Hridaya Yoga
Yoga of the Spiritual Heart

The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart is a spiritual path whose purpose is the revelation of our True Self, the atman, or, as it is known in contemplative traditions, the Spiritual Heart.

The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart is based upon traditional spiritual principles and visions from classic yoga based on Patanjali’s Sutras, Advaita Vedanta, Tantra and Shaivism. They are correlated with teachings from Sufism, Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism.

The main methods used in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart are: hatha yoga, the meditations for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart and techniques for quieting the mind and for developing the capacity for concentration.

The student of Hridaya Yoga should consciously use all momentum, energies, and practical efforts in order to create the inner conditions necessary for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart.
The Spiritual Heart is both the transcendent and the immanent Reality of any and all aspects of the macrocosm. The Spiritual Heart is the ultimate essence of everything there is.

The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart allows us to live in the very “core” of the existence, to feel the heartbeat of every moment of life, to know intuitively the eternal dimension of every moment.
The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart involves the presence of the Witness Consciousness and of the Open Attention. The Open Attention is radiating from the heart and its radiance is Love.
The student engaged on the path of Hridaya Yoga aspires to live into the Heart, in the Supreme Reality, in God, while God is experienced directly, beyond any conceptual and religious definitions. Thus, the Student of Hridaya Yoga will achieve the identity with the wholeness of life.

• Hridaya Yoga or the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart – Definition
  
  Chapter 1
  
• Metaphysical Principles of Hridaya Yoga, the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart
  
• The Importance of the Principles Governing the Spiritual Practice - Premises
  
• The Purpose of the Practice
  
• The Awareness of the Spiritual Heart
  
  Chapter 2
  
• Centering Into the Spiritual Heart
  
• The Essence of Ramana Maharshi’s Method
  
• The Sense of the Truth
  
• The Celebration of Centering into the Heart
  
• The Unknown Becomes Ineffable Bliss
  
• Integration into the Daily Routine Life
  
  Chapter 3
  
• Principles Underlying the Fundamental Practice
  
• Can the Ineffable Be Known?
  
• Stages and Directions in the Meditation for the Revelation of the Spiritual Heart
  
  Chapter 4
  
• The Methodology of Hridaya Yoga
  
• The Tools Used in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart
  
• The Structure of the Course
  
• Common Elements shared with the Hatha Yoga Sessions
  
  Chapter 5
  
• Effects of Practicing Hridaya Yoga
  
• Physical Effects
  
• Psychological Effects
  
• Spiritual Effects
  

The vision of this spiritual path is based on the advaita-vedanta philosophy, which teaches about the essential oneness of all creation1. We are starting from the premise that everything that exists in the universe is a manifestation of the Supreme Consciousness, which reveals itself in each and every individual as the Atman, the Spiritual Heart. The Spiritual Heart represents each and every individual’s source of freedom, spontaneity and profound bliss.

The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart aims at eliminating the contradictions, tensions and conflicts caused by the dualistic vision (dvaita) and also by its inherently conditioned programming. In Hridaya Yoga, the aspiration is the revelation of individual’s ultimate nature, of the Spiritual Heart. This results in understanding and experiencing the Oneness. In Hridaya Yoga, we endeavor to express coherently the oneness of consciousness by using the meditation and hatha yoga as well. Additionally, Hridaya Yoga uses specific methods to assist the students with applying this vision in their every day routine life. In this manner, the consciousness or awareness of the Spiritual Heart can be permanently infused in their life.

The focus on energy wheels - chakras and on energetic phenomena plays a secondary role during the practice of Hatha Yoga, as it is an integral part in the vision of consciousness of oneness. In the incipient stages of the Hatha Yoga practice, the experiences related to energizing the chakras (and also the understanding and transformations which may result thereafter) are important for acquiring an increased awareness of the subtle reality of our being. However, gradually, while we gain spiritual maturity on this Path, it is the process of transcending our attachment to our physical or energy structures that becomes the focus in the spiritual practice.

Therefore, Hridaya Yoga is not a spiritual practice involving any control or forcing into submission our internal or external nature. Instead, Hridaya Yoga is teaching the conscious abandonment of our individual limits. At the same time, it is teaching the students to open to the Supreme Reality. The surrender to the Spiritual Heart is a superior stage; it comes as a result of a practice sustained by personal effort. The asanas (yoga poses) have to be performed with an attitude of profound devotion and inner transfiguration rather than by allowing the ego-based will to attempt controlling the body and the mind. The practice of Hridaya Yoga itself represents an aspiration of recalling to remain permanently focused on the spiritual purpose.

