Located two digits right of the breastbone, according to Sri Ramana Maharshi, is an aperture, which Hindus call the hridayam.
This aperture is thought of as the doorway or portal to the heart. For all but a few of us, the aperture remains closed. And then, upon a state of enlightenment called Sahaja Samadhi, it opens and remains open permanently.
Sri Ramana describes it here:
“[The] Heart is the seat of Jnanam [wisdom] as well as of the granthi (knot of ignorance). It is represented in the physical body by a hole smaller than the smallest pin-point [the hridayam], which is always shut.
“When the mind drops down in Kevalya Nirvikalpa [Samadhi], it opens but shuts again after it. When sahaja [Nirvikalpa Samadhi] is attained it opens for good. The granthi is the knot which ties the insentient body to the consciousness which functions in it.” (1)
I experienced a heart opening for a few months and the flow of love that poured through the floodgates could be called a “tsunami of love,” to use an expression of the Council of Love.
In my own case, before that event, I led a pretty loveless life. I used to think I had a hole in my heart. I had no idea what love was, only a distant memory of my Mother’s loving face.
I had a set of moves that I’d make, words that I’d say, and expressions that I’d display which I’d learned to associate with “love.” This was my “play.” No one remained fooled for very long. In fact no one remained for very long.
When I was young, no one talked to me about sexuality, relationships, or communication. I picked it up from novels, movies, and the gang. This is one situation I hope to help correct: To arrive at curricula that really make a difference in a young person’s life.
As it turned out, I had a major spiritual blockage in my heart. When I had my heart opening on March 13, 2015, the sensation was as if a cannon had just shot a huge shell outwards or as if a massive champagne bottle had just blown its cork.
Some blocking material, some piece of psychic junk was propelled from me, allowing the love to flow through my opened heart.
Oh, my Gawd. This is what they’re all talking about? I would never have guessed. It was beyond the reach of my understanding.
Oh, my Gawd. This is so wonderful. This is so far beyond ordinary love that it seems silly to use one word to describe both.
I don’t classify mine as an enlightenment experience. It was a peak experience even if it lasted for quite a while. And how grateful I was for every day it was with me.
When I talk about an open heart, I don’t mean an attitude of “open-heartedness.” I see people bristle when I talk about an open heart, as if to say, “How dare you suggest that my heart is not open?” I’m not saying that a person isn’t generous enough, or giving, or caring.
I’m talking about a very specific occurrence.
I’m saying that most of us, without knowing it, stand on this side of a definite spiritual event called “a heart opening.”
This occurrence sees the hridayam, the aperture of the heart, open and release the love that’s just waiting to emerge, through any little crack or opening.
If you’ve ever felt love flood through your heart and out again, then you know this state. It cannot be faked. It’s either known or not known.
It’s clear when people say they know it that they don’t because most people who try to fake it don’t know that this kind of love cannot be faked. Nor can knowledge of it be pretended.
If I knew real love, I’d be able to fall back a certain distance – appropriate to the setting – sink down into it at least a little, with a happy look on my face.
The people who are faking it look concerned and distraught.
This is just one of many areas in which we’ll have to adjust to new knowledge so, if you’d hear it from me, perhaps just open to the fact that what Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Quan Yin, and St. Francis mean by love is way, way beyond what we mean by it. True love, real, universal, unconditional and transformative love is not trivial.
As a society, we’re not very familiar with this state though the Mother and everyone else describe it to us.
If all of us, around the world were in this state of grace, how could our world not work? I’m certain that it would. (2)
Footnotes
(1) Ramana Maharshi in S.S. Cohen, Guru Ramana. Memories and Notes. 6th edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1993, 96.
In the state known as Brahmajnana or God-Realization, which Ramana here calls Kevalya Nirvikalpa Samadhi, prior to Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the aperture opens temporarily and closes again. Only in Sahaja does it open permanently. Sahaja marks the culmination of our Ascension process.
(2) I can speak with certainty because I’ve had realizational knowledge of transformative love, not just experiential knowledge or intellectual knowledge. Does certainty mean that a world in love will happen? No. It reflects on the present-moment status of that knowledge for me. The rest is up to imperfect humans working out the perfect Divine Plan. Just think: Lemuria and Atlantis.