the true Heart

Bhagavan frequently told me [Annamalai Swami] that I should be aware of the Self while I was working.

He repeatedly told me, 'Don't forget your real nature. It is not necessary that you should sit and meditate. You should meditate all the time, even while you are working.'

In the beginning, when I first came to Bhagavan, I asked him for a mantra. In response he told me to repeat 'Siva Siva' continuously. Later, Bhagavan advised me to keep my attention in the Heart while I was working. I had read that Bhagavan had spoken of a place called the Heart-centre which he located in the right side of the chest. I had assumed that Bhagavan wanted me to concentrate on this particular centre. However, when I started to practise in this way, Bhagavan stopped me and corrected me.

'This right-side Heart-centre is not the true Heart," he said. 'The real Heart is not located anywhere. It is all-pervasive.'

'Stop meditating on the Heart-centre,' he continued. 'Find the source. That is the true Heart. Just as electricity comes not from the individual meter boxes in people's houses but from a single source, so too the whole world has a single source, which is the Self or the Heart. Seek and enquire into this source of limitless energy. If the centre of the Self were really located in the body, the Self would die when the body dies."

~ from Living by the Words of Bhagavan