The following essay is an excerpt from Light & Vibration: Consciousness, Mysticism & the Culmination of Yoga, in which Swami Radha shares a meditation on the heart, the mind, and kundalini. In it she asks questions such as: What is the guru within? What is the light within? What is the potential for the mind?
The Heart symbolizes an ocean of Light and Consciousness. The Heart is symbolic for the centre of the spiritual being—limitless compassion and knowledge beyond intellect. The Heart inspires and is the symbol for love, the unconditional love that is only possible through the divine source.
There is a difference between the knowing of the intellect and the knowing of the Heart. Mental acrobatics can make the mind more flexible and prepare it to leap out of its confinement of established perceptions and meanings, which are really only opinions. The Heart does not need to participate in acrobatics. The Heart is limitless.
Compassion is limitless, even within our human confinement. But sometimes we can understand that unlimited power only if we personify it, which means limiting the Energy that we do not understand by putting it into a shape and form and giving it a name. Then the path of the Heart becomes more understandable to the mind and more accessible to us as individuals. We obtain a sense of closeness.
By personalizing the Divine, we may understand the compassion in reincarnation. Like a good father or mother, the Divine will say to its child, “This is wrong. You must not do it again. I will give you another chance.” To be given another chance is probably the highest expression of compassion. We may be given chance after chance, many, many times. How many lifetimes? That depends on our response to divine compassion and our willingness to increase awareness, to increase the Light of understanding, and to thereby create a source of Light within ourselves, making that source a magnet to attract more Light. For me, the evidence of divine love is being given this chance to improve and to correct mistakes, especially if we have gone against the divine law. We may not even understand all of our mistakes in one lifetime.
In Kundalini symbolism there is a small lotus called the kalpataru, or the Wishing Tree underneath the Heart Lotus. It is symbolic of the process of discovering the Divine within, and the mysteries and the awesome powers of the mind. Perhaps it is only when we reach a certain stage of development that we wish to know the greater wisdom. That desire to know, like any other desire, is a persistent force—we must persist until we attain the fulfillment of this desire. But this type of desire does not fulfill itself quickly. We have to be very earnest. It is like climbing a mountain. When we start off, we camp more often. When we are closer to the summit and have freed ourselves from the extra baggage—untested beliefs and opinions—we travel much lighter. The final ascent, though, may be straight up on sheer rock or ice, with nothing to hold onto. But the vibrational power that is accumulated in the Heart will serve us well enough to complete the journey.
To understand the vibrational power accumulated in the Heart, compare it to emotional power. Emotional power arms us with weapons to attain the goal of emotional satisfaction whether that is finding a partner, robbing a bank, or becoming the president of a country. If emotions can generate this much power, we cannot underestimate the power of the Heart.
If we look at the Heart as symbolic of the essence of the vibrating cosmic rhythm—because the Heart has its own rhythm—we can see that many different manifestations emanate from the Heart. There are sources from which knowledge radiates to us. Some of these sources are not to be sought outside ourselves, but rather are to be discovered in our own Heart.
To understand the Divine as rhythm, you need to personally experience the cosmic rhythm of your own pulsating consciousness. Through practice of mantra, visualization, and personal reflection, your thinking can become truly vibrant. When Consciousness becomes vibrant, you become vibrant throughout your entire body. You may feel there is a new being within you and that many of the old obstacles simply fall away.
Can the vibrant, activated Consciousness within us also be perceptible, especially when we start to ask: What is the guru within? What is the Light within? What is the innate Buddha? What is the kingdom of God within? How can we get to know that thinking being in us? How can we differentiate between it and the intellect, which can perform mental acrobatics but constantly has to revise its findings?
And if we allow the Light within us to shine through, we may radiate that Light out to others, and they will feel drawn to us. Our spiritual thinking has to become part of our Consciousness. Otherwise, we are just intellectually clever, and we end up creating conceptualizations that further armour us and prevent the Light from truly emerging.
When we investigate rhythm, we can see that life is not a straight line, but a wave, with its many ups and downs. But whether up or down, it still has the same life Energy. As human beings we need the impetus to lift out from the down to the up. It does not happen automatically. We have to contribute to it through our attitude, our emotions and our choices. The power of choice must be fully recognized.
Sometimes there can be a wave of bliss, when everything seems wonderful and our happiness can be recognized by others. If there is a Light within, we will express that Light, even if we cannot explain it. Yet nothing is permanent, and we cannot always reside in the bright Light. Sometimes we need a little shade to rest, to balance, before exposing ourselves again to this wonderful radiance of divine Knowledge, of divine vibration, so that our Consciousness will vibrate with the divine rhythm.
Practically speaking, it is important not to make major decisions when we are in the trough of the wave. From the crest, we have a different overview and are not under the pressure of the undertow of our existence.
The rhythmic beating of the physical heart can be felt as a pulse in different parts of the body. Our mental activity can also be considered a kind of pulsing. When we talk about the pulsing of the body, the pulsing of the Heart, the pulsing of the mind, what do we feel and think? What effect does reflecting have on our feelings when we have reached a certain level of spiritual awareness or even when we are just beginning to have that awareness? That awareness will sustain us in our daily life. It has to. We must not separate our daily living, with all its duties, functions, and limited choices, from our spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness must be brought into our daily life if we are to become receptive to the radiance of that Consciousness that is pulsing with divine vibrations.
