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Heart and Mind
Ramana: "The jiva is said to
remain in the Heart in deep sleep, and in the brain
in the waking state. Heart is not the muscular
cavity which propels blood. It denotes in hthe
Vedas and the scriptures the centre whence the
notion 'I' springs. Does it spring from the ball of
flesh? It does not, but from somewhere within us,
from the centre of our being. The 'I' has no
location. Everything is the Self. There is nothing
but the Self. So the Heart must be said to be the
entire body as well as the universe, conceived as
'I'. But to help the abhyasi we have to indicate a
definite place in the universe, or the body, dor
it. So this Heart is pointed out as the seat of the
Self. But in truh we are everywhere; we are all
that is, and there is nothing else".
Ramana: "Atma is the Heart itself.
Its manifestion is in the brain. The passage from
the Heart to the brain might be considered to be
through the sushumna, or nerve (nadi) with some
other name. The Upanishads speak of pare leena,
meaning that the sushumna or such nadis are all
comprised in Para, i.e. the Atma nadi. The Yogis
say that the current rising up to sahasrara (brain)
ends there. That experience is not complete. For
Jnana they must come to the Heart. Hridaya (Heart)
is the Alpha and Omega".
Cohen: From the Heart the
body sprouts. The energy, life and consciousness,
the only prime elements of the body and likewise of
the universe, stream out of the Heart by the first
channel, or nadi, straight to the head (Amrita
Nadi) from which they run down to all parts of the
body through various nadis. ...Because all the
nadis from the body end in the sahasrara, the
Kundalini yogi, the Hatha yogi, and in fact all
yogis, who practise pranayama take the sahasrara to
be the terminal point of their sadhana; whereas the
Dhyana yogi, also called Raja yogi, Vichara yogi,
etc. adds one more state for the complete and
absolute Emancipation. The last stage runs through
the Para nadi, also called Amrita nadi, because,
being of the purest sattva, it is extremely
blissful and leads straight to the Heart.
Ramana: The Heart is not physical; it
is spiritual Hridaya = hrit + ayam, which means
'that is the Centre". It is that from which
thoughts arise, on which they subsists and where
thry are resolved are the content of the mind and
they shape the universe. The Heart is thus the
centre of all. It is said by the Upanishads to be
Brahman. Brahman is the Heart".
Cohen: "Thoughts are (the
products as well as) the contents of the mind" is
significant; it make the mind not simply manas, as
it is usually wrongly translated in Indian
metaphysics, but the consciousness which produces,
contains and perceives the thoughts, synonymous
wiith the Heart or Brahman.
"Verily as space is boundless, so is the ether
within the Heart. Both heaven and earth, fire and
air, the sun and the moon, also the lightning and
the stars, and whatever is, as well as whatever is
not in the universe, all are within the vacuity
(Heart)". Chandogya Upanishad, IX, i.3)
Ramana: "How to realise the Heart?
There is no one who even for a trice fails to
experience the Self. He is the Self. The Self is
the Heart. When asked who you are, you place your
hand on the right siide of the chest and say 'I
am'; thereby you unnowingly point out the Self. The
Self s thur known".
Devotee: "Should I meditate on the right
chest in order to meditate on the Heart?"
Bhagavan: "The Heart is not physical.
Meditation should not be on the right or the left.
It should be on the Self. Everyone knows "I am". It
is neight within nor without, neither on the right
nor the left: "I am" - that is all".
Questioner (a teacher of philosophy): "How
can the world be an imagination or a though?
Thought is a function of the mind. The mind is
located in the brain. The brain is within the skull
of a human being, who is an infinitesimal part of
the universe. How then can the universe be
contained in the cells of the brain?"
Bhagavan: "So long as the mind is
considered to be an entity of the kind described,
the doubt will persist. But what is mind? Let us
consider. What is the world? It is objects spread
out in space (akasha). Who comprehends it? The
mind. Is not the mind which comprehands space
itself space (akasha)? The space is physcial ether
(bhootakasha). The mind is mental ether (manakasha)
which is contained in transcendental ether
(chidakasha). The mind is thur the ether principle
(akashatattva) Being the principle of knowledge
(jnana tatva), it is identified with ether (akasha)
by metaphysics. Considering it to be ether, there
will be no difficulty in reconciling the apparent
contradiction in the question. Pure mind (Suddha
manas) is ether (akasa). Rajas and tamas operate as
gross objects, etc. Thus the whole universe is only
mental".
Items on or about Ramana Maharshi on
Beezone
Talks
With Ramana Maharshi | The
Heart | Do
Guru's Feel Pain | Ramana's
Appearance | Chadwick's
First Darshan | Saints
Turn Into Light | Somerset
Maugham | Mercedes
D'Acosta |
Ramana's Teaching
According to Adi Da | Published from the
Ashram | The
Seer and The Seen | Mandukya
Upanishad | Three
States of Consciousness | The
Five Great Elements | India
and Peru | Ramana's
Will
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