Question: Right now I am under psychoanalysis, but it seems that the more I become involved in spirituality, the harder it is for me to talk about it with my analyst. I feel that the things offered by analysis are not really what I want. And yet my analyst, who seems to be a very strong person, is reluctant to let me go free. And I don't know if there is any reconciliation between myself and him.

Sri Chinmoy: If a friend of yours comes and gives you a most delicious mango, will you immediately eat the mango, or will you ask him a million questions: where he got it and how much it cost and whether it was imported from somewhere or grown in the States? In the spiritual life there are two types of seekers. One type will just see the reality and immediately try to become the reality. The other type will immediately begin to question the reality, examine the reality and doubt the reality. Suppose both of these seekers are hungry and you take them into a mango garden where there are many mangoes and many flowers. The first kind of seeker will say, “All right, since there are many mangoes, I will now be able to eat.” But the second type of seeker will say, “I wonder how many mangoes are here,” and he will start counting the mangoes. Then he will want to know which one is the best, so he will start examining all the mangoes to decide which one he should take. While he is wasting his time, the first seeker will take a mango and just eat it, and he will be satisfied. If we use the mind, we will always try to analyse everything and we will never experience the reality. But if we use the heart, we will immediately take the thing we want. And at that time, even if we eat only one mango, we will get the delight of eating all the mangoes, because the heart means oneness. From hundreds of mangoes we take out one individual mango, but when we eat it with our psychic consciousness, we get the delight, or the wealth, let us say, of all the mangoes. But if we start counting all the mangoes, perhaps we will never begin eating. Or after a while, we may get disgusted and say, “Who wants to know?” But during the time we spend in counting, we lose our spontaneous inner joy.

In the spiritual life we always have to go from the heart to the mind, not from the mind to the heart. If you really want to follow the spiritual life, if you use the heart as your instrument, then nothing can be more simple. But if you use the mind, you will feel that nothing is as difficult and complicated as spirituality. In the spiritual life there should be no hesitation, no calculation. In the spiritual life we only give and become, see and become, offer ourselves and become. It is so easy if we use the heart. But if we use the mind, there will always be calculation and hesitation.

So if you really want to follow the spiritual life, you have to remain in the heart. Then this mental psychoanalysis will be of no avail. Already you are feeling that it does not offer what you want. If you have a sincere question, there is only one place to get the best possible answer and that is from the soul. The soul will answer you through the heart. Otherwise, no matter what kind of answer you get, either from your own mind or from your psychoanalyst, your mind will doubt and contradict it. It will contradict all suggestions and all advice, and then a few seconds later, your mind will doubt its own discovery. But when the heart gives you an answer, it is a permanent reality.