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- The Bodily Location of Awakening -
The effulgent Self, who is beyond thought, shines in the greatest, shines in the smallest, shines in the farthest, shines in the nearest, shines in the secret chamber of the heart.
- Mundaka Upanishad
Could it be possible? Is there an actual 'bodily location of awakening' or is this an oversimplifed fantasy? Obviously the enlightened beings who wrote the Upanishads, and many of the other sacred teachings of the world, considered the heart to be the residing place of the Soul or True Self.
The Lord of Love, omnipresent, dwelling in the heart of every living creature, all mercy, turns every face to himself. He is the supreme Lord, who through his grace moves us to seek him in our own hearts. He is the light that shines forever. He is the inner Self of all, hidden like a little flame in the heart. Only by the stilled mind can he be known. Those who realize him become immortal.
- Shvetashvatara Upanishad
The Lord of Love, not larger than the thumb, is ever enshrined in the Hearts of all.
- Katha Upanishad
The whole work of turning the light around uses the method of reversal. The beauties of the highest heavens and the marvels of the most sublime realms are all within the heart: this is where the perfectly open and aware spirit concentrates. Confucians call it the open center, Buddhists call it the pedestal of awareness, Taoists call it the ancestral earth, the yellow court, the mysterious pass, the primal opening.
- The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life
We Are Not Lacking Anything!
I am a bit of a rebel. I have always refused to believe that any of us are lacking anything that we need for wholeness and awakening. I do not feel that Truth or Awakening is a commodity that we need to pay for.
In the Hindu spiritual culture, the enlightened Guru is the authority who has the power give "shaktipat" (spiritual energy) so as to catalyze a direct experience of God. In the Tibetan Buddhist lineages, the Lama will give the disciple the “pointing out” instructions. This means the Lama will transmit the direct experience of one's True Nature directly to student when he/she is ready.
What if we do not have a Guru to guide us in our awakening or to give us a transmission of shaktipat? What if we do not have the time it takes to prepare ourselves, or have access to a qualified Lama who will offer us the "pointing out" instructions?
The Teacher Within the Heart
Being the rebel that I am, using intensive meditation practice and deep spiritual study, I plunged into the depths of my being by myself, without a teacher at that time. After many years of practice and study, I had a direct experience of the Inner Teacher, the Guru, the Bestower of Life in the Heart. And indeed, this experience of Heart was found in the location of the center of the chest, exactly as all the teachings and teachers had stated!
The Good News
I have brought this experience and understanding into the Integrative Awakening work, always directing a person to the bodily location of the True Heart, the Soul, the Inner Guru. Based upon my own experience, and the profound experiences that people have when they touch the center of their own heart, I have become confident that there is indeed a bodily location of awakening. I am confident that with enough intimacy and care, with enough non invasive compassion and mutual heart sharing, we can assist each other in reconnecting with the True Self or Guru within the heart (also known as "alignment with the Soul").
In the Integrative Awakening work, I help guide the movement of one's 'feeling-awareness' directly into the center of the chest, so as to facilitate a direct experience of Heart; of deeper intimacy and union with one's body and with Source. Now obviously, just one experience like this does not lead to a full awakening and an integrated, emotionally stable personality! All of us require consistent "heart practice" and cultivation.
However, the good news is this...at least we know where to go to find the Truth of our Being! At least we know the map to follow for retrieving our awareness from external projections and fixations, bringing it back into the Central Reality and Origin of our own Heart. As the old saying goes, "home is where the heart is."
Consistent and Diligent Cultivation
Anyone can practice and accomplish the opening of the heart and body, yet it takes consistent and diligent cultivation. God/Godess is most definitely located in the center of the chest in the area of the heart. The Inner Teacher, the Master, The Guru, the Soul, as all wisdom teachings suggest, is located in the center of our very own heart.
Awakened Awareness, a Fearless Open Heart, Love and Wisdom...this is not a mystery. This is not a commodity we need to pay a teacher or a guru for. Nobody has a monopoly on the Heart or on Awakening. I want to remind everyone, that everything we are seeking and craving is most definitely located in the center of the chest in the heart. However, the direct and consistent experience of this Truth takes practice and sincere cultivation.
Scientific Validation for the Heart
In the book, The Heart's Code, psychologist Paul Pearsall (1998) maintains that, energetically speaking, the heart, rather than the brain, is clearly the center of the psychological universe. He goes on to say:
"The heart's EMF (electro-magnetic field) is five thousand times more powerful than the electromagnetic field created by the brain and, in addition to its immense power, has subtle, non-local effects that travel within these forms of energy...the heart generates over fifty thousand femtoteslas (a measure of EMF) compared to less than ten femtoteslas recorded from the brain."
The heart's attributes and functions are much more mysterious and significant than conventional scientific thinking supposes. Paul Pearsall states that, "through the psychology of the heart, modern psychology is beginning to make its first tentative contacts with the soul."
The Lord of Love is Located in the Secret Chamber
of the Heart
Were the writers of the 4,000 year old Upanishads correct about the True Self, the Lord of Love enshrined in the "secret chamber of the heart?"
An August, 1984 article in Science Digest speaks about the heart's "pacemaker," the sino-atrial node (which just happens to be located in the upper right atrium or 'chamber' of the heart!):
"About 70 times each minute, more than 2.5 billion times in a lifetime, the heart beats on. What keeps it going? The heart, it seems, has a life of its own. The muscle fibers that make it up differ from those elsewhere in the body in that some of them generate their own electricity without receiving signals from the brain. In fact, the fetal heart begins beating before it has even formed nerve connections. The heart's pacemaker is a group of self-triggering cells called the sino-atrial (SA) node. What initiates the current in the SA node remains unknown, but its cells behave more like neurons than muscle fibers." (1984, Aug., p.90)
Psychologist Barbara Brown comments upon the enigma of the heartbeat:
"The genesis of the heartbeat is as unknown as the genesis of man, and equally a miracle. A squib of tissue so small and so well camouflaged as to be unseen by the naked eye is the progenitor of beats. By some unknown ultrachemistry, this squib of tissues generates a flow of electric impulses, bip-bip-bip, one after the other with bewildering unmatched regularity…The generator is inborn, inherent."
And let us end this page with the same quote from the Upanishads that we started with at the beginning...
The effulgent Self, who is beyond thought, shines in the greatest, shines in the smallest, shines in the farthest, shines in the nearest, shines in the secret chamber of the heart.
- Mundaka Upanishad
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• More About Integrative Awakening
• Direct Experience, Not More Conceptual Information!
• Secrets of Somatic, Body-Centered Navigation
• The Esoteric Significance of
This Work
• Conscious Relationship
• The Voice of Heart
• The Treading of the Way: Guidance and Inspiration for
Those Who Serve
• Quotes from the Heart
• Links / Resources
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