Question: How can you take the mind to the heart? It seems impossible.

Sri Chinmoy: Why should it be impossible? If it is impossible, how has this restaurant done it? How have I done it? Do not pay any attention to what the mind tells you. Just feel that there are two boys in front of you. One is a mischievous boy; the other is kind, polite and nice in every way. So you pay attention to the nice one. The bad one will try to disturb you, but do not pay any attention to him. In this world there is something called pride. We think that only good people have a sense of their own dignity. But that is not true. Bad people also have it. That bad boy will bother you for a long time. But if you do not pay any attention to him, then he will say that it is beneath his dignity to bother you. The mind is like a very bad boy, pinching you all the time. If you do not pay any attention to him, if you just let him go on and on, then sooner or later he will stop bothering you. He will see that you are paying all attention to the other boy, the heart, which is very kind, affectionate and loving.

Then you will see that gradually the mind will become good. There is always competition in this world. The mind will try to compete. He will say, “By disturbing and bothering this person I have gained nothing. On the contrary, he is ignoring me like anything.” Then the mind will try to imitate the heart. It will say, “I can also become a nice boy. I shall become nicer than he so that I can get more attention, more affection from this person.” In the beginning it will try to imitate the heart. Then after a few months or a few years it will say, “Why have I to imitate the heart? Let me try to become good in my own way. Let me try to please the boss in my own way.” When it tries to please the boss in its own way, it will find it very, very difficult. Then it will say, “Let me go deep within and see how it is possible for the heart to please this person, while I cannot.” When it goes within, it will see that inside the heart the soul abides, and the soul is constantly offering light to the heart. That is why the heart is able to please you. So the mind will try to enter into the soul.

But the mind will find it very difficult to enter into the soul, because the soul is like the vast ocean. The mind will think, “Oh, if I enter into the ocean, I will be totally lost.” Then the mind will see how much light the heart has and how much light the soul has. When the mind makes a comparison between the heart’s light and the soul’s light, it sees that the soul has much more light than the heart. But the light that the heart has is more than enough to satisfy the person, and the mind will feel that the light of the heart is within its reach. The mind is ready to fight with the heart, but it does not dare to fight with the soul because it sees how powerful the light of the soul is. So the mind tries to compete with the heart’s light and then, while competing, it comes very close to the heart in a positive way. At that time, the soul, out of its infinite compassion, offers light to the mind through the heart. The mind is able to grasp or to know the capacity or quality or quantity of the heart’s light, but it cannot grasp the soul’s light. The soul is kind, so it tries to offer a little light to the mind through the heart, according to the mind’s capacity.

Try from the very beginning to think of the mind as a naughty boy who is creating problems all the time. Then ignore it. Think that your mind does not exist. There are thousands of people, millions of people, who do not have this kind of mind, but they do exist because they have the heart. You can ignore your mind for many years, but you will not ignore it forever. If anything in us remains imperfect, we cannot be totally perfect. If any part of our being remains imperfect, then we are not complete. It is not that we shall neglect and ignore the mind forever. But for the time being we have to be wise. Let the mind know that it is not sufficient, it is not complete, it is not perfect, it is not even necessary. Just as the mind tries to convince us all the time, let us now convince the mind that it is not perfect, it is incomplete, it is weak, it is helpless, and that we do not need it. We need something higher, something deeper, something infinitely more meaningful and fruitful. Now we have surrendered to the mind, but when we convince the mind, the mind will surrender to us.