The Nature of The Self - [5]

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Question: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of consciousness and as identical with the Self. What does the Heart exactly signify?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Call it by any name, God, Self, the Heart or the seat of consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be grasped is this that ‘Heart’ means the very core of one’s being, the centre, without which there is nothing whatever

The Heart is not physical, it is spiritual. Hridayam (the Sanskrit word) equals Hrit plus Ayam; it means ‘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. The Heart is the centre of all. That from which beings come into existence is said to be Brahman in the Upanishads. That is the Heart. Brahman is the Heart.

Question: How to realise the Heart?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: There is no one who even for a moment 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.

The Heart is the centre from which everything springs. Because you see the world, the body and so on, it is said that there is a centre for these, which is called the Heart. When you are in the Heart, the Heart is known to be neither the centre nor the circumference. There is nothing else apart from it.

The consciousness which is the real existence and which does not go out to know those things which are other than Self, alone is the Heart. Since the truth of Self is known only to that consciousness, which is devoid of activity, that consciousness which always remains attending to Self alone is the shining of clear knowledge.