The stage is set and the curtain has been raised
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
God has chosen the conditions under which you are living your present life. It is like a play. The stage is set and the curtain has been raised for you to perform your part and advance along the spiritual path. Your present conditions are the best possible ones for your advancement.
Sri Chinmoy 1
I just love this quote, as it puts my life situation into perspective and helps me find gratitude for life, as well as courage and inspiration to move forward and make progress.
Once we were embarking on a campaign of giving meditation classes. To help improve our presentation, we shot a video of a class with the idea we would watch afterwards to see how it could be better.
After I managed to overcome my initial discomfort of watching myself, I was fascinated to see the difference between myself pre- and post-meditation. It was dramatic. After meditating, I had so much more poise, more focus, more clarity.
I had always considered myself to be fairly even-keeled, so I had no idea that there would be a dramatic transformation taking place every time I meditated. All of the things I wanted to be could be achieved through the simple act of being silent for twenty minutes or so.
I began thinking about this discovery and came to the conclusion that when I am in this post-meditation state, there is a much greater chance that the choices I make and the decisions that I take will naturally be far more in tune with my higher aspirations. Furthermore, it became clear that my life direction was not based on a few key momentous decisions that I had to get right or forever hold my peace. It is more like the cumulative effect of a lot of small decisions. Consequently, the more I can be in a good consciousness though meditation, the more likely I will make choices and decisions that will result in a fulfilling, illumining and enriching life.
You simply cannot plan for every contingency and meticulously carve out a perfect life. Instead, you can simply get in touch with your higher self and trust that you will do the right thing at the right time and be guided to a life of fulfilment.
When you open yourself up to spiritual light, your life becomes easier. I think this happens because you consciously begin trying to listen to your higher self and to use that higher self as a guide in the choices you make and decisions you take. Consequently, you become more in sync with your destiny and begin to live the life that God wants for you and not the life your emotions or desires want for you. Essentially, you take a different path.
This new path, at first, is not very far from the old path because, like a fork in the road, you are still somewhat in the same area. However, as time moves on, those two paths—your life’s old trajectory and your new one—diverge, more dramatically, and you see how beautiful, enriching and fulfilling your new life is.
When you soulfully meditate,
The first thing you get
Is peace,
And this peace
Marks the beginning
Of your heart’s journey
Along the path of perfection.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. Death and Reincarnation, Agni Press, 1972
- 2. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 19, 1878, Agni Press, 1983
Sometimes it takes a crisis to make us see
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I am inspired to share one story that happened in the last two years, after Sri Chinmoy departed this world, as a way to illustrate that he continues to watch over us all from the higher planes, though we may not always be aware of it.
One day I was driving back from an appointment on Long Island when I hit some traffic on the Grand Central Parkway and decided to get off and take the back roads through Jamaica Estates. I was driving at a moderate speed up a slight hill in this residential neighbourhood.
It was a small two-way street with cars parked on both sides of the street, which in reality left room for only one car to drive at a time – a very common situation in this area of Queens.
As I approached the top of the hill, I saw that a car was speeding up the other side of the hill, not seeing me – it must have been going at least 40 or 50 miles per hour, with its engine roaring. I jammed on my brakes, but there was no room for me to pull over, as there were parked cars on either side of the road next to me. I shouted Supreme (invoking God as Sri Chinmoy urged us to do when in danger) and prayed in that split second before what seemed an inevitable crash and very possibly the end of my life!
I do not know what happened, but then the speeding car was behind me, driving away fast. I could not explain it, as there was definitely not enough room for him to pass. Had Sri Chinmoy somehow de-materialised the other car and “lifted” it over my car to avoid a crash?
I glanced out my side window and saw an older woman standing on her front porch, looking puzzled. I shouted to her, “Did you see that?” She replied, “Yes, I thought for sure he was going to hit you.”
I was very shaken and drove home slowly, full of gratitude that I had been spared serious injury. For a couple of days, I was in the sort of euphoria that one gets after a very close call – life seemed so precious all of a sudden. It was a big lesson for me. It is so easy for our minds to think that Sri Chinmoy has gone to the higher worlds and left us behind to cope as best we can. Sometimes it takes a crisis to make us see that he is fully present and concerned at every moment of our lives – even when we are just driving in the car on some ordinary, humdrum day. When we can realise this, we can only offer our infinite gratitude.
