Question: If we have already decided that we will choose this boat, then my question is how to bring our mind to the heart.

Sri Chinmoy: It is not a difficult thing. Think of your mind as a three-year-old child who is not listening to you. You want to bring the child into the meditation room where you are praying and meditating, but the child wants to be on the porch. So you just pick up the child and bring him to the meditation room.

For a few days the child will say, "Oh, I don't want to go." But after a while the child will start to get joy from being with you at the shrine. In the beginning the mind is unwilling to listen to the dictates of the heart, but eventually it finds that it gets utmost joy by following the heart.

There are two ways of dealing with the mind. One way is to keep the mind totally separate. The other way is to bring the mind into the heart so that it can meditate like the other members of the family. If you want to bring the mind into the heart, in the beginning you have to force it. If a child does not want to drink milk, then the parents have to beg or force the child to drink. Otherwise he will suffer from malnutrition and get sick. When he is young, the child may not appreciate what the parents are doing for him. But when he grows up, he will say, "My parents were right. Because they forced me to eat properly, today I have become strong and healthy."

If your mind-child is disobedient and will not listen to you when you tell it what is good for it, you should not give up. If the parent loves the child, the parent will not let the child do something that is harmful. The mother will not stand aside and let her child suffer just because the child is disobedient. If there is a tiger in the street, the mother will not allow her child to walk there and be devoured. No, the mother will keep the child inside the heart-garden, where he will be perfectly safe.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Lord Buddha's Compassion-Hand, Agni Press, 1993
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/lb