Sarama Minoli
New York, United States

Considering that I entered this world as a fourth generation atheist, who would have predicted a future in the spiritual life for me? I certainly wasn’t given any training in spirituality as a child. But the concept of infinity always fascinated me as it eluded me. I spent summers at my grandmother’s house in the New Jersey countryside, where I slept on a porch that was all windows on three sides. I would lie there looking up at the night sky, where the Milky Way and millions of stars were visible (you could see all of that clearly when I was a kid!), and I would imagine more space behind the stars and the Milky Way, and more space behind that space, and more space behind that space, and more space – and more space – until, my head spinning, I fell asleep.

As a young adult, I came across the writings of Edgar Casey, Yogi Ramacharaka, and that wonderful classic, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. My fascination with yoga, vegetarianism and spirituality was growing. After a two-week vacation at a yoga camp, my fate was sealed. On my return home, Yoga of Westchester, my yoga studio, was born.

One day during the following summer, I had a visit from an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in a number of years: a violinist named Sol Montlack. We were having a chat when I recalled that he had been with a spiritual group. Nearly a year of involvement with yoga had intensified my new interest in spirituality. I asked him about the group, and his answer was that he was no longer with that group or any of the many others he had tried.

He said, "I have found a Guru who is everything I have been looking for." I asked the Guru’s name, and Sol said, "Chinmoy." For clarity, he pronounced it as if it were two words. "Chin Moy?" I said. "That sounds Chinese," while the thought ran through my mind quickly that I would meet his Guru and that he would be my Guru as well.

I soon learned that my old friend Sol had been given the spiritual name "Dulal" by his Guru, and was now president of the Aum Centre, as the Sri Chinmoy Centre was known in the early days. A few weeks later, at the end of the summer, my con-versation with Dulal flashed through my mind and I decided to phone him. "I would like to meet your Guru," I said.

"He holds meditations every Thursday evening at eight o’clock, and you  are most welcome," he answered.

The next Thursday I climbed four flights of stairs in an old brownstone on East 64th Street to a small railroad flat, which was the home of the Aum Centre and its young Guru. Everyone sat in the living room, most of us on chairs, and a few on a sofa against the side wall. The room was filled with the delicious aroma of incense. A small shelf in the corner held a flickering electric candle, and Guru stood at the front of the room with folded hands. The silence was very deep.

I had already been meditating for a year on my own, so I closed my eyes and turned inward to enjoy the peace that I felt in this room. After a few minutes, my eyes flew open and I found Sri Chinmoy standing right in front of me with a small flower in his folded hands.

He was looking at me with an otherworldly smile on his face. When he put the flower into my hands and placed his hands over mine, I felt a thrill flow through my whole being. As he moved about the room giving each person a flower, I had no idea that this would turn out to be, for me at least, the beginning of a 40-year blessing!
 

Anandashru Elliott
Auckland, New Zealand

Long ago, when I was a young farmer’s wife with two very small children, there was a time when I found myself in an awful "black hole" of depression. I had never been particularly unhappy in my life before then, rarely saw a doctor, and thought one would just say, "Grow up; you have responsibilities now." For many weeks I had been listening to a 15-minute programme, "A Faith for Today," on the radio every morning. Weeping copious tears, I would pray and pray to really believe in the existence of God and Jesus Christ – but please, please, not to remain indifferent any longer.

One morning, after the broadcast was over, I was washing up the breakfast dishes and crying into the sink as usual, when my view through the window and across the valley was silently rent down the middle with a slight zigzag shift, and the world changed. The view was the same, yet all looked subtly different, slightly shimmering. It seemed as though the trees along the distant horizon had joined hands and were dancing, for one thing – but my real understanding was inner. I saw, somehow, or rather understood, how everything IS. I saw how all things are connected and that love is the key, and I was swept along and upward in a joyous unfolding vision of how this could blossom into Heaven on earth one day, with love for one another spreading across the land and around the world until it encompassed all nations and all mankind. All the time I found myself whispering, 'Of course, of course!' as if in ecstatic recognition of something long forgotten.

This is the best I can do by way of explanation. At the time, I tried to write down all that I had 'seen' – and could not. It was somehow impossible to express the wonder of it in ordinary words. One of my favourite talks on the radio had been on Jesus’ teaching, 'You are the light of the world…' I knew this parable but always assumed that it applied to his disciples only. Now I knew it meant me, and you, everyone on earth.

I was totally uplifted. I knew the light shone from my eyes, my face was radiant and my heart overflowed with happiness and love. (This was not just a mood swing! I have never been depressed again in all the years that have passed since.) I had been given far more than I had asked for.  Now I did not just believe. I knew.

Today I feel that, in answer to my genuine, anguished cries, God’s Compassion came down mightily and temporarily lifted the veil of maya, or illusion, long enough to give me the answer I so desperately sought. Then the veil descended again, inevi-tably. The high consciousness also descended, slowly, without lots of prayer and meditation to maintain it, and I was left with just the essence of the experience to sustain me. I attended churches of several different faiths but could not find lasting inspiration anywhere and gradually just returned to 'normal.' But that knowledge was always there, deep within – God IS.

The search never ceased, however. I read every book on spirituality and any loosely associated subject that the Hamilton City Library could provide. There was a book on meditation that sounded interesting, and just what I needed, but I tried it only once, on my own. One day there was an advertisement in the Waikato Times: 'Four meditation classes for $25.00.' So off I went. My only recollection is that we sat in a circle on the floor in a darkened room with a lighted candle in the middle. I found it weird, sitting in the dark with shadowy figures all around, and made no progress.

The following year a small paragraph appeared in the local mid-week paper; a lady called Subarata, from Auckland, would be coming to Hamilton to give free meditation classes. Feeling a bit dubious after the last strange experience, I wanted to give it another try but thought it would be nice to go with a friend. I asked my daughter on the off chance that she might like to come with me – and she said she would.

During the introductory meditation, I concentrated hard on my breathing and the 'little imaginary thread in front of the nose," and soon found myself focused on a space, like a tiny rift between clouds, where it seemed something important was just out of sight, but which could be revealed at any moment.  Entranced, I gazed yearningly at that space. Time passed. Then, as from a distance, I heard a quiet voice saying, "Now bring your attention slowly back to the room…" Oh, no, No, NO! But that was it. What else could you do?

I never saw that space again – the doorway to the ever-beckoning Beyond? But my course was now set fair towards it, toward my goal – and my Guru. Though I did not know it then, again I would be given more than I could ever have dreamed of asking for.