THE HEART IS NOT A PERSON PLACE OR THING
THE SPIRITUAL HEART
BHAGAVAN RAMANA ANSWERS
How do you say that the Heart is on the right, whereas the biologists have found it to be on the left?
Quite so. The physical organ is on the left; that is not denied. But the Heart of which I speak is non-physical and is only on the right side. It is my experience, no authority is required by me. Still you can find confirmation in a Malayalam Ayurvedic book and in ‘Sita Upanishad’; and he produced the quotation form the latter and repeated the text from the former.
* * *
There are six centres mentioned in the Yoga books; but the individual is said to reside in the Heart. Is it so?Yes. The individual is said to remain in the Heart in deep sleep; and in the brain in the waking state. The Heart need not be taken to be the muscular cavity with four chambers which propels blood. There are indeed passages which support the view. Whichever view is correct does not matter to us. We are not concerned with anything less than ourselves. That we have certainly within us. There could be no doubts or discussions about that.
The Heart is used in the Vedas and the scriptures to denote the place whence the notion ‘I’ springs. Is it confined to the body? No. It springs within us somewhere right in the middle of our being. The ‘I’ has no location. Everything is the Self. There is nothing but that. So the Heart must be said to be the entire body of ourselves and of the entire universe, conceived as ‘I’. But to help the practiser we have to indicate a definite part of the Universe, or of the Body. So this Heart is pointed out as the seat of the Self. But in truth we are everywhere, we are all that is, and there is nothing else.
* * *
What is Heart?
It is the center of the Self. The Self is the centre of centres. The Heart represents the psychic centre and not the physical centre.
* * *
Is it the physical heart?
No. It is the seat wherefrom ‘I’-’I’ arises.
* * *
Self alone is to be realized. Its realization holds all else in its compass. Power, or “Siddhis’ are included in it. Those who speak of these have not realized the Self. Self is the Heart itself. The passage from the heart to the mind centre might be considered to be through subhuman or a nerve with any other name. The Upanishads say pare leena -meaningthat susumna or such nadis are all comprised in para The yogis say that the current rising up to sahasrara ends there. That experience is not complete. For jnana, they must come to the Heart. Hridaya (Heart) is the alpha and omega.
* * *
Where the Heart is and what Realisation is?
The Heart is not physical; it is spiritual. Hridayam = h rit + ayam = This is the centre. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and, they shape the universe.
* * *
How do you realize the Heart?
There is no one who even for a trice fails to experience the Self. For no one admits that he ever stands apart from the Self. He is the Self. The Self is the Heart.
It is not clear.
In deep sleep you exist; awake, you remain. The same Self is in both states. The difference is only in the awareness and the non-awareness of the world. The world rises with the mind and sets with the mind. That which rises and sets is not the Self. The Self is different, giving rise to the mind, sustaining it and resolving it. So the Self is underlying principle.
When asked who you are, you place your hand on the right side of the breast and say ‘I am’. There you involuntarily point out the Self. The Self is thus known. But the individual is miserable because he confounds the mind and the body with the Self. The confusion is due to wrong knowledge. Elimination of wrong knowledge is alone needed. Such elimination results in Realization.
* * *
The Self is the Heart. The Heart is self-luminous. Light arises from the Heart and reaches the seat of the mind. The world is seen with the mind, that is, by the reflected light of the Self. It is perceived with the aid of the mind. When the mind is illumined it is aware of the world. When it is not itself illumined, it is not aware of the world. If the mind is turned in towards the source of light, objective knowledge ceases and Self alone shines forth as the Heart.
The moon shines by the reflected light of the sun. When the sun has set, the moon is useful for revealing objects. When the sun has risen, on one needs the moon, although the pale disc of the moon is visible in the sky.
So it is with the mind and the Heart. The mind is useful because of its reflected light. It is used for seeing objects. When it is turned inwards, the source of illumination shines forth by itself, and the mind remains dim and useless like the moon in day-time.
* * *
To see the objects, the reflected light of the mind is necessary. To see the Heart it is enough that the mind is turned towards it. Then the mind loses itself and the Heart shines forth.
* * *
How to reach the Heart?
Where are you now that you want to reach the Heart? Are you standing apart from the Self?
I am in my body.
In a particular spot, or all over?
All over. I am extending all over the body.
Wherefrom do you extend?
I do not know.
Yes. You are always in the Heart. You are never away from it in order that you should reach it. Consider how you are in deep sleep and in the waking state. These states are also not yours. They are of the ego. The consciousness remains the same and undifferentiated all through.
* * *
The Heart will play its part automatically. The seat of realization is the Heart. It cannot be said to be either in or out.
Did Bhagavan feel the Heart as the point of Realization, in his first or early experience?
I correlated it with my experience.
* * *
If the ‘spiritual heart’ beats; if so, how; or if it does not beat, then how is it to be felt?
This heart is different from the physical heart; beating is the function of the latter. The former is the seat of spiritual experience. That is all that can be said of it.
Just as a dynamo supplies motive power to whole systems of lights, fans, etc., so the original Primal Force supplies energy to the beating of the heart, respiration.
