About three years ago, on a warm summer’s day, I read my Master’s immortal book Obedience or Oneness three times. I really feel that book is immortal, and it speaks to me on a deep level. Guru told us many times that we should study his writings, and he insisted that we mark the sections and phrases that speak most powerfully to us. Around that time, three years ago, I was thumbing through the book, and I realised I had underlined each and every single word! What’s the point of underlining a book if you’re going to underline everything? It defeats the purpose. But then I realised that the ink that I put in that book comes from me, so it is my ink that merges with the printed words, so there is something of my own consciousness in that book.
Anyway, on that summer’s day, I read the book three times, and it took me four and a half hours. That night I had a significant dream. In my dream, I was participating in a walk-past at the end of a public meditation, and the leaves on the trees told me it was mid-autumn. It was cool. Behind me was a seeker, we shall call him “Marshall” that I met at a local college. Years ago, I gave him a copy of Beyond Within. Anyway, Marshall was directly behind me, meditating very seriously, with folded hands. When it was my turn to stand in front of Guru and take prasad, Guru acknowledged me with a little smile and a half-wave. But when Marshall stood in front of Guru, Guru stopped the prasad line and embraced him, shedding tears of joy. He put a flower garland around Marshall’s neck, blessed him, and gave him a spiritual name on the spot!
In the next scene in the dream, Marshall and I were on a train, heading back to the airport. He showed me the paper on which Guru had written his spiritual name, and I saw it had something to do with Krishna. He told me he comes every year in the autumn, during the public functions. In my dream, many young people, college students, come every Fall to see the Master, and Marshall was one of those who made the annual pilgrimage.
I’ve thought about this dream often in the years since. Why did Guru lavish such love and affection on this boy, but barely acknowledged me at all?
Maybe one possible interpretation is that I had my time with Guru, and now Guru is focusing on the next generation of seekers. I had my Master on the physical plane, and now Guru is drawing people towards him on the inner plane. These people will blossom into real, conscious seekers in the course of time. I think Guru said the best way to bring people to his path is just to meditate, meditate, meditate. Meditate long hours every day. People will feel something in us, and they will want to have that thing for themselves, that poise, that joy. We can deepen our spirituality, and this will attract the real seekers, the ones who need inner light.
I find that when I read Guru’s books for a few hours a day, I do get these kinds of inner experiences. Guru said to at least look at the covers of his books if we can’t be bothered to read them!
“[…] the best way to bring people to his path is just to meditate, meditate, meditate. Meditate long hours every day. ”
I would love to read more about this. Could one find it in one of Sri Chinmoys’s writings?
I heard from multiple people that Guru did say that our own aspiration, our own meditation, is what will draw people to the path. If we can really identify with humanity’s hunger in our meditation, and really feel that there are souls crying for the light that Guru can give them, then this is the best way to attract people to his path. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact quote.
But I did find this poem from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants:
“Achieve something great outwardly.
Many on earth will admire you
And even adore you
For what you have done.
Achieve something good inwardly.
Countless people will get
A tremendous inner uplift
From your very presence on earth.”
(Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 19, Agni Press, 1983)
Of course, meditation is one hand, and dedication is the other. In the book I mentioned “Obedience or Oneness”, Guru does mention that dedication is as important as aspiration:
“Since you are with us, please jump into the sea of reality, the reality that we are trying to identify with. We have had unfortunate experiences with some people. Aspiration they accept, but manifestation they won’t accept. Only one or two of these people are still with us and they are not safe in our boat. Needless to say, if they don’t accept our path, how can I be satisfied with them? If you are not satisfied with me, then no matter how hard I try, I am not going to be satisfied with you either. I am pulling you or you are pulling me. These people suffer and they make us suffer. We want to see them happy. We are happy with our path, but if we see someone who is unhappy, then we feel miserable.
“If you want to remain with us, I wish you to accept our path of manifestation as well as you have accepted our path of aspiration. They are inseparable; they are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin.”
Many of the most powerful meditation experiences I have had occurred when I was throwing myself into manifestation activities- like working at The Oneness-Fountain-Heart Restaurant, running across America on the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home-Peace-Run, or reciting hundreds of poems at a time at our Impossibility-Challenger games. Meditation and manifestation have to go together. But I find I am a much more effective manifester and distributor of Guru’s divinity when I tend to my own aspiration-life. Reading Guru’s books, especially, has been essential to my own spiritual awakening.