The Heart and the Brain
About these nine verses the Maharshi said, "When I wasin Virupaksha Cave, Nayana came there once with a boy
named Arunachala [N. S. Arunachalam Iyer]. He had studied
up to the school's final class. While Nayana and I were talking,
the boy sat in a bush nearby. He somehow listened to our
conversation and composed nine verses in English, giving the
gist of what we were talking about. The verses were good and
so I translated them into Tamil verses in Ahaval metre. They
read like the Telugu Dwipada metre.1"
The following is a prose rendering of Sri Bhagavan's Tamil
translation of the nine verses.2
1. The heart of the world (Sri Bhagavan) and the brain of
the world (Kavyakantha) began to converse between
themselves in the beautiful sacred cave (Virupaksha). All who
heard those words at that time remained speechless as pillars.
2. The light of the sun, which exists and shines as the
heart of this earth, illumines the moon in the height, and the
moon gives light to the earth;
3. Likewise, Upanishads came from the lips of the Muni
(Sri Bhagavan), whose place (or abode) is the Heart, addressed
to the Lord (Kavyakantha), whose place (or abode) is the brain,
and were also heard by us as light is received by the earth.
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4. I shall compose, though ungrammatically, the truth of
every precious word of the pure sacred sayings I heard. If
asked, `Why is it the Truth?' it is merely because it is the
Truth.
5. I, the ignorant one, shall prattle that which Sri Ramana,
the Maha-mauni, lovingly told about the Heart and brain,
which is more secret than the meaning of any scripture.
6. "Just as the pictures in the film, which is placed inside
the machine (the cinema projector) are expanded through the
magnifying lens and move as very big pictures on the wall,
7. So the atom-like vasanas [?]in the Heart are made gross
by the lens of the brain, go out through the eyes, mouth and
nose and so on (that is, through the five senses) and appear in
space as wonderful pictures of many kinds.
8. I spent all theses days in the Heart, and when I came
from the Heart into the world I found my way to get back into
the Heart through the brain, and thereby I also discovered my
system (or method)."
9. Thus they finished speaking these pure words, which
the Lord (Kavyakantha) then noted in his mind, which all of
us understood well, and which I have now quoted.
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