1. UK 78- 34 Questioner. Gururaj, could you speak to us please about how we can open up our hearts? Gururaj. Beautiful question. I'm just wondering, the question was, can you speak to us how we can open our hearts? I don't know if I can answer that. How can we open our hearts? What is opening? What is closing? What is the heart? Good. The core of the human personality is what is called heart, the sum-totality of all your feelings, your emotions, not only those that you feel with the mind. Thank you. Is it closer to my heart? All the feelings and emotions that we experience are not necessarily of the heart. A lot of it is mixed up with the mind. The heart is a quality or a form of existence that could exist without the mind and the heart, without the mind and without feeling, without emotion, without the thinking process. It could exist independently, yet the various mechanisms of the mind are necessary to be able to appreciate what's happening in the heart. The heart is forever radiating an energy, a force. When I said that the heart is the core of the human personality, it means that the heart is that which is closest to Divinity. Divinity is encompassed, trapped so to speak in the heart. The heart has a universal quality. Therefore a good man, we call him a big-hearted man. Little do we realise how big that bigness is. Its extent is the entire universe but man because having a mind, persists in limiting the heart and by limiting the heart to its individual self, to its individuality, he is closing the heart. And therefore the question arises how can we open the heart. Good. How do we begin by opening the heart? Now if a man says 'Oh, I must be more kinder, I must be more generous, I must be more loving'. Does the heart say that? The heart does not say that. The mind says that because the mind recognises or feels the closeness of the heart. And yet the heart is pulsating so powerfully all the time, that those pulses or impulses are felt by the mind and the mind starts wondering. Why is my heart closed? Why can't I feel? Now feeling is not to be measured in terms of one's emotions, because emotions could be good or bad, could be positive or negative, but the radiation of the heart is forever pure. Good. When we study the Scriptures and where it is said that 'Jesus’ heart bled for us'. What bled? What shot forth? The pulsating flow of blood. Now when we talk of blood, we mean life blood, life blood coming from the heart empowered, generated by the force of the heart that is universal. Now here we have to be very careful in understanding this principle. Opening the heart is not necessary in opening the mind. We start with the mind in trying to open the heart. We gather to us or affirm to us positive qualities which has an effect in the opening process. But the proper way to open the heart, and here is the secret, is to go beyond the mind and not let the mind interfere. Man says to woman, woman to man, 'I love you'. Now, the love that is spoken there is not the love of the heart although it is generated by the heart. It is empowered by the heart but what is speaking is the mind. The mind is appreciating the shape of her nose or her ears or her toes and says 'I love you'. The heart has no eyes. It

2. UK 78- 34 has no ears. It has no feeling. And yet we say the heart feels. The mind feels, not the heart. The heart is a pulsating, radiating power and when the heart is opened that means, that means that the mind is opened. The heart does not require opening. Like our usual old analogy, the heart can be likened to the petrol in the tank of the car and the carburettor is the mind. So when the mind is expanded, the heart, the petrol automatically flows through. So in our practices what we do, is leave the mind aside and we are in touch with the source that could over-ride the discrepancies of the mind. Now it is very hard, it is very hard to start with the mind in opening up the mind, so that the heart could shine through. But it is so much easier for the heart to shine through in its own 'isness' through the mind and all the crevices o f the mind. All the dirt in the mind is automatically washed away in this force, this torrent of this heart energy. Do you see? So people that follow Jnana Yoga would start in trying to expand the mind, a very difficult path. People that would want to start with the heart would find it much, much easier, would find it much easier because they do not take the mind in account, they, because they stimulate the heart, the mind automatically opens up and the power flows through. Now the question is, how does one stimulate the heart? How does one reach the core of one's personality? How does one take the individual feeling that is within oneself and infuse it into that universal oneness which is the heart? Good. The process is through our meditational practices, where we systematically go to deeper levels beyond the mind and there in the range of the heart lies the Kingdom of Heaven. You see how the heart has been so misinterpreted, because the core of human personality is the spirit and the spirit is the heart. What loves, really loves? The heart loves. Not because the heart wants to love but because it is the nature of the heart to love and send forth that love. So we bluff ourselves in thinking that we love, because the moment you think that you love, you have stopped loving. Take this to mind very carefully. The moment you think I love, I have stopped loving, because the mind interprets it and the mind is too imperfect to interpret that which is so infinite, so forceful, so powerful. How could it be captured in the narrow confines of the mind? That is why we say, 'Love for the sake of Love'. Not love because you are beautiful or you are rich or you have something that I need. The mind knows of needs, not the heart. The mind recognises the need. It could be the need of dependency. It could be emotional dependency. It could be physical dependency. We do find people that are together for years because of physical dependencies and which is nothing but the mind involved with the senses or the sensual self of man. That is not love and that is not opening the heart. That is playing tricks with the mind. The mind plays tricks with itself upon itself. And then we start believing that I love. You can't believe you love. Love just is. It requires no believing.