* * *
The tiny hole in the Heart remains always closed, but it is opened by vichara which the result that ‘I’-’I’ consciousness shines forth. It is the same as Samadhi.
* * *
Sri Bhagavan says that the Heart is the Self. Psychology has it that malice, envy, jealousy and all passions have their seat in the heart. How are these two statements to be reconciled?
The whole cosmos is contained in one pinhole in the Heart. These passions are part of the cosmos. The are ignorance.
* * *
Is this Heart the same as the physiological heart?
No. Sri Ramana Gita defines it as the origin of the ‘I’ -thought.
But I read that it is on the right of the chest.
It is all meant to help the imagery. There are books dealing with six centres and many other centres, internal and external. The description of the Heart is one among so many centres. But it is not necessary. It is only the source of the ‘I’ -thought. That is the ultimate truth.
* * *
The dynamical centre of the Heart is on the right and not on the left whereas the physical organ is- on the left.
The yoga marga speaks of the six centres each of which must be reached by practice and transcended until one reaches sahasrara where nectar is found and thus immortality. The yogis say that one enters into the paranadi which starts from the sacral plexus whereas the jnanis say that the same nadI starts from the heart. Reconciliation between the seemingly contradictory statements is effected in the secret doctrine which distinctly states the yogic paranandi is from muladhara and the jnana paranadi is from the Heart. The truth is that the paranadi should be entered. By yogic practice one goes down, then rises up, wanders all through until the goal is reached; by jnana abhyas one settles down directly in the centre.
* * *
The centre of the ego and its core is called the Heart, the same as the Self.
A gentleman asked if the yogis also reach the anahata and thus realize the Heart-centre as is done by the jnanis but in a different way.
Anahata is not the same as the Heart-centre. If so, why should they wander further on to Sahasrar? Moreover, the question arises because of the sense of separateness persisting in us. We are never away from the Heart-centre. Before reaching anahata or after passing it, one is only in the centre. Whether one understands it or not, one is not away from the centre. Practice of yoga or vichara is done, always remaining in the centre only.
* * *
Sri Bhagavan received a letter containing a short poem in English from a young boy, N.S. Arunachalam, who had not yet matriculated.
That poem is remarkable for its poetic imagination. Sri Bhagavan, and the assemblage of persons are represented as the Heart, the brain and the body respectively. And again as the sun, the moon and the earth also. The light from the sun is reflected on the moon and the earth is illumined. Similarly the mind acts by consciousness derived from the Heart and the body is thus protected. This teaching of Sri Bhagavan is found in Ramana Gita also. The Heart is the most important centre from which vitality and light radiate in the mind, thus enabling it to function. The innatite tendency are enclosed in the Heart in their most subtlest form, later flowing to the mind which reflects them highly magnified corresponding to a cinema-show at every stage. That is how the world is said to be nothing more than a cinema-show.
Sri Bhagavan also added:
Were the tendencies in the mind instead of in the Heart, they must be extinguished if the head is cut off so that re-incarnations will be at an end. But it is not so. The Self obviously safeguards the vasanas in its closest proximity, I.e., within itself in the Heart, just as a miser keeps his most valued possessions (treasure) with himself and never out of contact. Hence the place where the tendencies are, in the Heart.
* * *
There was some reference to the extract from the Modern Psychological Review, wondering if any instruments could be of use in detecting the Heart-centre and if proper subjects were available for recording the experience of the adeots in the spiritual path, and so on. Others were speaking. Sri Bhagavan said: In the incident mentioned in the book Self-Realization that I became unconscious and symptoms of death supervened, I was all along aware. I could fell the action of the physical heart stopped and equally the action of the Heart-centre unimpaired. This state lasted about a quarter of an hour.
We asked if it was true that some disciples have had the privilege of feeling Sri Bhagavan’s Heart-centre to be on the right by placing their hands on Sri Bhagavan’s chest. Sri Bhagavan siad, “Yes”.
(Viswanatha Iyer, Narayana Reddi and others have said they felt Sri Bhagavan’s Heart-centre to be on the right by placing their hands on his chest.).
A devotee rightly observed that if hands could feel and locate the Heart-centre, delicate scientific instruments should certainly do it.
* * *
The Heart is said to be on the right, on the left of in the centre. With such differences of opinion how are we to meditate on Hridaya?
You are and it is a fact. Dhyana is by you, of you, and in you. It must go on where you are. It cannot be outside you. So you are the centre of dyana and that is the Heart.
A location is however given to it with reference to the body. You know that you are. Where are you? You are in the body and not out of it. Yet not the whole body. Though you pervade the whole body still you admit of a centre where from all your thoughts start and wherein they subside. Even when the limbs are amputated you are there but with defective senses. So a centre must be admitted. That is called the Heart. The Heart is not merely the centre but the Self. Heart is only another name for the Self.
Doubts arise only when you identify it with something tangible and physical. The scriptures no doubt describe it as the source of 101 nadis, and the like. In Yoga Vasishta Chudala says that kundalini is composed of 1010 nadis, thus identifying one with the other.
