Stories by Sri Chinmoy's students and friends

Sweet moments with our Guru

Lunch with Guru

The first time I saw Guru in person was when I became a disciple in San Francisco, but the very first time I got to see him quite closely was in 1975. I was a medical student, learning to become a doctor. I was also doing research, and my advisor paid for me to go to a conference in Iceland which Guru was also attending. This was a conference on what was called “transpersonal psychology” and Guru had been invited to offer the opening meditation for the hundreds of participants.

It was a very small conference, and at lunchtime we all went to eat. Guru was there, and I happened to be sitting right across from him. I was so overwhelmed I felt as though I almost couldn’t breathe. My heart was full of joy and awe. Whenever you were close to Guru, his physical presence was so incredible, along with the spiritual aspect of being with your Master. He had so much life energy you could feel it emanating from him.

There was a cuckoo clock in the lunchroom, which would say “Cuckoo!” for the number of hours on the clock. We were eating at 12:00 noon, so the cuckoo clock went off twelve times while we sat there. I was amazed because instead of saying “Cuckoo!” the clock seemed to be saying “Guru!” twelve times. I was absolutely stunned.

I realized later that the clock was probably saying “Cuckoo,” but Guru’s presence was so strong that I heard the clock say “Guru” instead. No matter what it actually said, being so close to Guru for the very first time that day was a hugely significant experience for me as a young disciple. I treasure those moments to this day.

We came into the world,
Not only to eat material food,
But also to feed our heart
With our aspiration-meal.

Sri Chinmoy1

• 1. My Christmas-New Year-Vacation-Aspiration-Prayers, Part 50

Everyday Miracles on Sri Chinmoy's Path

The Year of Endless Surprises

In early 1998 Guru completed what was then his most prodigious poetic work—the 270 volumes of his monumental Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants—and so concluded an epic venture spanning more than fourteen years. It was another of those relentlessly sustained and patient undertakings which together coursed like a braided river through Guru’s life, those multiple strands of inspiration, of paintings and soul-birds, literature and music and wonderfully original things.

One evening we were with Guru shortly after the last poem in this series had been written. We asked Guru for suggestions for how his New Zealand disciples could celebrate the culmination of this vast poetic work.

Guru rose and went through a doorway into an adjoining room for two or three minutes, then came back with a series of ideas that quite astonished us. It was as though he had also stepped through an unseen portal into another world where the future, the unimagined, the possible, lay awaiting its manifestation—and gathered from there a few trinkets to bring back. The first of these? That we shake 27,000 people’s hands, giving each of these people a card of poems and a sweet!

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Dynamic Spirituality

'Will I be able to lift it?'

Bishwas played an instrumental role in designing and building many of the apparatus that Sri Chinmoy used for his weightlifting feats.

Guru periodically performed weightlifting exhibitions in which he would perform one enormous and creative lifting feat after another. He announced in the fall of 2004 that he would like to have another such exhibition. He wanted ideas for new lifting machines. That was when we built his “shrugging” machine and one or two other new ones like the leg press machine.

I had the idea that Guru could lift his own cute little blue smart car, but from overhead rather than from underneath. I told Guru that this was definitely a more difficult way of lifting the car, but that as long as the car wasn’t over 2,000 pounds, I thought he would be able to lift it. Guru liked the idea, and immediately called Prataya to ask what the weight was because she had bought the car for him. It turned out that the weight was 1,971 pounds.

So Guru asked us to start building a machine to lift the car right away. But he also kept asking, “Will I be able to lift it?”

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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!

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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

Every time I look at the picture, it says: ‘I love you!

Before Dodula became a disciple of Sri Chinmoy, she was Sister Elda, a Catholic nun. When she started meditating according to Sri Chinmoy's teachings, she was working at a school for children with learning and behavior problems, running the therapy station for the most troubled children.

With the meditation practice everything became more meaningful, deeper, vaster. I was able to understand Christ’s message better than before and I could feel the essence. And I got so much strength and joy.

I did not say anything about my meditation practice but these sensitive children immediately felt something in me. They behaved in a different manner – even the most difficult child. Not only children felt the peaceful help. Many friends, the President, the Director, the Principal of the school, teachers and other staff came to me for consolation and advice.

John was only seven years old when he came to the children’s home. When he had to go to a public school, he disturbed the whole class. Finally he was sent for special education to us. His mother, who was about six feet tall, told me it was like hell at home. John treated her worse than a dog. He ordered her about and did not obey her and his father. In the beginning he tried the same behavior with us and he was not able to follow the teacher’s instruction. That was why he needed special therapy and was sent to me.

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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.

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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.

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