Question: If a person has something like a brain defect and in this incarnation is like a vegetable, will he suffer even if he is not outwardly conscious or aware of his defect?

Sri Chinmoy: Ordinary people feel miserable if they don’t do anything for a month, so imagine a whole incarnation. There is tremendous inner suffering in the heart, but because these people can’t express their feelings, we feel that they don’t suffer. We feel that they are like solid stone, but they do have a heart and they do suffer. When the soul leaves the body, it will feel sorry that this person stayed on earth but could not do anything, that there was no progress. At the time of death the soul will feel miserable. "Sixty years I have stayed on earth and I have not done anything good." If the mind and body have stayed on earth for sixty or seventy years and could not do anything, when the soul goes back to the higher worlds it will really suffer.