As part of the Hridaya Yoga practice, the ideal goal of hatha yoga, in itself, is to reach the state of harmony with the divine reality, to let go of corporeal consciousness, to achieve freedom, exaltation of beauty, openness towards subtle dimensions. All the foregoing goals form the premises of the revelation of who we are in truth. In Hridaya Yoga, the yoga techniques, including meditation and Hatha Yoga as well, shall not be performed in order to “achieve” the Supreme Reality, The Spiritual Heart. Instead, the purpose is to turn the body, the soul and the mind into adequate instruments expressing the Heart, the Supreme Consciousness. Therefore, for the students following this path, it is of utmost importance to understand the above guidelines as well as the role played by the body, soul and mind in their relation with the Spiritual Heart.

• There is one Supreme Reality, which represents the universal, unique and ultimate substratum of the whole existence.
• The Nature of the Supreme Reality is Consciousness.
• This Supreme Reality exists as the ultimate essence of one’s being. It is called “Atman”, the Supreme Self. ( We frequently refer to “Atman” by hridaya – the Spiritual Heart , the synonymous word used in Hridaya Yoga)
• The necessary conditions for the revelation of our ultimate essence can be generated by yoga techniques or other spiritual practices.
• The revelation of the ultimate essence of who we are has caused the great Indian sages to recognize that there is a relationship of identity between Brahman, the Supreme Reality and Atman, the Spiritual Heart. (Three out of great four vedic and upanishadic statements, Mahavakhya, refer to this identity of Atman with Brahman.)
• This process of the revelation of our real nature or identity is somewhat resembling the process we go through when we want to remember something very important and forgotten for a long time. Therefore, this is truly a process of re-acquainting ourselves with our own Self. From this vantage, all we have got to do is to create, in the “lab” of our own consciousness, the very inner conditions which are favorable to this process.
• There is a primordial vibration, the spanda, which is expressed in our being as the Sacred Tremor of the Heart. This Sacred Tremor of the Heart acts like a bridge between energy and consciousness. It can serve as a way for an emotion or a spiritual experience to transcend the personal individual level and, then, reveal the freedom of the spirit.
• The Sacred Tremor of the Heart, the spanda, is an infallible inner guide. It always exists, as the fundamental dimension of the existence, to guide us from personal level to transpersonal level and beyond it, from temporary existence to eternity.
• In accordance with the traditional tantric vision and the contemporaneous holistic vision trends, the starting point in Hridaya Yoga is that everything is interconnected. The Whole in itself is a vibrant living relationship. The Life per se is a cosmic game of infinite interactions. The consciousness of the Spiritual Heart causes that every second lived according to this holistic vision may become an opportunity for inspiration, revelation, sacred celebration of interconnectedness, between all the separate individual parts, on the one hand and between each individual part and the Whole, on the other hand.

As a consequence of the intuitive knowledge of the One universal background of the existence, as students of Hridaya Yoga, we start to develop the awareness that all aspects of our beings are ultimately divine.

We also become intuitively aware that our ultimate nature is not limited to the physical body or to the subtle mind-soul or energy structures. This way, in Hridaya Yoga, using meditation combined with Hatha Yoga, we make gradual progress into experiencing a state of expansion in which we become like the space and we embrace everything. We can perceive the one and universal background of the existence as being the transcendent dimension of our being.

• The clear and quiet mind, able to generate the premises for the transcendence of the mind itself.
• The Spiritual Heart – we are aware of it as being an “organ” for direct knowledge. The Spiritual Heart is a subtle “organ” that can simultaneously include our fundamental aim, the very nature of the spiritual endeavor and aspiration and, at the same time, the effort inherent to the practice.

In the spiritual practice, we shall not make a goal out of the level of perfection of the physical postures. The practice of asanas is not a goal per se in Hridaya Yoga. However, the profound transformations taking place during the execution of an asana, make the asana a tool meant to help us to open towards our ultimate nature, towards the Atman, the Spiritual Heart.

Therefore, the asana is not a goal in itself, but a modality to express the oneness of our being, a tool used to cause the consciousness to expand, a dance of energies, a dance of Shakti and Shiva, or a dance of the energy with the consciousness.

The awakening of latent energies and getting them balanced and centered in the Spiritual Heart represents a way for us to open towards the infinite and to become cosmic beings.

