Question: Is it easier to get all the divine qualities by meditating in the heart instead of the mind?

Sri Chinmoy: When you meditate in the heart, you acquire the capacity to identify yourself with anything you want. But if you meditate in the mind, you don’t identify; you try to enter into something. Now, if you want to enter into somebody else’s house to get what that person has, either you have to have tremendous force and break down the door, or you have to constantly plead with the owner of the house to open the door. When you plead, you feel that you are a stranger and the owner of the house feels that you are a stranger. Then he might think, “Oh, a stranger wants to come into my house.” But if you use the heart, immediately the heart’s qualities of softness, sweetness, love and purity come to the fore, and then the owner of the house will immediately let you in. When the owner of the house sees that you are all heart, immediately his heart will become one with yours. He will feel your oneness with him and he will say, “All right, what do you want from my house? If you need peace, then take it. If you need light, then take it.”

If you enter into the house with your mind, you will see some delicious fruit and immediately try to grab it. Then, when you get it you are satisfied. But you will not have the capacity to eat all the fruit. But if you use the heart, immediately you will identify yourself with everything in the house and call all the fruit your very own. Again, if you use the mind, you will try to make a selection. You will say, “This piece of fruit is better, this one is worse.” But if you enter into the house with your heart, you will feel that everything there is yours and become one with all the fruit. The heart centre is the centre of becoming. First you identify with the Truth, and then, on the strength of your identification, you become the Truth.