Q: You are a cardiologist and you also practice Heartfulness meditation. Why are you so interested and fascinated by the heart?
HM: My relationship with the heart started when I was a kid. My father and grandfather both wanted to have a heart specialist in the family, so that is how I got involved with the physical heart. Probably from the age of five I was thinking of becoming a cardiologist.
Q: You work with the physical heart, and you meditate on the spiritual heart. What do you see as the relationship between the two fields?
HM: Initially my understanding was that the physical heart just pumps blood, gets it purified in the lungs and then sends it to the entire body, including all the organs, supplying oxygen. But later on, I discovered that research by both scientists and nonscientists has shown that the heart is not just a pump. They realized that the heart has a sensory system of its own. It can perform functions on its own, even when it is disconnected from the brain, and it can also think.
My observation is that the heart is a feeling mind. When you are angry, your heart flutters. When you are happy, you are happy within your heart. So obviously I realized that there is a connection between the physical and the spiritual heart.
I discovered that research by both
scientists and nonscientists
has shown that the heart is not just a pump.
They realized that the heart
has a sensory system of its own.
It can perform functions on its own,
even when it is disconnected from the brain,
and it can also think.
This relationship has been explored by the HeartMath research team, and scientists like Dr Paul Pearsall, who have delved into this field and found evidence that the heart is responsible for the coherence that exists in the human system. They found this not only in the body itself, but also in interpersonal relationships between people, between pets and their owners, and also among the members of a group like a symphony orchestra.
They realized that when an orchestra performs, it is not the brains that are working together, as 40 brains working together cannot give you a symphony. Effectively it is the heart that drives such coherence. They also realized there is not only local coherence: what your heart thinks or feels can be felt by someone else millions of miles away.
Then they realized it is because of the magnetic force that the heart emits, which is a hundred to a thousand times the strength of the magnetic force emitted by the brain. So that gave me the idea that the heart is much more than the physical heart we see.
The way I see it, the physical heart is just a small component of the spiritual heart.
Q: If you read the works of Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh, there is an amazing quote: “What is this ‘we’ of ours? It is our heart.” When you talk about the magnetic field of the heart, is this what you are talking about?
HM: Yes.
Q: So this is coherence?
HM: This is coherence.
Q: So you are saying that where we connect and interact is the heart.
HM: Yes. I firmly believe that. We never describe a person as kind-brained, instead we refer to her as kind-hearted or soft-hearted. I genuinely feel that relationships are formed by the heart, not by the brain at all.
Q: So you practice meditation. How does this help you?
HM: Meditation has changed me. I will tell you a small story of how I started and that will tell you. I was a busy cardiologist, constantly working and doing well, but I was always angry. If you had met me then, you would have felt that anger. I didn’t sleep well at night. Despite being so popular and having all the things I needed in my life, I was not sleeping. I had a lot of acidity and I would get up, toss and turn in bed, need antacids during the night, and I always felt that I was getting a heart attack.
Every month I would go to casualty, the ER at the hospital and get my ECG done to see what was going on. My wife said, “You will go crazy like this.” So eventually she told me, “Why don’t you try this Heartfulness meditation?”
She sent me to a trainer
and I did three meditation sessions. I did it just
because of her, and during those three sessions, honestly, I did not feel anything. The only thing I felt was,
“Okay, I have done something for my wife, and she is happy, that’s good!” So I continued to be the way I was.
But after a few weeks, despite not practicing regularly, I noticed that I was sleeping better. I was sleeping 6 to 7 hours, I was easily falling asleep and I did not need any antacids. My visits to the ER reduced. I thought somehow I was getting better, but I did not correlate it with meditation.
Then down the line my patients started telling me, “Doctor, there is some change in
you.”
So I asked them, “What change? I don’t feel any change.” They said, “Doctor, you are now listening to us.” I said,
“I was always listening to you. That is how I diagnose your problems.”
