Question: In your talk yesterday you said that if we do less thinking and planning we will be happier. Could you elaborate on this, please?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, yesterday I said think less and meditate more, and plan less and act more. This is absolutely necessary. We see that cultured men, educated men, think in one way and ordinary men, uncultured and undeveloped men, think in another way. But both the mentally developed and the mentally undeveloped constantly suffer from one thing: confusion. They go on thinking and thinking, and the moment they think they have arrived at the Truth, they discover that it is not Truth at all, but just more confusion. The difficulty is this: when we think of someone or something, we form a positive conception which we think is absolutely true. But the next moment doubt comes and changes our mind. And a few minutes later, we ask ourselves, “Who am I to judge this person?” This moment you will think that I am a nice man. The next moment you will think that I am a bad man. Then after that you will think something else. Eventually you will see that there is no end to your questions and there is no solution.

Each time we think we are lost. But each time we meditate we are illumined. Thinking is done in the mind, but the mind is not yet liberated. Only the soul is liberated. Our problem is that we want to be liberated by thinking. But the mind itself is still in the prison cell of darkness, confusion and bondage, so how can we expect liberation from the mind? No matter how highly developed a person is mentally, he is still extremely limited.

When we plan we very often are frustrated because we do not see the truth right from the beginning. We plan to do something because we feel that if we do it we will achieve a certain goal. But in between planning and executing, different ideas, different ideals enter into us and create confusion for us. Then our planning goes on and on forever and we never enter into the world of action because our plans are never complete or certain. There is a yawning gap between our mental plan and the action itself.

But if we have an inner will, the soul’s will, which has come to us from meditation, then the action is no sooner conceived of than it is done. At that time there is no difference between our inner will and our outer action. But if we plan something with our ordinary will, with our human mind, it may take five years to execute that plan, or it may all come to nothing after all. When we enter into the totally dark, obscure, unlit room of action with our mental plan it is like carrying a candle. But when we enter the room with our soul’s light the room is flooded with illumination.

The mind is in the prison cell of thoughts, ideas and habits, whereas the soul is a free bird. It has accepted the cage like a fort, but at any moment the bird can fly away. And although the bird stays inside the body, when we pray and meditate it constantly brings us the message of the Infinite. In the soul’s world, realisation is spontaneously followed by action. But in the ordinary life thinking is the realisation, and one person’s thought-power is contradicted by another person’s thought-power. But will-power cannot be contradicted by will-power, because will-power comes directly from the soul. Will-power is flooded with infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, and it always brings oneness. But in thought-power there is no oneness. In the mental world my thought-power will not be the same as yours, and your thought-power will not be the same as mine. We will always be confused and at variance. But when I use my will-power, immediately you will feel your oneness with my will-power, because it has come directly from the soul, and in the soul’s world we are all one.