Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi Complete ... - BrahminVoice.org

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
body in the Heart. Thus the Heart is the nucleus of the whole Universe.”
Therefore Samyamana relates to concentration on different parts of
the body for the different siddhis. Also the Visva or the Virat is said to
contain the cosmos within the limits of the body. Again, “The world
is not other than the mind, the mind is not other than the Heart; that
is the whole truth.” So the Heart comprises all. This is what is taught
to Svetaketu by the illustration of the seed of a fig tree. The source is
a point without any dimensions. It expands as the cosmos on the one
hand and as Infinite Bliss on the other. That point is the pivot. From
it a single vasana starts, multiplies as the experiencer ‘I’, experience,
and the world. The experiencer and the source are referred to in the
mantra. Two birds, exactly alike, arise simultaneously.
When I was staying in the Skandasramam I sometimes used to go out
and sit on a rock. On one such occasion there were two or three others
with me including Rangaswami Iyengar. Suddenly we noticed some
small moth-like insect shooting up like a rocket into the air from a
crevice in the rock. Within the twinkling of an eye it had multiplied
itself into millions of moths which formed a cloud and hid the sky
from view. We wondered at it and examined the place from which it
shot up. We found that it was only a pinhole and knew that so many
insects could not have issued from it in such a short time.
That is how ahankara (ego) shoots up like a rocket and
instantaneously spreads out as the Universe.
The Heart is therefore the centre. A person can never be away from
it. If he is he is already dead. Although the Upanishads say that
the jiva functions through other centres on different occasions, yet
he does not relinquish the Heart. The centres are simply places of
business (vide Vedanta Chudamani). The Self is bound to the Heart,
like a cow tethered to a peg. The movements are controlled by the
length of the rope. All its wanderings centre around the peg.
A caterpillar crawls on a blade of grass and when it has come to the
end, it seeks another support. While doing so it holds on with its
hind-legs to the blade of grass, lifts the body and sways to and fro
before it can hold another. Similarly it is with the Self. It stays in
the Heart and holds other centres also according to circumstances.
But its activities always centre round the Heart.
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