A Little on the Heartbeat
***
VISION MOUND
Volume 1, Number 7
JANUARY 1978
Beyond the heartbeat and the Mind
an essay by Bubba Free John
There is a current of vibratory force pervading the whole body. It is the body’s life and the light of its mind. It may be felt to be identified with either the whole body itself or with the prior Condition of the whole body. It is perfectly identical to the whole body itself, but it is ultimately not qualified by the finite body or any of its conditions.
It appears to be structured and limited via the mechanisms of the gross body, and its principal functional locus is thus identified with the spinal line, running from toe to crown and vice versa. The elemental and outer aspect of the whole body is controlled by the pervading current, as etheric and magnetic energy.
Thus, the illusions of conventional subjectivity and inwardness involve a turning of attention, the egoic expression of the current of the manifest body-being, from the lower body and its outward functions toward the upper body and the brain, the controlling core of the outer functions. But the Truth of the whole body is at the heart, where the Condition of the current of the body is intuited, prior to all differentiation of form and thought and self.
The brain controls all the psycho-physiology of the gross being. That is, the current of the whole body controls the gross processes via the brain and the descending structures of the nervous system. Thus, the heartbeat is also controlled via the brain and nervous system. However, the region of the heart is the central and senior dimension of the whole body. Indeed, the heart, the dimension of feeling-intuition, is the epitome of the whole body, whereas the brain is only a part of the whole body. The heart is the dimension of the manifest being wherein the current that is pervading the structures and controls of the whole body is contacted directly, intuitively, rather than via perception or conception. It is “located” prior to all limitation-even prior to the heartbeat.
The heartbeat is a manifestation of the extended and defined being. It is, like thought, an expression of the ego and the brain, wherein and whereby the all-pervading and prior Condition of the current of the whole body is interpreted and defined in limitation. The Truth of the whole body is at the heart. That is, the Condition of the whole body is intuited, through penetration of the limiting reactivity of the whole body, to be prior to the heartbeat, and thus prior to self, mind, body, and all relations.
Therefore, the Way in Truth is not toward or within the bodily structures themselves, nor even toward any perception or conception, gross or subtle, impressed upon the all-pervading current via the nervous system and the brain. The Way of Truth is at the heart, prior to recoil and structure, prior to every extension and action of manifest existence and experience. It is the Sacrifice of the whole body at Infinity. It is Love rather than Yoga. In the Process of this Way, the psycho-physiology of body, life, and mind, even of the higher mind and the inner self, is transcended. The tyranny of the heartbeat and the bodily structures wherein consciousness is defined and the Infinite is differentiated are all obviated-released of the power of implication and limitation. Then the very Divine stands forth, in radical intuition, as the Truth of the all-pervading current of which all differentiated conditions are the present modification.
When the heartbeat, the structures of the body, the brain, and the mind cease to define the consciousness, consciousness is Realized as the Heart, the Condition in Reality, the Radiance of God prior to all knowledge. Such is Sahaj Samadhi. Sahaj Samadhi is Sacrifice of the whole body at Infinity rather than the attainment of consoling structural and subjective states of the differentiated being, high or low. When that Sacrifice, Love, or Radiance is perfect in Ignorance, it is Bhava Samadhi, or translation of Consciousness from the planes of unnecessary modification to the Perfect Domain of Bliss, wherein there is Perfect Responsibility for all Experience. That translation is the necessary Destiny of devotees in Sahaj Samadhi. It is the Gift of God. Until it is given, the arising of manifest conditions continues, during the present life and in conditions after the present life is past. Until then, all conditions are tacitly re-cognized in Sahaj Samadhi, on the basis of radical intuition of the Real Condition of all present arising, and no condition has power to suppress the essential Bliss or Radiance of Divine Ignorance. At last the unqualified intuition of the Real Condition is transformed into unspeakable Glory beyond the worlds of mysterious problematic embodiment.
Can you feel your heart beat?
It is happening.
You’re not doing it.
So what are you?
You just are.
You just have to feel into the source of the heartbeat.
And the source of the breath.
Feel where the inhalation begins and where the exhalation begins.
The source of that.
Each breath and each heartbeat.
Just simply feel that.
Where is the breath arising?
Where does the gesture of inhalation begin?
