The Flower of the Heart

“In the same way, in the human body too there are six principal nerve centres. They have the shape of lotuses. Those six lotus-shapes together have fifty-two lines in all. On each line, too, one letter is formed.”

“That moving power is ‘Praṇava’. It is anāhata sound.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · Gītā Vāhini, chapter 12 (opens in a new tab)

And what carries the journey:

“That is why Vedānta vicāram, or bhakti, prema, is equally enough to awaken the Kuṇḍalinī. When the Kuṇḍalinī is awakened through prema, She automatically goes through the right channel.”

GurudevGurudev · Saundarya Laharī, “Rising and Returning” (opens in a new tab)

“But for those who follow jñāna mārga, or prema mārga, bhakti mārga, it happens on its own, because there is no pride or ego trying to block or divert the flow of this energy.”

GurudevGurudev · Prema Vāṇī, 6 August 2025, “The Flower of the Heart” (opens in a new tab)

“All this kuṇḍalinī went and did all kinds of things, without any dangerous side effect, because prema was there, most dominant. So kuṇḍalinī woke up on its own; I did not bother to wake it up. Different, different cakras blossomed on their own.”

GurudevGurudev · Prema Vāṇī, 25 September 2026, “Expression Is the Practice of Prema” (opens in a new tab)

“Japa is for prema to blossom in the heart.”

GurudevGurudev · Bhagavad Gītā, “Not an Action but an Attitude” (opens in a new tab)

“Service is the lovely flower of Prema. The quality of doing no harm is the fragrance of that flower.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · Vidyā Vāhini, “Vidyā must show the divinity in oneness” (opens in a new tab)

“When they asked Ramaṇa Bhagavān, ‘Is it not said that the supreme consciousness resides in the Sahasrāra cakra? But you keep saying it is in the hṛdayam,’ he quoted a verse from a text and said that even the Sahasrāra ultimately has to come down into the hṛdayam.”

GurudevGurudev · Saundarya Laharī, “You Alone Are All” (opens in a new tab)

At the heart of the six petals is the star in its circle.

“Without taking the heart as the base, there is no entering the sahasrāra lotus.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 14 January 1998, “Satya is heaven” (opens in a new tab)

“The heart is prema. Hṛdaya means prema; the heart and prema are not different.”

“So when the hṛtpadma, the heart-lotus, is spoken of, the heart centre is the love centre. Hṛtpadmamadhye means in the midst of prema.”

GurudevGurudev · Mukunda Mālā, “The Lord Resides in the Heart-Lotus” (opens in a new tab)

“From the oneness of these three Prema arises. Once this Prema arises in us, the heart-lotus blossoms.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 10 September 1996, “Vairāgya Is Found Only in the Presence of God” (opens in a new tab)

“The lotus of the heart blooms, the petals unfold, the fragrance permeates the universe, the rays of the sun are inhaled, and, as you see represented here, the splendour of the Atma, the unsullied effulgence (Atmajyothi), illumines you and everything else in one all-embracing flame.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 29 September 1962, “Unfurl It On Your Consciousness” (opens in a new tab)

“Bring bunches of flowers and worship Him as much as you will,
He is not pleased, nor does He take them;
give Him the lotus of your heart, and in His kindness He receives it:
Sathya Sai, the giver of Śānti and Prema.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · His poem, 1996 (opens in a new tab)

In the midst of it is ॐ.

“The sound from which all other sounds are made manifest,
that sound is the root: the Praṇava, made of A, U and M;
that sound is the word for Brahman; in it all things are born and perish;
the japa of that sound, as ‘So’ham’, brings one to the eternal state of Brahman.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · His poem, 1996 (opens in a new tab)

“Om ithi EkaksharamBrahma: the one word OM is Brahman.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 23 November 1966, “Pranava the praana” (opens in a new tab)

“Om is Brahman. To understand Om, Brahman, we need the Gāyatrī, which is the intellect illumined, so that we can understand Om, Brahman.”

GurudevGurudev · Prema Vāṇī, 10 August 2025, “Look Where the Finger Points” (opens in a new tab)

“So the Gayathri manthra has been given to you as a third eye to reveal to you that inner vision by which you may realise Brahman.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 20 June 1977, “The Universal Prayer” (opens in a new tab)

“Awareness and existence are not two separate entities; they are the same. You can call it the existence of awareness, or the awareness of existence: the sat of the cit, the cit of the sat, both the same.”

