Most seekers are troubled by thoughts and impurities that arise in the mind. In the following exercises, Sri Chinmoy offers some practical ways to purify the minds restless nature by focusing on the spiritual heart.

Question: How can we keep our mind pure?

Sri Chinmoy: You can keep your mind pure by feeling constantly that you do not have a mind at all: you have only the flower-heart of a child. If somebody asks you, “What is in your mind?” you will say simply, “I don’t have the mind. I have only the heart of a child.” You don’t have to keep your mind pure if you don’t have a mind. In that way you can solve your problem immediately.

Question: For the past year I have been practising concentration and meditation with my attention focused on my navel chakra. But I don’t seem to be making as much progress as I would like in controlling my thoughts. Have you got any suggestions?

Sri Chinmoy: What you are doing is extremely good. We have six spiritual centres in the body. You are concentrating on the centre which is called Manipura. This is the centre that they usually give importance to in Zen practice. From this centre, according to our Indian spiritual teachings, you get dynamic energy. If you use this divine energy for a divine purpose, then you create. If you use it for an aggressive purpose, then you destroy.
Now if you want to control your thoughts, you should concentrate on the centre between the eyebrows. If you become very stiff and your concentration is intense, then you should not concentrate here for more than two minutes. Otherwise, you will become exhausted in the beginning. Now if you concentrate on the heart centre, you will get peace, love and joy. Try to hear the cosmic sound, the soundless sound, when you enter into the heart. If you bring love, joy, peace and bliss up from the heart to the centre between the eyebrows, then you will see that there will be no thoughts.
The heart is the safest place for you to concentrate and meditate on. If you do this, automatically you will get purification, because inside the heart is the soul, and the soul is one with the Infinite. It is from here that you will get everything.

I need a child's heart
To become a perfect stranger
To the sad mistakes of my mind.
– Sri Chinmoy