What is the source of it?
You just have to feel it.
The gesture of exhalation, likewise.
It is the life in which you are persisting.
What is breathing you?
What is the source of each breath?
Feel just where it arises.
You mustn’t try to escape it.
You must allow for this dependency.
But feel the source of it.
For real.
Without any resistance or reaction.
Simply feel the source of each breath and the source of the heartbeat.
Just that.
Not any emotion.
Not any thought.
Not any other perception.
Just the source-where the inhalation is initiated, where the exhalation is initiated.
The source of that.
Feel the source of it.
Each one.
Be sensitive just to the place where the inhalation begins, the exhalation begins.
Feel that each inhalation and each exhalation occur as they will, and feel the source of it.
Just where it begins.
You utterly depend on that.
Each breath.
Where is it initiated?
What is the source of it?
And the heartbeat, below the breath.
Beyond the breath.
You depend on it.
So you have to trust it.
Simply feel it.
Simply feel the source of each inhalation as it begins, exhalation as it begins.
Right at the point of its initiation.
Simply feel that.
Feel into that.
Each breath.
Just that.
Keep your attention on it.
Your feeling-attention on it.
You can do that directly.
You needn’t regard any other thinking, emoting, sensations.
This can always be done directly.
The above is from the book Drifted in the Deeper Land
IDENTIFICATION OF THE BELOVED
IS
THE PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE
A TALK GIVEN BY BUBBA FREE JOHN TO A GATHERING OF DEVOTEES AT VISION MOUND SANCTUARY, APRIL 18, 1977
What is the root of our existence? What is the single incident that we must comprehend? There is one incident in which you are all completely involved at this moment. You are completely aware of it. You recoil from it and thereby create your whole life, your whole adventure, all of your subjectivity and the mood of your person. If you penetrated it, you would be free. What is it?
It is a present incident. It is happening at this moment and you are reacting to it. It is your reaction to it that binds you. What is the fundamental incident that binds all of us – not in the past, but at this very moment? What is happening that we are all believing? It is more primitive even than sensation. What is the last thing you would give up? Before there is a thought, what do you hold on to most dearly? Before you hear the inner sound, before you see a single vision, before you breathe the next breath, before you are born into this conception, what are you tuned to? When the mind is rested from action, when there is no thinking, when even the breathing is still, what is going on? If you stop thinking and acting and breathing, what is still going on? What is the last thing to go?
It is the beat of the heart. When the mind stops and action stops and breath comes to rest, the thing that defines you is the heartbeat. When you are at rest, still you feel the thundering in the chest. The primal incident is not any thought nor the sense of “me,” but it is the heartbeat. The heartbeat in the center of the body-being is the ultimate meditation. It is the single motivator of life. It is the principal illusion of all beings. All beings have in common this beat, or the feeling-intensity at the core of the being, which particularizes or gives “birth” to consciousness. Everything that lives, that is self-conscious, is meditating on the beat or intensity that is the heart. The heartbeat alone is responsible for the whole adventure and complication of existence.
Before there is a single action or a single desire, there is the beating of the heart. It is not conceptual – all concepts proceed from it. Nor do you create it. You do not beat the heart. Yet the heartbeat alone is responsible for your belief in your own existence. If it ceases, you have no such belief. It interrupts the unqualified force of prior consciousness. When you are moving into infinity, it presses on your consciousness, defining you. Everything is created in rhythm with that stroke, everything. Until you are no longer bound by the beating of the heart, you are structured in the egoic dream. You are interrupted in infinity by the beating of the heart, by birth itself.
The heartbeat is not conceptual, it is not subjective, it is not within. It is the armature of the body-being. You are willing to relax the anxiety of breathing, but you are not willing to be vacant of the heart. Everything, except the heartbeat, can come to rest and you still survive. The heartbeat is at the core of the breath. The breathing surrounds it. Thinking surrounds it, though the event itself is not thinkable. It is at the core of everything above and below. Everything above the heart, every thought or vision or contemplated wonder, is an expression of that foundation liveliness, that beating. Everything below it, every feeling and sensation, is an expression of it. The heartbeat is “me” and “that,” left and right, up and down, in and out. It is the whole conception of existence. Everything is implied by it.
