy centers which can receive and transmit energy that we do not necessarily consciously perceive with our external senses. The operation of these subtle centers opens up various capacities and developments of consciousness in the being. Most of these systems identify seven main chakras in our being, and it is the 4th one, the one that is situated deep within, behind the organ we call the heart, that is the seat of the psychic being. The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads reference this secret “cave of the heart” as the dwelling place of the immanent Divine.

When the aspiration, the sense of consecration, self-giving, receptivity, a vast expansion of the sense of Oneness and love arise, we experience them as coming from the depths of this secret heart-centre.

A disciple asks: “Is the psychic being in the heart?”

The Mother responds: “Not in the physical heart, not in the organ. it is in a fourth dimension, an inner dimension. But it is in that region, the region somewhat behind the solar plexus, it is there that one finds it most easily. The psychic being is in the fourth dimension as related to our physical being.”

Sri Aurobindo continues: “The psychic being is in the heart centre in the middle of the chest (not in the physical heart, for all the centres are in the middle of the body), but it is deep behind. When one is going away from the vital into the psychic, it is felt as if one is going deep deep down till one reaches that central place of the psychic. The surface of the heart centre is the place of the emotional being; from there one goes deep to find the psychic.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 6 More Lights on the Psychic Being, pp. 162-163