The Source of All Things
Page 20
* * *
The heart is not the storage location for the things we can feel with it—for hearts can be transplanted, and that does not influence (or only to a very small degree) our love for certain people. If a part of your TV is changed, you do not usually receive different stations afterward—but you can see an image again. The heart is a biological processor for love, not its container. In the same way, the brain is not the container for parts of consciousness such as intelligence or creativity, but rather an essential organic constituent in the process of the emergence of these dimensions. The topography of consciousness is alive in every one of our body cells and also outside of our body. We are permanently surrounded by consciousness. No one knows if we will ever decipher its emergence. But I am certain that the code is to be found in the scientific understanding of the body as a whole, not only in the brain. Body-centered therapies and spiritual movements have known for a long time that one can gain access to consciousness through the body, and they work with that. Humanity as an act of loving care and empathy is not measurable with an array of technical instruments. In this regard, life is ahead of technology by a few million years of evolutionary development. It takes a heart and a brain to understand that.
* * *
What is currently in vogue, however, is the brain alone. Those who still bet on the heart, in the face of this brain-dominated idea of humans, appear to make fools of themselves. All power comes from the brain; it is said to be the control room, our supercomputer. We do not understand how it works, but have an age-old wish to improve it. And so we research it intensively to determine how we can make ourselves more efficient with drugs, virtual realities, and brain electrodes. There is a whole industry of so-called neuro-gadgets, tools, and artificial body parts, which are designed to optimize our thoughts, feelings, and memory. Their inventors think we are far from utilizing the brain’s full potential. Car manufacturer Tesla, too, is tinkering with a digital Nuremberg Funnel of the new age. With their firm Neuralink, they want to lay a digital data highway into the brain in order to link it with artificial intelligence. I deem it impudent to want to gain, with surprising transparency, control of our thinking in order to degrade us into manipulated bio-robots. Would it not be much wiser to link our brain with true intelligence, which comes from the heart as well? Biological problems need biological solutions, and you cannot “hack” a heart. Artificial intelligence is heartless and therefore, in my view, can never be intelligent. It cannot replace heart intelligence—with which miraculously we are already equipped. We do not have to undergo an operation, do not have to swallow brain-performance pills (so called neuro enhancers) and do not have to put on digital hats for transcranial magnetic stimulation. In any case, these technologies are positively primitive compared with the most intelligent organ of the universe, our brain. Humankind did not create the computer in its image. Because it can’t, as it would be far too complicated. That is why the interface where nerves meet plates, consciousness meets software, the sound of thoughts meets transistors remains a problem which is completely unsolved. As opposed to the connections from heart to brain, which have already been laid in multiple ways by Mother Nature, and the sensors are online. Shall we receive and feel? In view of the clear physiological signals of the heart to the brain and the measurable responses of the latter, it would be a deeply rational decision and a sign of true intelligence to use this ability to feel that nature has equipped us with. It would be a strategically wise decision to use the potential fully, instead of relying on questionable brain optimizers. To listen to the heart is not a “feeling” in the sense of a nebulous, emotional vagueness. On the contrary: it brings clarity.
The no-heart syndrome
Unfortunately, I am observing an epidemic that is rampant worldwide: the no-heart syndrome, or heartlessness. A flexible heart, compassion, and humanity have been lost to those affected. They suffer from a rigid fixation on the brain and from a deficient ability to feel. Self-love and emotional regulation are lacking; manipulation and lies dominate. Our heart is a sensitive instrument with which we can distinguish true from false. Listening to the heart does not mean falling dumbly and with blind trust into every trap or being led by corny emotions. The heart is not the department of love, peace, and harmony in our chest. Decision-making led by the heart is clear, life-affirming, and never populist. To implement the heart’s messages can therefore require a lot of courage. Without his warrior heart, David would never have beaten the far superior Goliath. We can only win a fight when our heart mobilizes every single cell in our body. The heart loves adventures that the brain alone would be frightened of. But together they are an unbeatable team. The mind, on its own, thinks and thinks but does not know the truth. It has no access to the secret of life, whose code will only reveal itself when heart and brain come together—when the two pieces of a treasure map fit together. Then the gate to knowledge will open.
* * *
Many executives have realized that they cannot do without the resources of the heart in order to be successful, work sustainably, and have satisfied and motivated staff. Only when intelligence is paired with the ability to feel will knowledge become wisdom and the high-performer become the heart-performer. The latter takes responsibility for creation and is not merely motivated by greed. We should take responsibility in the heart for what we do and also for what we don’t do.
How do you feel with your heart?
