Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

THE SECRET LOCUS OF THE SELF

D. — Then whom do you address when you say ’know thyself’?

M. To whatever you are; to you is given the suggestion ‘know thyself’. The ego-self when it feels the necessity to know its own origin or impelled to rise above itself, takes the suggestion and goes deeper and there discovers the true source and reality of itself. So the ego-self beginning to know itself ends in perceiving its Self.

D. Now, you were telling me that the Heart is the centre of the Self.

M. Yes, it is the one supreme centre of the Self. You need have no doubt about it. Only the Real Self is there in the Heart behind the jiva the ego-self.

D. Now will you be pleased to tell me where it is?

M. You cannot know it with your mind. You cannot realise it by imagination, when I tell you here is the centre (pointing to the right side of the chest). The only direct way to realise it is to cease to fancy and try to be yourself. Then you realise, automatically feel that the centre is there.

This is the centre, the Heart spoken of in the scriptures as hrt-guha, cavity of the Heart, *2. Girou, Ullam.

D. -In no book have I found it stated that it is there.

M. Long after I came here I came across a verse in the Malayalam version of Astangahrdayam, the standard work on Ayurveda, wherein the ojas sthana is mentioned as located in the right side of the chest and is called the seat of consciousness, samvit. But I do not know any other work.

D. — Can I be sure that the ancients meant this centre by the term ’Heart?

M. -Yes, that is the experience. But do not go on trying to locate an experience; try to have the experience. A man need not go to find out where his eyes are located when he wants to see. The Heart is there ever open to you if you care to get into it, ever supporting all your movements even while you are ignorant of it. It is perhaps more proper to say that the Self is the Heart itself than to say that it is in the Heart. Really, the Self is the Centre itself. It is everywhere aware of itself as ’Heart’ the Self-awareness. Hence I said "Heart is Thy name” हृदयं ते नाम’.

D. Has anyone else addressed the Lord this way naming him the Heart?

M. When I said so I did not know. Long after, one day, I came across a hymn in St. Appar’s Thevaram, where he mentions the Lord by the name of ullam which is the same as the Heart.

D. If you say that the Heart is the supreme centre of the purusa, the atman, you mean it is not one of the six yogic centres ?

M. The yogic chakras from the bottom to the top are various centres in the nervous system. They represent various steps manifesting different kinds of power or knowledge leading to the sahasrara the thousand-petalled lotus where is seated the supreme sakti. But the Self that supports the whole movement of sakti is not involved in it, but it supports it from the Heart-centre.

D. Then it is different from the sakti manifestation ?

M. — Really there is no sakti manifestation apart from the Self. The Self has become all this sakti.... When the yogin goes up to the highest centre in trance samadhi, it is the self in the Heart that supports that state whether he is aware of it or not. But if he is aware in the Heart, he knows that whatever states or whatever centres he is in, it is always the same truth the same Heart, the one Self, the Spirit that is present throughout, eternal and immutable. The Tantra Shastra calls the Heart suryamandala or the solar orb, and the sahasrara, candramandala or, the lunar orb. These symbols present the relative importance of the two, the ahmasthana and the sakti sthana.