Heart os no conception, no object for meditation. But it is the seat of meditation; the Self remains all alone. You see the body in the Heart, the world in it. There is nothing separate from it. So all kinds of effort are located there only.
* * *
With reference to the location of the Heart centre on the right side of the human body, Sri Bhagavan said:-
I had been saying all along that the Heart centre was on this right, notwithstanding the refutation by some learned men that physiology taught them otherwise. I speak from experience. I know it even in my home during trances. Again during the incident in the book Self-Realisation I had a very clear vision and experience. All of a sudden a light came from one side erasing the world vision in its course until it spread all round when the vision of the world was completely cut out. I felt the muscular organ on the left had stopped work; I could understand that the body was like a corpse, that the circulation of blood had stopped and the body became blue and motionless. Vasudeva Sastri embraced the body, wept over my death, but I could not speak. All the time Iwas feeling that the Heart centre on the right was working as well as ever. This state continued 15 or 20 minutes. Then suddenly something shot out from the right to the left resembling a rocket bursting in air. The blood circulation was resumed and normal condition restored. I then asked Vasudeva Sastri to move along with me and we reached our residence.
The Upanishads say that 101 nadis terminate in the Heart and 72,000 originate from them and traverse the body.. The Heart is thus the centre of the body. It can be a centre because we have been accustomed to think that we remain I the body. In fact the body and all else are in the that centre only.
* * *
What are para-nadI, Sushumna nadi and the Heart?
Sushumna resolves onto the para (Sushumnatu pareleena). Heart is usually understood to be the muscular organ lying on the left if the chest. The modern Psychological Review speaks of the physical organ on the left and the Heart centre on the right. The Bible says that a fool’s heart is on the left and a wise man’s on the right. Yoga Vasishta says that there are two hearts; the one is samvit; and the other the blood vessel.
What is Anahata?
Anahata is the chakra lying behind the heart. It is not samvit. Lalita Sahasranama has it, Salutations to the core situated in Anahata. The next mantra Hrit (in the Heart). Thus it is clear that Anahata is not the same as Hrit.
* * *
The Heart is said to be experienced on the right. Physiologically it is on the left.
Spiritual experience is spoken of.
Is it the psychic heart?
Yes.
How to know that it is on the right?
By experience.
Is there any indication to that effect?
Point out to yourself and see.
* * *
There was some reference to the heart. Sri Bhagavan said: The yogis soeak fo 72,000 ‘nadis’, and of 101 ‘nadis’’. A reconciliation is effected by others that 101 are the main ‘nadis’, which subdivide into 72,000. These ‘nadis’ are supposed by some to spread out from the brain, by others from the Heart and by some others from the coccyx. They speak of a ‘paranadi’, which is said to rise up from the coccyx through the ‘Sushumna’ to the brain and descend to the heart. Others say that the ‘Sushumna’ ends in “Para’.
A few advise seeking realisation in the head, (Sahasrara); a few between the eyebrows; a few in the heart; others in the solar plexus. If realisation amounts to gaining the ‘ Paranadi’, one might enter it from the Heart. But the yogi is engaged in cleansing the ‘nadis’, then ‘Kundalini’, the primal power is awakened which is said to rise up from the coccyx to the head. The yogi is later advised to come down to the Heart as the final step.
The Vedas say; “The Heart is like a lotus turned upside down, or a plantain bud”.
“There is a bright spot atom-like, like the end of the grain of paddy”.
“That spot is like a flame and in its centre, Self is located”. Which is that Heart? Is it the heart of the physiologists? If so, the physiologists know best.
The Heart of the Upanishads is construed as ‘Hridayam’, meaning: This is the centre. That is, it is where the mind rises and subsides. That is the seat of Realisation. When I say that it is the Self the people imagine that it is within the body. When I ask where the Self remains in one’s sleep they seem to think that it is within the body, but unaware of the body and its surroundings like a man confined in a dark room. To such people it is necessary to sat that the seat of Realisation is somewhere within the body. The name of the centre is the Heart; but ut us confounded with the heart ogan.
When a man dreams, he creates himself and the surroundings. All of them are later withdrawn into himself. The one became many, along with the seer. Similarly also, the one becomes many in the waking state. The objective world is really subjective. An astronomer discovers a new star at immeasurable distance and announces that its light takes thousands of light years to reach the earth, Well, where is the star in fact? Is it not in the observer? But people wonder how a huge glove, larger than the Sun, at such a distance can be contained in the mind of a man. The space, the magnitudes and the paradox are all in the mind only. How do they exist there? In as much as you become aware of them, you must admit a light which illumines them. These thoughts are absent in sleep but rise up on waking. So this light is transient, having an origin and an end. The consciousness of ‘I’ is permanent and continuous. So this cannot be the aforesaid light. It is different but has no independent existence. Therefore it must be reflected knowledge. The true knowledge or Being is in the centre called the Heart. When on wakes up from sleep it is reflected in the head, and so the head is no longer lying prone but rises up. From there the consciousness spreads all over the body and so the superimposed ‘I’ functions as the wakeful entity.