We do not need to convert from one religion to another, but rather we have to convert the darkness held in our Hearts into the Light and vibration of love.
In the struggle to control emotions that can be on the rampage, the Heart is sometimes described as a cremation ground. The Heart is where selfishness, hate, greed, and jealousy are burned away so the Heart can be filled with Light. It is in the ashes of our illusions that we find truth.
In the Heart, we sacrifice whatever prevents the Light from emerging and shining. Even today, there are some yogis in India who visit cremation grounds to meditate on the impermanence of life. My guru did not send me to the cremation ground, but asked me to reflect on my mortality. When I walked up the Ganges, where the river became much narrower, all along the banks I saw many skulls—the remnants of those pilgrims who asked that their bodies be returned to Mother Ganga’s holy waters. It made me think: “What if this were the only life I had? What has to die in me so I can be free now, in this lifetime?”
Literally sitting on a corpse will not necessarily bring realization. It takes deeper thinking to understand that what needs to die is our jealousy, revenge, pride, vanity, competition. All of these personality aspects must become the corpse. Then, with the help of the Divine, we can start to see with the Light of understanding and allow the Light of knowledge to emerge.
The Heart is the cremation ground, where, for the love of God, we break our attachments and create the willingness to give up our self-will. What we cannot do for love, we cannot achieve by sheer willpower. The Heart is the cremation ground where we burn desires and imaginary needs—needs that are often not real, but illusions that we already know will not satisfy us. These are our preferences, our comfort, our attachments that we sometimes do not even know exist.
If we do not let them go voluntarily, the Divine will come along anyway—perhaps in the form of Siva, the destroyer of obstacles, and burn them away. Or as Krsna, the stealer of butter, who will steal away what we like best, as if saying, “No, that is not where you should put your Heart.” When things are forcibly taken away from us, it should be a sign to start looking more clearly.
When we sacrifice our comfort, we can become independent of comfort and are no longer limited by our need for it. When we sacrifice our opinions, we may find that they were not correct anyway. When we sacrifice what we call our “security”—which, if you look at it closer, may not be real security at all—we can release a powerful Energy that leads to Liberation.
What would it mean to be truly liberated from the confinement and constriction of selfishness? Is it not selfishness, if left to run freely, that will tyrannize us? Think about the unhappiness and destroyed relationships that arise when selfishness and self-will run rampant. Nothing good comes from it. And yet many people believe their security is in getting what they want. When we burn away selfishness in the cremation ground of the Heart, we set ourselves free and set in motion a process of becoming truly human.
So do not hesitate to sacrifice whatever you hold onto tightly in the wrong belief that it is your security. It is not. True security is recognizing that there is a power greater than ourselves that can take care of us. We need to see our own evolution and how we have been cared for, almost step by step, along the way. What is important is to cultivate a commitment to giving back to life and a willingness to see how many blessings life has given us.
The practice of surrender means offering our limited understanding and limited love to the Divine in return for divine love.
The path of the Light is the path of the Heart. It can only be love that brings Light into the Heart. What else could it be? We may feel that we cannot love everybody, but we can try to understand others, especially those who give us the biggest problems. By wanting to understand, we nurture a very different attitude toward that person.
Whichever path we are on, we have to carry the Light in our Heart, even if it is just a small light. One little candle can light a whole room. From the flame of just one candle or even from the quick flare of a match, there is no longer total darkness. In the same way, we may feel elevated or inspired, but the feeling soon disappears. Yet from that instant of Light, we may see something new and experience the difference between darkness and a brilliant flicker of insight.
Whatever Light we have in ourselves, we have to fan that bit of ember until it grows into a real flame. Often we begin the path of yoga with Karma Yoga—selfless service—for purification. This path leads to the Light of the Heart and to kindling the flame of Light and love. We must protect this inner Light and not let anyone extinguish it or damage it. We are the custodians of the Light in our Heart as well as the Light in our mind.
In the Christian tradition, the Holy Spirit is the Light of the Heart. And what makes us a creation in the image of God? Divine love, and expanded Consciousness that moves us beyond our little egocentricities and daily cares, beyond the limits we set for ourselves through unproven beliefs, obligations, and ideas.
Freedom is very fragile, even the freedom of the renunciate whose aim is to be free of attachments and desires. Freedom is fragile, but at least there is freedom. The path of Light is the path of Liberation. But we have to experiment, we have to undergo the battle to break with traditions in order to know if the Power that created us in the first place will really take care of us. If we do not give people the chance to prove themselves, we do not know the truth about how they will act. If we do not give the Divine a chance, we will never know the Divine.
If we aim for the Most High, it is not easy. If we want the diamond of Higher Consciousness, it costs. There are many different diamonds, but the most expensive is the clear water diamond. It has no flaws. Costume jewellery sparkles too, but you know it is not the real thing. If you can have the real diamond that reflects the light in every facet, why be satisfied with less? Aim for the Most High. Go for the greatest Light. Become Light yourself and bring the Light to others.
The path of the Heart is the path of Light, the Light of love, and the Light of understanding. Nothing is more important. Perfection is your individual, personal relationship with the Divine, in whatever name and form you have chosen, or as the Light. If you choose the Light as your symbol of the Divine, you must love the Light, as intimately, as deeply and as intensely—much more so—as your very first love. It is your only true love.