A practitioner places a hand over the sternum, just below the collarbone, and feels a pulse that is not the heartbeat. Is that the heart chakra or something else? The distinction is subtle but critical. The heart chakra (Anahata) governs personal love, compassion, and emotional bonds, while the high heart chakra (sometimes called the thymus chakra) sits above it and mediates unconditional love, spiritual devotion, and higher purpose. The two centers work in tandem, but they are not interchangeable.
Definition: What Each Chakra Actually Governs
The heart chakra, Anahata, is the fourth of the seven primary chakras in the classical Hindu tantric system. Its name means “unstruck” in Sanskrit, referring to the sound of two things meeting without friction. It sits at the center of the chest, level with the physical heart, and is associated with the element air. Its function is to integrate the lower three chakras (survival, sexuality, power) with the upper three (communication, intuition, transcendence). It is the seat of empathy, relationships, and self-acceptance.
The high heart chakra is not part of the classical seven. It is located between the heart and throat chakras, roughly over the thymus gland (the upper sternum). In modern energy medicine, it is described as a secondary or minor chakra that governs unconditional love, divine compassion, and the ability to hold space for others without attachment. It is also called the thymus chakra, the higher heart, or the seat of the soul’s purpose.
Where the High Heart Chakra Came From
The seven-chakra system appears in texts such as the Yoga Upanishads (c. 600–800 CE) and the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577 CE) by Purnananda Swami. These sources describe the heart chakra as a twelve-petaled lotus at the center of the chest. No mention of a second heart center exists in these texts.
The high heart chakra entered Western esoteric discourse in the late 20th century. It appears in the work of Barbara Brennan, a former NASA physicist turned energy healer, in her 1987 book Hands of Light. Brennan described a “higher heart chakra” located above the heart, associated with the thymus gland and with unconditional love. Around the same time, Rosalyn Bruyere (author of Wheels of Light, 1989) and Cyndi Dale (author of The Subtle Body, 2009) mapped a chakra system that included the high heart as a distinct center. The concept also draws on the Theosophical idea of the “heart center” as a spiritual organ, though Theosophy (via Alice Bailey) did not separate it into two chakras.
The high heart chakra has no direct analogue in traditional Hindu or Buddhist tantra. It is a modern synthesis, grounded in the observation that many people feel a distinct energy center above the physical heart during meditation and healing work.
Symbolism and Meaning: Two Kinds of Love
The heart chakra’s color is green, sometimes with a pink or gold center. Its element is air, which signifies movement, connection, and the breath that links all living beings. Its symbol is a six-pointed star (two overlapping triangles) inside a lotus of twelve petals. The triangles represent the union of the lower and upper worlds, the masculine and feminine, the personal and the universal. The heart chakra’s love is relational: it is the love you feel for a partner, a child, a friend. It is conditional in the sense that it arises from attachment and mutual recognition.
The high heart chakra’s color is pink or gold, sometimes a soft rose. Its element is not air but a finer vibration often called “etheric” or “spiritual.” Its symbol is less standardized, but many traditions depict it as a smaller lotus above the heart, often with eight or ten petals. The high heart’s love is unconditional: it is the love that does not require reciprocity. It is the compassion a healer holds for a stranger, the devotion a mystic feels for the divine. It allows you to love without clinging, to witness suffering without being consumed by it.
The two centers are not opposed. They are layers of the same capacity. The heart chakra learns to love personally; the high heart chakra learns to love impersonally. One without the other leaves a practitioner either enmeshed in emotional drama or detached to the point of coldness.
Practices and Traditions: How Each Is Worked With
In classical yoga, the heart chakra is opened through anahata mudra (a hand gesture that brings the palms together at the heart), bhastrika (bellows breath), and backbends such as the cobra and the camel. The mantra YAM is chanted to resonate in the chest. The goal is to balance giving and receiving, to heal grief, and to cultivate bhakti (devotion) toward a personal deity.