* * *
You say the Heart is on the right. Can you explain how it is so?
Sri Bhagavan handed over the extract from the Psychological Review of Phildelphia for her to read. He also added, “The Heart is the place wherefrom the ‘I’ -thought arises”.
So you mean the spiritual Heart as distinguished from the physical heart?
Yes. It is explained in Ch. V of Sri Ramana Gita.
Is there any stage when one might feel the Heart?
It is within the experience of everyone. Everyone touches the right side of his chest when he says ‘I’.
The Heart is the centre. A person can never be away from it. If he is he is already dead. Although the Upanishads say that the individual functions through other centres on different occasions, yet he does not relinquish the Heart. The centres are simply places of business. The Self is bound to the Heart, like a cow tethered to a peg. The movements are controlled by the length of the rope. All its wanderings centre round the peg.
A caterpillar crawls on a blade of grass and when it has come to the end, it seels another support. While doing so it holds on with its hind-legs to the blade of grass, lifts the body and sways to and fro before it can hold another. Similarly it is with the Self. It stays in the Heart and holds other centres also according to circumstances. But its activities centre round the Heart.
* * *
I ask you to see where the ‘I’ arises in your body, but it is really not quite correct to say that the ‘I’ rises from and merges in the heart in the right side of the chest. The heart is another name for the Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I don not mean by ‘heart’ any physiological organ or any plexus of nerves or anything like that, but so long as one identifies oneself with the body and thinks he is in the body he is advised to see where in the body the “I’ -thought rises and merges again. It must be the heart on the right side of the chest since every man, of whatever race and religion and in whatever language he may be saying ‘I’, points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself. This is so all over the world, so it must be the place. And by keenly watching the daily emergence of the ‘I’ -thought on waking and its subsiding in sleep, one can see that it is in the heart on the right side.
Is it stated in any book that for ultimate and final Self-realisation one must ultimately come to the Heart even after reaching ‘sahasrara’, and the Heart is at the right side?
No. I have not come across this in any book. But in a Malayalam book on medicine I came across a stanza locating the heart on the right side and I have translated it into Tamil in the Supplement to the Forty Verses.
We know nothing about the other centres. We cannot be sure what we arrive at in concentrating on them and realizing them. But as the ‘I’ arises from the Heart it must sink back and merge there for Self-realisation.
* * *
I do not always concentrate on the same centre in the body. Sometimes I find it easier to concentrate on one centre and sometimes on another. And sometimes when I concentrate on one centre the thought of its own accord goes and fixes itself in another. Why is that?
‘
It may be because of past practices of yours. But in any case it is immaterial on which centre you concentrate wince the real heart is in every centre and even outside the body. On whatever part of the body you may concentrate or on whatever external object, the heart is there.* * *
Concentrating one’s thoughts solely in the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from going outwards is called dispassion. Fixing them in the Self is practice. Concentrating on the Heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. The Heart is another name for the Self.
* * *
What is the heart referred to in the verse in Upadesa Saram where it is said ‘Abiding in the hearti s the best karma, yoga, bhakti and jnana?’
That which is the source of all, that in which all live, and that into which all finally merge, is the heart referred to.
* * *
How can we conceive of such a heart?
Why should you conceive of anything? You have only to wee wherefrom the ‘I’ springs.
* * *
Please give me some more details about Heart and its movements.
Heart is the seat of knowledge and the knot of ignorance. It is represented in the physical body by a hole smaller than the smallest pin-point, which is always shut. When the mind drops down in ‘Kevala Nirvikalpa’, it opens but shuts again after it. When sahaja is attained it opens for good.
The knot which ties the insentient body to the consciousness, which functions in it is the ‘knot of ignorance’. That is why when it is loosened temporarily as in Kevala Nirvikalpa when there is no body consciousness.
I used to feel the vibrations of the Heart, which resemble these of a dynamo, even in school. When I developed rigor mortis many years ago in Tiruvanamalai, every object and sensation disappeared, except these vibrations. It was as if a dark screen was drawn before my eyes and shut the world completely from me, but of course I was all along conscious of the Self, with a vague feeling that some one was crying near me. This state continued till just before I regained physical consciousness, when I felt something rush from the Heart to the left chest and re-established life in the body.
A sudden fear, a sudden joy, or a shock makes the Heart vibrate very forcefully, so that it can be felt by anyone who pays attention to it. Otherwise it is felt only in Samadhi.
* * *
God is said to be immanent, how do you justify your confining Him to the heart?
God is said to reside in the Heart in the same way as you are said to reside in your body. Yet Heart is not a place. Some place must be named as the dwelling of God for those who take their bodies for themselves and who comprehend only relative knowledge. The fact is neither God no we occupy and space. We are bodiless and spaceless in deep sleep, yet in the waking state we appear to be the opposite.
* * *
Is there really a centre, a place for this “I” ?
There is. It is the centre of the Self to which the mind in sleep retires from its activity.
* * *
You were telling me that the Heart is the centre of the Self …..
