In this article, I’d like to transition from looking at our Ascension to looking at discussions of how the Self is “located” (as far as the Self can ever said to be located) in the heart.
And I mean this as plainly as saying that my laptop is located on my desk. I am not being metaphorical.
Obviously the Self is everywhere, but our progressive experiences of it have been adapted to our dimensional level, I believe.
I’d like to start with the views of terrestrial sages. We’ll hear them describe the Self with various terms: Spirit, soul, Christ, Atman, “I,” Buddha, etc.
I saw the Self after journeying to the end of the road within the heart. And there it was. (1)
The Upanishads predicted what I found. There in the heart is where we’ll find the Self:
“The ancient, effulgent being, in-dwelling Spirit, [is] deep-hidden in the lotus of the heart.” (2)
Sri Krishna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, also said that the “Lord, their soul” is to be found in the human frame; specifically in the heart.
“Fools pass blindly by the place of my dwelling
Here in the human form, and of my majesty
They know nothing at all,
Who am their Lord, their soul.” (3)
“There in the ignorant heart … I dwell.” (4)
When I first read that, I said to myself, what a nice flowery statement with a mystical meaning that I will probably unravel one day.
No, no. It’s a literal description. There in the ignorant heart the Self dwells. I saw it.
Shankara’s words mirror my experience, though his was undoutbtedly much more magnificent:
“Here, within this body, in the pure mind, in the secret chamber of intelligence, in the infinite universe within the heart, the Atman [I, Self, Christ] shines in its captivating splendour, like a noonday sun.” (5)
Shines in its splendor for non-lightworkers!
Fast forward to the recent past and we have Sri Ramakrishna affirming that “He abides in the hearts of all.” (6)
Jump to the near-present and we have Sri Ramana Maharshi’s attempt to explain the soul’s location – and in fact the heart’s location – to listeners who mostly don’t know about dimensions.
Let’s listen to one attempt to “locate” the heart and what Sri Ramana’s difficulty is:
Questioner: Sri Bhagavan has specified a particular place for the Heart within the physical body, that it is in the chest, two digits to the right from the meridian.
Maharshi. Yes, that is the Centre of spiritual experience according to the testimony of Sages. The spiritual Heart-centre is quite different from the blood-propelling, muscular organ known by the same name. The spiritual Heart-centre is not an organ of the body.
All that you can say of the Heart is that it is the very Core of your being, that which you are really identical (as the word in Sanskrit literally means), whether you are awake, asleep or dreaming, whether you are engaged in work or immersed in Samadhi.
Q. In that case, how can it be localized in any part of the body? Fixing a place for the Heart would be simply setting physiological limitations to That which is beyond space and time.
Now Maharshi reveals that he must fit the truth into words that his listeners can understand.
M. That is right. But the person who puts the question about the position of the Heart, considers himself as existing with or in the body. While putting the question now, would you say that your body alone is here but that you are speaking from somewhere else? No, you accept your bodily existence. It is from this point of view that any reference to a physical body comes to be made.
The ultimate truth is different from our metaphorical descriptions of it. Pure consciousness is indivisible, indescribable, incomprehensible.
Truly speaking pure Consciousness is indivisible, it is without parts. It has no form and shape, no ‘within’ and ‘without’. There is no ‘right’ or ‘left’ for it. Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all; and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate Truth.
From this absolute standpoint, the Heart, Self or Consciousness can have no particular place assigned to it in the physical body. What is the reason? The body is itself a mere projection of the mind, and the mind is but a poor reflection of the radiant Heart. How can That in which everything is contained, be itself confined as a tiny part within the physical body which is but an infinitesimal, phenomenal manifestation of the one Reality?
But Sri Ramana wants to reach his listeners.
But people do not understand this. They cannot help thinking in terms of physical body and the world. For instance, you say “I have come to this Asramam all the way from my country beyond the Himalayas.” But that is not the truth. Where is there a ‘coming’ or ‘going’ or any movement whatever, for the one, all-pervading Spirit which you really are?
You are where you have always been. It is your body that moved or was conveyed from place to place till it reached this Asramam. This is the simple truth, but to a person who considers himself a subject living in an objective world, it appears as something altogether visionary!
It is by coming down to the level of the ordinary understanding that a place is assigned to the Heart in the physical body. (7)
Exactly. There’s the full case for the difference between realizing the Truth and communicating it to people using comprehensible Third-Dimensional language. The latter seems impossible though sages never stop trying.
We find in the end that only realization fully communicates.
(To be concluded in Part 4.)
Footnotes
(1) See “The Heart is ‘the Seat of the Soul’,” December 17, 2018, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2018/12/17/the-heart-is-the-seat-of-the-soul/.
(2) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 17.
(3) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 81.
(4) Ibid., 87.
(5) Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, 53.
(6) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna- Center, 1978; c1942, 375.
(7) On other occasions, Sri Ramana has added:
Q: What is the heart?
M: It is the centre of the Self. The Self is the centre of centres. The Heart represents the psychic centre and not the physical centre. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Three Volumes in One. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanashram, 2010, 46.)
The place where the vasanas are is the Self; i.e., the Heart. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Talks, ibid., 393.)
The Heart is used in the Vedas and the scriptures to denote the place whence the notion ‘I’ springs. … This Heart is pointed to as the seat of the Self. But in truth, we are everywhere, we are all that is, and there is nothing else. (Sri Ramana Maharshi in Talks, ibid., 35.)