Normally ‘you’ means your mind. The heart is just a thumping organ. When you stay with the stillness, ‘you’ will become your heart. You will become heart-centered. This is a singular heart and a special ‘you’ altogether.
The sage said, “It roams the skies yet rests in your heart… find your stillness to feel it.” “What is stillness?” asked the king. “Just the heart, your majesty… when you find complete stillness, you will know the heart as the source of all things.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Ch. 4.1.7
Sit comfortably, alone in an undisturbed place. Be silent and unmoving. If unsettling thoughts come, let them. Become like a rock. Absolutely motionless. The only outer movement you’ll feel now is the undulation of your ribs as you gently breathe. Remain like this. In a few moments you will discern the inner movement. You will feel the quietly thumping heart.
Stay with this feeling. The thumping heart is a wonderfully sweet sensation. The lub-dub has a magic to it. Vedanta says your heart has another function and purpose beyond pumping blood and churning emotions. It can plunge you into the field and reveal the ‘source of all things’.
Enter your inner physical world. The world you have largely ignored all these years. Here your heart is the engine of your body and emotional being. No sensation however small escapes its attention.
As you keep still and listen, you will silently understand how you might have abused it all these years. Every day of your life you experienced over 90,000 thoughts, big and small. Each thought was powered by a tiny emotional bullet triggered by your heart, and aimed at itself. You would have felt pricks of sorrow, anguish, anger, or stab wounds of jealousy, rage, hatred, or healing waves of laughter, compassion or love.
On the command of your half-aware mind, the heart created emotions and willingly inflicted them upon itself. Depending on the thoughts that hit your mind now, you realize you could be holding deep scars within.
If you realize your heart is scarred, you will need to heal before you can rise any higher. Five minutes of stillness will do a world of good. It will also gently stay your hand from stabbing yourself further. Take life easy and live longer. The Bible says, ‘Gladness of heart... gives length of days’. Ask any cardiologist. He will certify it.
If you have been joyful and compassionate all along - as you allow the stillness to take over completely, you will discern a shift of your center. Normally ‘you’ means your mind. The heart is just a thumping organ. When you stay with the stillness, ‘you’ will become your heart. You will become heart-centered. This is a singular heart and a special ‘you’ altogether.
This may sound incredible. But that’s exactly what happens to us at rare moments in our lives. When we behold intense joy or sorrow, whenever we ride the wave of any pure emotion, we crash from head to heart. It is a momentary and uncontrolled sensation way beyond words.
Instead of crashing uncontrollably, Vedanta guides you to slip effortlessly into that pool of deep feeling. As you learn the art of stillness, you will in time realize that the pool has an endless depth and range. It’s infinite, really, and so are you.
Vedanta rocks to the magical lub-dub. Swing with it in the stillness of your being.
( Source: Mani Shankar/ Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad - 18th Jan 2009 )
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