Stories by Sri Chinmoy's students and friends
You have a multitude of questions,
But there is only one answer:
The road is right in front of you,
And the guide is waiting for you.
We, Sri Chinmoy's students, are grateful for the opportunity to share some of our most precious experiences of Sri Chinmoy with you. Like many-faceted gems, these stories reveal the powerful guidance, sweetly intimate moments, and deep inner connection that the students of a true spiritual Master can experience.
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!
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Guru was going through New Zealand on his way to Australia. We all went out to the airport knowing Guru was there, because we could see into the transit lounge. We looked over a high wall and we could see Guru and the disciples. One of the disciples saw us and told Guru that we were all there in the lounge.
Guru walked out through the way that people are meant to walk in. He walked out that way past the customs and the immigration, as though he was completely invisible. We were all completely amazed. Guru gathered us around and he gave out prasad to everybody. He said to us, “Where there is heart, always there is a way.”
Then he walked straight back in again with no passport and no documents, as though he was completely invisible. It was most extraordinary.
The power of the heart
Is unlimited
In every sense.Sri Chinmoy 1
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.
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In 1985, I became the first student of Sri Chinmoy to swim the English Channel. It was a very, very special experience. As I was told later, Guru was sitting at home, meditating for most of the time on my swim, always trying to get information on how I was doing.
I was blessed with an extremely easy swim. When I stepped into the Channel water at Shakespeare Beach at 7 a.m., I was full of confidence that I would make it. After six hours into the swim, when I could see both coasts, I had the firm conviction that on the inner plane, it was already done—it just had to be executed outwardly. I felt carried by a wave of inner joy and bliss most of the time.
After ten hours, the cross-current set in and it was slowly getting dark. Previously I could not imagine swimming in the dark. I would never have dared to get into pitchblack, unknown water at night. Now, with the gradual transition into night, I felt extremely comfortable. I enjoyed the star-strewn sky above me each time I took a breath. And when I looked down into the black water—where earlier I had enjoyed watching the dance of the rays of sunlight—I started to see bright light once again. In the midst of the darkness, Guru's face - his transcendental photograph that we use in our meditations - appeared.
Because of the unpredictable, strong cross-current, I had to swim for five hours more, but it did not matter to me. For those hours, I was swimming into the light of the Transcendental, into Guru's infinite consciousness of light and delight, which was right in front of me like an ever-transcending goal.
I was blessed to have quite a bit of private time with Guru on various occasions. One time I approached him having allowed myself to be immersed by a sense of failure. I told him that I was feeling failure all around me.
He said, “It is not like that. You have to think of yourself as the lump of clay that the potter has. When the potter is working on the lump of clay, you cannot say that it is very beautiful. But he is working on it and it becomes something beautiful.”
Another example Guru used was the farmer who works in the field. He spreads fertilizer, and you cannot say that that is very beautiful. But eventually the farmer grows a bumper crop of food. So it was not that I was a failure, Guru explained to me―it was simply that I was not finished yet. I was witnessing myself in the process of being perfected.
Then Guru added, “If all else fails you and none of that works, just remember that you belong to me. You belong to me.”
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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!
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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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