Yes, it is the supreme centre if the Self. You need have no doubt about it. The Real Self is there in the Heart behind the ego-self.
Now be pleased to me me where it is in the body.
You cannot know it with your mind. You cannot realise it by imagination, when I tell you here is the centre (pointing to the right side of the chest). Then only direct way to realise it is to cease to fancy and try to be yourself. Then you realise, automatically feel that the centre is there.
This is the centre, the Heart, spoken of in the scriptures, cavity of the Heart.
In no book have I found it stated that it is there.
Long after I came here I chanced upon a verse in the Malayalam version of Ashtangahridayam, the standard work on Ayurveda, wherein the Ojas Sthana is mentioned as located in the right side of the chest, called the seat of consciousness. But I know of no other work, which refers to it as being located there.
Can I be sure that the ancients meant this centre be the term “Heart’?
Yes, that is so. But you should try to HAVE, rather than to locate the experience. A man need not go to find out where his eyes are situated when he wants to see. The Heartis there ever open to you if you care to enter it, ever supporting all your movements even when you are unaware. It is perhaps more proper to say that the Self is the Heart itself then to say that it is in the Heart. Really, the Self is the centre of itself. It is everywhere, aware of itself as “Heart’, the Self-awareness. Hence I said “Heart is Thy name”.
Has anyone else addressed the Lord thus, naming him the Heart?
Long after I said this, one day I came across a hymn in St. Appar’s Thevaram, where he mentions the Lord by name Ullam which is the same as the Heart.
When you say that the Heart is the supreme centre you imply that it is not one of the six yogic centres.
The yogic chakras counting form the bottom to the top are various centres in the nervous system. They represent various steps manifesting different kinds of power of knowledge leading to the Sahasrara, the thousand petalled lotus, where is seated the supreme Shakti. But the Self that supports the whole movement if Shakti is not placed there, but supports it from the Heart centre.
Then it is different from the Shakti manifestation.
Really there is no Shakti manifestation apart from the Self.
* * *
Then what is the difference between the bound man and the one liberated?
Self-aware is one who lives in the Heart. When he moves about and deals with men and things, he knows that what he sees is not separate from the one Supreme Reality, the Brahman which he realized in the Heart as his own Self, the Real.
* * *
You said ‘Heart’ is the one centre for the ego-self, for the Real Self, for the Lord, for all ……..
Yes, the Heart is the centre of the Real. But the ego is impermanent. Like everything else it is supported by the Heart centre. But the character of the ego is a link between spirit and matter; it is the knot if radical ignorance in which one is steeped. This granthi is the “Hrit” the Heart. When this knot is cut asunder by proper means you find that this is the Self’s centre.
* * *Ramana Muni spoke exhaustively about the Heart on the 9th of August 1917.
* * *
That from which all thoughts of embodied beings spring is the Heart. Descriptions of the Heart are only mental concepts.
* * *
In brief, the ‘I’ -thought is the root of all thoughts. The source of the ‘I’ -thought is the Heart.
* * *
If the ‘Heart’ be the seat of the ‘Anahata Chakra’ how can the practice if yoga begin in ‘Muladhara’?
* * *
This Heart is not the blood-pumping organ. ‘Hridayam’ means ‘This is the centre’. Thus it stands for the Self.
* * *
The location of the Heart is on the right side of the chest and not on the left. The light of consciousness flows from the Heart through ‘Sushumna’ channel to ‘Sahasrara’.
* * *
From ‘Sahasrara’ consciousness spreads all over the body and then the experience of the world arises. Viewing themselves as different from that consciousness human beings get caught in the cycle of births and deaths.
* * *
The ‘sahasrara’ of one who abides in the Self is pure light only. Any thought which approaches it cannot survive.
* * *
Even when objects are perceived, because of their nearness, it does not destroy yoga as the mind sees no differences.
* * *
The entire universe is the body and the whole body is in the Heart. Hence the universe is contained within the Heart.
* * *
The universe is only in the mind and the mind is nothing but the Heart. Thus the entire story of the universe culminates in the Heart.
* * *
The Heart is to the body what the sun is to the world. The mind in ‘Sahasrara’ is like the orbit if the moon in the world.
* * *
Just as the sun gives light to the moon, the Heart lights the mind.
* * *
A mortal absent from the Heart sees only the mind, just as the light of the moon alone is seen at night when the sun has set.
* * *
Unaware that the true source of consciousness is one’s own Self, and mentally perceiving objects apart from oneself, the ignorant are deluded.
* * *
The mind of the knower, abiding in the Heart, is merged in the consciousness of the Heart like the moonlight in daylight.
* * *
Though the verbal meaning of the term ‘Prajnana’, intelligence is the mind, the wise know its essential meaning to be the Heart. The supreme is only the Heart.
* * *
The difference between the seer and seen is only in the mind. For those abiding in the Heart the perception is unitary, one.
* * *
When there is a forcible arrest of thoughts, by swooning, sleep, excessive joy or sorrow, fear, and so on, the mind goes back to its source, the Heart.
