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The Awakened Heart Center logo Background The Awakened Heart Center Writings by Tom Banner

Tom, lotus position: namasteThe Awakened Heart
(E-mail to a friend)

When we renamed The Awakened Heart Center, I initially wanted to use Sanskrit words like Prajna or Hridayam, but we also wanted to take the teaching out of the context of Eastern spirituality and tradition and have it simply point to the Awakened Heart of All Being, for the teaching to be “Heart to Heart.”

“Prajna” may be translated “Heart Wisdom” or “Awakened Awareness.” “Hridayam” is not a physical heart, but the Heart of Being, the One Self without another, Consciousness Itself. This Heart is not only the Heart of All Being but the Heart of each apparent being, you, me, us, them, George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Santa Claus, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hortense, and Jesus H. Christ.

Although the mind is profoundly entranced in appearance and limitation, the Heart always stands Free and Awake. So any teacher with the least bit of sense teaches Heart to Heart, planting seeds that sooner or later will germinate into Realization and then Actualization of the Awakened Heart. The mind literally dissolves into the Heart.

We are all Fools of God. We always have been. Some people know this. Most people don’t and therefore are troubled by taking themselves way too seriously. And so, from the Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra:

“...therefore know that Prajna Paramita is the Great Mantra, the Wisdom Mantra, the Unsurpassable Mantra, the Supreme Mantra which completely removes all suffering. This is the Truth and not a deception.

So therefore set forth this mantra and say:
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
(Gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone beyond! Awake! Rejoice!)


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