Instead of “practicing” or “doing” yoga or an asana, our aspiration is of ‘being” in yoga and of consciously living, in that asana, the miracle of “be-ing”. The asana is used as a tool to help us to develop the sharpness of the Witness Consciousness, to immerse into the Heart’s profound levels, and to reveal who we really are. This is how we get to be in an attitude which is rather meditative and where the mental concentration is accompanied by the Witness Consciousness and by an Open Attention to energetic phenomena which might appear. The Hatha Yoga session is not an imposed practice, but a creative activity called for by the tendencies and energies associated with the present moment. Thus, the practice of Hatha Yoga is more than an ascetic practice or a strictly physical individual workout. It becomes mainly a practice of awareness and of openness full of joy. In this manner, we avoid the danger of a rigid and most often useless practice, based on egoic will power. Instead, our practice is oriented inwards. It becomes increasingly intimate in its nature, freely expressed, dynamic, continuously refreshed by inner echoes, by feedback responses from the very flow of energies which are used.

In order to harmonize the energies and various aspects of our being such as body, sensations, mind, we have to go through a process of unification and integration of this “Conscious Totality” which is our very being. While practicing yoga we become the yoga; the oneness is reflected in and between the internal and external aspects of the being. By practicing Hridaya Yoga, we celebrate and honor the very power of life.

In this manner, we establish contact with the infinite and eternal potential of our true nature. As a result, we stop being preoccupied with routine problems, dramas and fears and we can freely access the extraordinary treasure which is offered by the Present moment.

The centering into the Spiritual Heart induces a feeling of a sacred interconnection within the Totality. This is the true Home where we find ourselves together in the same radiation of the Pure Presence, of the Sacred Tremor, the spanda.

The Centering into the Spiritual Heart is a fundamental practice. It is a simple and direct spiritual technique practiced in Sufism, Christianity and Judaism. The naturalness of the approach is in itself a guarantee for a harmonious inner transformation. The consistent practice of this technique and having faith in it are significantly helpful for the purpose of our endeavor.

The Immersion into the Heart, using the method of Ramana Maharshi will help us cross the barrier of sentimentalism, of nervousness and personal attachments. This is an important first step towards the revelation of our divine nature. Centering into the Spiritual Heart is an essential attitude which, if it is practiced on a regular basis, starts to reflect itself as a way of “being”.

Ramana Maharshi summarized his method as follows: “What is essential in any sadhana [practice] is to try to bring back the running mind and fix it on one thing only. Why then should it not be brought back and fixed in Self-attention. (To this feeling of ‘I’)? That alone is Self-enquiry (atma-vichara). That is all that is to be done!” Sri Sadhu Om, The Path of Sri Ramana Vol. 1 (Sri Ramana Kshetra: Tiruvannamalai,1997)

Thus, Ramana Maharshi stated logically an essential fact. Unfortunately, those who understood it were not so many. Maharshi essentially stated that since the purpose of meditation is to fixate the mind on an object, then, rather than any other external or even internal object, THAT particular object should be the very source of our own attention. It is actually the Divine Self, the Spiritual Heart.

The attention or the meditation on any object keeps us in the duality of:

• 1) "I", the knowing subject and
• 2) “It”, the object to be known.

If the attention is directed towards the Spiritual Heart, i.e. to the knowing subject or, in other words, to who we really are, to the intimate sense of Pure Existence, to the source of the attention itself, then, the premises of a true inner transformation appear, because the subject and the object collapse, become unified, into the vision of the Oneness. It is, therefore, very natural to make the Spiritual Heart the only object of our meditation. Then the Spiritual Heart reveals itself as the knowing subject or who we really are in the ultimate intimacy of our being.

(top)

Every gesture of centering into the Spiritual Heart, every step to get closer to the divine nature, to God, is followed by an intuitive evidence, a sense of the Truth, of the Love which continues to strengthen the aspiration of centering into the Spiritual Heart.
Therefore, the immersion into the Heart finds its natural fulfillment in the blossoming of love and sense of harmony, of being perfectly attuned with the Whole, of communion with God. Opening up at soul level and the immediately following process of being gradually "filled" with love for God are natural expressions of centering into the Heart.

There is a certain happiness and freedom that are inherent to the centering into the Spiritual Heart. They will gradually infuse any type of yoga practice and our whole life as well.

In the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart, by centering into the Heart, we open ourselves and discover, first of all, the intrinsic beauty and harmony of our being. And next, we learn to recognize this beauty and harmony even outside of us.