* * *
He who, with Heart to you surrendered,
Beholds for ever you alone,
Triumphs because he is immersed
In you whose being is pure bliss.* * *
How can it be said that the heart is no other than the Self?
Although the self enjoys its experiences in the states of waking, dream, and deep sleep, residing respectively in the eyes, throat and heart, in reality, however, it never leaves its principal seat, the heart. In the heart-lotus which is of the nature of all, in other words in the mind-ether, the light of that self in the form of ‘I’ shines. As it shines thus in everybody, this very self is referred to as the witness and the transcendent (turiya literally the fourth). The ‘I’ -less Self, which shines in all bodies as interior to the light in the form ‘I’ is the Self-ether (or knowledge-ether): that alone is the Absolute Reality. This is the super-transcendent. Therefore, it is stated that what is called the heart is the Self. The meaning of the word hridayam, when split thus ‘hrit-ayam’, is synominous with Self. This fact that the Self resides in the hearts of all is that all people indicate themselves by pointing to the chest when saying ‘I’.
* * *
How is one to know that in the heart the Self itself shines?
Just as the elemental ether within the flame of a lamp is known to fill without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of the flame, so also the knowledge-ether that is within any the Self-light in the heart fills without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of that Self-light. This is what is referred to as Self.
* * *
What is the purport of teaching that one should meditate, through the ‘I am He’ thought, on the truth that one is not different form the self-luminous Reality that shines like a flame?
The purport of teaching that one should meditate with the ‘I am He’ thought is this; sah the supreme Self, aham the Self that is manifest as ‘I’. Now, the mind should be resolved in the heart, the I-sense that is placed in the body, should be got rid of; when one enquires ‘Who am I?’, remaining undisturbed, in that state, the Self-nature becomes manifest in a subtle manner as the supreme Self everywhere without the distinction of inner and outer; that shines like a flame, signifying the truth ‘I am the Self’. If, without meditation on that as being identical with oneself, one imagines it to be different, ignorance will not leave. Hence, the identity-meditation is prescribed.
* * *
What is the Heart?
It is the seat (if such may be said) of the Self. It is not the physical heart.
Is ‘Heart’ the same as the physiological heart?
No. All this is meant to help the aspirant. It is only the source of the ‘I’ -thought. That is the ultimate truth. Seek your source. The search takes you automatically to the Heart.
The spiritual Heart is different from the physical heart, beating is the phenomenon only of the latter. The former is the seat of experience. Just as a dynamo supplies motive power to whole systems of lights, fans and the like so the original shakti supplies energy to the beating of the heart, respiration and so on.
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How can the all-immanent God reside in the Heart?
Do we not reside in one place? Do you not say you are in your body? Similarly, God is said to reside in the Heart. The Heart is not a place. Some name is mentioned for the place of God because we think we are in the body. This kind of instruction is meant for those who can appreciate only relative knowledge. Being immanent everywhere, there is no place for God. Because we think we are in the body, we also believe that we are born. However, we do not think of the body, of God, or of a method of realisation in our deep sleep. Yet in our waking state, we hold onto the body and think we are in it. We, think that we reside within the body, hence such instruction is given. The instruction means, ‘Look within’. The Heart is not physical. Meditation should be on the Self. Everyone knows ‘I am’. Who is the ‘I’ ? ‘I am’, that is all. The Heart is the centre from which everything springs. Because you now see the world, the body, it is said that there is a centre for them called the Heart. But when actually in it, the Heart is neither in the centre no at the circumference as then there is nothing else.
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How is the mind to dive into the Heart?
The mind now sees itself diversified in the universe. If the diversity is not manifest, it remains in its own essence. That is the Heart. The Heart is the only truth. Mind is only a transient phase. Because people identify with the body, they see the world as separate from themselves. This wrong identification arises because they have lost their moorings and swerved from their original state. You are now advised to give up all these false ideas, and to trace your source and remain as the Self. In that state there are no differences and no questions will arise.
All the scriptures are intended simply to make us retrace our steps to the original source. There is no need to gain anything. We must simply give up false ideas and useless accretions. Instead of doing this, we try to catch hold of something strange and mysterious, believing that happiness lies elsewhere. That is the mistake. If one remains as the Self, there is bliss. People probably think that being quiet does not bring about the state of bliss due to their ignorance.
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Which part of the body is the abode of the Self?
The heart on the right side of the chest is generally indicated. This is because we usually point to the right side of the chest when we refer to ourselves. Some say that the sahasrara (the thousand-petalled lotus) is the abode of the Self. But if that were true the head should not fall forward when we go to sleep or faint.
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Since the Self is free from the notions of knowledge and ignorance how can it be said to pervade the entire body in the shape of sentience or to impart sentience to the senses?
Wise men say that there is a connection between the source of the various psychic nerves and the Self, this is the knot of the heart that the connection between the sentient and the insentient will exist until this is cut asunder with the aid of true knowledge, that just as the subtle and invisible force of electricity travels through wires and does many wonderful things, so the force of the Self also travels through the psychic nerves and, pervading the entire body, imparts sentience to the senses, and that if this knot is cut, the Self will remain as it always is, without any attributes.