Like the clock that creates time, the heartbeat creates the self. The heartbeat is the most primitive incident, the center of fear. It is a metronome in an empty room. All hearing and all perception are guided toward it. All your inwardness, all your thinking, and all your activity are simply a rhythmic expression of the beat of the heart, perhaps timed in different ways but always consonant with it. You are breathing in rhythm with it and then thinking. and acting, sexing and moving, energizing and feeling all in time with it. Your great fear is that it will cease, because when it ceases you are no longer different from anything. As long as you believe you are independent, a differentiated being, you are timed with the rhythm of the heart.
That rhythm is pronounced on the left, but is surges between the right and left. There is no actual rhythm on the right, but only a constant feeling-intensity, the root stroke of the beating heart, a constant sense of self-definition and self-assorbtion, contracted from infinity – but it is at last not different from the beat itself, the sounding of the birth moment. On the left there is pounding, interrupting. It surges from right to left and from left to right – from sleep to dreams to waking, and from waking to dreams and then to sleep.
In the moment when you feel the heartbeat, you do not think, you do not act, you do not breathe. You are -now and separately, vulnerably. It is the principal incident to which we are all attuned. We are all suffering it, we are all subject to it, and we are all waiting for it to cease. It arises prior to knowledge. Our very existence pulses in Mystery, subject to a prior design of which we are Ignorant and to which the will at last must bow with all the mind, emotion, and whole flesh.
The heartbeat is completely untrue. Our condition in Truth is previous to this stroke, previous to all the inwardness, all the activity that is built upon this rhythm, this interruption, this stimulation, this distraction. When the heartbeat ceases, we are returned to our prior disposition, but mere death is not sufficient for liberation into the Divine. Mere death just arrests the current of the ego, which is the beating of the heart. Liberation is freedom from that rhythm while alive, to be no longer interrupted, no longer identified with left and right, up and down, in and out, here and there, now and then. When consciousness ceases to be defined by the rhythms of the heart, it is immortal. Therefore, what makes the heart beat? Why do we fear its ending? Why do we promote the adventure of individual existence? Why do we doubt the Reality of the Divine, the unchanging, the Absolute?
We presume that if the heart ceases to beat, we cease to exist. The heartbeat is the ego. That is the illusion, not the thought “I am me,” not the thought “I am the body,” not any thought, but the heartbeat itself is the illusion. We witness it, we are confined to it, we are subject to it, we are disposed to a whole life until it ceases. Of all things, it is completely beyond control. Even the yogi’s mastery of heartbeat and body-sense remains bound to the very condition in feeling-conception that the heartbeat signals – the sense of independent consciousness and its experiential destiny. The heartbeat is the ego, the soul, the body, the mind. It is the most involuntary of all appearances. It is the recoil that thunders back from all appearance. There is no devotee who has not suffered this incident. It is the same as his or her own birth or life or death. Everything is the response to this rhythmic contraction or root feeling-intensity. Thus, everything is betrayal, a witness for the lie.
The heartbeat continues, prior to thinking and acting, feeling and living, vision and illumination, immortality and mortality. Whatever occurs in your comprehension, the beating of the heart is the single thing that defines you in that enjoyment. Liberation is the transcendence of that incident; thus, it is the same as death. In conventional, bodily death, however, we pass into unconsciousness, of self. The only recourse while alive is the most absolute, the most perfect, sacrifice, passing beyond thought in mood, in action, in feeling, in desire, into perfect surrender or Radiance. Nothing else characterizes the devotee.
You have responded to this drama, this rhythm, this sound, this signal. And so you feel yourself to be opposite, other, individuated, single, separate, trapped, in dilemma, obliged to make your way strategically, to define yourself, to assume your immunity, your salvation, your continuation, your survival. Your whole effort is regulated by this beat, which is beyond your comprehension. The great fear is that if it stops, you disappear. It defines you in otherness, in separation. When the mind comes to rest and actions come to rest and the breath becomes still, the heart shocks us with its rhythm, with its striking, its pulsation, defining the consciousness. The principal meditation is to be free of action, of liveliness, of intention, of thought, of vision, of comprehension, of knowledge, of reaction, of recoil, of separation, of incident, until you penetrate this motion that shocks us. The only salvation is in the penetration of that signal. Until then there is betrayal, separation, ego, mind, person, separate destiny, action, illusion, dreams, knowledge, fascinated meditation, sublimity, absorption, discrimination, consolation, good feeling, profundity, eagerness, fear, sorrow, anger, hatefulness, me, I, within.
