Choosing Kindness When It’s Hardest
Affirmation: I choose kindness, and align with the greater good.
Benevolence is the heart’s quiet strength — not naïve kindness, but a conscious choice to be a blessing, even when one has been harmed. It emerges when we transmute the wounds of betrayal into deeper integrity. It’s not about forgetting, but about refining. True benevolence flows from a soul that has tasted treachery, and chosen not to become it.
The sixth petal of the Heart Chakra reveals the alchemical movement from deceit and distrust toward nobility of spirit. It opens the field for forgiveness, protection, and love-with-boundaries. In this state, the heart is not soft from collapse, but supple from strength.
The Shadow: Vishvasa-ghāta (Treachery)
Treachery is a deep wound in the soul field — the betrayal of trust, of intimacy, of shared purpose. Whether enacted or received, it leaves a subtle trace of distortion in the heart, a residue of mistrust and guardedness. The pain of betrayal contracts the field, making love conditional, and turning warmth into suspicion. It becomes harder to believe in others, and sometimes, harder to believe in ourselves. It can take many forms:
– Hidden agendas or manipulation
– Broken promises, conscious or unconscious
– The slow corrosion of trust in relationships
– Emotional masking or weaponizing intimacy
But the gift hidden within treachery is discernment. Once we’ve truly felt the harm it causes — and faced our own capacity to harm — we begin to transform. This petal opens not through blind forgiveness, but through conscious transmutation. Benevolence arises when we reclaim the nobility of the heart.
The Evolved Heart Quality: Maitreya (Benevolence)
Benevolence is not naivety, nor about just ‘being nice’. It is awake kindness — rooted in strength, clarity, and courage. It is the willingness to be a source of goodness, even in a world where goodness isn’t guaranteed. It is the choice to be a blessing, not because others deserve it, but because we choose to become it. It is the luminous generosity of one who has integrated their pain and chosen to radiate good will. It includes:
– Boundaried compassion: Love that protects, not permits harm
– Heart nobility: Acting with grace when it isn’t earned
– Soul alignment: Speaking and acting from one’s deepest integrity
– Energetic blessing: Offering presence that uplifts without attachment
As the sixth petal opens, we begin to hold our power with grace — not as dominance, but as blessing.
“Our task is not to seek love, but to remove the barriers we have built against it.”
— Rumi
The Trajectory: From Wound to Grace
To transform treachery into benevolence, we must walk a spiral path of healing:
– Acknowledgement: Naming the betrayal, and feeling its impact
– Discernment: Learning the lessons without collapsing into distrust
– Forgiveness: Not for others’ sake, but to free our own energy
– Service: Choosing to be a source of light despite the darkness
Benevolence is not sentimental — it is earned, through heartbreak made holy.
Selfless Service – Karma Yoga
When I used to work in drug rehabilitation, one of the extremely useful steps was to encourage the clients to undertake some form of community service work – for example volunteering at an animal shelter, or community kitchen. This opportunity to work with those less fortunate and often moving through great suffering, was (in general) a source of great transformation. Beyond the sense of being in community, responsibility/accountability, and the development of the kind of self-esteem that is found through doing esteemable actions, this was a natural recalibration and activation of their inner sense of goodwill and benevolence.
In the pranic healing work, we are taught:
“When you bless others with loving-kindness, you cleanse yourself.”
Benevolence, in this view, is both the fruit and the mechanism of healing. It is the active radiation of goodwill, which dissolves the seeds of betrayal and reestablishes right energy flow between people and within the subtle bodies.
“To hate those who do wrong is like hating oneself for having a shadow.” — Zen proverb
Benevolence, then, is cultivated not through suppression of betrayal, but through the transformative fire of awareness and compassion. In Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism, this transformation is central to the bodhisattva path: to consciously respond to betrayal with love, to vow to liberate even those who cause harm.
🧘 Training the Heart: Metta and Tonglen
Two core Buddhist practices point the way:
1. Metta Bhāvanā (Loving-Kindness Meditation)
Through repeated contemplation and feeling, one generates unconditional goodwill—first to oneself, then outward in expanding circles. Treachery is met not with retaliation, but with radiant metta, softening the scars betrayal leaves behind.
“May all beings be happy. May they be free from enmity and harm. May they live joyfully in safety.”
This is not passive forgiveness—it is energetic purification through love.
2. Tonglen (Receiving and Giving)
A Vajrayāna practice, Tonglen involves breathing in the suffering of others, and breathing out compassion. To practice Tonglen toward one who has betrayed you is a radical act of spiritual power—it reverses the reactive current and restores karmic balance from within.