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Why should the path to release be differently taught? Will it not create confusion on the minds of aspirants?
Several paths are taught in the Vedas to suit the different grades of qualified aspirants. Yet, since release is but the destruction of the mind, all efforts have for their aim the control of mind.
The mind should be made to rest in the heart till the destruction of the ‘I’ -thought which is of the form of ignorance, residing in the heart. This itself is jnana; this alone is dhyana also. The rest are a mere digression of words, digression of texts. Thus the scriptures proclaim.
Therefore, if one gains the skill of retaining the mind in one’s Self through some means of other, one need not worry about other matters.
It is the path of realizing Self that is variously called Dahara vidya, Brahma vidya, Atma vidya. What more can be said than this? One should understand the rest by inference.
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By practicing the disciplines taught above, one may get rid of the obstacles that are in the mind, such as ignorance, doubt, error and thereby attain quiescence of mind. Yet, there is one last doubt. After the mind has been resolved in the heart, there is only consciousness shining as the plenary reality. When thus the mind has assumed the form of the Self, who is there to enquire? Such enquiry would result in self-worship.
Due to the impediment caused by the residual impressions gathered in previous births, the individual forgets again and again its identity with the Self, and gets deceived, identifying itself with the body. Will a person become a high officer by merely looking at him? Is it not by steady effort in that direction that he could become a highly placed officer? Similarly, the individual, which is in bondage through mental identification with the body should put forth effort in the form of reflection on the Self in a gradual and sustained manner; when the mind gets destroyed, the Self alone exists.
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Six adharas are mentioned. Does the individual reside in the Heart?
Yes. The individual is said to remain in the Heart in deep sleep and in the mind in waking hours. The Heart need not be taken to be the fleshy or muscular cavity with four chambers which propels the blood. The Heart is used in the scriptures to denote the place whence the notion ‘I’ springs. It springs from within us, somewhere to the right of the middle of our chest, The ‘I’ really has no locatiion. It is everything. There is nothing but that. So the Heart must be said to be our entire body and the entire universe conceived as ‘I’. But for the practice of the spiritual aspirant we have to indicate a definite part of the body, and so this heart is pointed out as the seat if the Self.
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Then what is the difference between the bound man and the one liberated?
From the Heart, there is a subtle passage leading to the ‘sahasrara’, the seat of power. The ordinary man lives in the mind unaware of himself in the Heart. The ‘jnana siddha’ lives in the Heart. When he moves about and deals with men and things, he knows that what he sees is not separate form the one reality.
What about the ordinary man?
I have just said that he sees things outside himself. He is a separate from the world, from his own deeper truth, from the truth that supports him and what he sees. The man who has realized the truth of his own existence realises that it is the one reality that is there behind him, behind the world. In fact, he is aware of the one, as the real, the Self in all selves, in all things, as that which is eternal and immutable in all that is impermanent and mutable.
I have done. But one doubt more.
What is it?
You said ‘heart’ is the centre of the ego-self, as also the real Self.
Yes, the Heart is the centre of the real. But the ego is impermanent. Like everything else it is supported by the Heart centre. But the ego is the link between spirit and matter; it is a knot, the knot of radical ignorance in which one is steeped. When this knot is cut asunder by proper means you find this centre.
You said there is a passage from this centre to ‘sahasrara’.
Yes. It is closed in the man in bondage; in the man in whom the ego-knot is cut asunder, a force-current called ‘amritanadi’ rises and goes up to the ‘sahasrara’, the crown of the head,
Is this the ‘subhuman?’
No. This is the passage of liberation. This is called ‘Atmanadi’, ‘Brahmanadi’ or ‘Amritanadi’. This is the nadI that is referred to in the Upanishads. When the passage is open, you cease to be ignorant. You know the truth even when you talk, think or do anything and when dealing with men and things.
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If a fixed place in the body is assigned to the Self, would it not predicate finitude to that which is infinite and all pervading? If the Self is located in the Heart within the physical body, would not the categories of time and space, which are necessarily applicable to the physical body, apply also to the Self?
Look, a similar question was put by Sri Rama to Vasista. Vasista says that there are two kinds of hearts, the one which is all pervading and which should be ‘accepted’ and the other which is limited by time and which should be ‘rejected’. The all-pervading Heart is within as well as without, and when the “I am the body’ idea disappears, it is neither within nor without.
Is it all right to meditate in the space between the eyebrows?
When the heart centre is there why not go directly to it instead of going through other centres. To go to Tiruvannamalai from Madras why should one go to Benares first and come down all the way? Why not come straight?
In 1915, Jagadesswara Sastri, an ardent and scholarly devotee of Ramana, wrote the words ‘Hridaya kuhara madhye’, in the centre of the heart-cave’, and left it to Ramana to complete it. The completed verse reads “In the centre of the Heart-cave, Self shines alone. It is the form of the Self experienced directly as ‘I’ - ‘I’. Enter the ‘Heart’ merging through self-enquiry or by breath-control and become rooted as That.”