3. UK 78- 34 So with the meditational practices, we bypass the various crevices of the mind and feel that force within. We feel that force within and the feeling is felt with the mind. But yet the mind at its finer level, at its finer level, cognises and recognises that force and therefore it appreciates it. People say 'Love is blind'. That is very true, because love does not see, does not hear, it does not think. When you love someone, you fail to see the faults of that person because that force overwhelms one so much that all the faults and frailties are not seen at all. Then there is a certain measure of love. But when you don't love someone, all the faults of the person become so magnified. It gets magnified out of proportion, not by the heart but by the mind. You see the tricks we play upon ourselves? Now, the idea is not to think about love. The idea is to feel love. How does one feel love, is when we bring ourselves to that state of innocence. Be innocent as a child and the Kingdom of Heaven is forever open. That is the heart. That Kingdom is the heart. Not the individualised heart that has been so distorted by us by the processes of the mind, where the mind tries very unsuccessfully to limit the heart. And what happens then in this failure of trying to limit the heart, conflicts arise and one conflict breeds more conflicts and it goes on in a vicious circle. Now when a man loves a woman or a woman loves a man, the presence or the closeness of each other, many of you might have experienced this, that the mind does not function, the body, you become oblivious of the body and something else takes over where you are transported away. You are lost in love there. You're transported away where the mind, the thinking is gone, the body, you become oblivious of it and there is just this 'isness'. I think I might have mentioned before that people don't even know how to make love. They don't really. They don't know how to make love. They make love with their bodies only and the mind stimulates the body. People that are more physical, have physical stimulation while some others require psychological stimulation. And then of course most of the times the body and mind function together and that they call love-making. It is blasphemy. That is not love-making. That's lust-making. Love, true love-making comes only when the inner self, the spirit or the heart and the mind and the body becomes totally infused, becomes totally infused and in that infusion the greater power takes over and the body is not felt. The mind is not felt, only the oneness is felt. And that comes from the heart, that is opening up of the heart. I am only using this instance of love-making. But the same principle applies to every facet of life. And when man can really love in that way, then he loves through Divinity. He is expressing Divinity and that very love-making becomes a meditation. The purpose of meditation is to integrate mind, body and spirit and in this instance mind, body and spirit is portrayed or experienced, is experienced as a oneness, as an integrated wholeness where lover, the beloved and love becomes one. That is love. That is love. The rest, the rest is but a preparation to love. The rest is but a preparation.

4. UK 78- 34 This is the supreme experience. That is the supreme joy of love and that is why we say 'God is love, Love is God'. That's why we say that. Now, when we talk of opening the heart, we admit to the closeness of the heart and the heart seems pinched. The heart seems pinched. When I say the heart seems pinched, it means your entire personality is pinched, is going through a contraction without the expansion. And in this contraction, in this pinchedness all kinds of pains are felt, all kinds of disappointments are felt. In that contractedness, one goes through so many kinds of disillusionment and life deludes us and we say what is the use of this life. It’s good to say that, what is the use of this life. Because it is only by saying that, it is only by recognising the futility of our present situation that we can progress further. Some people remain self-satisfied and they think they've gained the whole world, they have gained the entire universe. That too is a self delusion. For it is only when the heart is expanded to its fullest self, have we really known ourselves, as the injunction says 'Man know Thyself'. Thyself is the core of thy personality. The core of thy personality is Divine. That is how true love, real love is experienced. The rest is playing games. We play games with ourselves and we play games with others. But that is the way, that is the way, for life itself is a game. Life itself is a play, like the actors on the stage and all these roles are necessary. All these roles are necessary so that we can experience that expansion. Of course I have taken this question to its ultimate limit. But when a question of this nature is asked then the person that would ask such a question is necessarily thinking of the present circumstance, that 'I am placed in such a position, what shall I do?' That is what comes to mind first. I would say, do nothing. Do nothing. Do not try and excite the heart to open itself because you can't. But what you can do is by living Yamma Yamin or living according to the injunctions Scriptures, create a frame of mind in the beginning stages because you have to discard all the frames also later. Yes. Yes. All this is to be discarded. So by positive living, living according to the injunctions of whatever religion you follow, because none of them tell you to be bad. They always show you how to be good. By following that, we are creating a frame of mind that could make it more conducive to experience what the real heart is. But that comes at a later stage. The immediate experience within a few months of effort-full living, by discriminative living, by disciplined living, we create around ourselves an aura. We create around ourselves a magnetic force, a magnetic pull that will bring to us what we need for that moment. This is very interesting. This is very interesting because man only attracts to himself what he deserves. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less. We said the other day that 'Nothing for nothing and very little for sixpence'. You remember that. Yes. Yes.