This centering into the Heart inspires us to act, in our daily life, in such ways as to glorify and celebrate the essence of life, love and happiness inherent to the Spiritual Heart. On the other hand, the centering helps us to discern the actions which are not in harmony with Spirit. Relying on Heart’s ability to discern, we endeavor to attain a state of harmony with that which is awakening the infinite dimension of our being. Thus, the suffering diminishes and there is an expansion of our awareness of the beauty and splendor of a life that has found its center.

When we are in the Spiritual Heart, when our awareness is there, we realize that the whole life is sacred. The more the Spiritual Heart is present in our lives, the more pure, more profound and more vivid our joys and aspirations become. We spontaneously recognize and express the completeness and sacredness of life.

A significant benefit of the centering in the Heart is that the life is more and more often experienced as a celebration bringing freedom and happiness, a celebration of the spirit.
There is an essential difference between a profane celebration and a sacred one.
A profane celebration is meant to make you forget about your fears, worries and about yourself. During the sacred celebration of the practice of yoga, the Supreme Self, the Spiritual Heart is remembered and you celebrate it through the happiness offered by love.

Centering into the Heart allows us to align with the intrinsic laws of nature.
Then, the moral principles and attitudes recommended in the Yama and Niyama code of ethical rules arise spontaneously. For example, Ahimsa (non-violence), Santosha (satisfaction) or Aparigraha (non-accumulation) become naturally satisfied, not because we intend to follow certain rules, but as an immediate effect, as a natural consequence of our profound vision of life acquired by centering into the Heart.

The spiritual practice can be compared with a dancer’s practice and rehearsal necessary to get ready for the show. To be rehearsed, there are steps, inner attitudes etc. which, later, make possible a performance full of naturalness, sahaja. The show is our life and the "rehearsal" is the spiritual practice.

Obviously, because there is no way to quantify the ineffable, there is no objective example or model for us to replicate in our endeavor to reveal the Spiritual Heart.

As a general rule, in order to delve deeper into our inner experiences, we need to focus our attention on the echo stirred deeply in our being by various inner attitudes. We also need to understand the significance of this echo. Thus, through a feedback process, we gain progressive control over some parts of our consciousness, which are normally considered inaccessible or ineffable.
In this manner, we get to have an inner capacity which favors the surrender and the spontaneity. This seems paradoxical at first sight, because, apparently, it is not simple to come up with and also apply methods meant to switch on the spontaneity and naturalness, sahaja, inherent to the surrender into the Self, to total surrender to God. Yet, this is precisely the expression of the experience gained from consistently long hours of meditations for centering into the Spiritual Heart. This is the very "secret" of a mystic who is able to go instantaneously beyond the barriers of the mind, into the consciousness of the One.

The following are the basic guidelines with regard to our practice as they are presented by our course:

A) with regard to the meditation for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart, there are four main stages; the student is to maintain awareness of these stages as meditation becomes accessible at increasingly deeper levels.

• 1. The temporary suspension of the discursive thinking and ordinary thought process (stillness and mental clarity).
• 2. The direction of the Attention is reversed; we focus inwards and we direct our energy towards the chest area. (This stage is the same as the pratyahara process from Raja Yoga). It corresponds to the "descent" of the mind into the Heart practiced by the Christian mystics.
• 3. The sublimation of the energies of the senses, psyche and mind (energies focused in the Heart during stage 2), into the ineffable vibration of the longing for God, into the Sacred Tremor, the spanda.
• 4. The conscious surrender to the Reality of the Spiritual Heart, followed by the dissolution of the individual consciousness. This is how we move from the individual consciousness, the ‘jivatma’ to the consciousness of the Self, the ‘atman’.

B) With regards to the nature and the activity of the mind, there are two stages:

• 1. Quieting and clarifying the mind;
• 2. Transcending the mind, the Absolute Void, the Pure Stillness.

The jnana yoga affirms that this is the ultimate background of our being, it is what we really are. Any technique is now abandoned, while we remain into the deep stillness of the Heart. In the Buddhist tradition, which includes strict rules regarding the control of the mind and meditation, these two stages are clearly mentioned:

• the Samatha (in Pali) or the Shine (in Tibetan) – is the stage in which the follower practices the mental concentration on various internal or external objects (focusing and quieting the mind by focusing on breathing, body sensations, etc.) and
• the Vipassana (in Pali) or the Vipasyana (in Sanskrit) or the lhagthong (in Tibetan) – the "vision", the equanimity of the mind (the state of peace and abiding calmness) or, in other words, the access to the non-conceptual reality, the revelation of the ultimate void (intimate understanding of the transience of thoughts’ and of the mental content - because they come from nothing and go back to nothing).

