17th April, 1937

Talk 403.

There was some reference to the extract from the Modern Psychological

Review, wondering if any instruments could be of use in detecting the Heart-centre and if proper subjects were available for recording the experience of the adepts in the spiritual path, and so on. Others were speaking. Sri Bhagavan said: In the incident mentioned in the book Self-Realization that I became unconscious and symptoms of death supervened, I was all along aware. I could feel the action of the physical heart stopped and equally the action of the Heart-centre unimpaired. This state lasted about a quarter of an hour.

We asked if it was true that some disciples have had the privilege of feeling Sri Bhagavan's Heart-centre to be on the right by placing their hands on
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Sri Bhagavan's chest. Sri Bhagavan said, "Yes." (Mr. Viswanatha Iyer, Narayana Reddi and others have said they felt Sri Bhagavan's Heart- centre to be on the right by placing their hands on his chest).

A devotee rightly observed that if hands could feel and locate the Heart-centre, delicate scientific instruments should certainly do it.
D.: The Heart is said to be on the right, on the left or in the centre. With such differences of opinion how are we to meditate on Hridaya ^[?]?

M.: You are and it is a fact. Dhyana ^[?] is by you, of you, and in you. It must go on where you are. It cannot be outside you. So you are the centre of dhyana ^[?]and that is the Heart. A location is however given to it with reference to the body. You know that you are. Where are you? You are in the body and not out of it. Yet not the whole body. Though you pervade the whole body still you admit of a centre where from all your thoughts start and wherein they subside. Even when the limbs are amputated you are there but with defective senses. So a centre must be admitted. That is called the Heart. The Heart is not merely the centre but the Self. Heart is only another name for the Self. Doubts arise only when you identify it with something tangible and physical. The scriptures no doubt describe it as the source of 101 nadis, etc. In Yoga Vasishta Chudala says that kundalini ^[?] is composed of 101 nadis, thus identifying one with the other. Heart is no conception, no object for meditation. But it is the seat of meditation; the Self remains all alone. You see the body in the Heart, the world in it. There is nothing separate from it. So all kinds of effort are located there only.