Opening the Heart

What do I see in my meditation?

In my meditation I see

A larger-than-the-largest

Ocean of peace

And blue-vast sky

Inside my tinier-than-the-tiniest

Heart.

Feel like a child. For a beginner to meditate in the heart, he has to feel that he is a child, no matter how old he is in earthly age. A child’s mind is not developed. When he is twelve or thirteen, his mind starts functioning on an intellectual level, but before that he is all heart. Whatever he sees, he feels is his own. He identifies spontaneously. This is what the heart does.

Play in a flower garden. When you feel that you are a child, immediately feel that you are standing in a flower garden. This flower garden is your heart. A child can play in a garden for hours. He will go from this flower to that flower, but he will not leave the garden, because he will get joy from the beauty and fragrance of each flower. Inside you is the garden, and you can stay within it for as long as you want. In this way you can meditate on the heart.

Cry like a helpless child. A child will always have someone to take care of him even if his physical parents are not there. God will have somebody to take care of the child, because He feels that the child is helpless right now. When a child cries, immediately someone comes to help him. When a child cries even for a candy, he is very sincere. At that time his candy is the whole world for him. If you give him a hundred-dollar bill, he will not be satisfied; he will only care for his candy. When you feel you are crying like a child for peace, light and truth, and that only those things will satisfy you, then your cry will be fulfilled.

A flower blossoming in the heart. When you meditate, please meditate on the heart, and then try to have the peace, light and bliss of the heart percolate through the entire being. In the heart you have peace, and like a flower it has to blossom petal by petal, here, there, everywhere. Then you have a flower of peace whose petals have blossomed in all parts of the being.

Concentrate on your heart. If you can concentrate on the tip of your finger, or on a candle or any other material object, you can also concentrate on your heart. You may close your eyes or look at a wall, but all the time you are thinking of your heart as a dear friend. When this thinking becomes most intense, when it absorbs your entire attention, then you have gone beyond ordinary thinking and entered into concentration. You cannot look physically at your spiritual heart, but you can focus all your attention on it. Then gradually the power of your concentration enters into the heart and takes you completely out of the realm of the mind.

Feel your heartbeat. If you keep your hands on top of your heart and feel your heartbeat, automatically you will feel the intensity of your aspiration. Inside that intensity you will discover the purity of your mind and the divinity of your heart.

Concentrate and meditate on purity.

Lo, all your inner resistance

Disappears

And automatically your heart’s door

Is wide open.

You are nothing but your heart. Feel that you have no arms, no nose, no eyes, no ears; you do not have anything but the heart. This heart need not be in the centre of your chest; it may be in your forehead or somewhere else.

Try to feel that all your strength, all your determination and will-power, is in one particular place, here inside your heart. Feel that you do not exist at all except in this tiny place. You do not have eyes, you do not have a nose, you do not have anything else. Intensity will come only when you feel that your entire existence is concentrated at one particular place and not scattered.

Light in the heart. When you start your morning meditation, you have to feel that you have the heart and that you are the heart. Then, after some time, your consciousness will tell you where the heart is. At that time, you will concentrate on that spot and feel that that is the only place for you to become the heart.

Invite your friends into your heart. Please feel that you are standing at your heart’s door and you have invited your friends—love, peace, light, delight, power and other friends that you cherish and treasure—to enter. If every day you can invite even one friend, it will be the beginning of a divine friendship. Say to yourself, “Today I will allow only my friend love to come in and not anybody else. Tomorrow I will allow my friend joy to come in, and the day after tomorrow I will invite my friend peace to come in.”

Then you may say, “I have developed considerably. I have the capacity to invite more than one friend in. I shall definitely invite all my friends in—love, joy, peace, light and delight. Before I did not have enough means to feed more than one friend at a time; therefore I could only invite one friend. Now I can invite all my divine friends and allow them to enter into my heart-room.”

Look at your heart in a mirror. If you get a strange feeling like tension in your head, please feel that you do not have a head or a forehead; only feel that you have a heart. You have this tension because you are meditating in the wrong place. You are meditating inside the mind, which is not advisable. Try to focus all your attention on your heart. You can even keep a mirror in front of you, and look at your own heart that way if you find it difficult to concentrate inwardly on your heart.

