Stories by Sri Chinmoy's students and friends

Sweet moments with our Guru

With Guru on my birthday

I had some other experiences with Guru—twice for my birthday. Guru used to celebrate birthdays, mainly for the close disciples, the inner circle of people very close to him—usually not for people like me. I was not well known on the path.

The first time was during the New York City Marathon. Guru was friends with Fred Lebow, one of the founders of the New York City Marathon. We ran this marathon until the year 2000. Disciples used to meet in New York in November for this race. This is also the time of my birthday. I was born on the 6th of November.

There was a kind of celebration at this time and Guru was teaching some songs in the morning. I was seated in the benches beside another French disciple. Guru called the good singers to go down to start learning the songs. I am a good singer, but when Guru teaches songs, you have to write down the words, and sometimes it is difficult to catch the words and then to memorise them. I didn't want to go down. I hesitated to go down and stayed in my seat. But my friend beside me said, "No, no, it is your birthday today. You have to go down. You have to go down and at least participate."

Everyday Miracles on Sri Chinmoy's Path

Keep doing the right thing

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.

Dynamic Spirituality

The fountain of light

This experience is kind of neat because spiritually if we open our eyes, which many of us are not able to do so much, we realise that there were many inner things going on in Guru’s life. It was not too often that Guru shared the inner level that he was operating on. But this is one example at Aspiration-Ground.

This was 1983 or 1982. We had finished Aspiration-Ground tennis court in 1981, and Guru threw himself completely into playing tennis for hours and hours on end. We would play that first year and a half or two years, probably three to four hours every day.

People would be sitting in the stands, and Guru would have a rotation of six or seven different disciples who would play Guru in tennis. They would rotate in for two games, and then the next player would come out and play Guru. So there was a routine and an organization. Guru would always be out there so you would always see Guru. To see Guru play and run and get such joy gave everybody tremendous happiness and joy.

Achieving the Impossible

All I needed was the Supreme, and I would always win

For three years, starting in 1977, some 200 New York area students of Sri Chinmoy trained as a group for the Pepsi 24-Hour Bicycle Marathon in Central Park, as he encouraged us to challenge our limitations and thus discover our deeper capacities.

Starting a month before the race, which was held on Memorial Day Weekend, Sri Chinmoy would lead us on daily training rides in Flushing Meadow Park. The Pepsi Bike Marathon drew thousands of amateur participants, but also a core group of professional riders who competed seriously for the prizes. None of our team members had experience in racing, though a few of us did cycle regularly and take road trips. The first year we entered as a team was a bit of an experiment, though I think we won a prize or two for the size of our team and for our uniforms. But the second year, 1978, we trained more seriously, and I felt that Sri Chinmoy was determined to show us the limits of what was possible.

A week before the race, Sri Chinmoy chose who would be on the two small teams that would compete for the team prizes. I felt honoured that I was the only woman on the first-string team of ten, but I was quite alarmed when Sri Chinmoy solemnly called us up in front of the whole group and told us he envisioned each of us doing 300 miles in 24 hours!

Inner communication

Where is the light coming from?

I first came to know about Sri Chinmoy through a meditation workshop I took in France. As a newcomer, I did not know anything about meditation, but I had quite a nice and powerful experience during the first session.

On this unforgettable Sunday morning, as we were all meditating in silence with closed eyes, I inwardly saw a streak of light coming from my right side. I had never meditated before, at least not consciously, and I was not expecting anything in particular. But this experience puzzled me.

At the end of the meditation I looked to my right, searching for something that could have been the cause of this light. I saw nothing except a picture frame placed on the floor and leaning against the wall with its back to us. During the intermission, I decided to go and look at this frame from which the light seemed to have come. As I turned it around, I was surprised to discover the picture of an extraordinary face.

I did not know what it meant, but I felt that the light I saw during my meditation had emanated from it. At the end of the session, I could not help telling this story to the leader of the class. To my amazement, she said that it was a photograph of her spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy in what she called his transcendental consciousness ⎯ streaming light even from the back of the frame!

Light, more light, abundant light,
Infinite light
We need every day
To illumine our ignorance-sufferings.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 188, Agni Press, 1993

Constant Growth and Progress

Don't expect

One day I was having a really difficult time. It had something to do with some other disciples. When I was driving Guru somewhere, I told him about the problem. Guru just pointed to my dashboard, which had his New Year's Message taped on it:

Don't expect, don't expect.
Just give, give and give
If you want to really survive.

Sri Chinmoy 1

That was Guru's answer to my problems that day.

• 1. Sri Chinmoy, New Year's Messages from Sri Chinmoy, 1966-1994, Agni Press, 1994

the life-saving Divine Force

“Will everyone know I am the miracle?”

My father’s illness was unknown to me in the very beginning, as I was in New York with Sri Chinmoy and my father was back home in Australia I remember one evening Sri Chinmoy suddenly said to me, “How is your father?” I said I thought he was fine, but I was so surprised Sri Chinmoy was asking me.

It was May 1999 when Sri Chinmoy’s miracles with my father began. I called my father in Australia to see how he was, and he told me he was not feeling so good and had fainted in the shower. Now I realised why Sri Chinmoy was asking me how my father was. My brother Kishore and I felt that Sri Chinmoy had saved my father’s life, as he had probably had a heart attack.

Two months later came Sri Chinmoy’s second miracle. My father was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had to have surgery immediately. After the operation, he was taken to intensive care. During the night, my father was suddenly having serious problems Doctors and nurses were anxiously attaching wires and equipment to him. He said later he felt he was in the middle of an American TV drama hospital series. He did not know he was having another heart attack.

My mother and Kishore were informed, and Kishore called me from Australia with such concern I had to get a message to Sri Chinmoy immediately, but Sri Chinmoy was in the middle of a Peace Concert and I did not want to interrupt him. Minutes, then hours, went by. Finally, Sri Chinmoy was given the message when he went home. Sri Chinmoy read the note and immediately started meditating on my father’s soul. Sri Chinmoy told me later it was not a matter of hours or minutes but seconds before my father would have left the body. My father was extremely receptive to Sri Chinmoy’s force and he recovered from the heart attack. This was Sri Chinmoy’s third miracle.

Treasured friendships

Guru's first meeting with Mother Teresa

We were told Mother Teresa was staying at a church in Rome, very close to the Coliseum. It was near a church but it was a convent. It was so simple. There was no running water or heat, and the nuns lived with such simplicity. Guru was so excited and so delighted.

When Guru got there, Kailash was driving, and I got to be in the car with Guru. There were about 50 disciples who were already there waiting. They wanted us all to gather at the back entrance of the convent. It was quite beautiful. There were beautiful trees and a view of Rome.