Arthur Osborne - Sri Ramana Maharshi [9]

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Man has three functions: action, thought and being. Being

underlies the other two and is the necessary substratum for them,

and yet is almost completely overshadowed by them, so that it

is very rarely that a man is aware of actual being, of his pure

I-am-ness. To use a simile that Bhagavan often made use of: it is

like a cinema screen on which a film is shown. The spectators

are not aware of it but only of the pictures passing across it; and

yet it is real and they are shadows on it; it exists unchanged

before the showing of the film and while the pictures are moving

across it and after they have come to an end. And it is quite

unaffected by them: a fire in the picture does not burn it nor a

flood make it wet.

 

It is this awareness of being that is to be cultivated. It is

developed by Self-enquiry; indeed, the quest for it is itself a

mode of Self-enquiry. Sometimes Bhagavan would say: “Your

duty is simply to be; not to be this or that.” And therefore he

would quote as the perfect name of God ‘I am that I am’. He

also often quoted the sentence from the Psalms: ‘Be still and

know that I am God’. Keep the mind still, free from thoughts,

and know that the ‘I am’, the pure Being, is God.

 

Bhagavan used the term ‘meditation’ for the practise of

Self-enquiry, and that term is used in this book also, but it does

not mean meditation as a dictionary would define it. It is not

meditating on anything or concentrating on any one thought.

It is different in kind from the Sufi meditation I described in

an earlier chapter, since it is not thinking but suspending or

stilling thoughts while holding the mind alert in quest of itself,

or in pure awareness of being, of I-am-ness.

 

So far is Self-enquiry from being a mental exercise that

Bhagavan enjoined those who used it to concentrate not on the

head but the heart during meditation. This does not mean thinking

of the heart or trying to visualize or imagine it, for that would be a

mental exercise. You do not think of the eyes or visualize them in

order to see; you simply look with them. And in the same way the

sense of awareness starts simply by concentrating on the heart which

is all pervading. Simply to sit concentrating one’s sense of ‘I’-ness,

of being, in the heart and at the same time asking, ‘Who am I?’ —

not constantly but just once, in order to hold the mind in that

direction, repeating the thought only as a weapon to drive out

other thoughts when they arise.

 

Moreover, when Bhagavan spoke of concentration on the

heart he did not mean the physical heart on the left side but the

centre of spiritual awareness at the right side of the chest. Some

of the ashram publications refer in this connection to the verse

from Ecclesiastes: ‘The wise man’s heart is at the right hand and

the fool’s heart is at the left.’ (Ch.X, v.2, authorized version).

This centre is not one of the yogic chakras. The direct method

is not concerned with them or with the kundalini technique.

 

The following dialogue explains this:

Devotee: “Bhagavan was saying that the heart is the seat or

centre of the Self?”

 

Bhagavan: “Yes, it is the one supreme centre of the Self.

You need have no doubts about that. The real Self is there in

the heart behind the ego-self.”

 

Devotee: “Will Bhagavan please tell me where in the body

it is?”

 

Bhagavan: “You cannot know with your mind or picture

it with your imagination, although I tell you that it is here

(pointing to the right side of the chest). The only direct way to

realize it is to stop imagining and try to be yourself. Then you

automatically feel that the centre is there. It is the centre spoken

of in the scriptures as the heart-cavity.”

 

Devotee: “Can I be sure that the ancients meant this centre

by the term ‘heart’?”

 

Bhagavan: “Yes, you can; but you should try to have the

experience rather than locate it. A man does not have to go and

find where his eyes are in order to see. The heart is there, always

open to you, if you care to enter it, always supporting your

movements, although you may be unaware of it. It is perhaps more

correct to say that the Self is the heart. Really the Self is the centre

and is everywhere aware of itself as the Heart or Self-awareness.”

Devotee: “When Bhagavan says that the heart is the supreme

centre of the Spirit or Self, does that imply that it is not one of

the six chakras (yogic centres)?”

 

Bhagavan: “The chakras, counting from the bottom

upwards, are a series of centres in the (subtle) nervous system.

They represent various stages, each having its own kind of power

or knowledge, leading to the sahasrara, the thousand-petalled

lotus in the brain, where is seated the supreme Shakti (Divine

Energy). But the Self that supports the whole movement of the

Shakti is not located there but supports it from the heart-centre.”

Devotee: “Then it is different from the manifestation of

Shakti?”

 

Bhagavan: “Really there is no manifestation of Shakti apart

from the Self. It is the Self that becomes all these shaktis. When

the yogi attains the highest state of spiritual awareness (samadhi)

it is the Self in the heart that supports him in that state, whether

he is aware of it or not. But if his awareness is centred in the

heart he realizes that, whatever centres or states he may be in,

he is always the same Truth, the same Heart, the one Self, the

Spirit that is present throughout, eternal and immutable.”

 

More specifically, he explained on another occasion: “The

sushumna is thus a curve. It starts from the solar plexus, rises

through the spinal cord to the brain, and from there bends

down and ends in the heart. When the yogi has reached the

heart the samadhi becomes permanent. Thus we see that the

heart is the final centre.” (It is interesting to note that Lama

Govinda explains similarly in his Foundations of Tibetan

Mysticism that on the Tibetan path epitomised by the

incantation ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ the initiate, after attaining

the highest centre, which is in the brain, comes down to the

heart for final stabilisation. Unfortunately he presents this

knowledge as exclusive to Tantric Buddhism. Obviously, no

truth of general application can be confined to any one

religion or path).

 

The above dialogue indicates a technical explanation why

there are no stages on the direct path. There is no successive

development of the various subtle centres, each of which has its

own types of power and perception; instead there is

concentration from the beginning on the Self to which all

powers belong and the Heart from which all centres radiate

and by which they are supported.

 

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taken from Arthur Osborne's My Life & Quest