Where is the Heart?

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>From Ramana Maharshi: http://www.chez.com/1564557/c_rgospel.htm

 

D. Sri Bhagavan has specified a particular place for the Heart within the

physical body, that it is in the chest, two digits to the right from the

meridian.

 

M. Yes, that is the Centre of spiritual experience according to the testimony of

Sages. The spiritual Heart-centre is quite different from the blood- propelling,

muscular organ known by the same name. The spiritual Heart-centre is not an

organ of the body. All that you can say of the Heart is that it is the very Core

of your being, that which you are really identical (as the word in Sanskrit

literally means), whether you are awake, asleep or dreaming, whether you are

engaged in work or immersed in Samadhi.

 

D. In that case, how can it be localized 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.

 

M. 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 that 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

physical body and the world. For instance, you say "I have come to this Asramam

all the way from my country beyond the Himalayas''. But that is not the truth.

Where there is a '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 Asramam.

 

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 of the ordinary understanding that a place is

assigned to the Heart in the physical body.

 

D. How then shall I understand Sri Bhagavan's statement that the experience of

the Heart-centre is at the particular place in the chest?

 

M. Once you accept that from the true and absolute standpoint, the Heart as pure

Consciousness is beyond space and time, it will be easy for you to understand

the rest in its correct perspective.

 

D. It is only on that basis that I have put the question about the position of

the Heart. I am asking about Sri Bhagavan's experience.

 

M. Pure Consciousness wholly unrelated to the physical body and transcending the

mind is a matter of direct experience. Sages know their bodiless, eternal

Existence just as the layman knows his bodily existence. But the experience of

Consciousness can be with bodily awareness as well as without it. In the

bodiless experience of Pure Consciousness the Sage is beyond time and space, and

no question about the position of the Heart can then at all arise.

 

Since, however, the physical body cannot subsist (with life) apart from

Consciousness, bodily awareness has to be sustained by pure Consciousness. The

former, by its nature, is limited and can never be co-extensive with the latter,

which is infinite and eternal. Body-consciousness is merely a monad- like,

miniature reflection of the pure Consciousness with which the Sage has realized

his identity. For him, therefore, body consciousness is only a reflected ray, as

it were, of the self-effulgent, infinite Consciousness which is himself. It is

in this sense alone that the Sage is aware of his bodily existence.

 

Since, during the bodiless experience of the Heart as pure Consciousness, the

Sage is not at all aware of the body, that absolute experience is localized by

him within the limits of the physical body by a sort of feeling-recollection

made while he is with bodily awareness.

 

Aham and Aham Vritti

 

 

"All spiritual teachings are only meant to make us retrace our steps to our

Original Source."

>From The Essential teachings of Ramana Maharshi, A visual Journey.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/antoine.carre/maharshi.htm