Question: What is it about Bengalis that enables them to realise God quicker and better than others?

Sri Chinmoy: It is only the heart! I am not bragging, but there is no other province or area of India that is as spiritually developed in terms of heart. And the culmination came in Sri Ramakrishna, Bijoy Krishna, Bama Kshepa, Sri Aurobindo and others.

These great spiritual figures cared more for the mother aspect of God, the relationship of the mother and the child. In the beginning, the child does not even know who the father is. The father is in town, the father is in the court, the father is a big shot. It is the mother who takes care of the child. And in India, not only at the age of four or five, or even when one is a teenager, but to the end, people have more fondness for their mother.

In the West, what happens is that when the father gets name and fame, the children go to that side. They want to stay with the father because the father is president of a big corporation, the father is manager of a bank and so on. Always they try to identify themselves with the father. But Bengali children, most of the time, try to identify themselves with the mother. It may happen that the mother is illiterate; she cannot even write a letter. But the mother aspect is all heart.

Many spiritual Masters went through the mind and asked their disciples to go through the mind. Some say to go through the mind and also the heart; they say there should be a balance. I say, “No - go through the heart!” The heart is the safest and the fastest approach. That is why I give so much importance to the heart. The mind is the slowest way. The mind only moves this side and that, in a zigzag manner. It cannot go to the goal directly. The very nature of the mind is to move to and fro, like a snake.

From:Sri Chinmoy,You belong to God, Agni Press, 2012
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ybg