5. UK 78- 34 So man can with effort, with disciplined living change his whole mental attitude, change his whole perspective to life. And changing the perspective to life, one has to think and live in a positive manner. And the easiest way to live and think in a positive manner, in a positive way is by two things which people don't want to do. The easiest, but they don't want to do it - number one, acceptance and number two, self surrender. Ah. There you have it in a nutshell, walnut. Walnut, because it has a hard shell, it’s hard to crack. Aide. It has two parts in it. Gururaj. Yes and it has two parts in it. Yes. Yeah. The walnut when you open the walnut the nut itself inside has the crevices, it looks like a brain. It looks like a brain. You see how brainy we are. Aren't you getting me clear? Voice. I didn't catch the last two terms. (General laughter) Gururaj. Oh yes. The two things required in this discipline of life is self surrender and acceptance. I feel with my mind that my heart is pinched. I understand that the heart has a universal free quality and I am narrowing it down by my thinking processes. And all the thinking that narrows down that force within oneself necessarily has to be limiting. And al l that limits is negative. Because positivity has a quality of expansion. Negativity has the quality of contraction. Good. Fine. Now, when we have the principle of acceptance, what do we accept? Firstly we accept the fact that my heart feels pinched. Right. That means facing reality. See these two words contain every bit of practical living that you could ever think of and we can write volumes and volumes on it. One accepts oneself as one is - my heart is pinched. Now if it is pinched, if it is contracted and the desire within me is to expand it, what do I do? Step number two. What do I do? Right. I try and develop a perspective towards life within the framework of admitting what it is at the moment. Now from individual to individual, perspective varies and the method varies. Therefore teachers are necessary. Good. So when we find that these are my faults, these are the blockages, we do something to overcome those blockages. And when we do something to overcome the blockages, what we are doing without realising, we are surrendering. We are surrendering ourselves to our present condition. That is where we start. Now when we surrender ourselves to our present condition, then a force from within wells up and in that force, you feel its effect and you recognise that this is a higher force, something which is greater than me. You recognise that.

6. UK 78- 34 So, in acceptance, you surrender first to yourself by accepting the blockages and the weaknesses. When one does that and when one is honest with oneself, immediately the other force takes over and faces us. It knocks us right on the head. You see its there, seen, tangible and then we surrender to that force. That is what is meant by 'Thy will be done'. Resist not evil they say, ah, it is said. What evil do you want to resist? If a man comes and takes your home away, he doesn't say 'Sit back and take away'. No, no. If a man comes and destroys that which is most close to you, you don't say 'Oh well that's evil, I must not resist it' and let things go on as they are. No. The evil to be resisted, that is not to b e resisted is the negative forces that we have created within ourselves. And the best way not to resist that evil is to accept it within ourselves, is to recognise it within ourselves and say, 'This is it'. And once, once you accept that, it's like a bal l game. When they play baseball like these Americans do yes and the ball is thrown hard by the pitcher, the catcher on the other end does not try to catch the ball rigidly, it will hurt his hands. Or when we play, we English people play cricket, (General laughter) yeah, we give the hand a bit of a leeway. Anybody play cricket? I'm sure a lot of you. You give a little leeway to the hand, pull the hand a bit back so the impact, the speed of the ball, the force of the ball is not felt so much. The ball comes to you, you just do that. It becomes easy. See. You are not resisting the force. You are accepting the force, not resisting it. See how beautiful? So the evil that is to be resisted is the recognition of our shortcomings and what are we going to do about them, that is as I said, step number two. Now by doing these things to repeat again, we create an aura. Do remember one thing for sure, that everything you see, everything around us, this table, these flowers you, I, this chair everything, everyone, even Savita, Gita, Amrit and Robert, all of us, all of us are radiating something all the time. We are radiating. And the human mechanism, not the physical grosser mechanism but the subtle body that we spoke about radiates this force, this emanation. That emanation is coloured by all your positivities and all your negativities. Good. And that can very easily be felt by the other person. It does not require the mind to feel that or the thinking, the intellect to feel that. You jus t automatically feel it. You meet someone, immediately you like the person. You meet another person and you are repelled by that person. Why? It’s not because he's got a brown suit on or a black suit on, or his face is not nice or his face is pretty and handsome and good looking. He had a haircut today and you know, things like that. (General laughter) Life is such fun, isn't it? Yes. Yes. You see when you need the haircut you know the saying goes, ‘When the Disciple is ready, the Master appears’. When you need a haircut the hairdresser appears. Where is she? She did a wonderful job. Good. Fine. Fine. Good. Now let us get back to business. Good. Dear me. Fine. So, everything, all of us are radiating an aura. We are emanating this subtle energy. An aura is nothing but energy and that energy attracts a similar kind of energy. I know a young lady, beautiful girl, intelligent, one of our meditators,

