Question: This is a very practical question. When I work, I create piles of paper. Most of it is trash, but some of it is very important. I have boxes and boxes of paper in my house. I would like to know why I am doing this and how I can have more inspiring beauty around me instead of a clutter of paper.

Sri Chinmoy: Here your mind is working. You have to use your heart. If there is something that the heart feels is important, the heart will definitely give you the capacity, willingness and eagerness to preserve it. But when it is a matter of the mind, the mind sees everything as confusion — everything. Even if you put a few things side by side, it becomes confusion. But if you use the heart, the heart takes everything as oneness.

Let us say you have kept a few sheets of paper here and a few sheets there. To the mind, it is all confusion. Then the mind says to you, “Why do you have to worry about these useless things? Throw them out!” But if you use the heart, the heart will tell you which papers are worth keeping and which ones you can discard. The mind is telling you that there it is all pell-mell, topsy-turvy. And again, the same mind is not helping you to have the judgement to say, “If it is all pell-mell, let me select the ones that are absolutely necessary, and then I can discard the rubbish.” The heart, on the other hand, will tell you, “This piece of paper is most important. After twenty years or fifty years, it will have historical value.”

When the heart says something, at that time the heart gives you the capacity and the necessary eagerness and willingness to take the important ones and put them safely in a proper place.

So when the mind says it is all confusion, the mind does not come to your rescue to do the needful. The mind is only making you exasperated. But when the heart values something, you will see that you will definitely keep that particular thing separate from the mind-jungle. Always use the heart, and then the heart will tell you which ones are really important and which are not. You have to value the wisdom of the heart, not the judgement of the mind.