Question: The only thing I have to work with is my mind. How can I contact the soul unless I use my mind to do so?

Sri Chinmoy: You can reach the soul, but not with your mind. The mind will never take you to the soul. The mind is a servant of the soul. When the soul says to the mind, "Come here!" the mind can come or it can run away. But the mind does not have the power to tell the soul, "Come here!"

The way to enter into the soul is with your aspiration. Once you enter into the spiritual life you can do very well without the mind. The mind will say, "If you do such and such, you are ruined." Just close your ears to this and say you do not want to hear any more. Within a few minutes you will feel something inside your heart telling you what to do. Whatever suggestion comes from the soul, just follow it. A day will come when all of the messages from the soul or the heart will come to the mind as well. The mind will eventually be illumined by the light of the heart, which comes from the soul. With the help of the heart you will be able to illumine the mind.

The mind says to you, "I am here to fulfil you." But the heart says, "Your mind is making you small, smaller, smallest; feeble, feebler, feeblest. Please try to go to the soul with your heart's aspiration. Then you will be able to illumine the mind most successfully." In the spiritual life the best thing to do is to forget the mind at first. Give all importance to the heart. When you receive the light of the heart, the light of the soul, then you can illumine the mind and go far beyond its limits.