In the Way I have described, there is, naturally, penetration of the subjective root. The illusion of a subject or ego somewhere “within” is something that must be re-cognized, known again. Now we identify with this illusion of an interior “I.” It must be penetrated, through insight. In the process there is an event even more direct, one that does not involve contemplation of subjective content, but that occurs after the subjective content is essentially quieted. In the final events of the Way of Re-cognition, there is this passage out of contemplation in the brain, the subtle contemplation above. The thread of active attention is followed back from the crown to the heart. That is the passage to Jnana Samadhi.
The samadhis associated with the crown of the being are subtle and depend on the ego-illusion. In such samadhis the independent self-illusion remains, the contemplator remains, not penetrated. All subtle realizations are soul-realizations, having to do with the survival of the subjective being independent of the gross form. But the ultimate realization goes beyond the subtle illusion to penetrate the self-root, the fundamental illusion itself. Although the illusion of “I” passes in this process, its passing is not the final moment. After all, the “I”-thought arises in the brain. It is part of the subtle mechanism. It is a thought, a literal thought, “I,” part of the lower mind.
But the contraction that is responsible for the “I”thought and all other thoughts and feelings of independence is at the heart itself. It is not subjective or anything like an idea interior to the body. It is the body condition itself in its most fundamental form – it is the heartbeat. Thus, in the final stages of the Way of Re-cognition, after the passage beyond contemplation of subtle objects, the mind essentially comes to rest. There is essentially no thinking. The breath is very restful. Then only the heartbeat stands out. The final re-cognition occurs in contemplation of the heartbeat, not. of any subjective interior.
You must give up your life, the identification with this rhythm, this contraction, this recoil that defines you. And how do you give it up? It is impossible. It cannot be done by the one who would do it. No one can transcend the rhythmic contraction of the heart, which defines our consciousness, except by the most perfect and absolute sacrifice. The way to this perfect sacrifice is the practice I have described in this Teaching, by which, as a discipline, you move beyond the contracted disposition. You must move beyond fear and sorrow and anger into the disposition of love, of radiance, previous to any form of contraction or separation. You must presume the radiance of happiness as a discipline in spite of all subjective signs to, the contrary.
All the disciplines of this Way of Divine Ignorance are forms of radiance, of non-contraction and nonseparation, of love, of bringing uncontracted energy, rather than knowledge, desire, and self-possession, into the realms of experience. This is the principal discipline. It is service founded on true hearing of the Teaching, free of all concern for the continuation of inward inspection. In this liberation you pass beyond the great fear, beyond the beating of the heart which defines you, in which you are born in every moment. That passage is madness, healed and cooled only by motiveless or loving Communion with the Spiritual Master, which now in your knowledge you deny. Be wary of your own knowledge, your own good feeling, of all the things that make you feel better, or worse. They console you behind the pulsation of birth. The heartbeat is the ultimate vulnerability, the great fear. It defines all things apart from you. It defines you as nothing, apart from everything, the everything with which you struggle, mentally and emotionally and physically, in every moment, to find union.
The practice is exactly as it is described. Hear this communication, the fundamental argument, and live the disciplines in relations. Do not be separative, egoic, emotional, contractive, negative, angry, fearful, sorrowful, but be full of energy and enthusiasm in relations. This is the demand which always obliges the devotee and with which he is always at odds by tendency. You should look and feel and be and act completely happy under all conditions. Change your way of action and the subjective dimension itself will change naturally. The born condition precedes all subjectivity. You want to manipulate your subjectivity first – your feelings, your thinking, your conceptions, and your feeling-conceptions. You want to change them before you will change your way of life. You want to be free inside before you will love, before you act differently. You must act differently first, and not be concerned that the feeling and thinking aspect of the being remains full of tendencies. You must not be concerned about them. They are just the signs of the old way of living. You must act in love, in radiance, with energy, with life, in all your relations, in your disposition moment to moment, under all conditions. You will observe in the midst of such action that the subjective dimension is also gradually penetrated and transformed. Its negativity, its reactivity, becomes unnecessary and ultimately obsolete by virtue of your different action.
