THE WORLD HEART
A global event, Mai 5, 2007
(English version of a lecture given in German during the conference of the Transpersonal Association of Psychotherapists “Herz zu Herz”
by Georg Schmertzing

First of all, I would like to thank my work-group. Twenty-four people have shown how they have taken very different routes to what is essential about the heart – a uniquely individual spectrum which astonishes me again and again. So, once again thank you so much! By altogether resounding to the heart-A, we also had the wonderful experience of resonating in mutual affection. This is why I would like to propose that we try this right here among us all and to briefly let the A resonate from the heart. (All hum together)

Imagine this impressive picture: a flock of starlings flies over the autumn sky and executes the most breathtaking manoeuvres and, in doing so, continuously changes the collective skyscape into an absolute unity. Or, you can see the same with shoals of fish in the sea when attacked by large predators. They merge into a same-size collective organism. How do these living beings manage to create such a unity in movement? How does the common will impose itself on all these flight-and-swim performance art? What signals do the living individual parts of these swarms use to arrive at a common understanding? The signals must travel quicker than light or, rather, have to be given simultaneously; otherwise, it would be impossible to coordinate such spontaneous manoeuvres of so many participants. Suddenly, the old ideas of emitting signals from one place to another no longer apply. Obviously, varied conditions govern different living energy fields.

Scientists stand in awe before the mystery of synchronisation of large units of living subsystems. In the new field of research called bionic science, they speak about the “intelligence of the swarm”[i] and they are beginning to study this phenomenon in more depth, to possibly express it in mathematical formulas and thus make them applicable for us humans. So far, they have not been able to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, they have already made great advances in being able to wonder and thus, ask: “what can this collective form of intelligence do and what can we learn from it? Why is the collective as a whole more intelligent than the individual or even than the sum of its members? Why do such units come into existence, very often in spontaneous ways, without hierarchy – simply so?”

The Weltenherz (a kind of ‘World Heart’) 

Let me come to the point in order for us to have a common understanding as to why this theme holds such a fascination for us: the secret of these swarms in working together as a unit is the result of resonating from essence to essence, that is, from heart to heart. Ever since life began, this resonance-linkage has been accountable for bio-natural parts coming together by cooperating and developing from viruses into human beings. Such swarms are – in true biblical sense, “one heart and one soul”. They become a collective unit as the members of the swarm or group discover meaning – and also find joy – in jointly forming a body resonating simultaneously and harmoniously. Resonance takes place absolutely in the present, outside of time and space.

In this connection, I have come across a prophetic saying about our time in an ancient text that fascinated me: “When the millennium, that which comes after this millennium, comes to an end [that is: today], all of humanity will form one single body, of which every individual will be but a miniscule fraction or a tiny part. Altogether they will become the heart. And there will be a language that will be spoken by everyone, and thus the great human will be finally born.” John of Jerusalem wrote this around the year 1100 A.D.[ii] It would seem to me that the time has come. We are comprehending, at the very least, what chance for common growth we are discovering just about now: we can awaken the sleeping Weltenherz or ‘World Heart’ by meaningfully uniting our hearts and entering into a positive resonance with each other. As humanity, we can form a super-intelligent collective, swarm-like, and attempt to change the Darwinian dissonance where each one is in competition against everyone. We can go for what has always been the more sensible unity through resonance: from the rivalry of egocentric lonely fighters to the cooperation of the mature Ganz-Menschen or ‘Complete Person’. We can develop from the adolescent to the grown-up and mature person, from the image of a fragmentary into an integrated human. Jean Gebser, cultural philosopher, impressively described this development from the magical via the mystical to the current mental and the integral human in a process of becoming. I feel this resonance-event coming upon us – not least because of the accelerating global challenges. This change can happen all of a sudden, because the moment of harmony – for example in a choir or orchestra – also appears out of the blue and then everything changes: the orchestra and the audience are at once in harmony, a harmony that dissolves all dissonances. Communion takes place, that is, the process of becoming as one, by hearts resonating in unison. And we seem to need this to develop further as humankind. Our task is to learn to create a positive resonance from heart to heart.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Now let us ask ourselves, have there been or are there visionaries and scientists, who have foreseen or researched the importance of this synchronisation? Yes, and I have discovered them with great delight. They demonstrate to us the great importance for the entire humanity of this heart-to-heart resonance phenomenon. There is, first, the Jesuit palaeontologist-researcher of humanity and visionary Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who gave a precise name to this process where we humans develop into a global unit: “planetisation”. He was fully enthusiastic, when talking about this communion of humanity. He called it “a sort of collective personalisation by which a certain consciousness of total-humanity becomes completed in the individual.”[iii] We then see that only a humanity, which is collected consciously in its parts, is capable of realizing the transformation that is required into the planetary and cosmic. And into which other direction could our evolution as genus develop?