GurudevGurudev · Akṣaramaṇamālai, “The Silence That Teaches” (opens in a new tab)

“So what is existing? Awareness is existing. That is why I am aware of the existence of awareness.”

GurudevGurudev · Upadeśa Sāram, “There Is Only One Thing to Be Studied” (opens in a new tab)

“While doing the japa of the oṃkāra, also meditate upon the meaning of the oṃkāra, which is nothing but the Paramātmā Himself, the Lord Himself.”

GurudevGurudev · Gītā Vāhinī, “Oṃ in the Mind, and the Lord It Means” (opens in a new tab)

“He whose form is Oṁkāra, whose very body is the teaching,
…
whose form is radiance, whose nature is Prema,
the lotus-eyed One, the Cause,
…
He who dwells within the hearts of devotees is with you.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · His poem, 1983 (opens in a new tab)

Beside ॐ stands Śrī.

“Śrī represents the saguṇa aspect of the nirguṇa Brahman.”

GurudevGurudev · Rāmānuja Vaibhavam, “Liberation Is Important; Means Are Secondary” (opens in a new tab)

“The Brahman is just existence. It is unaware of its own existence, because it is pure existence itself. But She arises in that existence as citsvarūpiṇī, as consciousness. The first thing the Brahman becomes aware of is itself: I am.”

“So that awareness itself is Her.”

GurudevGurudev · Saundarya Laharī, “The Island of Gems” (opens in a new tab)

“Śrī denotes Mahālakṣmī, the Divine Mother …”

“Śrīdhara is the one who bears Śrī within Himself, for the Lord has given Tāyār a special and unique place upon His chest.”

GurudevGurudev · Mukunda Mālā, “The Immediate Services of the Senses” (opens in a new tab)

“Here the Lord is described as the one upon whose chest resides Alarmēl Maṅgai, the Lady of the lotus, who declares that She cannot leave Him even for a moment. This is why the Lord bears names such as Śrīdhara and Śrīnivāsa.”

GurudevGurudev · Mukunda Mālā, “The Immediate Services of the Senses” (opens in a new tab)

“If Nārāyaṇa is the truth, Mahālakṣmī is the prema.”

“These pairs are not merely the pairing of husband and wife; they represent satya and prema.”

GurudevGurudev · Prema Vāṇī, 14 September 2026, “Seek the Lord First” (opens in a new tab)

“Through prema one finds the Ātma. Prema unerringly takes one to the Ātma, because they are like two parts of the same thing: the moment they are left alone, they join together.”

GurudevGurudev · Praśānti Vāhinī, “Joy in the Doing” (opens in a new tab)

“To reach the Paramātma, Prema alone is the royal road: the nectar called Prema is found only at the lotus feet of the Paramātma.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 19 June 1974, “Who Am I?” (opens in a new tab)

“Mahālakṣmī is not money. Mahālakṣmī is aiśvaryam. What is aiśvaryam? Bhakti is aiśvaryam; jñāna is aiśvaryam; vairāgyam is param aiśvaryam.”

GurudevGurudev · Bhaja Govindam, “Ātmajñāna Alone Can Save Us” (opens in a new tab)

“What is the great wealth I have? The wealth of Prema alone! That is the true riches. Worldly wealth may come today and go tomorrow. But the wealth of Prema, for its part, comes and grows. It never goes.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · 20 November 1992, “We must foster the feeling that every man is a servant” (opens in a new tab)

Sky-blue petals, a rose-pink circle, a pale-gold star, and every syllable written in the same pale gold.

“Krishna is described as blue in physical colour, for, He is as deep and inscrutable as the sky; the blue is the colour which the eye comprehends, though the sky has no colour at all.”

SwamiBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba · December 1966, “Krishna thrishna” (opens in a new tab)

“in the midst of the dark rain-cloud … slender as the awn of the wild rice, golden, shining, without compare; in the midst of that flame the Paramātmā is established.” It is the heart-lotus that is being spoken of.

GurudevGurudev · Gītā Vāhinī, “The Pratyagātma in the Lotus of the Heart” (opens in a new tab)