TALKS WITH RAMANA MAHARISHI

Devotee: Now you  were telling me that the Heart is the centre of the Self..

Maharishi: 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.

D: Now be pleased to tell me where it is in the body.

M: 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 case to fancy and try to be yourself. Then you realise, automatically fell, that the centre is there.

This is the centre, the Heart, spoken of in the scriptures as Hrith-Guha (Cavity of the Heart), Arul Ullam.

D: In no book have I found it stated that it is there.

M: Long after I came here I chanced upon a verse in the Malayalam version of Ashtangahridayam, the standard work on Ayurveda, wherein the ojas sthana is mentioned as located in the right side of the chest, called the seat of consciousness (Samvit). But I know of no other work, which refers to it as being located there. 

D: Can I be sure that the ancients meant this centre by the term 'Heart'?

M: Yes, that is so. But you should try to HAVE, rather than to locate the experience. A man need not go to 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 aware. 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. Hence I said; " Hear is Thy Name".

D: Has anyone else addressed the Lord thus, naming Him the Heart.

M: Long after I said this, one day I came across a hymn in  Sri.Appar's Thevaram, where he mentions Lord by name Ullam, which is the same as the Heart.

D: When you say that the Heart is the supreme centre of the Purusha, the Atman, you imply that it is not one of the six yogic centres.

M: The Yogic chakras counting from the bottom to the top are various centres in the nervous systems. They represent various steps manifesting different kinds are power or knowledge leading to Sahasrara, the thousand pettled lotus,where is seated the supreme Shatki. But the Self that supports the whole movement of Shakthi is not placed there, but supports it from the Heart Centre.