“When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of awakening.” — Lojong slogan, Tibetan Buddhism
In this view, benevolence is not naiveté—it is a fearless and skillful stance of the awakened heart. It is the refusal to let pain become poison, and the transmutation of treachery into a deeper capacity to love, to forgive, and to liberate all sentient beings.
“The Sage is benevolent, not because he tries to be, but because his heart is clear.” — Doctrine of the Mean
In this tradition, true benevolence is not a moral stance, but a vibrational state. It is the Heart acting as the celestial pivot—radiating luminous coherence from Heaven through Human into Earth.
🌿 Treachery to Benevolence in the Light of Anthroposophy
In Anthroposophy, treachery is not merely a social offense but a metaphysical rupture—a betrayal of the soul’s covenant with truth. Rudolf Steiner teaches that each act of deceit or moral compromise wounds the etheric body, which governs vitality, memory, and the harmony of moral impulses. When we betray another, we also betray our own higher nature—fracturing the delicate inner rhythms that sustain spiritual coherence.
“We injure the etheric body each time we betray our own ideals.” — Rudolf Steiner, The Healing Process
Yet it is precisely through this fracture that the seed of transformation can take root. The alchemical journey from treachery to benevolence demands a confrontation with one’s shadow and a conscious act of redemption. Steiner describes this as moral alchemy—the inner transmutation of base impulses into soul gold through self-awareness and spiritual striving.
“Every evil overcome becomes a power for the good. This is the secret of initiation.” — Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
At the heart of this transformation lies the Christ impulse in the etheric world. According to Steiner, every deed of selfless love—every act of true benevolence—strengthens the etheric presence of Christ within the Earth sphere. To act from benevolence is to align the etheric body with the cosmic architecture of love, inscribing a new pattern into the subtle fabric of humanity’s future.
“Each deed of love inscribed into the world strengthens the presence of Christ in the etheric realm.” — Rudolf Steiner, The Etheric Christ
Through this lens, benevolence is not sentiment—it is sacrament. It is the conscious reweaving of what treachery tore apart. In developing moral imagination, we cultivate the inner clarity and creative compassion needed to respond not with retribution, but with healing. Benevolence becomes the antidote to betrayal—not by denying pain, but by choosing to meet it with an open, steady heart.
🌀 Treachery to Benevolence in the Vesica Teachings
In the Vesica Institute framework, treachery reflects a misalignment of the personal will with the higher soul blueprint. It arises when a person acts from ego-driven self-interest—subverting truth, loyalty, or trust in service of lower agendas. This creates dissonance in the human energy field, particularly in the heart center, and blocks the proper flow of Life Force through the Twelve-Petaled Lotus.
From Dr. Robert Gilbert’s perspective, the heart is designed to act as a spiritual filter—a center for precise discernment between what strengthens or distorts Divine Will in our lives. When betrayal occurs, it is often because this discernment has been overridden by unresolved shadow material or external manipulation. Treachery is thus not merely a moral failing, but a breakdown in energetic coherence and spiritual sovereignty.
The antidote, benevolence, is not just kindness—it is a refined force of conscious good will, infused with spiritual intelligence and anchored in a higher vibrational state. Benevolence, in the Vesica system, represents an activation of the heart center as a transmitter of Divine Will, broadcasting healing frequencies that harmonize interpersonal and planetary fields.
“When the heart becomes a channel for the Higher Self, the impulse to serve naturally arises. Benevolence is the outer signature of an inner alignment.”— Dr. Robert Gilbert (paraphrased)
In the Vesica Initiation Model, the cultivation of benevolence involves:
Clearing betrayals from the energetic record, often through specific vibrational tools or geometry-based protocols
Activating the heart petals through meditation, Light Code transmission, and sacred sound
Strengthening the connection between the heart and higher guidance, allowing the will to become an instrument of universal harmony
Where treachery fractures the field, benevolence restores it. It is a conscious alignment with the healing laws of the universe—an expression of the soul’s commitment to serve as a vessel of living light.
The Pericardium: Guardian of the Heart, Alchemist of Betrayal
In Chinese Medicine, the Pericardium—often called the Heart Protector—acts as the energetic and emotional buffer around the Heart Shen. While the Heart governs the sovereign essence of the Spirit, the Pericardium regulates what enters and leaves that sacred space. In this way, it is the organ most directly involved in experiences of betrayal, emotional wounding, and the restoration of trust.
