Sometimes people ask me what it was like to meditate with Sri Chinmoy when he was in the physical, and if it was similar to the kinds of experiences I get now from the Transcendental. I guess the main difference is how quickly I get inner experiences. When Sri Chinmoy was in the physical, I didn’t really have to do anything to get inner experiences. I just had to show up. We meditated either at PS 86, the public elementary school in Queens where we used to hold all of our meetings in the winter, or to our dedicated meditative “Aspiration-Ground”. I just sat down, and Sri Chinmoy would enter into meditation, and he would bring light down, tangible and palpable divine Light. This is not jargon.
These days, at our Chicago Centre meetings, I have to sit in front of Sri Chinmoy’s Transcendental photograph, taken when he was in his absolutely highest Consciousness, and I have to concentrate for two or three minutes. Then, suddenly, the photograph will “awaken”, and it will start functioning, and it feels like a living entity. Life floods into the photograph, and the picture begins emitting a certain quality I struggle to name. But I think the best word for it is “Poise”. It awakens, and I feel poise coming from the picture. It’s like a warrior who has hundreds of weapons to choose from, but poise means rather than just grabbing whatever implement is closest, he examines the situation calmly and then makes a decision. So, when the picture wakes up at the Centre, I feel this poise, equipoise, almost a kind of tension- but not a worried tension but more like a live wire, like a low electrical current, but that current is fully conscious and poised. It is a Warrior-consciousness, but it is not belligerent- it is simply able to face any situation. Then, the next thing I feel is Light. The picture, after demonstrating absolute poise, begins shedding light. In my case, I usually see just pure white light, just white. After Guru’s Mahasamadhi, the light was blinding, brilliant. These days the light maybe isn’t so overt, but it is a calm, gentle, all-pervading white light. I know that white is the color of the Divine Mother, the color of purity, of divinity. I guess the Transcendental gives to each aspirant what they need. In my case it gives me poise and also the presence and love of the Divine Mother.
When Guru was on earth, I had many visions and experiences when I meditated with him. I don’t get those so often from the Transcendental. Rather, as I said, I just get pure white Light. But that white Light, along with that absolute poise that I always feel in the beginning, may be all that I need. Another thing I want to say is that it’s possible the meditations I have with the Transcendental are, in a certain sense, more important than the meditations I had with the Master in the physical. This is because I have to dig a little deeper to get these experiences. I have to do a little work, and I have to bring some devotion and receptivity. And so I feel that the Master is always very pleased with me when I go to the meditation, when I cherish and worship his Transcendental Photograph, when I am able to absorb his poise and light. I help to awaken the Transcendental just through my own devotion and worship that I express towards it, and my aspiration also plays a role in bringing these divine qualities down.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about becoming an on the road (OTR) truck driver and handling cross-country loads. This would involve contracting to a company for my CDL schooling, and becoming more or less their indentured server for at least a year, or maybe two. During this time I would be unable to participate in the Centre in any meaningful way. I approached my personal Transcendental in my room and I asked it if it liked the idea.
I don’t usually talk to the Transcendental. I talk to Guru in my heart, I chant his poems, I do my silent meditation. But I don’t usually use the Transcendental as a tool to distinguish courses of action. But this time I did. I got down on my knees and I prayed for half an hour to the Transcendental, and I begged it for its sanction for my becoming a truck driver.
I finished praying and I looked at the Transcendental, and I asked, “May I?”
And the Transcendental said it was very concerned for my physical safety.
I never get messages, or almost never. But this was a real message.
I looked at it, and the Transcendental looked so worried, so unhappy and so concerned. The expression on the picture had totally changed from its usual posture of serenity and detachment. It was very worried. It didn’t like the idea at all. But then, as I looked at the Photograph, I got another message: “It is what it is.”
If I can interpret the experience, and these are my thoughts, and not from Guru’s writings:
The Transcendental has an outer Consciousness, and also an inner Consciousness.
The outer Transcendental Consciousness is Sri Chinmoy my human Guru, full of concern, full of love, and always approachable.
The inner Transcendental Consciousness is Sri Chinmoy the Supreme, God, the absolute Mystery, the Unfathomable, the One Without A Second.
My human Guru is telling me not to do this. But my Guru as God is saying, “Whatever it is, it is. Whatever will be, will be.”
If I don’t want to listen to Guru, then I can become a truck driver and have whatever experience is there. My Guru the man wants what’s best for me, and cares for me sleeplessly. My Guru the God knows what was, what is, and what will be, and has accepted everything. The God in Guru does not advise, it just watches and sees.
It is what it is. I can obey or disobey the message of my human Guru. But the consequences either way I own.
Of course, I will follow the advice of my Guru. The vibration of the Transcendental towards my idea was negative in the extreme. No truck driving for me.
Then the Transcendental said something very interesting. It said just one word: spiral.
Spiral.
Remember Guru’s answer to the question posed by one of his beloved Guards:
Question: My spiritual life is like a roller coaster. I go up and then I go all the way down. When will that end? When will I only go up?
Sri Chinmoy: “If it ends, then there will be no fun! [laughter] You are saying ‘roller coaster’, but you have to use a different term: ‘spiral’.”
I love the word spiral. I think it is a mantra.
Spiral. Spiral. Spiral.
What was the Transcendental telling me by saying the word “spiral”?
I think it’s telling me that there are no absolute answers in the spiritual life. No answer, no utterance by any spiritual Master, no matter how high, can be the final word.
Spiral.
The Transcendental is telling me not to become a truck driver. But by saying the word “spiral”, it is telling me that my efforts in becoming one- calling different trucking companies, beginning a bus driving CDL before aborting it, calling friends and relatives who’ve driven on the road- is not wasted. If I’m not to become a truck driver now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t do it later, at some other time. Maybe it will be five years from now. Maybe it will be in another life. I don’t know. But the important thing is to be one with God’s Will, with Guru’s Will, however this is expressed. It is his game. If today he says that the fruits on a particular tree are green, then they are green. If tomorrow he says they are red, I will see them as red. When he asks us to say our daily prayers, our obedience mantras, our daily reading and chanting, he’s asking us to see reality through his eyes.
Guru’s Will is infinite and supple, like water, yielding, accepting, encompassing. Along with our constant cry for oneness with the Master, with God, we also must be supremely flexible. Spiral.
Interestingly, for days and days after I asked the Transcendental for help and advice, I felt it was just blessing me, lavishly and unconditionally blessing me. I felt it was pouring its blessings into me because I consulted it, I used it as a tool to discriminate a course of action. Guru’s Transcendental proved to me that it is a practical resource.
When Guru gave me my name, and pressed the envelope to my head, he said, “Very happy, very happy.” And I was amazed because I have so many problems, I make so many mistakes. But by saying “very happy”, he’s asking me to see myself the way he sees me. It is a lifelong challenge. But if I want to become one with his way of moving and operating, and become one with the spiral, then I must try.
Let us end with this poem:
“True, you have felt something divine
Inside your Master
At least for a fleeting second.
But to his extreme sorrow
You have not felt anything divine
Inside yourself.
Before you pass
Behind the curtain of Eternity,
Your Master wants you to feel
Something divine
Inside your own heart,
Even for a fleeting second.”
(Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 15, Agni Press, 1983)
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.