The Heart is another name for Reality

[Guest guest]

The Teachings of BhagavanSri Ramana Maharshiin His Own WordsCHAPTER ONEHEART AND HEADSaying this, Bhagavan showed the quotation from the latterand quoted the text from the former. Sometimes, when asked,he referred also to the Biblical text from Ecclesiastes: "The wiseman's heart is at the right hand and a fool's heart is at the left."1Devotee: Why do we have a place such as the heart to concentrateon for meditation?Bhagavan: Because you seek true Consciousness. Where can youfind it? Can you attain it outside yourself? You have to find itinternally. Therefore you are directed inward. The Heart is theseat of Consciousness or Consciousness itself.2I ask you to observe where the `I' arises in your body, butit is not really quite correct to say that the `I' arises from andmerges in the chest at the right side. The Heart is another namefor Reality and this is neither inside nor outside the body. Therecan be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not mean by`heart' any physiological organ or any plexus or nerves oranything like that; but so long as a man identifies himself withthe body or thinks he is in the body, he is advised to see wherein the body the `I'-thought arises and merges again. It must bethe heart at the right side of the chest since every man of whateverrace and religion and in whatever language he may be speaking,points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself when hesays `I'. This is so all over the world, so that must be the place.And by keenly watching the emergence of the `I'-thought onwaking and its subsidence on going to sleep, one can see that itis in the heart on the right side.31 Ecclesiastes X, 2.2 Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, 205.3 Day by Day with Bhagavan by A. Devaraja Mudaliar (5th Edition, 2000), p. 234.