self enquiry #28

[Guest guest]

Question: Am I to think `Who am I? "

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: You have known that the `I'-thought springs

forth. Hold the `I'-thought and find its source.

 

Question: May I know the way?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Do as you have now been told and see.

 

Questioner: I do not understand what I should do.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: If it is anything objective the way can be shown

objectively. This is subjective.

 

Questioner: But I do not understand.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: What! Do you not understand that you are?

 

Questioner: Please tell me the way.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Is it necessary to show the way in the interior

of your own home? This is within you.

 

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.

 

from BE AS YOU ARE