How reliable is the meditation experience?

Hello all,
Recently I've read some articles about Eastern meditation and got confused.For example,influent indian teacher Ramana Maharshi told,that there is such thing as spiritual heart,and it is located on the right.He speaks of his personal expericne during the meditation.I'm impress by that,that it is not just written somewhere in holy book,but person speaks of his own experience,so...how reliable is that?Could it be just self-delusion?

 

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Yes it could. A majority of these gurus are frauds. But meditation is not. But it's also not reliable in that you never know what will happen.

 

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This person,Ramana Maharshi also made a statement which seems naive in the extreme:“It must be the heart at the right side of the chest since every man of whatever race and religion and in whatever language he may be speaking, points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself when he says 'I'. This is so all over the world, so that must be the place.”

 

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The thing is the awakening or enlightenment experience that people talk about is rather free of specifics. You can be enlightened and still hold wacky beliefs.

 

I think it goes back to the writing of the ancient Upanishads.They wrote about "spiritual heart on the right side"

 

It all dates back to a time when medical and scientific knowledge was scarce. I wouldn't take it too seriously. Enlightenment doesn't depend on a belief in a second spiritual heart.

 

I think you make a good point

 

Thanks. I'm a big fan of U.G. Krishnamurti, not to be confused with J. Krishnamurti, who was also cool, but more conservative.

 

I there any connection between U.G Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi?

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They are both from India, But there's no real connection between U.G. and anyone, philosophically.

 

Look what he said: "He placed his right hand on his right breast and continued, "Here lies the Heart, the dynamic, spiritual Heart. It is called Hridaya and is located on the right side of the chest and is clearly visible to the inner eye of an adept on the spiritual path.

Through meditation you can learn to find the Self in the cave of this Heart."

http://www.cosmicharmony.com/Sp/Ramana2c/Ramana2c.htm

 

His enlightenment may very well have been real, it sounds like it, but that quote is a mere triviality. What do you find when you look for the self? I say nothing like it can be found. The realization of this emptiness is the experience. The true nature of the self is that it is an illusory construct of the mind. The method of finding this out is usually to tell the student paradoxically to find the self.

 

Actually ,about spiritual heart on the right side he said something that really looks naive at best: “It must be the heart at the right side of the chest since every man of whatever race and religion and in whatever language he may be speaking, points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself when he says 'I'. This is so all over the world, so that must be the place.”

 

I avoided addressing that specifically because it's so obviously wrong. Cultures in history have located the center of thinking and the self and various arbitrary places besides the heart or the head. But I wouldn't hold his naivety against him.

 

The heart of the right side of the body should not be taken literally but symbolically. If you look at the brain, the sides of the body are crossed wired, where the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere is connected to the left side of the body. This tells us the hemisphere he is concerned with. The right heart implies a connection to the left side of the limbic system. These core regions are where the inner self is.

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LOL, do they? My hand usually hits my breastbone (aka - sternum).

 

When it comes to phenomena of the mind, the scientific method often breaks down, leading to false negatives. For example, the most basic unconscious mind data would be dreams. These are generated spontaneously by the brain or unconscious mind.

Although there are several ways to proves dreams exists, such as REM or brain scans, there is no way to use the scientific method to prove the content of specific dreams. There is no way to verify the specific images within a dream, since there is no tool that allows an outside POV to witness the exact dream o rreproduce it.

Based on the scientific method, even if you witness this exact detail there is no proof of this reality, using the method of science, therefore the data does not exist or is pseudo-science. This false negative conclusion is based on the break down of the scientific method, not lack of data. This is why the mind is one of the last frontiers. How do you upgrade the scientific method so such data does not lead to a false negative?

 

That's probably because everyone's brain can store coded information that makes sense only within the context of that brain. I don't believe science is trying to prove that certain brain activity while dreaming always translates into certain symbols. Science is trying to figure out how the whole system works.

 

The late (he died around 1950) Ramana Maharshi is tremendously respected in India. If you're reading him, good for you.

I doubt if he meant that it's there physically. It was probably more of a meditation object for him.

Right, that's the point I think. He's saying that he got results by meditating that way.

If you were going to try to do this, you wouldn't necessarily have to change your views of human anatomy. You would just need to entertain the possibility that something useful might result if you concentrate your awareness on the right side of your chest in the way that Ramana Maharshi prescribes. It's conceivable that concentrating your attention anywhere else would work as well, but maybe not. Or given our subjective feelings of our own bodies, maybe the chest is easier or something. I don't know. Doing it Ramana Maharshi's way does seem to be very traditional. There's probably lots of ayurvedic lore grown up around this stuff and associated with it, but I don't think that it's necessary to believe all that.

Of course it could. Very easily.

If you are really interested in pursuing this, you would have to find a suitable teacher, if that's necessary, and then do the meditations yourself and see if you experience similar results. Replicate Ramana Maharshi's results, so to speak.

One thing that all of the Indian meditative traditions seem to agree on is that you can't experience the results just from reading a book or trusting the authority of your teacher. (Even though a teacher might indeed be essential.) You have to actually do these things and experience whatever they reveal for yourself.

 

I haven't been here for a while and see that my topic caused great discussion.Perhaps the topic had to have other header : "how seriously "spiritual heart on the right side" should be taked base on Ramana Maharshi?"

so far my own research about "spiritual heart on the right side" brings the pages where almost exlusively it is spoken by Ramana Maharshi.But there are other views as well.Such infuential figure as Sri Chinmoy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Chinmoy

and some others,for example,state that the spiritual heart is in the middle of the chest...