About the chakras
QUESTION: How is the higher heart chakra, which is said to be in the thymus region, different from and related to the heart chakra? ~Lee, Singapore
ANSWER: Chakras are the energy centers regulating the flow of energy within the physical body. There are seven major centers which have been studied at length for their effect on the body. The heart center of these bodily vortexes is the central point in the energy cycle. The physically dominant centers are below the heart and the spiritually dominant are above the heart. The heart has aspects of both; it is the organ that keeps the body functioning and is the repository of the feelings of the soul.
When you leave the physical body and venture into the non-physical realms of the person, you enter into an entirely different and additional set of chakras. The higher heart chakra, of which you inquire, is part of this etheric rather than physical system. If you overlaid the etheric pattern over the human body, the higher heart center would be in the thymus region.
The higher heart center, like the heart center, is all about regulating the experience that is felt by the body, even though it is positioned outside the physical body. The experiences it regulates have more to do with the mental and emotional aspects of living and learning than the physical ones.
In addition to the patterns of chakras that you have mentioned, there are layers that radiate out from the body, creating a series of shell-like coverings. Each layer is subtly related to the spiritual path that the soul has entered. The circles closer to the body relate to the most physical and those further out to the most spiritual.
All physical chakras relate to life-lessons the soul has undertaken. The spiritual chakras relate to the connections the soul has between its current physical life and all its previously learned experience, as well as the awareness of its essence that it has been able to bring into the physical life. The more spiritually aware people become, the more they are connected to the universal oneness.