Holistic Meditation – II

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A vital clue

For our sakes, yours and mine, Ramana has given a location to this presence of the divine within. According to his experience, which will be discovered to be our experience also, if we search for it, that force is sporting in the spiritual heart of everyone. The spiritual heart is different from the blood pumping heart. This leading clue enables one to search for and discover the spiritual heart. Much has been discussed about this guidance regarding the location. Some ask, 'How can one locate God in a particular place?' Ramana himself provides the answer. Since one has identified himself with his body, it becomes necessary to specify God's presence within the body.

When one has identified oneself with the body and calls the body 'I' one has to find God's presence within the limits of the body. The fact is we are thinking we are this body. So, Ramana gives us a clue as it were, because he knows. He does not want one to wander and waste his effort. Life's time span is very short. The longest life is also short. The anatomy of this spiritual heart has also been given to us by Ramana. Therefore his Vidya, the knowledge which he is sharing is called 'Dahara Vidya', the 'Knowledge about the Heart'.

The Energy Centre

The next proposition which Bhagavan is exposing us to is that the spiritual heart is the very energy centre of all life.Energy flows from this power grid. All power is only located in God, not in the individual. It is open to each individual to draw on that power, by relating to that power, by linking himself to that power. You have to re-establish your connection, since it has gone haywire now, as they do in “By-pass surgery" for the physical heart. To the extent to which one is able to draw on that power, to that extent one is more alert, more attentive and more harmonious.

We say that there is a power grid failure, it means that the connection of the sub-grid with the main power centre has been shut off. So, the next question is how is one to be linked to this power, energy of the divine located in the spiritual heart? The fundamentals have to be stressed again and again. The heart is the power centre from which energy flows first to the mind, because we are living with the mind. We have no other instrument. So, the Supreme energises the mind and is the hidden power behind it. However after this power has been fed in it is fragmented by the thinker by transmitting that power of his mind to thoughts which occupy his attention for that time.

No one can have thoughts without the thinker. So, thought is energised by the thinker. When the thinker's attention moves from one thought to another thought then that thought loses its energy and another thought gets energised. Quite often the mind's energy is wasted on unnecessary and purely psychological thoughts. Thus the mind's energy is getting dissipated throughout the day.

Involuntary Recharging

What happens when the mind's energy is thus drained off? Here one is to remember that this drawing on the energy of the spiritual heart is not by any voluntary act of the individual. It happens in deep sleep. Everyday one is overtaken by sleep. Each man is compelled to sleep. Unless one sleeps, one would be totally without energy. The divine supplies the energy to each individual mind by linking it to its own power centre, the spiritual heart, in deep sleep.

Going into details Ramana explains that the individual whose mind's power is exhausted by the end of the day, mostly wastefully, is forced by providence to a rest called deep sleep. The mind sinks into the spiritual heart involuntarily. By this link the mind gets recharged and is fresh once again on waking. The example may be cited of a mother feeding an infant in sleep without its knowledge. But due to lack of knowledge of how to remain connected while awake as well, the same dissipative process happens each day.

Therefore Ramana repeatedly emphasises the need to become aware of how to dive within to the spiritual heart and to remain steadfastly linked to it. Then all action would be done with the totally un-distracted power of the mind.

About the author

A.R.Natarajan

Sri A.R.Natarajan has had the opportunity of a long association of over 50 years with the Ramanashram. He was the editor of "Mountain Path" for two years. He was the secretary of Ramana Kendra, New Delhi for ten years. He founded the Ramana Maharshi centre for learning, a non profit institution. He has authored more than thirty six books and eleven pocket books on the life and teachings of Bhagavan Ramana.

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