Question: Is there a conflict between the heart and the mind in our efforts to surrender?

Sri Chinmoy: Very often it happens that it is the vital or the mind that causes conflict. Someone came to me the other day because he was getting pain in the chest near the heart. I told him that his vital and mind are on one side and his heart and soul are on the other side. There will come a time, for him and for others like him, when the heart and soul will allow a compromise. Who wants to fight all the time? The vital and mind are unruly children and they are not under our control. So after some time the heart and soul allow the vital and the mind to go their own way. They say, "All right, let us make a kind of compromise. What can be done?"

But again, there comes a time when the heart and soul of a seeker will not care for any compromise because they also have their strength. The soul is infinitely more powerful than the vital and mind, so the soul and the heart challenge and fight the vital and the mind. They say, "Now this time we really want your complete and permanent transformation. No compromise; we have to win."

At the time of this conflict, the mind has to surrender to the will of the heart and soul. The real aspiring heart has no will of its own because it is constantly crying and aspiring to reach the Highest. The heart's aspiration is already at the root of the tree, which is realisation. But until the mind is illumined, it will also cry; it will cry until it constantly cries with the heart.

The heart will never leave the mind behind. We have to allow the heart to capture the mind and not allow the mind to doubt, suspect or delay the progress of the heart.