Question: Why is the mind afraid of visiting Heaven?

Sri Chinmoy: Why is your mind afraid of visiting Heaven? I am dying to visit Heaven and live there, and you are afraid of it! When you use the mind to visit Heaven, immediately the mind reminds you of how many unaspiring, undivine things you have done. The moment you think of Heaven with your mind, your mind becomes frightened because it thinks that Heaven will immediately show you the picture of all the things you have done wrong.

But if you use your heart to visit Heaven, you will not be frightened in the least. The heart is like a little child. A child is not at all afraid of going to the mother or to the father. The child feels that he is an open book. It is the responsibility of the parents to clean him, to tell him the truth and to help him be a good person in every way. A child is not afraid. He even comes running towards a fire. He does not know that the fire will burn him. He simply gets joy from going to a new place and, for a child, Heaven is a new place.

If you use the heart, you will never be afraid of Heaven, but if you use the mind, immediately so many things that you have done wrong over the years will enter into your mind and then you will get frightened. If a student has not studied, if he has not done his homework, he will be afraid of going to school because he feels that the teacher will scold him. But if the student knows that he has worked very hard, he has done his homework and so forth, then he will not be afraid of the teacher because he knows that he will pass the examination.

The mind is like a student before the examination and the heart is like a little child running towards its parents.