Question: What part does the mind play in transcending desires and passions?

Sri Chinmoy: To be absolutely frank, the mind never wants to conquer desires or transcend desires. The mind is already the storehouse of all kinds of desires and the door of the mind is always wide open to new desires. If you want to conquer desires, you have to use your aspiration and enter into your soul. If you feel that the mind is going to aspire, then you are mistaken. Concentrate on your heart and from the heart try to enter into the soul. Try to identify yourself with your heart first and your heart will take you to your soul. Then the abundant, effulgent light that abounds in the soul will spontaneously flow from the soul to the heart and from the heart to the mind.

When the mind is illumined by this light, the mind will lose all interest in earthly desires. Only by bringing the light of the soul through the heart into the mind will you be able to free the mind from desires.

You need to go beyond the mind, which is most difficult, or to pay all attention to your aspiring heart. The aspiring heart is not the heart which is close to the vital region. The vital is near the navel. The aspiring heart is located higher up, in the centre of the chest. If you cannot raise your consciousness from there to the real heart, you will constantly be a victim of desires.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Mind-confusion and heart-illumination, part 1, Agni Press, 1974
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