According to Teilhard, the process of this planetisation is not technical, this would de-humanise us, but psychological, which humanises us in greater ways. This is why he calls the planetisation of humanity a “psycho-genesis”. The scientist Teilhard states clearly: “When the individual has procreated sufficiently enough, it strives to unite with like beings and to form with them a more or less differentiated organic whole”. And more clearly: “We cannot continue to live on without going through this transformation that will forge a whole out of our being multifarious, in one way or another. ” And he calls on us, after having demonstrated the importance of this development from the smallest corpuscle to the human being, as he expresses it: “ The unification, the true unification, that of the spirit with the heart, does not enslave and does not neutralise the connected parts; it super-personalises them. For this we do not require a head-to-head but a heart-to-heart unification.”[iv] Teilhard has identified what we call the heart as the organ of resonance and planetisation – the oscillating energy field in the centre of our being. The heart has the spontaneous power to unite without enslaving. That is the vision of Teilhard de Chardin, which he circumscribed again and again in all his works.

The research on synchronicity

The new scientific branch of research on synchronicity gives a further hint in the direction of the heart-to-heart planetisation of humanity. A great astonishment accompanied this field of research because somewhere in Africa, a mass-phenomenon had really disturbed the scientists. Spread over many square miles were millions of glow-worms that have developed the fascinating capacity to switch their lights on and off at exactly the same moment. At exactly the same time! “How do they do it?” was the question of the scientists. As we already know: not even signals travelling faster then light would be sufficient to ensure coordination and simultaneity over such a large area and with so many participants in this festival of lights. The most outrageous explanations were put forward. Then, they put individual glow-worms into little boxes and found out that they were emitting light at different intervals.  After they had been put back into one large dark room, the blinkers first paired in twos, and then in ever-larger units until all of them finally again performed their lightshow in unison. Also here, resonance and rhythm build the linkage effect. Steven Strogatz, a leading researcher on the subject of chaos worldwide, has studied these phenomena of synchronicity and has come to a very personal conclusion. For certain reasons that he himself would like to know, this joint synchronisation in unison speaks strongly to our inner depths as human beings. We recognise that here, nature reveals her innermost secret, and that this synchronisation by resonance is actually the basic structure of unification in creation.[v] The universe is being held together by positive resonance! Perhaps we can also express this differently: love, the strongest resonating force we know of and that is so deeply connected with the heart, holds the universe together.

The Heart

And here again, the heart, as our organ of life, comes into play. To achieve unison in the community we need an oscillator, a creator of vibrations that produces the resonance rhythm. Rogatz says, that the natural pacemaker of the heart is one of the wonders of evolution, the most impressive oscillator that has ever been developed. This concerns the 10,000 cells of the sinus node in the heart, which individually, altogether produce the electric rhythm of the heart in perfect synchronicity. They do that at an average of about 3 billion times in the life of a human being. Ten thousand cells collectively beat the rhythm in creative harmony! If they get out of sync - when they are no longer resonating – heart attack happens. Then our system breaks down. Dissonance is deadly. Life lives through functioning resonance. How the heart is life-determining and its capacity to enter into linkage resonance with others, is demonstrated by these new insights of research into synchronicity, these new impressive interpretations of hitherto unknown mass phenomena in living nature.    

Heart-to-heart Communion

When considering the three steps of perception – information, communication,  and communion – we realise with great astonishment, that communion as the means of becoming one, gains increasingly in importance in our new worldview. There is no more separation between subject and object, or between observer and observed. Everything is connected to everything, all is one, even including the antagonistic, without giving up the contradiction. The merging of oscillations, the synchronisation, the living communion of heart-to-heart is essential for the survival of this wonderful blue planet and for us as its children. Therefore, it is clear, that we need a new culture of the heart in which we are able to unfold our multifaceted unity and in which we will no longer take fundamental separation for real. We are living ever more conscious in communion with everything.