My Lord tells me
That even if I do not see Him,
Even if I do not feel Him,
I must believe in Him
When He says
That His Compassion-Eye
Is upon me all the time
In loving watchfulness.Sri Chinmoy
The white bird and the lake
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In my early years of exploring meditation and the little-known subject of reincarnation, I came across a rather discouraging description of the long passage of time the soul supposedly takes from its very earliest entry into the earth arena until its full blossoming in God-realisation. Imagine, said the words of an old Indian text, a beautiful white bird flying to a large lake once every several thousand years and taking away a single drop of water in its beak. The length of time it takes for the bird to empty the lake is a description – metaphorical of course – of how long it takes for this journey to be concluded, for realisation or self-blossoming to be won.
A rather bleak thought! But encouragingly, it did add the further comment that for those who have a curiosity or an awakening interest in spirituality, the lake is almost empty and the long journey of the soul is not in front of us but already behind us.
Guru had an even more encouraging view of all this, and saw will power and intense aspiration as the key forces that govern the time we will take to achieve that final yoga or union with God… “We are our own fate-makers.” It is in fact we who decide how long our journey will take, not a pre-determined destiny. Sri Aurobindo concurs: “Fate can be changed by an unchanging will.”
Guru saw every kind of spiritual quest as something precious, every faltering effort at meditation a step towards illumination, each truth-seeker an awakening soul setting forth… and laid out very clear guidelines that would add velocity and direction to our journey.
Like the map of a beckoning new world, he plotted out the requisite steps for us to take, offered us guidance in our great search for happiness, and helped us navigate the challenging perils and shoals of our lives. He filled us with courage and purpose.
It is always a joy to share these key steps and the essentials of meditation with seekers in our workshops around the world – and to pass on to them the view held by all the great teachers, that they have each reached a very special point in their life journey. God has tapped them on the shoulder…. “Wake up!” Yes, we are meditating because our souls are responding to a call from God, from the universe. In the image of the bird and the receding waters of the lake, the long journey is now largely over, the goal almost won.
Your days of excellence-joys
Are ahead of you
And
Not behind you.
Why then do you not
Immediately run and declare,
“The Goal is won”?Sri Chinmoy
'I am the marathon Guru'
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In April 1982, one evening Guru inquired of those present if any of us were proposing to run in the Boston Marathon, only two days away. Nobody was. Clearly disappointed, he asked whether any of us would now do so – about a dozen of us raised our hands, myself goaded into acquiescence by my impulsive friend Simahin, and we filed past our smiling Guru on the stage. I was astonished by this sudden turn of events and amazed by my own mad act of abandonment – my first entirely unintended marathon!
The next night around 9 pm we caught Guru’s old blue bus for the overnight trip and now there we were, start time for the great Boston race, untrained, unregistered and looking for an opportunity to vault over the starting area’s picket fence without officials seeing us when the gun sounded.
We flew down the hill at a fantastic pace, trailing the greatest marathoners on the planet. I cast aside all common sense in the exhilaration of these first few crazy, high-velocity miles, impervious to all misfortune. But misfortune eventually came – and at 20 miles I remember slowing to a walk and shuffling up the aptly named Heartbreak Hill, much chastened by this first experience of ‘the wall’.
Racing down our avenue of dreams, we had felt like champions, that first thrilling mile a gauntlet of cheering, rapturous crowds – but with 42 kms of America’s countryside behind me, I limped across the line in 3:20, Simahin close behind me.
During our bus ride back to Queens, Guru asked us for stories. “I am the marathon Guru,” he said to us, half-jokingly, “and all of you will have to run at least one marathon before you go to Heaven.”
Then he told us how pleased he was with the handful of runners who had accepted his challenge and how much progress we make when we run. He added that our willingness and our cheerfulness were much more important than our timing in the race.
The experience was one of those first glimpses of the manner in which Guru would take us far beyond our comforts and customary ways and open doors to many great adventures and discoveries. Running the marathon was part of our spiritual training, teaching us fearlessness, obedience, self-discovery, transcendence and the principal role of grace in the lives of those blessed to have a Teacher.
