The Heart is the Center is the Stillpoint

Posted by Steve Beckow On July 21, 2013

( www.goldenageofgaia.com)

I had a conversation with a reader yesterday on the matter of the stillpoint. I realize I’ve discussed aspects of this before but there are few topics more important so please forgive my repetition.

Archangel Michael once said to me in a reading: “You don’t much like to repeat yourself, do you?” And I said no. And he replied: “Can you imagine how I feel?” And no, I had not thought about it. He must have to repeat himself endlessly! And yet he’s always good-natured.

It’s about the center. Well, no, it’s about the heart. No, it’s about the stillpoint. The balance point, the middle, the point of origin, the destination.

Well, no, it’s about them all because they’re all one and the same thing.

I could pretend that they’re not and write an article on each, but the work these days is to unify religion and simplify subjects that have been purposely made complex by the planet’s controllers. So I’d rather keep it simple and say: They are all names for the same thing.

The spiritual heart or, as Hindus call it, the hridayam, has been described by Ramana Maharshi as smaller than the point of a pin. It is not the same as the heart chakra.  Here is Sri Ramana:

“[The] Heart is the seat of Jnanam [wisdom] as well as of the granthi (knot of ignorance). It is represented in the physical body by a hole smaller than the smallest pin-point, which is always shut.” (1)

Sri Ramama says that “the location of this Heart is on the right side of the chest, not at all on the left,” (2) just two thumb widths right of the breastbone.

In actual fact, as he points out many times, there is no physical location for the heart because the “heart” itself is not physical. “Heart” and “soul” are identical terms. And the soul has no physical existence. (3)

Ultimately, the soul or Self (the All-Self) is all there is so how can it be said to exist a few thumb widths right of the breastbone? It cannot.

But we pretend that it can for the sake of understanding. Much the same as Vedantic scholars would say that the Atman (Christ, Self or soul) was the size of the thumb; it helped to give an image for meditation.

So if I were to say to you: come back into balance, return to the center, focus on your heart – in every instance I’m saying the same thing.

And the request is also simple. It isn’t a vague or mystical process I’d be referring to. It doesn’t take eight hours of Vipassana meditation to do it. It’s simply the act of centering or returning your attention to the middle of your body, where the hridayam is said to reside, and then holding it there.

That act calms the mind and the emotions. When we swing out from the center to the peripheries of wild emotion and jumbled thought – say, when a vasana goes off – that’s when we lose our anchor.

When we bring our attention back to the heart/stillpoint/center, etc., that’s when we regain it.
(With one exception: We can be wildly ecstatic in our love for God. That does not harm us.)

I know my interpretation of balance is somewhat different from that of others. Others represent balance as having two sides of a scale equally weighted. I don’t agree that that is spiritual balance.

Balance for me is returning the attention to the heart or center or stillpoint.

The heart will open permanently when we ascend. Sahaja is the level of enlightenment associated with a permanent heart opening, as Sri Ramana tells us:

“When the mind drops down in Kevalya Nirvikalpa [samadhi], it opens but shuts again after it. When sahaja [nirvikalpa samadhi] is attained it opens for good.” (4)

The Divine Mother and Archangel Michael have both confirmed that sahaja is the level of enlightenment that ushers in Ascension. (5) If we combine Sri Ramana and the Divine Mother, then Ascension results in a permanent heart opening. That, I would imagine, releases a flood of bliss.

The reason I say all this is that we hear the injunction all the time to come back to the center, remain in your heart, regain your balance, etc. And all of these injunctions are saying the same thing. They counsel us to bring our attention back to the place in our form where the heart is located and to anchor it there.

You can do this right now before you sip another mouthful of orange juice or before you get up from your chair. This is not rocket science. It’s an act purely of will and, as far as I know, it’s advisable to repeat again and again throughout the day.

I regularly bring my awareness back to the heart, the center, the stillpoint, the soul.

Well, maybe I haven’t said all that before and so maybe I didn’t repeat myself all that much but this is all so important that I beg your forgiveness if I have.

Footnotes

(1) Ramana Maharshi,  S.S. Cohen, Guru Ramana. Memories and Notes. 6th edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1993, 96.
(2) Ramana Maharshi in Vasistha Ganapathi, ed., Sri Ramana Gita. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanashramam, 1977.
(3)  “The Heart is used in the Vedas and the scriptures to denote the place whence the notion ‘I’ springs. Does it spring only from the fleshly ball? It springs within us somewhere right in the middle of our being. The ‘I’ has no location. Everything is the Self. There is nothing but that. So the Heart must be said to be the entire body of ourselves and of the entire Universe conceived as ‘I.’ But to help the practiser (Abhyasi) we have to indicate a definite part of the Universe, or of the body. So this Heart is pointed out as the seat of the Self. But in truth we are everywhere, we are all that is, and there is nothing else.” (Sadhu Arunachala [A.W. Chadwick] in Sadhu Arunachala (A.W. Chadwick), A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1961, 81-2.)
(4) Ramana Maharshi, GR, 96.
(5) “The Divine Mother: Come to Me as I Come to You – Part ½,” Oct. 17, 2012, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/10/the-divine-mother-come-to-me-as-i-come-to-you-part-12/. “Archangel Michael: Detailed Instructions for Dec. 21, 2012 and After,” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/12/archangel-michael-detailed-instructions-for-dec-21-2012-and-after/.