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What is the location of the heart?
The heart is the centre of spiritual experience according to the testimony sages. When one asks about the Heart’s location he does so because he accepts his bodily existence. It is true from this point of view that reference to the physical body comes to be made. What is indicated is the position of the heart in relation to your identity.
You seek true consciousness. Where can you find it? Can you attain it outside yourself? You have to find it within. Therefore you are directed inward. The heart is the seat of awareness or the consciousness itself.
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You speak in very high terms of knowledge; I begin with the body. Is there any difference between the jnani and the ajnani in the bodily experience?
There is. How can it be otherwise? I have often declared it.
Then the Vedanta Jnana as spoken of and discussed is perhaps different from what is practiced and realized. You often say that there is the real meaning of ‘I’ in the Heart.
Yes, when you go deeper you lose yourself, as it were, in the abysmal depths, then the Reality which is the Atman that was behind you all the while takes hold of you. It is an incessant flash of I-consciousness, you can be aware of it, feel it, hear it, sense it, so to say; this is what I call ‘Aham sphoorti”.
You said that the Atman is immutable, self-effulgent. But if you speak at the same time of the incessant flash of I-consciousness, or this ‘Aham-sphoorti’, does that not imply movement, which cannot be complete realisation in which there is no movement?
What do you mean by complete realisation? Does it mean becoming a stone, an inert mass? The ‘Aham-vritti’ is different from ‘Aham-sphoorti’. The former is the activity of the ego, and is bound to lose itself and make way for the latter which is an eternal expression of the Self. In Vedantic parlance this ‘Aham-sphoorti’ is called ‘Vritti Jnana’. Realisation of Jnana is always a Vritti. There is a distinction between Vritti Jnana Realisation and Swaroopa the Real. Swaroopa is Jnana itself, it is Consciousness. ‘Swaroopa’ is ‘Sat-Chit’ which is omnipotent. It is always there self-attained. When you realise it, the realisation is called ‘Vritti Jnana’. It is only with reference to your existence that you talk of realisation, of Jnana. Therefore, when we talk of Jnana, we always mean ‘Vritti Jnana’ and not ‘Swaroopa Jnana’: the ‘Swaroopa’ itself is Jnana (Consciousness) always.
So far I understand. But what about the body? How could I feel this Vritti Jnana in the body?
You can feel yourself one with the One that exists; the whole body becomes a mere power, a force-current, your life becomes a needle drawn to a huge mass of magnet and as you go deeper and deeper, you become a mere centre and then not even that, for you become mere consciousness, there are no thoughts or cares any longer -- they were shattered at the threshold; it is an inundation; you, a mere straw, you are swallowed alive, but it is very delightful, for you become the very thing that swallows you; this is the union of the individual with Self, the loss of ego in the real Self, the destruction of falsehood, the attainment of Truth.
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Vivekachudamani speaks of the ‘I’ - ‘I’ Consciousnsess as eternally shining in the Heart, but no one is aware of it.
Yes, all men without exception have it, in whatever state they may be -- the waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep -- and whether they are conscious of it or not.
In the Talks section of ‘Sat-Darshana-bhasya’, the ‘I’ - ‘I’ is referred to as the Absolute Consciousness, yet Bhagavan once told me that any realisation before Sahaja Nirvikalpa is intellectual.
Yes, the ‘I’ - “I’ Consciousness is the Absolute. Though it comes before Sahaja, there is in it as in Sahaja itself the subtle intellect, the difference being that in the latter the sense of forms disappears, which is not the case in the former.
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Does the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ lead to any spot in the body?
Evidently, self-consciousness is in relation to the individual himself and therefore has to be experienced in his being., with a centre in the body as the centre of experience. It resembles the dynamo if a machine, which gives rise to all sorts of electrical works. Not only does it maintain the life of the body and the activities of all its parts and organs, conscious and unconscious, but also the relation between the physical and the subtler planes on which the individual functions. Also, like the dynamo, it vibrates and can be felt by the calm mind that pays attention to it. It is know in the yogis and sadhakas by the name of ‘sphurana’ which in ‘Samadhi’ scintillates with consciousness.
How to reach that Centre, where what you call the Ultimate Consciousness -- the ‘I’ - ‘I’ -- arises? Is it by simply thinking ‘Who am I’?
Yes, it will take you there. You must do it with a calm mind -- mental calmness is essential.
How does that consciousness manifest itself when the centre -- the Heart -- is reached? Will I recognize it?
Certainly, as pure consciousness, free from all thought. It is pure, unbroken awareness of your Self, rather of Being -- there is no mistaking it when pure.
Is the vibratory movement of the Centre felt simultaneously with the experience of Pure Consciousness, or before, or after it?
They are both one and the same. But sphurana can be felt in a subtle way even when meditation has sufficiently stabilized and deepened, and the Ultimate Consciousness is very near, or during a sudden great fright or shock, when the mind comes to a standstill. It draws attention to itself, so that the meditator’s mind, rendered sensitive by calmness, may become aware of it, gravitate towards it, and finally plunge into, the Self.
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