I would like to become one of your problems

Clarence Clemons was a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, one of the most popular rock bands of all time. He was incredibly gentle and sweet, even though he was big, physically, very big. They called him the Big Man.

Clarence was introduced to meditation and to Sri Chinmoy by Grammy award-winning producer Narada Michael Walden, at a time in his life when, by his own accounts, Clarence was just drifting with no clear purpose.

Here’s how he described his first meditation experience:  “I looked at myself in the mirror and couldn’t believe what I saw. I was so clear. I was like brand-new, even my eyes were like diamonds. I started to laugh and couldn’t stop because I felt so good. I had found something. I had found peace, and that makes me a really different person.”

That day, Mokshagun wrote a note to be given to Guru. The note said, “Guru, I know you have many problems, but I would like to become one of your problems.” That note was actually Mokshagun asking to become a disciple.

Sri Chinmoy gladly accepted him as a student and embraced him as part of his spiritual family. He gave the “Big Man” the spiritual name Mokshagun, which means “Lord’s All-illuminating Liberation-Fire.” in Sri Chinmoy's native Bengali language.

In his book, Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales, Mokshagun said that the name gave him his sense of purpose. Sri Chinmoy told him he was on earth to bring joy and light to the world and to destroy ignorance.

After Mokshagun became a disciple, before each concert, he would meditate on Guru. He always kept a picture of Sri Chinmoy on his saxophone stand onstage and in ‘The Temple of Soul’, his private sanctuary that he took on the road with him. Once, the band had a concert near New York at a big stadium, and Mokshagun invited two of us to the concert. We went backstage before the concert, and Mokshagun had a big shrine in his dressing room. and we meditated with him. There were, I think, a hundred thousand people at this concert; it was quite amazing to see a musician like that who is so famous be so devoted to Guru.

Mokshagun had a remarkable inner experience with Sri Chinmoy while going under anesthesia for knee surgery in 2008, after Sri Chinmoy passed away. Mokshagun reported, “Guru appeared to me and said, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ We walked together and spoke of many things.” This visitation gave him great comfort.

Devotion

Devotion:
What is it?
Devotion is the combination
Of Love’s intensity
And Surrender’s divinity.
A man of devotion
Is God’s conscious and constant pride
In His Reality-sky
And Infinity-sea.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. The Wings of Light, part 2, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1974