Question: You have said that we should first locate the soul and then chant AUM from the soul's region. How would a person know that he has made contact with his soul and is working from the soul's region?

Sri Chinmoy: It is through meditation and aspiration that he will know. Let us compare his being with an apartment that has three rooms and let us say that he has a free access to these three rooms. He enters into one room and sees it is all dark. In it there is only rubbish and junk; everything is untidy, undivine, obscure and impure. Immediately he has to feel that this is the room of the mind. The unaspiring mind, the doubting mind, the sophisticated mind, the suspecting mind stays in that dirty, undivine room.

Then he enters into another room. There he feels a kind of soothing sensation and the word “hope“ is looming large. Everything is hopeful, everything is fruitful, everything is giving him joy. If he looks at a particular corner he gets joy. If he looks at an object he gets joy. Everything is encouraging him, pleasing him, inspiring him. He has to feel that this room is his heart. Here in the heart he is getting inspiration, aspiration, encouragement and a sense of accomplishment.

Then he enters into the third room. There he sees everything is perfect, everything is luminous, everything is fulfilling. Since everything stays inside this room and does not come out, manifestation in the outer being is still needed, but in itself the room is totally perfect. It makes you feel that here you have accomplished everything. That is why you are feeling boundless joy. When you first look at this soul-room, you feel that it is yours. Then after some time you feel that you yourself actually are this room. It is not your possession; you have in fact become that particular room. And that room is the soul.

If you go to the mind-room, you can ask anything of the mind and the mind will tell you whatever it has to tell you. In the second room you can ask the heart for the message it wants to give you. And in the third room, the soul will give you its divine message. Then try to listen to the dictates of the soul and become totally one with the soul.