Ms. Saroja Douglas: Why do many people feel attracted to meditation when it is represented as an intellectual exercise but shy away from it when they feel it has to do with devotion?

Sri Chinmoy: Many people are not aware of what the term ‘devotion’ means and they misinterpret it. They feel that devotion is a type of slavery; they feel that to touch the feet of someone is devotion. But this is not true. One is not touching somebody else’s feet; one is devoting himself to a higher cause, a higher reality. So if one feels devotion to a higher cause, if one is trying to reach one’s own transcendental Reality, then one cannot feel that he is making a mistake in his devotion.

Intellectual people feel that since the head is higher than the feet, they have to keep the head as the only reality. But spiritual people feel that the head stands high precisely because it is joined to the feet and the rest of the body. Spiritual people feel that it is the heartbeat that is keeping the head and also the feet alive, just because they are inseparably one with the heartbeat of God-Reality, they remain alive. Spiritual people see the reality everywhere — inside the mind, vital, body, heart and soul — but intellectual people want to see the reality only at one place: inside the mind. Real reality has to be everywhere precisely because God is everywhere.