7. UK 78- 34 everytime she met a man, she used to like the man, the man used to like her, but something just happened where it just ended, all the time. One, two, three, four, five, don't know how many, beautiful friendships but they could just not lead into anything or towards anything. I spoke to her, we started analysing the situation and we asked the question, why? This girl lost the battle even before she started it. That was her whole mental attitude all the time. That force was emanating from her that did not cause an attraction and a firm bond but a repulsion. You see. So to open to open the heart, to get away that pinchedness, one has to formulate one's thinking and one's thinking naturally formulates one's action. So, therefore, if we want to open up the heart, we have to go through disciplines. Do not say, never say that he does not love me, or she does not love me. Always say 'What am I doing to be loved?' Always say that. Always say that and when you say that, you are setting into motion a Divine law, a universal law. So, therefore the extraversion in communication starts firstly with the introversion with self examination and self examination is not enough. One has to act according to the solutions we find and if our minds are not capable of solutions, the Scriptures are there. Wise men are there, Sages are there who are forever ready, who are forever ready to assist. So to recap, the heart is forever open. It is the core of the human personality. The core of human personality is Divine. It does not require opening or shutting or closing. It is forever there. It exists because it exists. 'I am that I am'. Right. What requires remodelling and reframing and repatterning is our mind, our thinking processes. Now we might have lived so many, many lifetimes in having been brought into this mould, but remember whatever is moulded can be unmoulded. That is what we have to do in the path of spiritual growth or in the path of love because the spiritual path is the path of love. None else. None else. That is why the greatest Masters in the world taught of nothing else but love. That is what is required. And we have to, we must go through disciplines. Even sitting down to meditate in the beginning is a discipline because everyone is too busy. Everyone is too busy. They are not too busy to read the comics, they ar e not too busy to go to Bioscope, cinema or the theatre. Voice. Bioscope Gururaj. Pardon, Bioscope that is, yeah, cinema. Did I tell you the story of cinemas? That is how some people live their lives. You go to a cinema. Now what they do is first take your money and then you go inside. You don't know what the film is going to be like, but first they take your money. Right. And not only that, after putting you inside, they even switch off the lights. (General laughter) And then you'd see what they put on the screen for you 'cause the title is advertised. But how can you go by a title? Good. So we live our lives in a similar way. We pay such a high price with all our sufferings

8. UK 78- 34 and that suffering leads us into darkness. That is the tragedy. That is the stage of man's evolution that we are going through. Suffering, suffering, suffering and still finding darkness. I would rather not go to the cinema and pay good money and go and sit in darkness. I would go and sit in the light, beautiful garden, beautiful park where I can see and enjoy the flowers and the beautiful trees and the birds singing in all its glory and the wind whistling and praising at every moment the glory of Divinity. That's my cinema. You see. It comes for nothing, you don't need to pay and be thrown into darkness. Yeah. So beautiful isn't it. Really beautiful. And funny enough I was in the film business, so I know, (General laughter) dear me. Yes. Right. So even if our hearts feel pinched, even if it feels closed, we are forever hopeful, for hope is eternal in the human breast and chest. (General laughter) Yes. Yes. Yes, it is always there. It is always there. Only thing we make a hundred and eighty degree turn, instead of facing the darkness, we face the light, that’s all. And the way of facing the light is not to resist evil - by accepting our faults and frailties and doing something about it. And the best way to do it is to surrender to ourselves and that leads us automatically to surrender to a higher power. And that is how grace is invoked and that is how one learns to love. That is also another misnomer. You don't learn to love. Love just is, you just reach it. You don't need to learn it. It is there, always there. What we have to learn is how to repattern our minds. That's all. The biggest stumbling block in our path to joy, I have always called the mind a very cunning animal. It is true. It is true. Okay. Fine. END