Concentrate on your Master’s heart. Another thing you can do is look at a picture of your spiritual Master and, instead of looking at his third eye, look at his heart. Either concentrate on your own heart, with or without a mirror, or look at his picture and feel his heart—whichever way pleases you.

The shrine in your heart. If you do not have purity in abundant measure, if countless earthly desires are in possession of the heart, then before concentrating on the heart you should invoke purity. Purity is the feeling of having a living shrine deep in the inmost recesses of your heart. When you feel the divine presence of an inner shrine, automatically you are purified. At that time your concentration on the heart will be most effective.

Purity in the heart. We can have more heart-power by repeating, “I am the heart, I am the heart, I am not the mind.” The qualities of heart-power are purity, beauty and the feeling of oneness. When we think of a temple, immediately we think of the shrine inside it. We think of the flowers, incense and so forth on the shrine. Otherwise, a temple is like any other building. But when we say ‘temple’, immediately inside our body, inside our nerves, inside our being, we feel something pure. Something is elevating our consciousness. What is it? It is the candles, the incense and the flowers on the shrine. Anything that deals with purity we think of at that time. In exactly the same way, when we think of heart-power, the most significant treasure that the heart has is purity. When you think of the mind, purity is not to be found there. At that time, you only think of confusion or supremacy: the mind is either thinking that you are useless, or that the rest of the world is jealous of you. There is nobody to feel or establish oneness with the mind. The good qualities of the mind are serenity, clarity and illumination. But these are rarely found.

A flower in your heart. When you think of heart-power, the first thing you have to think of is purity-power. What gives us an immediate sense of purity? Any flower that you like best—a rose or lotus or some other flower. You have to feel that you are breathing in the beauty and fragrance of the flower that you like most. Please try to visualise it inside your heart.

First feel that the flower is there. Imagine it inside your heart. Imagination has a reality of its own. As soon as you imagine that there is a flower inside you, a rose or any other flower, then try to smell the fragrance of that flower.

Then, after fifteen minutes or half an hour or even a few days, try to feel that that flower has become invisible inside your heart. You do not have to see the flower as such, you do not have to smell the fragrance, no. As soon as you think of your heart, you will see that your heart has become the most beautiful flower, the most beautiful rose.

So in order to acquire heart-power or to be conscious of heart-power, we first have to develop purity-power. And inside purity is oneness. Purity accepts everybody. A child is pure; that is why a child accepts everyone. A flower is pure; it allows everyone to appreciate its beauty.

When we look at a flower,

We get the fragrance of the flower.

Lo, for a few seconds

Our consciousness ascends

And we become self-giving.

The sun rising in your heart. No matter what time of the day you are meditating, even if it is in the evening, imagine the rising sun for a few fleeting seconds. Imagine that the sun is rising and radiating light inside your heart. Or you can imagine a most beautiful and most pure flower opening up and blossoming petal by petal inside your heart.

As soon as you see either the rising sun or the flower, you will feel the light or the purity of your heart. Then, as you breathe in and breathe out, you will feel the light or purity inside your heart increase. And the more light and purity you feel in your heart, the brighter will be the rising sun or the flower. Afterwards, try to feel that you have become the rising sun. Or try to feel that the purity-flower inside your heart has fully blossomed and that you have become this most beautiful flower. Your very existence, from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head, is the flower itself. The beauty, the purity, the fragrance of the flower is all you.

From the rising sun or the most beautiful flower that you have become, light will radiate and purity will spread. When the light and purity spread, they enter into those around you. In this way you can meditate more in the heart. Do not feel that you have to go to the heart. Only feel that you are the heart.

The garden in your heart. Inside our heart-garden are all our divine qualities. They are like beautiful and fragrant flowers. First, repeat to yourself, “I am inside my heart-garden.” Try to see and feel all the beautiful flowers there. Then say, “I am my heart-garden. All the divine flowers inside my heart-garden are part and parcel of my own self.” Up until now you have established your oneness with the reality that you see in your outer life. But now you want to establish your oneness with the dearest and purest existence of yours, which is your inner life, the life of your heart.

When you are meditating, if you happen to look at your shoulder or your knee, please say to yourself, “This is my heart.” If you have a good thought during your meditation, then immediately inside that good thought try to feel the existence of your heart.

Every day

When you meditate,

Try to feel that your life

Is in your heart’s fragrance-garden.