You either change your action or you do not. You must begin to do it. There is nothing more that can be said, nothing more convincing than that. You simply must begin to do it. As you begin to do it, the vulgar disposition of your internal life and your subjective tendencies will continue. You must not be concerned about it. Tendencies are only the signs of your old way of living. Let them pass. Live differently now. Love, serve with feeling. Put your attention on this argument, be transformed by the hearing, and act differently. The new subjectivity will follow. Subjective, internal changes, emotional and mental, will follow. Start to act differently. Stop presuming the separative position. Stop being angry and sorrowful and fearful in your relations and bring energy into them. Be happy in them. Be enthusiastic in them. Bring life to all beings. Bring life to the tree. Bring life to the doorknob and to me! And you will see your subjective life changing, over time. It may remain completely wretched for 25,000 births. Do not be concerned about it. Act differently on the basis of what you have heard. Then you will be communicative as a devotee.
Now you are waiting for your insides to change first. They are the last to change! Your action must change first. Then the inner being will reflect the new rather than the old adaptation. Having seen what you have seen and heard what you have heard, act differently. Kick everything else aside. Hear, love, serve, bring life – that is the discipline. The emotions and the mind will persist in their aggravation, their negativity, their self-possession, their sulking stupidity. Be indifferent to them on the basis of this hearing, and you will see the mind and the emotions change.
Subjectivity follows action. Your subjectivity having changed on the basis of action, you will begin to be attuned to the subtler dimension of the being. And you will hear and see, perhaps, all kinds of incredible things. I have seen all of it, every kind of vision and transport. It is all a hallucination, it is all ridiculous, it is nonsense, it is stupid and false. There is no vision that is true. It is all bondage. It is all something to console the separate one. Press through all of that in the Way of Re-cognition and you will become coincident with the whole body-being, no longer turning into your subjectivity. You will stand as the whole body, and suddenly the prior Condition of the body will become obvious. There is no independent consciousness. There is no separate being. There is no “me” within. There is no one to survive. There is the most absolute, unqualified, and unspeakable Reality, which is Bliss, Fullness, without description, without form, without argument, without a single symbol to win its victory over living beings. Only the devotee is sensitive to God. That is the whole communication that has been served in this Company.
You must begin to do something different. Now you are doing the same old thing in your rhythm, being an other within. You must do something different without, not concerned for what happens within, for desiring and thinking. Let it pass. Be different as the whole body. You are always certain, in this instant, what it is to be completely happy, to look and feel and be and act completely happy. It is always true of you natively. You can always return to this native sense. You could be and look and feel completely happy in this moment. But you do not. Why? Because of your sympathy with this born condition that is rhythmed to you moment to moment, this pulsation or feeling-conception in the chest. Pass beyond it through this whole practice and you will realize the Divine Condition. But not before.
The heartbeat draws you back into the round of birth and death. It is recoil. It does not permit you to be released to infinity. It draws you back. It defines you in time and space. It defines your existence. If it ceases, you cease to exist. All philosophy is founded on the beating of the heart; all mysticism, all life, all desire, and every single experiential presumption are founded on it. The penetration of the beating of the heart is the difference between “I,” which is the body as a whole, and the realization of the Condition of the body. When the heartbeat ceases to define consciousness, then there is the natural intuition of the Condition that precedes birth. The usual man is relieved of this constriction only at the point of death, and so he is released from the superficial organism. But that release is not sufficient for illumination. It is only sufficient for another birth. You must penetrate this rhythm while alive, while conscious, while in the ordinary disposition. You must penetrate the illusion of separation, and the heartbeat is the primal incident. The grosser incident of birth may have occurred so many years ago, but the incident that promotes the present illusion that is birth as the whole body is the heartbeat. Prior to it there is no definition of consciousness. There is no definition of bodily existence, of egoic existence, as a separate individual, independent of this beating, this rhythm, this shock. You exist in your consciousness only because of this sympathy, this rhythm that you perceive. All of your thinking and desiring extends from that.
