Mental receptivity

Spiritual answers cannot satisfy a purely intellectual person, unless this person also uses the heart. When he opens his heart to a spiritual Master, immediately he is fulfilled, he is satisfied. Although intellectually he is trying to grasp what the Master is saying, his heart is functioning at the same time.

The heart is like a door wide open. The mind is like a tiny window which is not fully open. In your house, you have kept the door wide open, and the window you have kept just a little open. So when your divine friend, the spiritual teacher, has to enter into you, he can easily enter into you through your heart-door. If your divine friend wants to come in, you will let him in through the door if you really care for him. Then when you feel his presence within you, inside your heart, you are bound to get satisfaction. But if you say, “No, he has to come only through this window, the mind, which I am keeping half open; otherwise I will not accept him,” it will be a mistake on your part, because he will not be able to enter properly with his divine blessings and light.

You have both the heart and the mind. It is up to you to open your heart and get total satisfaction. Then gradually, gradually, you can open up and expand the capacity of your mind. The mind has great capacity, but this capacity has to be released by the light of the soul. On the one hand the mind feels that it knows everything; on the other hand it feels that it knows nothing. When it is a matter of inseparable oneness with the infinite Vast, the mind does not dare even to think of it. The mind thinks that it will lose its very existence. But the heart is not afraid of oneness. The heart is like a child who is two years old. His father is very tall and stout, but the child is not afraid. He has established his oneness with his father, so he will go and play with his father. But somebody who is not a friend or relative will be afraid to approach the father. Like this, the heart immediately identifies itself with the infinite Vast, whereas the mind does not.

If one utilises only the mind while receiving the answers of a spiritual Master, one gains very little. But if the same person has even unconsciously opened up his heart, naturally the message, the light that the spiritual Master is offering, enters into the seeker’s heart. He may not immediately get the full wealth of the Master’s message-light, but it will grow inside him because he has kept his heart’s door wide open. And as the light grows inside the heart, it will go up and illumine the mind.

When the mind is illumined by the soul’s light, there will be no difference between the mind and the heart. They will both become most devoted instruments of God. Right now the most devoted instrument of God is the soul, and the heart sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously is trying to be equally good. When we pray and meditate most soulfully, the heart becomes one with the soul. Then, like the soul, it becomes the most effective instrument of God. Similarly, the mind also can be as effective as the heart and the soul, provided the mind consciously wants to become one with the heart and soul.

Mind, heart and soul are like three brothers in a family. The soul is the eldest brother, the heart is the middle brother and the mind is the youngest. It will be more accurate to say that the body is the youngest, then the vital, then the mind, then the heart and then the soul. Right now the body is absolutely the baby in the family. It is out of the question right now for the body to think of God. But if the mind can consciously offer the responsibility for its illumination to the heart, as the heart has offered the same responsibility to the soul, then the problems of receptivity can easily be solved.