Question: Can the mind help us discover God's Will?
Sri Chinmoy: Most of the time we have no idea what God’s Will is. The mind comes forward and tells us, “Such and such is God’s Will.” But if we dive deep within, we see that the mind is one hundred per cent wrong. Even the heart can be wrong. And the vital and the physical are always wrong. But if one can see the soul and talk to the soul during meditation, then the soul will tell us, “This is right, this is wrong.”The mind is like a primary school teacher. There are many questions that the primary school teacher cannot answer. The heart is like a high school teacher. Then comes the soul, which is like a college teacher, and the Supreme, who is like a university professor. The mind is so bad; it does everything it can to prevent us from learning from the heart. It says, “Only after you have learnt everything from me should you go to the next class.” Then, when the mind sees that somebody is a good student and is ready to go on to high school, the mind deliberately fails the student in order to keep him longer. Then after a few years, the student gets disgusted; he feels he will never get past primary school. This is the time when many, many seekers give up the spiritual life. They give up because the mind makes them feel that they cannot go even to high school, whereas college is out of the question.
Many times the mind-teacher does not know the answer, but it makes us feel that it does know the answer. A question that comes from the depths of our heart, the mind can never answer. But the mind makes us feel that it knows everything. So it is all the time giving us faulty lessons. In spite of this, the mind tells us, “My answers are perfect, perfect, perfect!” At every moment we are making mistakes because we are entrusting the mind with our whole life.
The mind wants to get joy in a specific way. The mind says, “This is the only way. There is no other way.” Like a dictator, the mind has spoken! Then the soul or the Master comes along and shows us another way. Immediately the mind says, “O my God, it is impossible, impossible!” The mind keeps one door open and says we must pass through this door; it does not allow us to see other ways. There may be many doors in a big mansion, but the mind does not allow us to use them; it keeps those doors under lock and key. But when the soul sees that we are desperately trying to go beyond the mind, then the soul opens up this door and that door for us. It does not have to be a door, no! When the soul opens up even a new window, at that time how happy we are!
When we cannot go beyond the boundaries of the mind, we are completely trapped. It is like being under arrest. The only thing we can do is pray to someone to come and release us, and that someone is either the Master or the Supreme. It does not matter to whom we pray, because the Supreme’s Grace is also acting in and through the Master.
I have always said that there cannot be any higher prayer than the Saviour Jesus Christ’s prayer: “Let Thy Will be done.” But if a farmer only sits in his cottage repeating, “Let Thy Will be done,” he will never get a bumper crop. No, the farmer has to plough his field, bring water and manure and do the needful. Only then, after he has done as much as he can, after he has done his best, is he entitled to say, “Let Thy Will be done!”
We should say this prayer after we do everything that we feel from within we can do, only after we use all the capacity that God has given us. At that time we can say, “O God, You have given me the capacity to do this, and I have done it. Now I cannot go any farther, higher or deeper. Let Thy Will be done.” Then God comes and gives us much more capacity, inwardly and outwardly.
