Question: When you speak of the heart as being the centre of love and the place where the soul resides, do you mean the physical heart, or is "heart" just a term that you use?

Sri Chinmoy: I am not speaking of the human heart, the physical heart, which is just another organ, or the emotional heart, which is really the vital. I am speaking of the pure heart, the spiritual heart. Some spiritual Masters say that the spiritual heart is in the centre of the chest; some say that it is located a little to the right; some say to the left. There is even one spiritual teacher who says that the heart is a little above the centre of the eyebrows at the place we call the third eye. How can a spiritual Master say this? Because the illumined third eye is light, and the illumined heart is also all light. But according to my own realisation, the spiritual heart is located in the centre of the chest, in the centre of our existence. The heart is like the commander-in-chief, while the soul is the king. When the soul comes into existence, its first concern is to illumine the heart. When the soul withdraws from the body, automatically the commander-in-chief loses all his power. The heart wants to stay with its king. It does not want to go and join another king or another army. In the outer world our friends may deceive us; but in the case of the soul and the heart, their intimacy is thicker than the thickest. The physical sometimes does not listen to the soul. The mind and the vital may ignore it. But the heart is always faithful to the soul. The heart also knows how to identify itself with others’ hearts. The mother does not have to show her love for her child by saying, “I love you, I love you,” because the mother’s identification with the child makes the child feel that he is loved. The real heart does not need to convince; it has the power of oneness.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Beyond Within — A collection of writings 1964-1974, Agni Press, 1975
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/bw