Question: Why should you concentrate on the heart instead of concentrating on the mind?

Sri Chinmoy: Before you concentrate on the heart, just think about the mind for a few minutes instead of allowing the mind to think of something else. Separate yourself from the mind and observe the mind. Are you really satisfied with what it has given you? In the ordinary human life, the mind is of paramount importance; without it you would not be able to function properly. But if you enter into the spiritual life, you will see that the mind primarily has given you information rather than illumination. There is a great difference between the two. You read books and talk to people and get much information, but there is no illumination there. You can read hundreds of pages or talk to hundreds of people but you will not get illumination. What you need most in your spiritual life, illumination, the mind has not been able to give you. Since your mind has disappointed you, why should you go to the mind for help in your spiritual life?

As long as you have tremendous faith in your mind — the mind that complicates and confuses everything — you will be doomed to disappointment in your meditation. Ordinary people think that complication is wisdom, but spiritual people know that complication is dangerous. God is very simple; light is very simple. It is in simplicity and sincerity, not in complexity, that the real truth abides. Complexity only destroys our divine qualities.

For spiritual progress, what you need is aspiration, and this does not come from the mind. No! It comes directly from the heart. Aspiration comes from the heart because the illumination of the soul is always there. True, the light and consciousness of the soul permeate the whole body, but there is a specific place where the soul resides most of the time, and that is in the heart. When you know what you want and where to find it, the sensible thing is to go to that place. Otherwise, it will be like going to the hardware store to get groceries. In the spiritual life, the heart can give you everything: aspiration, illumination, realisation. Aspiration is the harbinger of illumination. In aspiration is the seed of realisation.