The high heart chakra is not addressed in traditional yoga asana or mantra. Modern practitioners work with it through visualization: placing a hand on the upper sternum and imagining a pink or gold light expanding from that point. Some use the affirmation “I love without condition” or “I hold space for all beings.” In energy healing (Reiki, Brennan Healing Science), the high heart is activated when the healer intends to channel universal love rather than personal empathy. It is also the center used in “heart coherence” techniques, where the practitioner focuses on gratitude and compassion to create a coherent electromagnetic field around the heart.
A common practice in our library is to sit with the hands over both centers: one hand on the physical heart, one hand on the thymus. We breathe into the lower hand first, feeling the warmth of personal love, then shift the awareness to the upper hand, feeling the expansion of impersonal love. The two are held together for several minutes. The fire is not decoration. It is the altar.
Comparisons: Heart Chakra vs High Heart Chakra vs Soul Star
The closest adjacent concept to the high heart chakra is the soul star chakra, located above the crown of the head. The soul star governs karmic purpose and soul-level memory, while the high heart governs unconditional love in the present incarnation. The soul star is transcendent; the high heart is immanent.
Another adjacent concept is the heart chakra’s “back” aspect, sometimes called the “back heart” or “gateway to the past.” In some systems, the front of the heart chakra relates to present relationships, the back to past wounds. The high heart has no such front/back polarity; it is a single point of pure giving.
Some traditions collapse the high heart into the heart chakra, treating unconditional love as the highest expression of Anahata rather than a separate center. Others, like the modern chakra mapping of Anodea Judith (author of Wheels of Life, 1987), do not include the high heart at all. Judith’s system sticks to the classical seven. The choice to include the high heart is a matter of practical experience: if you feel a distinct energy above the heart, you may find it useful to treat it as a separate chakra.
Common Misconceptions
“The high heart chakra is the same as the heart chakra.” No. They are distinct in location, function, and quality of love. The heart chakra is personal; the high heart is impersonal. They can be worked with separately.
“The high heart chakra is a modern invention with no basis.” It is modern in its naming, but the experience of a higher heart center appears in many traditions. In Christian mysticism, the “heart of the soul” or “spiritual heart” is often located above the physical heart. In Sufism, the qalb (heart) has multiple levels, including a higher station of divine love. The high heart chakra is a useful map for a real experience.
“You must open the heart chakra before the high heart.” This is a common teaching, but not universal. Some practitioners find that working on the high heart first helps them access unconditional love, which then heals the personal heart. Others find that without a stable heart chakra, the high heart leads to spiritual bypassing (using “unconditional love” to avoid processing grief). Both approaches have merit. The safe path is to balance the lower heart before reaching for the higher.
“The high heart chakra is pink, so it is the same as the heart chakra’s pink aspect.” The heart chakra sometimes has a pink center, but that pink is the color of romantic love. The high heart’s pink is a softer, more translucent shade, closer to rose quartz. It is the color of divine compassion, not attachment.
FAQ
Where is the high heart chakra located? It is located on the sternum, about two finger-widths above the center of the chest, between the heart chakra and the throat chakra.
Can you open the high heart chakra without balancing the heart chakra? Yes, but it risks spiritual bypassing. Most teachers recommend grounding the heart chakra first, then expanding into the high heart.
What color is the high heart chakra? Pink or gold, often a soft rose. Some see it as a pale green with a pink center.
Is the high heart chakra in the traditional chakra system? No. It is a modern addition, popularized in the late 20th century by energy healers and writers like Barbara Brennan.
Closing
The heart chakra and the high heart chakra are two stations on the same vertical axis of love. One teaches you to love another; the other teaches you to love all. Understanding the difference refines your practice and prevents confusion when the energy shifts from the center of the chest to the upper sternum. For a deeper look at how these centers interact with the rest of the energy body, explore our guide to the chakra system. You may also find it useful to study the symbolism of Anahata and the practices for heart chakra healing.