“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.”
This profound truth, spoken by the fox in Saint-Exupéry’s tale ‘Le Petit Prince’, has long been recognised by the world’s great wisdom traditions and mystical philosophies of the East. Here the spiritual teachers of old taught a way of spiritual and psychological transformation consisting in the purifying and cleansing of the heart. Among these teachings is the Eastern Christian tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm, which grew out of the fourth century desert monasticism. This talk will explore the place of the heart in the Hesychasts’ spiritual journey. It will also interpret it through the lens of Jungian Psychology where the heart is regarded as an archetypal symbol of transformation.