When God touches
The divine in me,
I run and run
Towards my Destined Goal.Sri Chinmoy
George Washington’s Luminosity-Soul
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
On one very special occasion in 1975, Sri Chinmoy invited questions from visitors about America’s bicentennial. One boy from Boston asked about the soul’s qualities of George Washington. Guru went into trance and his face transformed into Washington’s face before our astonished eyes. His face took on the square jaw and clamped lips of the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of our first president as he answered, “Luminous, dynamic, truth-loving and self-giving.” 1
(Sri Chinmoy’s ability to identify with another person and actually take on their qualities shows in another beloved photograph⎯one taken while he was meditating on the Christ, which radiates the humility and compassion that he felt from the Christ.)
When it was my turn, I asked the question that had haunted me that entire year, as Guru had encouraged us to participate in all the patriotic activities commemorating the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. I asked how we can feel patriotic when the actions of the present American government seemed so out of keeping with America’s divine qualities. Only a couple of years before I had been involved in strikes and riots and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam!
Guru gave the perfect answer, one that I still find helpful today. In short, Guru said to take America as your mother and the government as your big brother. Just because you do not agree with everything your brother is doing, doesn’t mean you can’t love your mother!
America’s special strength
Lies not in frightening the weak
And challenging the strong,
But in strengthening the weak
And
Illumining the strong.Sri Chinmoy 2
Simple blessings
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
My first significant experience with Sri Chinmoy was at the Seattle airport in 1996. I was just five years old at the time.
My sister and mother and I had gone to visit him along with a bunch of other Seattle disciples, because his itinerary brought him there for a few hours. At that time, you were allowed to go into the gate through airport security without a ticket.
At one point Sri Chinmoy had offered prasad (blessed food), and I was in the line to take some. He called me over to stand next to him and pulled my arm to have me sit next to him. We were facing a crowd of people, just the two of us. I remember the very surreal feeling of being with someone so “famous,” and how wide and vast his consciousness was. I felt it stretching out into Infinity, filling the room and the building and city and entire world. I felt like I was a little drop next to the ocean, and his infinite heart was pulling me inside. I also felt his voice in silence inside my own heart, echoing “we are the same.”
At the place where his hand touched my arm, a very powerful vibration like a solid bolt of energy was tingling and electrifying my body like a conduit. In retrospect, I feel this is one of the moments he “initiated” me, or gave me a direct taste of the experience he’s having all the time. And I can say with full confidence and utmost certainty that that moment has been with me wherever I have gone, and will remain with me no matter what I do for the rest of my life!
After taking a photo of the two of us, he asked my mother and sister to join us and we all posed together.
P.S. This is my favorite photo of Sri Chinmoy, or Guru as I call him, because in it he is exhibiting both immense strength, soulfulness and power, coupled with infinite sweetness, kindness, softness and gentleness. I aspire to be like that, with such a lion-heart.
My sister and I first visited New York when I was 8. It was during the off-season in New York, not when Celebrations were happening and everything was crazy.
I was at Aspiration-Ground relaxing, not doing anything, just writing some silly things in my notebook.
Sri Chinmoy was preparing for a public weightlifting exhibition, a programme called "The Body's Fitness-Gong, The Soul's Fulness-Song". He was testing some lifting machines on the clay surface of the tennis court.A boy who was assisting Guru called up to me where I sat in the bleachers, next to my mother and sister. Guru wanted to use me as a warmup. I came down and gave him a big smile.
Guru lifted me several times and invited my sister to join me. Next he brought down the sister of this boy who was assisting Him. The three of us were lifted together.
What struck me most about that experience was that I wasn’t trying hard to be a good disciple or please him in his own way, but he totally honoured me and gave me lots of joy. I had not done anything to deserve it. Instead, he just gave it unconditionally.
I learned a valuable life lesson from this experience. To this day, it is in the quiet moments by myself that I feel his presence most strongly and am able to tap into the highest consciousness full of peace, joy, fulfillment and satisfaction all around me and within me. Especially in the beauty of nature, I feel so close to the Divine. I don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to search for it or find it within me. It is all around us at every moment if only we are receptive enough to feel it – or even if we are not.
Thank you to Sri Chinmoy and to his disciples, who enabled me to be raised in this loving, supportive environment. You continue to shower me with your blessings!
God awakens my life with His purest Concern.
God blesses my life with His sublimest Thought.
God has awakened me. I am no longer asleep.