The steps of heart-resonance

The human being, alone, is not a monolithic system but in itself, is a collective concept of many urges and opinions. Or, as Nobel prize winner Gerd Bennig puts it, “ I think, this is the way we have to imagine the single human being, the individual: an incredible diversity that speaks with one voice.”[vi]  The planetisation, the resonance of the parts that constitute us, is a phenomenon that has already begun to take effect in us.

If, for instance, two people enter completely into the positive resonance of a love relationship, then something arises that we so urgently require in global as well as in micro contexts: the collective heart! When every loving couple and each resonating group wants to be one-heart, then the global bio-system of humanity will develop into the Weltenherz – the ‘World Heart’. Thus the unified-manifold whole evolves first, in every human being which then enlarges with the one closest to it and on to the whole world. This whole is being coordinated, enlarged and held together through the heart by oscillating resonance. Globalisation is thus a biological need.

My 7 billion cells have received – from wherever – the mandate to constitute Georg Schmertzing, as long as my system as a whole keeps its life force and its significance.  Even if cells continuously die within me, my body continues to exist as a resonating body. The same holds true for humanity. The almost 7 billion humans are compelled to enter into meaningful resonance among themselves geared towards achieving harmony as a whole and thus, attaining and unfolding cosmic maturity. Population explosion is therefore a biological step consciously taken by evolution. This is why I so much like this quote from the book of Rotraut Pernes “Kultur des Teilens” or, ‘Culture of Sharing’. “The hero of our generation is not the individual, but the pair; two people who together bring more weight to the scales than each one taken on its own.”[vii] The heroic solo fighter has had his day; the planetisation starts to give birth to the big whole in the small. The motto is: “Togetherness rather than loneliness”.

We will form a resonance akin to an orchestra as a totality of the body and thus will play the new human symphony, or we will, in dissonance, create noise that will make our hearts break. Remarkably, heart disease is the most common cause of death in every civilised country. The dissonances of our culture of solo combatants make us more and more sick. What we need is a global team spirit!

The personal opening of the heart

Each one of us would rather be a player in a resonant world champion team rather then in a feuding relegated team. Each one of us increases his or her individuality when he or she consciously lives within the harmonious body of humanity, just as a word in a meaningful sentence has more weight than in empty chatter. We need the as-well-as attitude of the generous, open heart: the unmistakable individual who is a conscious part of the whole, as well; dedication to the small, the helpless, as well as for the global, the universal; for the local, as well as for the planetary. These, unified in one’s heart to form a new quality of life. Thus the separating either-or of the intellect is no longer useful; or as Jean Gebser noted in his Spanish diaries: “It is not so much the points of view that count as the relations.”[viii]

Unfortunately one of the passionate advocates for resonance is unable to be with us today: Peter Schellenbaum! He put it this way, “Only he who experiences himself as resonance body in the great oscillating space of a relational field can speak of freedom without lying. Conscious resonance is a natural gift of the human being.”[ix] Let us use it consciously in our daily life and first of all enlarge our “relational field” as far as we possibly can!

Briefly, I should like to refer to a personal experience. I have since a while internalised it like this: when I quench my thirst from a well, then all of mankind drinks with me. And when I confess my generosity in dealing with a fellow human being, then I feel, by this experience of resonance, connected with all human beings on planet earth. And we are enabled to consciously perceive within us the “morphic resonance” of Rupert Sheldrake[x]. The Weltherz, the ‘World Heart’ begins to oscillate in all of us. We develop resonance-consciousness.

Again and again people who are aware describe how common rhythm dissolves any separation and how a fluid unification process sets in. Hence, the end of self-determined action and the beginning of the collective event are no longer distinguishable. Our person is extended to everything. It becomes a new and vibrant whole. This has nothing to do with loss of individuality but rather the shedding of an old layer and the discovery of a new one. In our case this is a global level of overall clarity and all-in-one resonance.

Let us remember how happily we listen to an orchestra playing or a choir singing, or watch a team act in harmony or a flock of birds doing its magic formation in the sky. This is the call to us all to enter into loving, devoted resonance with fellow human beings and beyond with all other living beings and our mother earth. This, not only because positive resonance feels so good to our heart, but because this state decisively contributes to ensure our continued development as humankind. The global resonance from heart to heart is our chance for survival!

Thank you very much for your attention.

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