Yogi Bhajan Lecture: Dwelling in the Heart Center

Excerpts from a lecture by Yogi Bhajan given on October 11, 1973 in San Francisco, CA

Everybody on this Earth forgives. Forgiveness is the law of the heart center. The heart center, the fourth center of consciousness, is the center of totality.

The prana cleans the blood, oxygenates the blood. The heart beats. All this happens in this ribcage. It is the center of compassion. If one can produce God on this Earth, it is only through compassion. If one can perform miracles, it is all the power of compassion. If one can sacrifice, it is also compassion. If one can be truthful, it is also compassion. If one can be selfless—all good facets of the being are through compassion and that is the heart center. It is the beauty, it is the dignity, it is the ecstasy of the human being.

Any little righteousness in you which flows through you comes from where? Compassion. If you can bring all your actions through the heart center, do you know what you will do? For all actions judged through the heart center, the result is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the highest act of human intelligence and human existence. It is the highest act of self-realization. You have not been created to forgive; you are a creature to act and react. Your construction is that way—you act and react. You are a karma; you are sequence and consequences; you are action and reaction complete and absolute. But there is a levitated form of you. There is a higher form of you. There is a deluxe form of you. There is a special self of you, and that is the forgiving self of the being.

That is the state of compassion. That is the state of the heart center where you can forgive one whom nobody forgives. When you forgive whom nobody forgives, you are higher than the one who runs the law of polarity and you know who runs the law of polarity? God.

And whenever you speak wisdom your consciousness travels through the heart center and that touch will be enough. When you want to act, put yourself in someone else’s position, exchange places, it will make it easy to forgive.

Somebody once asked a question to a sage, “Why did God produce all this maya?”

He said, “To see one who is better than Him.”

He said, “Who is that better than Him?”

He said, “One who forgives the unforgivable, whose total center becomes the heart center.”

It is that stage of ecstasy of consciousness. It is that levitated consciousness. It is that higher self in the self. It is that beauty in the beauty. It is that ecstasy in ecstasy. It is that joy in joy which nobody can express through words. They call it experience and Earth is the only planet where a human being can have that experience.

When there is a huge compassion through the heart center, you grow beyond these fashions, these worlds, and these rituals, and these realms, all these realms look so little to you. It is that state of consciousness in a person that he can levitate himself from all pain, all displeasure; he becomes so universal and so vast and so expanded that everything looks very, very little—that is the beauty of the heart center, compassion.

If you lose everything, never lose hope because hope can always bring you to your compassionate self. Hope is from the heart center. It gives you continuity. I have a hope that some good person from this land of United State of America or Canada or western hemisphere shall rise above the levitated form to give people a message not to get into all these lustful trips, but who may live in the life of love. There is nothing more than one can do but hope. There is a constant hope. There is a continuity in that hope.

One day there shall be a day when all mothers will live for the little innocent one. One day there shall be a day when all men will feel the responsibility to raise the innocent one. One day there shall be a day when all parents will deliver their innocent ones through this Earth as perfect beings, trained beings, good beings. One day there shall be a day when men will know to live righteously. One day there shall be a day when women will know how to live gracefully. One day there shall be a day when humanity will live compassionately. That day shall be the day of peace.

By making the mind to act compassionately you gain everything. By lustful manners you waste your energy of life. By love you can win the kingdom on this Earth. Being a fanatic, you close your doors to all. This world is the greatest test of mankind and one can only pass if he lives in his heart center.

Can we not see all this suffering? Have we become so numb that we can’t feel it? Have we become so unaware that we can’t know it? Have we become crazy that we cannot do anything for it? All it takes is to start from one heart to another heart. This is one thing which can be lit from one heart to another heart. Arguments and reasons do not play any part in the matter of heart. When the heart starts throbbing, the thunder and storms do not stand in the way.

A life of a human being is worthy because that being has turned his “mann” (mind) into “hu” (light). Each one of you now is the light of your own mind. When you become committed on the path of righteousness, on the path of compassion, on the path of sacrifice, then you become above God.

When you will find in you the nothingness—not emptiness, it is a state of compassion. When you feel for all and everything equally; when the Universe has no boundaries and no lines for you, then you exist beyond existence. It is a state of consciousness.

The state of truthfulness is the state of compassion. Truth comes from the fourth center of consciousness. When a being becomes totally a being of compassion then his words can shake every heart, they penetrate. Words which do not penetrate are like that arrow which does not hit the mark. It is the compassionate heart which can change the heart of everyone through the power of the word, and that belongs to those who have a state of compassionate self.

Passion shall never lead to righteousness. Compassion is the beginning and the end of righteousness. Compassion is the fountain of sacrifice. Compassion is the fountain of forgiveness. Compassion is what holds the world today. Be compassionate; don’t be passionate. Forgive those who have done wrong to you.

The law of the compassionate being is that he shares all goodness. That is the fourth center of consciousness. Any time you want to be above God, just judge your action at the fourth center. If you are thinking negatively, “Oh I am going to kill him,” just start thinking from here [heart], you will start feeling a pain if you continue that negativity. This is one center where no negativity sits. If you ever think of anybody who is your enemy, think at the heart center. He will look like a friend.

You know, when the Christmas heart center opens up, everybody buys; when January comes, then the bills come and everybody freaks out. They call it Christmas consciousness. Everybody on the street will smile at you whether he knows you or not, nobody minds anything, feast and festivity, great consciousness. Whiteness prevails in the consciousness, man gives, friends are called, and cards are sent. The moment January enters bills start coming and everybody starts freaking out. All joy of compassionate Christmas is lost in reaction of grumbling and freaking out and grudging and tightness.

That is not the concept of the compassionate man. He gives, he gives, he gives, and he gives so much that almighty creative consciousness or the super consciousness or the universal magnetic field or the creativity of the magnetic psyche has to cater to give back to him ten times over. That’s the law. You not only give, you give so much that the giver has to learn to give to you. Give so much that the greatest giver should learn from you that you give.

Giving is the act of godliness. Don’t attach strings to it. Give for the sake of giving so that you can practice giving. Give to become perfect in giving. Why not rise to the highest of the high and give and give and give and give? That is the law of the heart center, the compassion.

Only the man of heart knows the joy of the heart. Beauty, dignity, piety, purity, compassion, consciousness, and the power of the word come from the heart center.

What is without compassion? What can wisdom do without compassion? Nothing can work without compassion. You cannot penetrate without compassion, and things have to come from your heart.

That’s all that carries a person—his compassion. Passions are like tides coming and going. Mind shall never be steady because the tidal wave of passion will always bring it up and down, but compassion is a trade wind. It will carry you across on the calm ocean.

Turn your passions into compassion by feeling others are you and you are others. Remove the barriers of the egocentric self and feel the self in all; all is one and one is all—that is what the mantra Wahe Guru means. It is the ecstasy of that oneness, that light, that knowledge, that dispelled darkness, and one finds the light, Wahe Guru. What you can say beyond this?

That is when we say God and me, me and God are one. We chant that mantra. It is that ecstasy of consciousness when you feel the oneness with the one, when you feel the grace with the one, and one is all and all is one.