How do you realize liberation from the born condition? Not by philosophy. You realize it through the instrumentality of a born being who nonetheless has penetrated the whole cycle. The Spiritual Master is the instrument of the liberation of living beings, not philosophy nor conception nor your own contemplation of the heartbeat. You become disposed to that contemplation in sympathy with the Spiritual Master, but only because the Spiritual Master exists prior to that contraction, that rhythm. Through hearing this argument you are disposed to act, not to internalize, but to act, without concern for your subjectivity. Subjectivity is only the sign of your old adaptation, whereas you have become disposed on the basis of this hearing to act differently, to love, to be radiant in relations rather than contracting in the forms of anger and sorrow and fear and thinking and all of the illusions of your own subjectivity. You must submit absolutely to the Spiritual Master. This principle is the core of all Teaching. Once you have heard the argument of the Spiritual Master, then you must enter into devotional and spiritual relations or Communion with the Spiritual Master. The primary function of the Spiritual Master is the spiritual service of devotees, those who have “heard” and changed their way of action. Such service is Divine. By that service, the Way is quickened and fulfilled by Grace of the Beloved, the Real beyond all birth of selves and knowledge of souls.
The causal dimension is associated with the right side of the heart, specifically with the sinoatrial node, or “pacemaker” (the psycho-physical source of the heartbeat). Its corresponding state of consciousness is the formless awareness of deep sleep.
THE HEART – The
electrical system of the heart
How does the heart’s electrical
system work?
An electrical stimulus is
generated by the sinoatrial (SA) node, the heart’s natural
pacemaker. This is a small area of specialized tissue
located in the right atrium (right upper chamber) of the
heart. Under normal conditions, the sinus node generates an
electrical stimulus every time the heart beats (60 to100
times per minute for an adult). This electrical stimulus
travels down through the conduction pathways (similar to the
way electricity flows through power lines from the power
plant to your house) and causes the heart’s chambers to
contract and pump out blood. The right and left atria (the
two upper chambers of the heart) are stimulated first and
contract a short period of time before the right and left
ventricles (the two lower chambers of the heart).
The electrical impulse then travels
from the SA node to the atrioventricular (AV) node, where it
stops for a very short period, and continues down the
conduction pathways via the bundle of His into the
ventricles. The bundle of His divides into right and left
pathways to the purkinje fibres that provide electrical
stimulation to both ventricles.
Normally, the electrical impulse
moves through the heart’s conduction system, and the heart
contracts. Each contraction represents one heartbeat. The
atria contract a fraction of a second before the ventricles
so the blood empties into the ventricles before the
ventricles contract.
Under some conditions, almost all
heart tissue is capable of starting a heartbeat, or becoming
the ‘pacemaker’, just like the SA node. This is called a
dysrhythmia (or arrhythmia) and may occur when:
The heart’s natural pacemaker (the
SA node) develops an abnormal rate or rhythm.
The normal conduction pathway is
interrupted.
Another part of the heart takes over
as pacemaker.
The Source of the Heartbeat
The ultimate Identity or Condition of the human person is not a mind, entity, or object. The inner core of the body-mind may appear to mystical vision as a point of light or any other subtle shape communicated by the nervous system, but the “Free soul” of the body-mind is the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness. The relationship between the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness and the body-mind is epitomized at the heart, where the experiential identification of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness with the body-mind may be inspected and transcended. But there is no independent soul in the body-mind. Rather, the body-mind itself is the independent soul, or the psycho-physical covering of the Free soul.
The sinoatrial node in the wall of the right atrium is the root of the Life-Current in the heart and thus the entire body. It sets the basic pace of the heart’s rhythm and so it is called the “pacemaker”.
The Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, or the Free Condition of the body-mind, is intuited through discrimination (“re-cognition”) at the right side of the heart. The point of discriminative intuition is not any muscular feature, such as the grape-like recess in the right atrium, nor any subtle visualization of lights in the central region of the heart. Rather, the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is directly intuited and discriminated from limiting identification with the body-mind at the point where the Force of Life is tangibly combined with the nervous system.
The bulk of the physical heart is in the left of the center of the chest, but the “pacemaker” of the heartbeat is located in the right atrium, or upper right chamber of the heart. It is here that the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is continually associated with the impulse of Life in the individual body-mind. The nerve impulses are sent from the sinoatrial node (the “pacemaker” in the upper wall of the right atrium) to the distribution point or atrioventricular node just below, and the space between them is the true heartbeat, the area we intuitively identify as the Life-Center, or the “seat of the soul.”