They said, “No doctor. Earlier, we would say one sentence, and after that you would speak, give us some medicine and
leave us. Now we feel that you are patiently listening. You let us complete our entire stories, and only then do you
respond.”
Then I realized that this had to have something to do with the meditation sessions. I started delving more and more into it, and decided, “Let me try it. Let me see whether this is making the difference.”
Why are people seeing that something has changed in me? That is why I continued with the meditation process, initially irregularly, and then I realized that my anger levels had gone down so significantly that people who formerly avoided me were now sitting and talking to me.
People were becoming more and more attracted to me. So obviously, meditation was giving me some kind of energy that was attracting others toward me. Had I discovered this before I meditated, I would have been saying, “Oh I am such a great doctor and that is why people are attracted to me.” But I realized that this energy was not because of that. This energy made me more humble, and if I start boasting about it, it will run away. So that is how meditation helped me to evolve.
Then I realized that my anger levels had gone down
so significantly that people who formerly avoided me
were now sitting and talking to me.
Then, in my profession, prior to meditating, I was rated as one of the topmost cardiologists doing great work. But with meditation, when I was doing a procedure like an angiography or angioplasty, I became more efficient, because my power of concentration had improved significantly. I could finish the same procedure in three quarters of the time that I took earlier.
So this meant I had more time. And I stopped worrying about the traffic. That was a major change. It was a game changer. Bombay is full of traffic and I used to travel between hospitals, which can take hours on end. So previously I would reach a hospital feeling flabbergasted and angry. Now, when I reach a hospital, my colleagues will say things like, “Oh, my God! There is so much traffic on the road,” and my response is, “Where’s the traffic?” I don’t feel that there is.
This change happened because I stopped looking outside. I am no longer worried about the cars or the roads; I am only seeing that I have to reach a destination and once I reach it I must start performing. So it has changed me immensely.
Q: You spoke about energy before. You said that other people felt a different energy in you. Why does that happen with meditation?
HM: Of course we all exist in the same energy, but I think what happens when we meditate with transmission and do the process of yogic cleaning, is that our true inner self starts radiating out. The energy always existed but it was covered up, it could not be seen. Now it can be seen because we remove all the unwanted things surrounding it.
Q: So does removing all the unwanted things affect the heart?
HM: The process of meditation per se has been scientifically shown to reduce the incidence of heart disease. It is known to reduce cholesterol, it is known to reduce the incidence of diabetes, and it is known to reduce the incidence of heart attacks. And those people who have heart attacks who also meditate perform well after the heart attack. They have less chance of dying because of rhythm problems or heart failure. So meditation has an effect beyond the spiritual level. Of course it is vital for your existence at the spiritual level, but it also has physical benefits.
So to those people who are looking for tangible benefits of meditation, I tell them that the intangible benefits far outweigh the tangible benefits, it is just that we don’t see them. If we are going to live longer, we have more time to progress both materially and spiritually.
So to those people who are looking for
tangible benefits of meditation,
I tell them that the intangible benefits
far outweigh the tangible benefits,
it is just that we don’t see them.
If we are going to live longer,
we have more time to progress
both materially and spiritually.
Meditation gave me a life without having to worry. Otherwise I was always worrying. To tell you honestly, right now, while it may sound absurd a doctor saying this, I am not worried about tomorrow.
Q: I assume you are still very busy in your medical practice.
HM: Busier than before.
Q: So how do you find time to meditate?
HM: As I said, my efficiency has improved, so I find I have more time. I also use my car, as I travel between hospitals. I use my car to make phone calls, read up about a patient I will be treating, and whenever I have time I close my eyes and connect to my Self rather than looking out at the traffic and getting angry.
Q: So it sounds as if it is easy to integrate into a busy daily life.
HM: It is extremely easy; you just need the will to do it. First you have to experience it, and the will comes after you experience it. If you do not experience it, the will always denies: “Why would I do it?”
Q: What would you like to tell other people who have very busy lives like you?
HM: Incorporate meditation in your time management, and time will manage itself.
Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY
