CONCENTRATION ON THE HEART OR
BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS
Concentration on the point between the eye-brows is a yogic practice. Bhagavan recognised its efficacy, especiallywhen combined with incantation, but recommended concentration on the heart on the right side as being both safer and more effective.
A Maharashtra lady of middle age, who had studied
Jnaneswari and Vichara Sagara, and was practising concentration between the eyebrows, had felt shivering and fear and did not progress. She required guidance. The Maharshi told her not to forget the seer. The sight is fixed between the eyebrows, but the seer is not kept in view. If the seer be always remembered it will be all right.1
A visitor said: We are asked to concentrate on the spot in the forehead between the eyebrows. Is that right?
B.: Everyone is aware that he exists. Yet one ignores that
awareness and goes about in search of God. What is the use of fixing one's attention between the eyebrows? The aim of such advice is to help the mind to concentrate. It is one of the forcible methods of checking the mind and preventing its dissipation. The mind is forcibly directed into one channel and this is a help to concentration. But the method of realisation is the enquiry `Who am I??'. The present trouble affects the mind and it can only be removed by the mind.2
D.: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of
Consciousness and as identical with the Self. What exactly does the word `Heart' signify?
B.: The question about the Heart arises because you are
interested in seeking the source of Consciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the enquiry about the `I' and its nature has an irresistible fascination. Call it by any name, God, Self, the Heart or the seat of Consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be
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grasped is this: that Heart means the very core of one's being, the centre without which there is nothing whatever.
D.: But Sri Bhagavan has specified a particular place for
the Heart within the physical body -- that is in the chest, two digits to the right of the median.
B.: Yes, that is the centre of spiritual experience according to
the testimony of Sages. The spiritual heart-centre is quite different from the blood-propelling, muscular organ known by the same name. The spiritual heart-centre is not an organ of the body. All that you can say of the heart is that it is the core of your being, that with which you are really identical (as the word in Sanskrit literally means) whether you are awake, asleep or dreaming, whether you are engaged in work or immersed in samadhi.
D.: In that case, how can it be localised in any part of the
body? Fixing a place for the Heart would imply setting physiological limitations to That which is beyond space and time.
B.: That is right. But the person who puts the question
about the position of the Heart considers himself as existing with or in the body. While putting the question now, would you say that your body alone is here but that you are speaking from somewhere else?
No, you accept your bodily existence. It is from this point of view that any reference to a physical body comes to be made. Truly speaking, pure Consciousness is indivisible; it is without parts. It has no form or shape, no within or without. There is no right or left… Pure Consciousness -- which is the Heart -- includes all; and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate truth.
D.: How shall I understand Sri Bhagavan's statement that
the experience of the heart-centre is at that particular place in the chest?
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B.: Pure Consciousness wholly unrelated to the physical
body and transcending the mind is a matter of direct experience. Sages know their bodiless, eternal existence, just as an unrealised man knows his bodily existence. But the experience of Consciousness can be with bodily awareness as well as without it. In the bodiless experience of Pure Consciousness the Sage is beyond time and space, and no question about the position of the Heart can arise at all. Since, however, the physical body can not subsist (with life) apart from Consciousness, bodily awareness has to be sustained by pure Consciousness. The former, by nature, is limited and can never be co-extensive with the latter which is Infinite and Eternal. Body-consciousness is merely a miniature reflection of the pure Consciousness with which the Sage has realised his identity. For him, therefore, body-consciousness is only a reflected ray, as it were, of the self-effulgent, infinite Consciousness which is himself. It is in this sense alone that the Sage is aware of his bodily existence.
D.: For men like me, who have neither the direct experience
of the Heart nor the consequent recollection, the matter seems to be somewhat difficult to grasp. About the position of the Heart itself, perhaps, we must depend upon some sort of guess- work.
B.: If the determination of the position of the Heart is to
depend on guess-work even in the case of the unrealised, the question is surely not worth much consideration. No, it is not on guess-work that you have to depend, it is an unerring intuition.
D.: Who has the intuition?
B.: All people.
D.: Does Bhagavan credit me with an intuitive knowledge
of the Heart?
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B.: No, not of the Heart, but of the position of the Heart
in relation to your identity.
D.: Sri Bhagavan says that I intuitively know the position
of the Heart in the physical body?
B.: Why not?
D.: (Pointing to himself) It is to me personally that Bhagavan
is referring?
B.: Yes. That is the intuition! How did you refer to yourself
by gesture just now? Did you not put your finger on the right side of the chest? That is exactly the place of the heart-centre.
D.: So then, in the absence of direct knowledge of the
heart-centre, I have to depend on this intuition?
B.: What is wrong with it? When a schoolboy says: `It is I
that did the sum correctly', or when he asks you: `Shall I run and get the book for you', would he point to the head that did the sum correctly or to the legs that will swiftly get you that book? No, in both cases, his finger is pointed quite naturally towards the right side of the chest, thus giving innocent expression to the profound truth that the source of `I'-ness in him is there. It is an unerring intuition that makes him refer to himself, to the Heart which is the Self, in that way. The act is quite involuntary and universal, that is to say, it is the same in the case of every individual. What stronger proof than this do you require about the position of the Heart-centre in the physical body?
D.: But the question is: which is the correct view of the
two, namely: (1) that the centre of spiritual experience is the place between the eyebrows, or (2) that it is the Heart.
B.: For the purpose of practice you may concentrate
between the eyebrows if you like; it would then be bhavana [?] or imaginative contemplation of the mind; whereas the supreme
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state of anubhava or Realisation, with which you become wholly identified and in which your individuality is completely dissolved, transcends the mind. Then, there can be no objectified centre to be experienced by you as a subject distinct and separate from it.
D.: I would like to put my question in slightly different
words. Can the place between the eyebrows be said to be the seat of the Self?
B.: You agree that the Self is the ultimate source of
Consciousness and that it subsists equally during all the three states of mind. But see what happens when a person in meditation is overcome by sleep. As the first symptom of sleep his head begins to nod; but this could not happen if the Self were situated between the eyebrows, that centre cannot be called its seat without implying that the Self often forsakes its own place, which is absurd. The fact is that the sadhaka may have his experience at any centre or chakra [?] on which he concentrates his mind, but that does not make such a centre the seat of the Self…
D.: Since Bhagavan says that the Self may function at any
of the centres or chakras while its seat is in the Heart, is it not possible that by the practice of intense concentration or dhyana between the eyebrows, this centre may itself become the seat of the Self?
B.: As long as it is merely the stage of practice of
concentration in order to control your attention at one spot, any consideration about the seat of the Self would merely be theorising. You consider yourself the subject, the seer, and the place whereon you fix the attention becomes the object seen. This is merely bhavana [?]. When, on the contrary, you see the Seer himself, you merge in the Self, you become one with it; that is the Heart.
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D.: Then, is the practice of concentration between the
eyebrows advisable?
B.: The final result of the practice of any kind of dhyana [?] is
that the object on which the aspirant fixes his mind ceases to exist as distinct and separate from the subject. Subject and object become one Self, and that is the Heart. The practice of concentration on the centre between the eyebrows is one of the methods of training, and thereby thoughts are effectively controlled for the time being. The reason is that all thought is an outer activity of the mind; and thought, in the first instance, follows sight, physical or mental. It is important, however, that this practice of fixing one's attention between the eyebrows should be accompanied by incantations. Because next in importance to the eye of the mind is the ear of the mind (that is mental visualisation of speech), either to control and thereby strengthen the mind, or to distract and thereby dissipate it. Therefore, while fixing the mind's eye on a centre, as for instance, between the eyebrows, you should also practise the mental articulation of a Divine Name or incantation. Otherwise you will soon lose hold on the object of concentration. This kind of practice leads to the identification of the Name, Word or Self -- whatever you may call it -- with the centre selected for the purpose of meditation. Pure Consciousness, the Self or the Heart is the final Realisation.3
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