The Nature of the Heart - Thanks Al

[Guest guest]

Al just posted this on .

 

Love to all

Harsha

 

"Al Larus" <alarus

Thu Sep 12, 2002 6:12 pm

Re: Re: Lotus of the Heart

and the Cave of the Heart

 

 

 

Regarding the messages last month, I found this

detailed descrption:

 

 

 

Questioner: You have said that the Heart is the centre

of the Self.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Yes, it is the one supreme centre

of the Self. You need have no doubt about it. The real

Self is there in the Heart behind the jiva or ego

self.

 

Questioner: Now be please to tell me where it is in

the body.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: 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). The only direct way to realise it

is to cease to fantasize and try to be yourself. When

you realise, you automatically feel that the centre is

there.

 

This is the centre, the Heart, spoken of in the

scriptures as Hrit-Guha (cavity of the heart), Arul

(grace), Ullam (the Heart).

 

Questioner: In no book have I found it stated that it

is there.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Long after I came here I chanced

upon a verse in the Malayalam version of

Ashtangahridayam, the standard work on Ayurveda

(science of life, health and medicine), wherein the

Ojas Sthana (source of bodily vitality or place of

light) is mentioned as being located in the right side

of the chest and called the seat of consciousness

(samvit). But I know of no other work which refers to

it as being located there.

 

Question: Can I be sure that the ancients meant this

centre by the term ‘Heart’?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Yes that is so. But you should

try to have rather than to locate the experience. A

man need not find out where his eyes are situated when

he wants to see. The Heart is 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

than to say that it is in the Heart. Really, the Self

is the centre itself. It is everywhere, aware of

itself as ‘Heart’, the Self-awareness.

 

Question: In that case, how can it be localised in any

part of the body? Fixing a place for the Heart would

imply setting physiological limitations to that which

is beyond space and time.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: That is right. But the person who

puts the question about the position of the Heart

considers himself as existing with or in the body.

While putting the question now, would you say that

your body alone is here but you are speaking from

somewhere else? No, you accept your bodily existence.

It is from this point of view that any reference to a

physical body comes to be made.

 

Truly speaking, pure consciousness is indivisible, it

is without parts. It has no form and shape, no

‘within’ and ‘without’. There is no ‘right’ or ‘left’

for it. Pure consciousness, which is the Heart,

includes all, and nothing is outside or apart from it.

That is the ultimate truth.

>From this absolute standpoint, the Heart, Self or

consciousness can have no particular place assigned to

it in the physical body. What is the reason? The body

is itself a mere projection of the mind, and the mind

is but a poor reflection of the radiant Heart. How can

that, in which everything is contained be itself

confined as a tiny part within the physical body which

is but an infinitesimal, phenomenal manifestation of

the one reality?

 

But people do not understand this. They cannot help

thinking in terms of the physical body and the world.

For instance, you say, ‘I have come to this ashram all

the way from my country beyond the Himalayas’. But

that is not the truth. Where is ‘coming’ or ‘going’ or

any movement whatever, for the one, all-pervading

spirit which you really are? You are where you have

always been. It is your body that moved or was

conveyed from place to place till it reached this

ashram. This is the simple truth, but to a person who

considers himself a subject living in an objective

world, it appears as something altogether visionary!

 

It is by coming down to the level ordinary

understanding that a place is assigned to the Heart in

the physical body.

 

 

 

=====

/join

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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