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.
At the store, we had a red phone for Guru to call if he was looking for Ashrita. If it rang five times, then I was supposed to pick up the phone.
So this particular day, I told Guru I did not know where Ashrita was. And then Guru said, “But I know where you are. You are inside my heart. You are inside every heartbeat of mine.”
The Master’s heart
Is made of affection.Sri Chinmoy 1
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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Guru always wanted to play at the Sydney Opera House. For Guru, there was something very magical about that building. Guru liked the building very, very much. Guru said whenever he hears the name Sydney, he thinks of the Opera House. We knew that Guru would love to play the organ, so we got permission somehow, I don't know how. It was a miracle that we got permission for Guru to play the organ.
There were about maybe one hundred disciples. It was not for the public. It was only for some disciples. Also, it was being recorded by the national radio. The gentleman who would show Guru the organ was a very famous organ player himself. It was arranged that he would also interview Guru for the radio program. Guru was very excited about playing this organ. It is the largest mechanical action organ in the world. It has ten thousand pipes.
There were many forces coming together. There was the building itself that Guru loved so much, then there was the organ, which was so special, and the occasion. Guru flew especially to Sydney from Melbourne just to play this organ.
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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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After three months of coming to the Centre, I decided I would go to New York to meet Guru and see if I was meant to be following his path. The evening I arrived, I went to PS 86, the public school where Guru was holding a public meditation that night.
At the end of the evening, I stood in the corridor and Guru walked past me. When he walked past me, he stopped and gave me this very, very beautiful smile. When he looked at me, I knew he saw everything about me. He looked at my spiritual heart and his eyes kind of flickered very momentarily, very briefly, when he looked at my spiritual heart. He did something occultly or psychically, because I felt this, like a little warm explosion in my heart centre. All my worldly troubles all fell away, and I suddenly felt immensely happy.
That feeling of being unburdened by my mind and free of all my troubles stayed with me for about three or four days. That was the very first time that I really understood that I had a soul, that I am the soul. That was the beginning of my journey.
The Sunshine-Smile
Of my Lord’s Heart
Feeds my heart’s prayer-cry
Before I start my daily spiritual journey.Sri Chinmoy 1
I have always liked music, but, alas! I could not sing. I was told to just move my lips at my junior high graduation choral performance, and I followed that advice ever after. After I became Sri Chinmoy’s full-time disciple, I discovered that music was very important on his spiritual path. Sri Chinmoy himself was an excellent singer, and composed thousands of spiritual songs. They were really beautiful, and I loved to listen to them, and, very gradually, I tried to learn a few. My success was limited.
But on Father’s Day, in the year 2002, I was attending a meditation meeting with Sri Chinmoy and about 200 of his students, and all of a sudden, Sri Chinmoy spoke to me over his microphone.
He said, “Bhadra, you're not in a singing group?”
I said, “No, Guru.”
Sri Chinmoy said, “Why not?”
I said, “I’m just learning to sing.”
Sri Chinmoy said, “You’re a scientist. Scientists can’t sing? There are so many singing groups; you should be in one of them.”
I thought to myself, “Yes, Guru, but what singing group would have me?”
Into the mike, Sri Chinmoy said, “You should be in Chandika’s group.”
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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