The Fouth Chakra and the Sun
The Magic Center

by Nancy Privett, MA, EFTCert-I, BBSH

This article is part of the “The Planets in Your Chakras” Series

The Fourth Chakra Bridge

Were you aware that there is more to you than the familiar, physical body-mind by which you identify yourself? Were you aware that you have a transcendent, non-physical aspect that is just as real as the physical body that you can see and touch? Were you aware that coming into a physical incarnation does not mean that you leave behind the more otherworldly, transcendent part of your consciousness? Any study of the ancient wisdom teachings reveals this framework for understanding who you really are: you are both a physical incarnate being maneuvering through the physical earth plane, and at the same time, you are also a non-physical being still very aware of your powerful connection with Source.

This idea is manifested in the human energy field. The first three chakras (first chakra Saturn, second chakra Mars, and third chakra Jupiter) deal with how to negotiate the physical plane using the human body-mind as a vehicle. The upper three chakras (the fifth, sixth and seventh) deal with transcending the limitations of the physical plane. The fourth chakra, located in the heart area, is the Bridge between the two worlds – the World of Matter of the first three chakras and the World of Spirit of the fifth, sixth and seventh chakras.

This makes the fourth chakra crucially important because without a bridge, the two worlds appear to be separate and therefore, you could get “stuck” in one without the other. Much of mass humanity is stuck in the lower three chakras. When this occurs, the basic belief is that” life happens to you,” and although you can learn to deal with it, no transformation or evolution of consciousness occurs. People who are stuck in the upper chakras without access to the lower three are many times diagnosed with schizophrenia or another mental disorder – they have little or no ability to successfully live a daily earth life.

The Job of the Fourth Chakra

The fourth chakra is the conduit that allows you to be both very facile in your earth life, and still connected with all the powerful “perks” of the non-physical plane. (More about those perks when we explore the fifth, sixth and seventh chakras.) In fact, in Chinese medicine, there is a point in the middle of the sternum called The Central Altar, from which both your earth life and your spirit life can not only be revered, but connected. In this way, the heart chakra is a center of balance, a place where the two “worlds” can be reconciled.

Physically, the heart chakra rules the circulatory system. It influences the physical body from the diaphragm to the base of the collarbone, and contains the arms, hands, shoulders, breasts, lungs, ribs, upper thoracic spine, shoulder blades, sternum, double-lobed thymus gland, and double-chambered heart. Because there are so many paired organs and body parts in this region, it points to the fact that the heart chakra deals with the subject of relationships. The fourth chakra also holds the energy for your sense of adventure, your sense of freedom, your ability to be empathetic, compassionate and kind, and your ability to love, both others and yourself. The energies of enthusiasm and passion are also held in this center.

The Interior Gifts of the Fourth Chakra

When a chakra is said to be “open,” it means that the positive energies, or gifts, of that chakra are able to radiate out and manifest in the personality. The fourth chakra gifts include harmony, peace, balance, appreciation, beauty, joy, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, the ability to love, and invincible strength. These are all powerful energies which have a transformational power that can turn a storm into a sunny day. Opening the heart to any situation illuminates and raises the vibration of the situation in such a way that it may seem like we have just spun straw into gold.
Think of a challenging situation you have experienced or are experiencing, and imagine what it would be like to bathe the situation in the gifts of the heart center. Imagine peace and harmony and love raining down on your challenge. Imagine yourself viscerally experiencing compassion and balance and invincible strength with regard to your challenge. Everything would feel different, wouldn’t it? The actions that you might take and decisions you might make with regard to your challenge would come from a more conscious, aware place. This is the power that an open fourth chakra gives you. It revamps your first reactions and first feelings about a situation and lifts them to a higher level, bestowing consciousness in its wake. It allows you to deal with the world of matter in conjunction with the higher perspective of the world of spirit.

The Sun and the Fourth Chakra

In the same way, when the sun breaks through the clouds on a rainy day, we feel uplifted, we feel hope, perhaps an appreciation of the beauty of the physical world. The physical sun provides us with light from the darkness, with warmth from the cold. It has a magical power that allows plants to grow and that moves us to feel a love for the life around us.

The astrological sun and the heart center have much in common. They both regenerate, they both ripen, they both encourage growth. The heart center and the sun are both life-giving energies that illuminate from a divine perspective and radiate light so that you can really see. In astrology, the sun awakens an awareness of the soul, just as the heart center opens the door for your earth-bound consciousness to remember the non-physical aspect of your being, which is always connected to a powerful Source.

In mythology, and also symbolically, the sun is a central god, just as the fourth chakra is the central chakra. Sun gods were worshipped as having the power of light over darkness, that is, consciousness over unconsciousness. They were creators, evil-vanquishers, illuminators, guardians of order, and sources of wisdom. The sun itself was seen as the heart of the universe. In your energy system, the heart center contains these qualities of the sun.

The Sanskrit name for the heart center is “unstuck.” The open heart center allows you to get “unstuck” from a limited perception. The energies of the astrological sun illuminate your situation, bring your feelings into harmony, give you the invincible strength to overcome the darkness, and bathe you with warm, life-giving rays that radiate peace and joy, and bring the magic of the non-physical realm into your life.

The best exercise for opening the heart and keeping it open, for allowing your interior sun to shine right through your physical chest and out into your life, is to practice loving. Close your eyes and imagine loving – a person, an animal, some part of nature. Send love out to the object of your attention. When you do this, you bathe yourself in the energy of the love you send, as well as strengthen the” muscle” that keeps your heart chakra open and healthy.

Fourth Chakra Initiation

An initiation is an opening to begin something new, and in the case of the fourth chakra, the initiation involves creating relationships in a new way. We saw that the physical body in the area of the fourth chakra contains a lot of pairs, which points to the fact that this chakra deals with relationships, specifically those relationships in which you are wedded to something – which can be a person, a situation, a job, a memory, or an idea. The fourth chakra initiation involves being strongly wedded to yourself before entering into a relationship with anyone or anything else.

One way to voluntarily embark upon this initiation is to take the marriage vows to yourself. There are three standard marriage vows: “I vow to love the other, I vow to honor the other, I vow never to abandon the other.” Taking these vows to yourself changes these statements to: “I vow to love myself, I vow to honor myself, I vow never to abandon myself.” These are powerful statements. What if you checked in with yourself in any relationship situation, to see if you were keeping these vows to yourself? What if, before making any decision or taking any action, you made sure that the decision or action was honoring you? What if you made sure that what you were doing was a loving thing to do for yourself? Or checked in to make sure that you were not abandoning yourself with your words or actions?