Therefore, the void, the absolute stillness cannot be induced by a specific technique. It can be revealed, when the adequate conditions are favorable (created through spiritual practice) and when the mind is calm.

With regards to the stage (first one) regarding the methods which can be used to create the control and quietness of the mind, there are two categories of techniques meant for achieving:

• 1) The mental capacity for concentration or
• 2) The awakening and development of the Witness Consciousness.

There are countless techniques for concentration or meditation, but they are all based on these two principles used for the practice of meditation. Most of them insist on one of these aspects solely, but there are a number of methods which tend to integrate both of them. Ramana Maharshi's method for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart integrates both attitudes:

• 1) Focusing the mind in the center of the chest, slightly to the right;
• 2) Developing the Witness Consciousness and the awareness of the awareness itself, by an attitude of detachment from body, feelings, thoughts, mind, using, for instance, the question "Who am I?".

In the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart the mind is gradually purified and controlled both through a systematic use of specific concentration techniques and by developing the Witness Consciousness.

C) With regard to the practice of the asanas, it is essential to outline the importance of the aspects related to energy and consciousness, the two "poles" of a correct practice. It is not enough just to "push" the energy into one place or another, into a chakra or a nadi. Therefore, we insist on the necessity of maintaining the state of Witness Consciousness which leads to the achievement of one’s true nature, through the alchemy of the asana.

With regard to the performance of asanas, we recommend two stages, each of them with its own phases:

Stage 1
• 1) The Witness Consciousness and the Detached end Open Attention represent the underlying background for the full session of asanas and also for the performance of each individual asana, respectively. Observing the thoughts, trends, patterns and maintaining non-reactivity to them.
• 2) Relaxation exercises meant to increase elasticity of joints and muscles (the stage of getting ready to start an asana).
• 3) Motionless and stillness of the body. (for details, see the Chapter on Kaya Sthairyam – The stillness of the body).
  
  Stage 2
• 4) The acceptance of energy, dissolving in it (state of intimacy, identification, samyama, with that energy. Awareness of the state of increased energy and of harmonious quality of the energies awakened by a specific asana in our being).
• 5) Sublimation of the energies into the spanda, the Sacred Tremor (transition from
  • a) the phase of personal energies to
  • b) the phase in which we feel that cosmic, transpersonal energies are flowing through us and then to
  • c) the state of Pure Consciousness of the Spiritual Heart).
• 6) Contemplation and transcendence of the body consciousness (we stop identifying with the physical body and we become aware of expanding into the infinite).

• Stage 1 CRI (Witness Consciousness, Relaxation, Body Immobility)
• Stage 2 ASI (Acceptance, Sublimation, Infinite)

These six attitudes are in accord with what Patanjali stated in his Yoga Sutra regarding the role of the asanas:
"The posture is immobile, firm and comfortable.
It is realized when the effort disappears and there is meditation on the Infinite.
From now on he (the yogi) will not be disturbed by dualities." (II. 46-48)
Therefore, in Patanjali's vision, the role of the asana is to reveal the consciousness of infinity and the transcendence of dualities.

The basic attitudes integrated in the Hatha yoga session include:
The awareness of the present moment, the centering into the Heart, the Open Attention, the Witness Consciousness, the Love, the Sacred Tremor, the Surrender, the Oneness Consciousness.

• 1. All procedures used in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart serve the same aspiration: the revelation of our true nature.
  The teaching of meditation techniques is supported by a methodology designed to improve the control of the mind and its clarity in specific ways based on specific objectives. (For instance, there is a method which allows a very precise observation of the progress we make during every meditation regarding the development of the Witness Consciousness and of the clarity of the mind)
• 2. Thus, we intend to enable every student to make progress without needing a teacher’s assistance. We encourage the dialogue with the teacher, but not the dependence on the teacher. The course includes the guidelines necessary for progressive spiritual workout in which the mind and the Heart as "knowledge organs” are gradually developed.
• 3. The spiritual texts underlying the theoretical and practical aspects of the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart are: Yoga Sutra by Patanjali, Spanda Karika, Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, etc. and the dialogues and statements of important spiritual masters including Shankara, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Swami Sivananda, Rumi, Meister Eckhart.