The “pacemaker” (sinoatrial node) is unique among all the nervous structures of the body-mind in that its cells possess an intrinsic rhythm. These nerve cells contract continually at a relatively constant rate, distributing nervous energy to the entire heart and initiating the heartbeat. The rate of the heartbeat is modified by hormonal and other psycho-physical changes communicated in the body and the brain, but the primal activity of the pacemaker is native to the pacemaker itself. It works on its own, in direct association with the Transcendental Force of Life, independent of the brain and all other extended functions of the body-mind.
The identification of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness with the independent body-mind via the heartbeat is the source of the illusion of limited or self-contained existence. Thus, in the sixth stage of life, it is at the source of the heartbeat in the right atrium that the investigation of the relationship between the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness and the body-mind is made. When there is intuitive inspection of the sense of identification with the body-mind at this nerve center on the right side of the heart, the Free Condition of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is Revealed, and ultimate Mastery of the body-mind by the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is assured.
The Dimensions of Cosmic Appearance and the “Dimensionless” Divine Domain
July 23, 1995
DEVOTEE: You have described how the right side of the heart corresponds to the pace-maker of the physical heart.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It has an association with it, yes. The left side or region of the heart is associated with the gross body. The middle station of the heart is associated with the three parts of the subtle body. The right side of the heart is associated with the causal body. Each of these regions of the heart has references to the physical body. The right side has an association with the sino-atrial node, or pacemaker. But it is just an association. That is the gross sign associated with the right side of the heart. That is not the definition of the right side of the heart.
The right side of the heart is associated with the deep principle of the ego, the deep subjectivity of egoity. It is the root of attention and the feeling of relatedness or “difference”. That is the causal body or causal subjectivity of egoity. Beyond that, in the Perfectly Subjective Depth beyond the causal knot, is the Domain to be Realized. It is Perfectly Subjective, not objective. Attention cannot reach to It. Only when attention is transcended is there entry into that Domain. But because the process of Awakening to that Domain is associated with the transcendence of the causal knot, I say that the right side of the heart is also associated with the Realization of the Divine Self-Condition. So all that being said, what is your question?
DEVOTEE: So, is it appropriate to assign a special status to the sino-atrial node as an object because the heart is arising in Consciousness?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: The sino-atrial node is part of the physical body. It can be noticed as such. That is not Realization of the Heart Itself. It is simply a physical reference. When there is the feeling of relatedness, there is a sensation that can be noticed in the right side of the heart. And it is in that same region where the sino-atrial node appears in the physical body. You can point to that node itself, but that is not the Realization of the heart on the right. You can point to the middle of your chestbone, you can feel emotions there and so on. But neither of these references is actually entrance into the subtle domain of mind and so on.
So one can point to the physical reference of the Great Domain of the Heart. It is appropriate enough to do so. But it is not the same as Realizing the Heart.
DEVOTEE: So, just as the right side of the heart has a physical correspondence in the pacemaker, is Amrita Nadi the senior structure of the body-mind?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Of course. Amrita Nadi has structural associations with the physical body, but also with the subtle body. It has associations with structures in it. And it is also a paradox that expresses the relationship between the Divine Domain and the cosmic domain. It is an incomprehensible relationship, and, ultimately, it is not a relationship at all. There is only One.
So, the Conscious Realization, seventh stage, that is associated with Amrita Nadi, is the Realization of the Divine Domain, not merely the realization of a nadi in the body. But the Realization is expressed through that nadi in the subtle and gross planes.
The head of Amrita Nadi is the cosmic Star. The root of Amrita Nadi is the Divine Domain. The Circle in the human body-mind is the expression, or sign, of the Cosmic Mandala.
DEVOTEE: Is the “Regeneration” of Amrita Nadi in the seventh stage of life a change in all planes-gross, subtle, and causal?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is not a change at all. It is simply a Manifestation of the Mystery and Paradox of Divine Self-Realization. It is not associated, itself, with conditional changes, though it is associated with the cosmic domain in the appearance sense. There may be changes shown in the case of the incarnate Realizer – psycho-physical changes, and so on, associated with the seventh stage Demonstration.
