Question: What do you mean when you talk about a mental path versus the path of the heart?

Sri Chinmoy: The difference is quite noticeable. When we live in the heart, with the heart and for the heart, we always feel we can accept the world and become part and parcel of the suffering world. But when we are in the mind, we start criticising others and thinking that we are perfect. If I remain in the mind, I will see you as imperfect and myself as perfect. But if I live in the heart, then I will feel that what you have and what you are I have to claim as my own, very own. If we remain in the heart, we become one. Your imperfections I must accept as my own imperfections. And if you also live in the heart, you will take my imperfections as your own imperfections. Then if you are happy because you have done something great, I will feel that it is I who have done it and vice-versa.

But when we are in the mind, we are constantly doubting others. We cannot accept others’ joy as our own. Immediately, jealousy, insecurity and impurity attack us. If I am in the heart, then immediately I feel that you are God’s creation. We have to love each other, we have to become one, inseparably one. In this way we can solve all our problems. Otherwise, if I start doubting you, whether you are a good person or not, then this mental argument never ends.

The feeling of oneness inside the heart, once it starts, never ends. Once we enter into the river, we see that the river is flowing into the ocean and finally it becomes the ocean itself. But if the river does not flow, it becomes a stagnant pool. The mind is always trying to see the negative qualities of others. Whose mind is happy when it sees somebody else achieving something glorious? Nobody’s. But if you live in the heart, you will act like a child. A child is so happy when his father achieves something and the father is so happy when his child achieves something. So the simple way is to follow the path of the heart.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy answers, part 18, Agni Press, 1999
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sca_18