Most of us feel it: without the heart we are not complete. But how exactly does it work, feeling with the heart? How do you act from the heart? It is really quite simple. It is innate and part of our true nature. Should you be curious and want to go deeper, I recommend you ask yourself two questions.
* * *
What does your heart really need? Possibly you haven’t asked yourself this question in a long time. Allow all feelings that well up. Whatever you feel, it is right, as it comes from your heart.
* * *
But be alert: thinking is not feeling! I have learned after many detours that perceiving is not the mental representation of feeling, but immediate experience.
You can explain to someone in words what it is like to be in love, to enjoy this heavenly feeling. But if they have not experienced it themselves, it remains a theoretical process, which can of course be so intense that they think: oh, now I know what being in love means. But that is a false conclusion, as the sweet amalgamating experience that hits when one is together with the beloved takes place in another dimension. It unfolds not only in the brain but in the whole body.
* * *
It is not only pleasant topics that can surface in the heart. Maybe there is something to regret, and we wish we had acted differently in certain situations. To condemn oneself in hindsight would mean to misunderstand the principles of the heart. Compassion for oneself and one’s shortcomings is more appropriate. Self-compassion is the basis of compassion for others. It is the humanitarian aid of the heart. We are all imperfect, and it is wonderful to learn to accept oneself instead of looking for permanent optimization. The perception of the heart has the ability to heal and paves the way to more clarity and self-love. And then a change in lifestyle—more exercise, less food, whatever it may be—will simply come in time, because we know we are worth it.
* * *
The second question is: What does my heart have to give today? A smile, a nice word, a gentle touch, a well-disposed wish? Whatever it may be, do it! A minute of such heart “jogging” every day is a start. And it is good for the pump too.
Heart time
Nicolaus Copernicus discovered a long time ago that the Sun, rather than the Earth, is the center of our solar system. This marked the end of the geocentric worldview and had countless repercussions for philosophy and natural sciences. The modern age was dawning. For me, the heart is the sun in the planetary system of our body. It rises in the morning of our life, when a few drops of love hormone encounter undifferentiated stem cells. It gives us heart warmth, also when we are alone,
without which we could not live. I believe the moment has come for a Copernican turn of the heart and a new time. Heart time. It marks the end of the dominant neurocentralism. A time in which people realize that consciousness is a symphony which is orchestrated in the whole body and in the universe. In it, our brain and our heart circle each other inextricably in their own cosmic orbits.
One question did not leave me alone for a long time. All organs need a break at some point. Even the brain wants to sleep every now and then. Besides, it likes to work the most when it feels like it and sees the possibility of a reward. That’s how it is for me, anyway, and numerous studies confirm that as well.6 But the heart never has a break. How is that possible? How is the heart capable of this unimaginable achievement of pumping for a lifetime? For this book, I have advanced into the depths of scientific literature, but did not find an answer to this question. Whomever I asked—and there were fantastic medical professionals among them—no one was able to give me a conclusive answer. I have long thought and meditated about it. The more I relaxed, the closer I came to the riddle’s solution: the heart always relaxes! After every single heartbeat, the heart relaxes. The time it sets aside for relaxation (when at peace) is about twice as long as the time for a contraction. If our heart has to beat faster, its breaks become shorter. But in any case it takes a break—until the next heartbeat arrives. So the heart not only contracts three billion times in seventy years, but relaxes as often. If you add it up, it relaxes far longer than it works. And from that, I believe, we could learn something. Peace is not only positive and work not only negative. One does not exist without the other—they are inseparably connected as the Yin and the Yang, life’s beginning and its end. I believe this to be one of the really big secrets. Everything that is, from the Big Bang to the blinking of your eyes which may be tired now, follows an eternal rhythm of exertion and relaxation, the principle of the heart and of life.
* * *
I want to bid you farewell with an age-old custom of heart contact, a quote from the novel I mentioned earlier: The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel. And as a doctor I want to add: this kind of greeting is more hygienic than handshaking.
“This old man’s little hands waved in ceremonious welcome; they touched his heart, his mouth, his forehead. Gabriel was equally ceremonious. No impatience would have seemed to tighten his nerves. The Agha came nearer and stretched forth his right hand toward his visitor’s heart, so that his fingertips just rested on Gabriel’s chest. This was the ‘heart-felt contact,’ the closest form of personal sympathy.”7
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom
Heart time is the present. Now.
