Question: Why should you concentrate on the heart instead of concentrating on the mind?

Sri Chinmoy: Before you concentrate on the heart or anything, just think about the mind for a few minutes instead of allowing the mind to think of something else. Separate yourself from the mind and observe the mind. Observe what it has done for you and see whether you are really satisfied with its capacity. The mind has given you many things, but are these things worth having in the spiritual life or not? In the ordinary human life, the mind is of paramount importance. Without it we would not be able to function properly. But if you enter into the spiritual life you will see that most of what the mind has given you is information and not illumination. There is a great difference between the two. You read books and talk to people and there you get much information. But where is illumination? You can read hundreds of pages or talk to hundreds of people but you will not get illumination. So when you think of what the mind has given you, think at the same time of the thing that you really need most and you will see that the mind has not fulfilled this need. Since your mind has disappointed you, why should you concentrate there?

Once you are totally dissatisfied with the limited capacity of the mind, it will be possible for you to concentrate on the heart. As long as you have tremendous faith in your mind, the mind that complicates and confuses everything, you will be doomed to disappointment in your meditation. Ordinary people think that complication is wisdom. But spiritual people know that complication is dangerous. God is very simple; Light is very simple. It is in our simplicity and sincerity, not in complexity, that the real Truth abides. Complexity cannot give us anything. Complexity itself is destruction.

You know that there is something called the soul. Now where is the soul? The light, the consciousness of the soul permeates the whole body, but there is a specific place where the soul resides most of the time, and that is in the heart. If you want illumination, if your ultimate goal is illumination, you will get that illumination from the soul, which is inside the heart. When you know what you want and where to find it, the sensible thing is to go to that place. Otherwise it will be like going to the hardware store to get groceries. If you concentrate on the mind you will be disappointed and disheartened and you will not get what you want because you have gone to the wrong place. Your inner aspiration does not come from your mind. No! It comes directly from your heart. The heart can give you everything. Aspiration is the harbinger of realisation or illumination. In aspiration is the seed of realisation. Aspiration comes from the heart because the illumination of the soul is always there. Since you want illumination, and since the heart can give it and the mind cannot, you should always concentrate on the heart.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Flame-Waves, part 2, Agni Press, 1975
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