Now coming to spiritual attainment: this is something that we can never absorb through the head; it can only be received through the heart. Let two persons listen to the teachings of a teacher, one with his heart and the other with his head. The latter will think, "Is it so, or is it not so? And how is it, if it is so? How can it be, and if it is, why is it?" And there is never an end to the "why." The other person will listen with his heart; both logic and reason are at his disposal, but they do not trouble him. His heart is open, he listens to it and the quality of the heart is such that whatever falls upon an open heart becomes instantly revealed. When one says, "I cannot understand you" it is just like saying, "I have closed my heart to you"; there is no other reason for not understanding. And when one says, "I have understood it all," it means the heart was open; that is why one has understood.

Understanding, therefore, does not depend upon the head, it depends upon the heart. By the help of the head one can make things more clear, they become intelligible, one can express them better, but understanding must begin to come from the heart, not from the head. Besides, with his head a person says, "Yes, it must be so because I think so, but with his heart he says, "it is so because I believe it to be so." That is the difference: in one person there is doubt, in the other conviction.

In an Eastern language there is a word which is very difficult to translate: iman. It is not exactly faith or belief - the nearest word one can find for it is conviction, a conviction that cannot be changed by anything, a conviction that does not come from outside. One always seeks for conviction, one asks, "Will anybody convince me, will this thing convince me?" Nothing convinces, nobody convinces. Conviction is something that comes from one's own heart and it stands above faith and belief, for belief is the beginning of the same thing of which faith is the development and conviction the culmination.

What is spiritual attainment? Spiritual attainment is conviction. A man may think, "Perhaps it is so"; he may think about the best doctrine or about the highest idea that there is, and he will think, "it is so-perhaps." But there is "perhaps" attached to it. Then there is another person who cannot use the word "perhaps" because he does not think about it; he cannot say, "It may be so" when he knows that it is so. When a person arrives at the stage where the knowledge of reality becomes his conviction, then there is nothing in the world that will change it. If there is anything to attain to, it is that conviction which one can never find in the world outside; it must rise from the depth of one's own heart.