The tools used in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart serve the purpose of creating the premises necessary for the revelation of our divine nature. The Path of the Spiritual Heart is using mainly meditations for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart and hatha yoga.

Based on these tools, the practice takes place in an adequate environment including:

• weekly courses on Hatha Yoga and meditation
• the Hridaya Retreat, the Retreat for the Revelation of the Spiritual Heart
• weekly group meditation
• week-end workshops on various themes
• lectures, etc.

Besides the formal practice, as previously explained, there is the environment of spiritual community where everyone is welcome to express their aspirations, creativity and individuality.

The Methods used in the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart are designed to address everyone regardless of their experience or abilities regarding hatha yoga, starting from children to adults of all ages, from persons in need of therapeutic guidance to advanced students.

During the course, the students are supervised and guided so that, through their own inner abilities, they become able to make maximum progress in getting to know themselves profoundly. The practice is, therefore, designed based on individual needs, taking into account the physical, psychic, mental and spiritual abilities of each student. Communication, sincerity and openness play an important role in the process of designing an individual practice.

The modules reflect the development of competence levels in yoga. Each module includes weekly sessions of hatha yoga, which, in addition to the asanas and pranayama techniques, integrate concentration techniques and meditations for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart.

The Hridaya Retreat program including meditations for the revelation of the Spiritual Heart is based on the theoretical principles and the practical methods of Jnana Yoga.
There are workshops as well, on various themes related to the Spiritual Heart and to the awakening of the Sacred Tremor of the Heart, the spanda.

• The mental peace.
• The centering into the Spiritual Heart and awakening of the radiating "warmth" of the Heart.
• The Witness Consciousness - a detached observation of the way in which the energies move through subtle structures.
• The Conscious Breathing and especially the pauses between breathing in and breathing out. (Conscious breathing helps us to improve our ability of perception of energy and of expansion of the Stillness beyond the mind)
• The Love, the devotion for the ultimate reality of the Spiritual Heart, for God, (and implicitly for the entire creation).
• The awakening of the spiritual aspiration, of the feeling of sacredness in our being, of the Sacred Tremor, the spanda.
• The letting go of the ego based consciousness.
• Transcending the consciousness of our physical body’s limits.
• The consciousness of oneness; the vision of non-duality, advaita.
• The end of the Hatha yoga session includes a yogic complete relaxation and a meditation for infusing/ expanding the consciousness of oneness into our daily life. Ultimately, we endeavor to create the adequate atmosphere and conditions, so that at the end of the hatha yoga session, all students will leave the room more conscious with regard to themselves and the whole existence, more self confident, with a more profound vision regarding life and the divine reality: healthier, more compassionate, happier, with a higher capacity for sincere friendships and inner sense of freedom.

The essential effects of the Yoga of the Spiritual Heart include the development of the Witness Consciousness, spiritual sensitivity to energies, ability to harmonize and sublimate them into the Sacred Tremor of the Heart, the spanda. At this point, we are able to understand that the practice of yoga brings enthusiasm and aspiration through the very process of sublimation. (In the context of the Advaita tradition, the term "sublimation" has a slightly different meaning than in psychology. This is clarified in the chapter on “Sublimation".)
Thus, we learn to celebrate the energies and principles of life as often as possible in the daily life.

The Yoga of the Spiritual Heart helps us to become more centered mentally and emotionally. The development of the Witness Consciousness prevents and even removes emotional disorders. When there is a Heart shiver with the emotion of pure love, the centering occurs naturally here, in the Spiritual Heart. This is a remedy for any form of alienation. Love is truly a universal balm. The alienation is an estrangement from others and from yourself (from the Latin ‘alienare’ - "estrangement"). It creates a sense of isolation.
Centering in the Spiritual Heart cannot create an estrangement from what you are. On the contrary, it offers a much deeper sense of ‘intimacy with yourself’, of faith in your own force and in your divine nature.

The act of centering and immersing into the Heart creates, in its turn, a sense of the consciousness of Oneness with the Wholeness, the advaita. And everything is revealed as being interconnected through the very background of the divine consciousness or reality. A sense of inner connection with others and with the environment emerges now. Furthermore, there is a higher capability for compassion, kindness, friendship, humanity, ethical sense. The intuition of the existence of one Heart only, of the same Spiritual Heart, of the same divine reality becomes more and more clear and it expands. We then understand our intimate interconnection.