God has blessed me. I have emptied my life of problems.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Meditations: food for the soul, December 24, Agni Press, 1970
Keep doing the right thing
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
One weekend in New York I was invited to a disciple’s birthday party, celebrated in Guru’s customary way—disciples sitting on Guru’s living room floor as paper plates of curry and birthday cake were passed around. It was a typical time for chitchat with Guru. “So, Marion,” Guru said, catching me by surprise (Guru so rarely spoke to me), “when will you open your restaurant?”
I nearly choked on my curry. “Wha - wha - what restaurant, Guru?”
“First choice restaurant, second choice health food store.”
“But I don’t have any money, Guru!”
“Your parents will give you,” Guru reassured me. “Can you have it open by April 13th?”
But that gave me only six weeks to convince my parents, find a location, buy the equipment, and set it up. And I had never even run a cash register, let alone a business!
When Guru asked us to do something, he would put an incredible force on it. It was as though a divine wind was blowing inexorably towards a particular goal, and all I had to do was to spread my sails to catch the wind. In one way it did feel like an enormous amount of hard work, but in another way, it felt effortless, as though everything was already done.
My parents immediately balked at the idea of a restaurant, noting how often restaurants go out of business, but did not close the door entirely to the idea of a health food store. I found a location, a tiny storefront on Charles Street, in the heart of Boston’s historic Beacon Hill. The current tenant, a graphic designer, created an architectural drawing of the floor plan complete with fixtures. I negotiated a lease with the landlord and stalled for time, saying I had to get money transferred from out of state.
A wholesaler helped me create a list of products to stock for the opening. A banker helped me with a business plan. I wore a sari everywhere I went, an act of courage and surrender if not total idiocy. A retired grocery executive, volunteering for the Small Business Administration, gave me advice on running a food business, despite his doubts. “Lady, you’ll never make it on Charles Street, especially not if you’re dressed like a gypsy!” he said.
This all took several weeks. Afterwards, paperwork in hand, I went home to Delaware to ask my parents for the money. To my amazement, they said the amount I needed was the exact amount they had set aside for me to go to graduate school, and if I wanted to consider the health food store my educational expense, they would give it to me.
When I first became a disciple, I thought I was obliged to “convert” my family and friends (a delusion left over from my born-again Christian days). But people have to feel something from within. I found a better way to relate to my parents, based on Guru’s dictum, “You have to please people in their own way.” I encouraged them in their own forms of spirituality: my father found peace of mind through running, my mother through gardening. When I was with them, I would imagine their heart chakras full of light.
After the first year or so, I never actually talked to my parents about my life on the path—in fact, I avoided their questions—but I felt their increasing acceptance. I knew, even if I could not tell them, that Guru was giving them the opportunity for some really good karma by helping me with the store, and that they would understand once they reached the higher worlds. In fact, when my father left the body two years ago, I had the inner experience of Guru welcoming and guiding his soul.
The health food store turned out to be a wonderful way to share Guru’s message while also providing great vegetarian food. I recall one steady customer, a regular-Joe type of guy. He was a real estate agent who was not particularly spiritual, but used to say, “When I eat your food, I can never have bad thoughts, I only have good thoughts.”
I put Guru’s poetry on the labels of my cookies and sandwiches, using my little calligraphy pen to copy out a two- or four-line poem on each tofu salad or tempeh reuben label. Customers would collect them, taping them to their refrigerators.
Once, after a concert Guru performed at Harvard, ten years after I closed the store, I had a remarkable experience. A disciple from Maine brought over a spiritual seeker to meet me. He had been coming to classes at her Centre and recited a poem perfectly, by heart:
Keep doing the right thing.
God Himself will go
And collect the gratitude-buds
That the world owes you.Sri Chinmoy 1
The young man had grown up near my store on Charles Street, and his father had taped that poem over the kitchen sink where he could read it while doing the dishes! Not only that, his father became the state Secretary of the Treasury, and who knows how much courage that poem gave him to pursue the right thing amidst the notorious corruption in our state government? It just goes to show, you never know what seeds you are spreading. After all these years, I still have people coming to meditation classes who saw Guru at Harvard more than 40 years ago, or who remember my little store.
Gratitude is the food of faith.
Faith is the food of love.
Love is the food of peace.,
Peace is the food of God.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 7, #456
- 2. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 32, #3129
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