Namaskar - Oct 09

Retreat Review
Revealing the
Spiritual Heart
Tia Sinha
It is a tale told by an
idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing
Through college and later, to an angst-ridden generation growing up in an Indian
metropolis, these immortal words penned by Shakespeare in his tragedy, Macbeth,
seem an apt description of Maya, the seemingly real yet illusory world we live in. Life
seems pointless. What is the point of it all? All the struggle, for what? For an eventual,
inevitable, inescable death? Yet, in resignation, most of us stick to the norm and do what
is expected of us. We acquire a higher education, good jobs, conventional relationships and
plan for retirement.
In May this year, at a ten-day, silent meditation retreat organised by Agama Yoga on the
paradisiacal island of Koh Pha Ngan in southern Thailand, Shakespeare’s words acquired a
new meaning, to be revealed towards the end of this article. The purpose of this Hridaya
retreat was to reveal the spiritual heart.
The spiritual heart is an inner mystical chakra not to be confused with the anahata (heart)
chakra. This spiritual heart is considered by mystics across traditions, to be the seat of
universal consciousness, the seat of the universal, intuitive wisdom that resides in the
region of our heart. This wisdom is considered the Guru Haridya Manas or inner Guru or
Teacher. Sometimes referred to as the fountain of wisdom, sometimes as the seat of
universal compassion or spontaneous, unconditional love for all beings with no ulterior
motive, no strings attached, the spiritual heart gets activated when the mind bows down to
the heart, in other words, when the thinking process and actions flowing from the thinking
process are governed not by the imagined, separate self but by this divine, universal
wisdom that we all have access to. The spiritual heart propels untold saintly acts of
kindness and willing self-sacrifice and is the true source of creativity that has inspired great
writing, music and art though the ages.
In essence, throughout the retreat, we were being trained to bring the mind down to the
heart and live from the heart. The Hridaya retreat has been designed and was led by the
gifted, highly experienced Rumanian mystic and teacher, Claudiu Trandafir who has
completed several solitary cave retreats.
The teachings at the Hridaya retreat were based on Advaita or the non-dual nature of
existence, the essence of the Upanishads. The primary technique of meditation taught was
based on the teachings of India’s beloved jnana yogi, Ramana Maharshi on ‘Who Am I’
and how to dissolve the deceptive ‘I’ thought. Claudiu also drew upon the Buddhist
technique of ‘capturing the uncouth mind’ by counting the breath in increasing multiples
of seven to calm the mind and prepare it for enquiry into its own nature. The exquisitely
beautiful lectures between meditation sessions drew upon the Upanishads, Adi
Shankaracharya’s Atma Bodh and Viveka Chudamani, Kashmir Shaivism, particularly the
Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, Sayings of the Fathers of the Desert and the immensely inspiring
poetry of Ravya and Lala and of Rumi, Hafeez and other Sufi saints.
We also practiced Hatha Yoga (as taught at Agama) twice a day, led by Claudiu in the
morning and a self-practice in the hall in the evening. The pithy, oft-repeated quote, ‘Yoga
in, ego out; Ego in, yoga out’ left an impression. Yoga asanas practiced without a keen
awareness of the entity that is practicing can lead to a strengthening of the false idea of a
separate self. Among other instructions, we were encouraged to witness our own yoga
practice and, from time to time, ask ourselves who was practicing.
In the earlier meditation sessions, the technique of asking ‘Who Am I’ was frustrating, to
say the least. My mind would throw up readymade answers remembered from our
scriptures. We were supposed to be ‘That’, right (?), from the Vedic Mahavakya or great
saying, That Thou Art? Though what the ‘That’ was, the sheer magnitude of it, escaped
me. Or, no answer would come whatsoever. I would draw a complete blank and would
find impatience or sheer boredom creeping in and taking over.
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