Treachery—especially when unexpected or intimate—pierces the Pericardium, breaching its boundary function and allowing toxic emotional imprints to injure the Shen. Over time, this leads to defensive closures: inability to trust, coldness, anxiety, or spiritual disconnection. In TCM terms, this may manifest as:
Pericardium Qi stagnation (emotional repression, bitterness)
Pericardium Heat (jealousy, suspicion, agitation)
Heart–Kidney miscommunication (disconnection from one’s deeper will and trust)
Yet the Pericardium also holds the key to alchemical repair. By reopening the Heart safely, it enables the emergence of Ren (benevolence) as a lived state. It teaches discernment without hardness—how to remain open without being unguarded.
“The Pericardium does not just defend the Heart—it teaches the Heart how to remain undefended in love.”
Healing the Pericardium involves:
Gentle movement (e.g., Heart–Pericardium Qigong) to release stagnant Qi
Acupoints like PC6 (Neiguan) and PC7 (Daling) to restore flow and regulate boundaries
Calming Shen herbs (e.g., Ziziphus, Albizia, Biota) for emotional trauma
Practices of forgiveness, heart breathing, and relational ritual, to reweave broken energetic bonds
Benevolence arises when the Pericardium is healed—not as sentimental openness, but as a radiant field of wise compassion. It is the Heart’s bodyguard transformed into the ambassador of unconditional love, allowing the individual to give and receive without fear
🩸 The Chong Mai and the Healing of Betrayal
Of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels, the Chong Mai—often called the Sea of Blood, Sea of the Twelve Channels, and Sea of Ancestral Qi—is the deepest and most primal. It governs ancestral memory, karmic patterning, and the formation of identity. When betrayal occurs—especially if it is traumatic or deeply personal—it etches itself into the Chong, imprinting upon the blood and marrow an echo of severance and violation.
💔 Betrayal in the Chong: Ancestral Echoes and Soul Fractures
Treachery disrupts the core integrity of the self. In classical and esoteric Chinese thought, such betrayals—whether by others, the world, or the self—reverberate through the Chong Mai as shocks to the ancestral field. These can present as:
Repeating relationship betrayals (romantic, familial, spiritual)
Deep-rooted distrust or difficulty surrendering to love
Unresolved grief stored in the Blood (Xue) and Essence (Jing)
Dysregulation of the Heart–Kidney axis, leading to alienation from one’s destiny path (Ming)
In women especially, betrayal trauma often settles in the uterus and pelvic basin—regions governed by the Chong Mai—and can result in energetic closure or dissociation from the heart.
“The Chong is the ocean in which the karma of the bloodline ripens.” — Daoist alchemical proverb
🌺 Chong Mai as the Vessel of Redemption
But what is wounded through the Chong can also be healed through it. This vessel carries the deepest imprints of our humanity, and with conscious cultivation, it can become a channel of transmutation—where betrayal is composted into embodied benevolence.
Benevolence, in this context, is not abstract compassion. It is a lived, cellular coherence—the ability to remain open-hearted and true, even in the wake of pain. This healing allows us to:
Reconnect to ancestral strength rather than ancestral trauma
Reweave the Heart-Kidney axis so that Spirit (Shen) is rooted in Will (Zhi)
Restore the Sea of Blood to a harmonic field that nourishes trust, intimacy, and spiritual sovereignty
Chong Mai as the Alchemical Crucible
In Daoist inner alchemy, the Chong Mai becomes the alchemical crucible of spiritual refinement. It holds the raw, often painful material of human incarnation—but it is also the vessel through which spirit is forged in the fire of experience. When betrayal is consciously metabolized, benevolence arises not as virtue, but as radiance—a fragrant offering from the depths of the human soul.
In Esoteric Acupuncture, betrayal is seen as a damage to the fabric of the Heart Protector (Pericardium) — the energetic sheath that guards the heart field. When treachery lodges in the system, it disrupts the rhythmic flow between giving and receiving, making the field either over-defensive or over-exposed; the Heart’s natural openness collapses into defensiveness, or worse — numbness. The spirit becomes shielded not by strength, but by avoidance. Benevolence rebalances this sheath. It restores the noble pulse of the inner sanctum — allowing us to act from love without losing ourselves in sacrifice or vengeance.
This petal also relates to the sacred geometry of the hexagram — two interlocking triangles symbolising the meeting of heaven and earth in harmony. Treachery breaks this alignment. Benevolence restores it. It offers the wisdom of aligning our human will with divine will, such that our actions ripple outward as blessing.
In Esoteric Acupuncture, this petal aligns with restoring the balance of the Heart’s electromagnetic field after damage. Advanced encoding patterns might include Heart Protector meridian gateways, with the capacity to reweave integrity, establish psychic boundaries, and enable true compassion.