DEVOTEE: Is there something at the Transcendental level that creates changes in the subtle that then affects the gross?
ADI DA SAMRAJ: No. The subtle domain is a vast unity. All changes within the subtle and the gross are accounted for in that complex. The Transcendental is Beyond, just as the Witness is Beyond. And the Divine is Beyond. So you have no excuse to be attached to all of this, based on thinking the Divine is making it.
Just as Reality is not objective, but is Consciousness Itself, Self-Existing and Self-Radiant, the Divine is not the Maker of objects. The Divine is That in Which all things apparently arise-non-binding, un-necessary. The cosmic domain is one with the Divine Domain in the most paradoxical sense. The Divine is the “Brightness” of Consciousness Itself. The Divine Pervades the conditional domain, but not as the Maker – simply as the Source, the Radiance in all.
From this description it can be said, then, that the apparent relation between the Divine, or the Divine Domain, and the cosmic domain is one of Love-Bliss and Compassion. It is the relationship between Guru and devotee. The Divine is properly understood as Guru, Liberator, Compassionate Force – not Maker, but liberator.
The theological traditions view the Divine as Maker, or “Creator”. This is based on the illusions of egoity, identification with the body and “things”. Already identified thus, with the body and cosmic appearances, human beings often conceive of the Divine as Maker, or “Creator”. This is the extension of the magical consciousness of egos – the interest the ego has in surviving bodily. In that magical consciousness, some of the force and capacity of the subtle domain is exploited and then effects follow. This magical consciousness is the source of original religion, wherein changes in the gross domain that served the general well-being and survival of body-based beings are made by resort to the subtle.
And as time went on, this shamanistic magical consciousness and religion became the theological religions. It was a concept of a single Deity above all – above all the deities and powers in the subtle domain. But that One was still appealed to magically and conceived in terms of the magical ego-consciousness. So, in the theological religions the Divine is appealed to for the sake of changes in the lives of gross, embodied egos. So, it is a gross embodied ego that conceives of the Divine as “Creator”, or Maker.
The Divine is not that, in fact. The Divine is Beyond – Beyond the gross, the subtle, and the causal. The apparent association between the Divine, or the Self-Conscious, Self-Existing, and Self-Radiant Divine Domain and the cosmic domain, and every thing and every one apparently within it – that apparent relation is not the one of Maker and object. The True Divine cannot be appealed to for changes, is not the Source of changes – not the Source in the sense of being Maker. The Divine is the Source only in the sense of being Most Prior, That of which every thing that arises in the cosmic domain is a merely apparent modification. All causes are within the causal, and subtle, and gross domains – or fields of the cosmic domain. The Divine Stands Prior, but in a Mystery of association. The Source is always Pervading the cosmic domain.
So the relation between the Divine and the cosmic domain, and everything within it, and all personalities within it, is not that of Maker, or “Creator”, in relation to apparent effects – but is the apparent relation between conditional things and beings and That Which Is One and all-Pervading. The Divine is Steady Presence, therefore, Preset as Love-Bliss, Compassion, and Liberating Force. This is epitomized in the Guru-devotee relationship.
Some may appeal to the Divine prayerfully and so on, and observe that effects follow, or changes follow. That is not because the Divine answers the prayers in the “creating” sense. It is through the reach towards the Divine, through the subtle – the source of the actual changes. The true reach to the Divine, then, is only through self-surrender, self-forgetting, and self-transcending, ultimately to the point of Most Perfect Identification with Me.
In that case there is no appealing for changes based on egoic body-identification. Rather, there is relinquishment of such identification, even a relinquishment of all association with the cosmic domain. That process is true religion. What is commonly called “religion” is a social exercise in the gross plane of human egoity, or, otherwise, an exercise that exploits the subtle domain – perhaps for changes in the gross plane or the gross body, or otherwise, for the sake of having subtle experiences in subtle planes, and so on. All kinds of “God-language” may be associated with such enterprises, but they are not about Realization of the Divine. They are about seeking changes in the cosmic domain for the sake of the ego.
True religion, then, is the process of Divine Realization, the process of Realizing the Divine Self-Condition Itself, for its own sake, by transcending the conditional personality and the conditional, or cosmic, domain itself. That is the Way of the Heart.