Ahoy!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Regina König and Hellwig Schinko for their loving company during the search for my heart. Olivia for reading the manuscript and her heart for the word. Josef for his heart music, which always sustained me. Heiko Köppke for his support in difficult times. Doreen Kuempel for her ideas on the electromagnetism of the heart on steel ships. Dr. Markus Peters, who gave me an understanding of the spiritual medicine of the heart. Dr. Detlef Reineck for his views on sensory perception and the meaning of life. Bernd Engler for his observations on the heart as a kinetic work of art which oscillates between feeling, being felt, and feeling with someone. Finally Klaus Marsiske, because his images made tangible that which has no dimensions. Shirley Michaela Seul for her friendship and devotion to this book.
NOTES
Revealing the Heart
1 N. H. Bishopric, “Evolution of the heart from bacteria to man,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1047, June 2005, pp. 13–29.
2 E. Alexander, “Interview: On the mensuration of eternity,” www.randomhouse.de/Eben-Alexander-im-Interview-zu-Vermessung-der-Ewigkeit/Interview-mit-Eben-Alexander/aid66622_13041.rhd, accessed March 16, 2020; B. Merker, “Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscience and medicine,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 30, no. 1, February 2007, pp. 63–81; discussion pp. 81–134.
3 H. Luczak, “Neurologie—wie der Bauch den Kopf bestimmt” [“Neurology: How the gut rules the head”], www.geo.de/wissen/13364-rtkl-neurologie-wie-der-bauch-den-kopf-bestimmt, accessed March 15, 2020.
4 E. Craige, “Should auscultation be rehabilitated?” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 318, no. 24, June 16, 1988, pp. 1611–13.
5 M. K. Heinemann, “Heart murmurs,” The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, vol. 66, no. 5, August 2018, p. 359.
The Six-Cylinder Bio-Turbine
1 G. Buckberg et al., “Structure and function relationships of the helical ventricular myocardial band,” The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, vol. 136, no. 3, September 2008, pp. 578–89.
2 C. Song et al., “Cardiac scan: A non-contact and continuous heart-based user authentication system,” https://sctracy.github.io/chensong.github.io/pdf/mobicom17.pdf, accessed March 16, 2020.
3 C. Goddemeier, “William Harvey (1587–1657). Die Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs” [“William Harvey (1587–1657): The discovery of blood circulation”], Deutsches Ärzteblatt, vol. 104, no. 20, May 18, 2007.
4 R. McCraty et al., “The coherent heart: Heart-brain interactions, psychophysiological coherence, and the emergence of system-wide order,” Integral Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 2009.
Heart on the Table
1 L. Meng et al., “Cardiac output and cerebral blood flow: The integrated regulation of brain perfusion in adult humans,” Anesthesiology, vol. 123, no. 5, November 2015, pp. 1198–208.
Chimeras of the Heart
1 L. K. Jones et al., “Ethological observations of social behavior in the operating room,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, no. 29, July 17, 2018, pp. 7575–80.
2 M. Garcia et al., “Cardiovascular disease in women: Clinical perspectives,” Circulation Research, vol. 118, no. 8, April 15, 2016, pp. 1273–93.
The Colorful Neuroshow
1 G. Santoro et al., “The anatomic location of the soul from the heart, through the brain, to the whole body, and beyond: A journey through Western history, science, and philosophy,” Neurosurgery, vol. 65, no. 4, October 2009, pp. 633–43; discussion p. 643.
2 J. J. Loizzo, “The subtle body: An interoceptive map of central nervous system function and meditative mind-brain-body integration,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1373, no. 1, June 2016, pp. 78–95.
3 T. Fuchs, “Kopf oder Körper? Dem ich auf der Spur” [“Head or body? Tracing the ‘I’”], Draußen & Drinnen, no. 5, 2014: https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/rupertocarola/article/view/17268/11083, accessed March 16, 2020.
4 T. Fuchs, “Verkörperte Emotionen. Wie Gefühl und Leib zusammenhängen” [“Embodied emotions: How feeling and body are connected”], Psychologische Medizin, vol. 25, no. 1, 2014.
5 P. Hummel, “Hirnforschung im ‘Human Brain Project,’ Dicke Schädel, falsche Versprechen” [“Brain research in the Human Brain Project: Thick skulls, false promises”], Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 1, 2015.
6 U. Schnabel, “Hirnforschung: Die große Neuro-Show” [“Brain research: The big neuroshow”], Die Ziet, February 20, 2014.
7 Arthur Eddington, Wikiquote, en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Eddington, accessed March 16, 2020.
8 Fuchs, “Kopf oder Körper?”
9 A. K. Fetterman & M. D. Robinson, “Do you use your head or follow your heart? Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 105, no. 2, August 2013, pp. 316–34.