Extended Crystalline Heart Grid
The Extended Crystalline Heart Grid New Encoding Pattern includes the activation of a hexagonal geometric layering.
This geometry is able to be charged and spun outwards, which at one level acts as a powerful energetic shielding. The hexagonal shape can also act as an interface between the individual self identity, and collective mind. with the planetary field of the collective mind (noosphere) – which can be represented by a honeycomb-like structure (‘hive mind’), a living morphogenic field that contains the sum of human thought, innovation, meaning, linguistics, and culture – and which both receives and transmits collective insight. The planetary crystalline grid of the Gaia also holds resonance with the greater information field, and psycho-emotional content can emerge in, or even be imprinted by, those who visit or tune in to those grid points and locations. In the same way that the energetic fabric of the Pericardium organ in an individual can become discordant, so too can the planetary field.
Activation of the Extended Crystalline Heart Grid, offers a method of Lightbody Activation at the level of planetary service, where we can actively contribute to and participate in bringing harmony to the collective field. Lightworkers might feel themselves pulled towards visiting specific sacred sites and planetary portals, to absorb (or participate in the activation of) the energy there. Some might be aware of sites where traumatic imprints are locked in the field (eg battlegrounds or massacre sites), ready to be released or transmuted.
The hexagonal layer activation within the Extended Crystalline Heart Grid encourages the development of skill and service in this – the aperture of this geometry can open and close, merge and dissolve into the collective, or aid in the resolve firmly back to self.
In my experience, it progresses from a stable crystalline structured hexagon, through to a spinning disc-like shield, to more of a convex lens structure of light – with corresponding step-wise increases in the capacity to interface with the collective field. One may enter this field in service in a number of ways – for example as a radiant offering of goodwill and loving benevolent vibration – or, as a curious seeker of wisdom, casting a net into the non-local field, in order to gather guidance or inspiration – or as a bringer of harmonic coherence, not only transmuting field distortions encountered in the collective, but simultaneously surfacing and clearing them within the personal sphere of influence.
🌸 Simple Practices for Cultivating Benevolence
🪞 1. The Mirror of Betrayal
Reflect on a moment where you felt betrayed — by another, or even by life.
Feel it in your body. Where does the residue still live?
Now, with courage, recall a time you may have betrayed — through silence, avoidance, self-abandonment, or dishonesty.
Not to shame — but to see.
Let both memories be mirrors.
Through this seeing, the heart learns empathy without self-judgment.
🛡️ 2. The Golden Cloak
In quiet meditation, visualize a golden light — warm, soft, intelligent — wrapping gently around your chest and shoulders.
This is your Pericardial Shield: a filter of discernment, not a wall of defense.
Let it breathe. Let it glow.
Repeat inwardly: I protect what is sacred. I live from the benevolence of the heart.
Let this cloak be your boundary — not of fear, but of love.
🌬️ 3. Anonymous Blessing
Think of someone who challenges your trust — past or present.
Without speaking, without needing to be seen, offer them a silent blessing:
May you know peace. May you be free from harm. May your heart soften.
Let the benevolence arise not for their sake alone, but for the healing of your own field.
What we give in secret strengthens the soul.
🧭 4. Integrity Inventory
Where do your actions and words quietly misalign?
Where do you say yes when you mean no? Where do you turn away from what you know to be true?
Without shame, take inventory.
Then choose one thread to repair — a conversation, a boundary, an apology, an honest moment.
Benevolence begins with inner coherence.
🌱 5. The Unseen Gesture
Do something kind today with no trace of credit — a gesture so subtle it leaves no imprint of ego.
Pick up litter. Leave a note. Pay for a stranger’s coffee.
Don’t tell a soul.
Let the action ripple silently.
This is the art of sacred generosity — kindness without an audience.
🪞Reflection Questions for Journaling
🪞 Where has betrayal left its imprint on my story — shaping who I became, how I protect, how I love?
• 🛡️ In what ways do I guard my heart — and is that shield made of wisdom or wounding?
• 👑 What does it truly mean to carry a noble spirit? What does nobility of soul feel like in action, not appearance?
• 🌟 If I were to live as a quiet source of benevolence… what would that look like, in my words, my presence, my choices?
Closing Thought
Benevolence does not require that we forget pain. It asks that we bless through it. To walk through betrayal and emerge radiant is a sacred act of defiance against the hardening of the soul.
This sixth petal invites you to reclaim your capacity for grace — not as a performance, but as a vow.
Let your wounds make you wise. Let your heart become a sanctuary, not a fortress.
I warmly invite you to follow along with this series,
and to share with fellow seekers on the path of the heart.