Regarding ‘wasted time’, Guru corrected my erroneous perceptions of this early on in my disciple life when on two occasions he requested my wife and I to stay in New York through to the following celebrations, a 4-month and later a 6-month layover requiring a total abdication of all ‘normal’ responsibilities, a discarding of EVERYTHING (along with my ‘productivity’ notions of time). So we were to discover another dimension of time, a reality that only values time for the soul’s unfoldment.

We protested of course: “But Guru, we have new jobs in New Zealand, we’ve just found and paid for a newly rented Centre, there are six new disciples to take care of, classes are organised for the next three months, a relative is undergoing surgery.” Guru waves his arm airily, dismissively, no need to even reply, and you know even then with your neophyte’s tiny comprehension that he has seen deeply into something measureless and universal, taken you into another chapter of your God discovery.

In hindsight and all those months later you would be overcome with gratitude, since this long time spent around a great Master has been a golden time, days and weeks bathed in light, immersed in processes of great change that, though unknowing, you were deemed ready for, catapulted from that rung in your evolutionary ladder way up to THIS rung! How memorable, this love and overreaching concern of our teacher who prized our God-realisation so far above all other worldly considerations.

In the great spiritual and religious traditions in all of time, time itself is most sacrosanct when given over to the search for God, this ultimate and highest purpose. “You shall seek me and you shall find me,” says God in one of the old Christian texts. “Because you seek me with all your heart, I will let myself be found... I will put a new spirit in you, I will remove from you your heart of stone.”

God’s last Message:
Step out of the mind’s
Fleeting time
And enter into the heart’s
Eternity.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 15, Agni Press, 1999

A few months after seeing Sri Chinmoy for the first time, during small talk in the teachers’ lounge at school, I was lamenting that I needed to buy a new scarf to wear with my winter coat. About a week later, my disciple friend approached me in the lounge and said, “I saw this scarf and it reminded me of you. I don’t know if you’ll like it or not. If not, it’s okay, I can take it back.” With that, she showed me a scarf that was quite bright, with yellow-gold rectangles on aqua sky-blue. I had been thinking of something darker, but she was offering it as a gift, and I really needed a scarf.

There was something about the scarf that drew me to it, but the colours were not a combination that I would ever have chosen for myself. Also, something about the scarf put me off. I felt uneasy about it and couldn’t figure out why.

In the subway on the way home, I closed my eyes and imagined Jesus, with me showing him the scarf. Suddenly, in the inner vision of my mind’s eye, Jesus was there, concretely, with me. I showed him the scarf, and inwardly questioned him about it in a way that was wordless. He took it from me and held one end of the scarf in one hand and the other end in the other hand. Standing in front of me, he looped the middle of the scarf over my head and onto my neck and shoulders, letting the ends hang down the front of my body, while saying, “It is a mantle upon thee.”

I remember thinking, “What’s a ‘mantle’?” I thought this word might refer to some kind of medieval cloth drape or embroidered hanging, but I didn’t know for sure, as it was certainly not a word I used in my daily language. When the subway arrived at my station, I walked quickly to the house where my apartment was. I was in a hurry to get back to this experience.

I sat down in my room and went into prayer. I saw myself with Jesus, again with the scarf. Immediately, the image returned as strong, as vivid and as concrete as the first time. I knew that this was a special experience. In my mind’s eye, I was standing with Jesus, with the scarf draped around my neck. He repeated, “It is a mantle upon thee.”

Then, feeling perplexed, I told him that I was uneasy about this scarf and I didn’t know why.

Jesus turned his head slightly away and extended his left arm straight out. I looked where he was pointing, and in the distance, some ways off, I saw Sri Chinmoy sitting in a dark blue, cushioned armchair, with various disciples coming and going around him. There was a lot of light around Guru and the chair and the whole scene. The disciples were all very happy as they came in and out of the scene.

Jesus looked at me and said, “What do you see?” I said, “I see … Light, … and Joy, … Light, and … Love.”  Then he dropped his arm to his side, looked straight at me and said, “And are you afraid of … that?”

The image disappeared. I was back in my room.

Obviously, I decided to keep the scarf. I did not tell my disciple friend about this inner experience. It seemed a personal message and not to be shared at the time. I merely told her, when next I saw her, that the colour combination in the scarf was not what I would usually wear, but that I really did like the scarf. She said, “Well, you know, this blue and gold, they’re the Sri Chinmoy Centre colours.” Instantly, a series of understandings cascaded through my brain. (I later learned, Guru had said that blue is the main colour in his aura and gold is the colour of God’s manifestation on earth.)

After my inner image experience, I had looked up the word ‘mantle’ in the dictionary. It said, “in heraldry, the representation or drapery of a coat of arms.” A ‘coat of arms’ was defined as a “light garment worn over armour, generally emblazoned with the insignia of a person, family or institution.”

Jesus Christ had mantled me in the colours of the Sri Chinmoy Centre.

My Absolute Lord Supreme!
Today You are asking me
To be a passenger
Of Your Eternity's
Blue-gold Dream-Boat.
My gratitude-heart
I place at Your Feet.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. My aspiration-heart cycles, part 1, Agni Press, 2000