In this new year, I’ve decided to be true to myself.
Oh, no! All the self-help books I’ve read tell me I need concrete measurable goals. “Being true to myself” is totally abstract!
Okay.
This year, I’m going to be myself.
The other night I dreamt I was at one of our meditation gatherings in New York, our bi-annual Celebrations. Usually I stay in the shared visitor’s housing, and in my dream I had woken up late for the morning function, and was by myself in the apartment. The space was sparsely decorated, almost abandoned-looking, but I saw the suitcases and sleeping bags of all the other disciples.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the function in time, so I just sang the Invocation. I sang it with utmost soulfulness, trying to convey the meaning of each word through my voice.
Often I sing the Invocation by rote. But, in my dream, I sang it slowly and with feeling.
I like it when I can aspire in my dreams. Sometimes I’ll dream that I go up to random people in department stores and ask them if they want to hear a poem. And before they can answer, I’ll just start reciting some of my favorite poems. I do this in real life, too!
I was in the locker room of the YMCA recently, and struck up a conversation with a heavily tattooed younger man named Brian. He told me he worked as a psychotherapist. I usually joke with people about their jobs, and I have lots of psychotherapy jokes stored up (think Woody Allen humor). But I didn’t tell him any of these jokes. I told him that I have known what despair feels like.
I told him that after I graduated high school, I fell into a serious depression because I had not gotten into the college of my choice, namely Swarthmore. I stopped eating, I stopped sleeping. I just stayed in my room all day and all night. This went on and on.
I had a lot of nightmares. I dreamt I was running through a vast underground tunnel network, but I could hear two pieces of metal being stuck together somewhere behind me, in token of pursuit. I couldn’t escape. I dreamt repeatedly of hanging myself in the school stairwell with my uncle’s Harley-Davidson chain wallet.
Then, I had a different kind of dream. In my dream I was in the living room of someone’s house that I did not know. The carpet was pure white, and light streamed through the big windows. The room was empty except for a big CD player in the middle of the rug. I approached it, and a CD popped out, hovered in the air before me, and I saw an old, old Black man sitting on the CD. He started singing a song to me:
“Turn the page!
Turn the page!
Turn the page!
And I started singing with him:
“Turn the page!
Turn the page!
Turn the page!”
And we started singing and dancing around the room in unfathomable ecstasy, like nothing I had ever felt before.
When I woke up, I felt like I was levitating, and I felt this deep sense of calm and fulfilment. I knew I was going to be OK.
Then I told him about how one day my friend Sebastian invited me over to his house to listen to music. He played me some guitar music by John Mclaughlin (Mahavishnu) and Carlos Santana (Devadip). I found the music soothing. We had a long discussion, and at the end of the night my friend, Sebastian, gave me a copy of Beyond Within and told me this man, Sri Chinmoy, was Mclaughlin and Santana’s Guru, or spiritual teacher.
I turned the book over to the back cover, and I saw Sri Chinmoy had the same face as the Black man I had seen in my dream!
Then, when I went home, I opened the book to a random page and I found the following poem:
“I fear to speak, I fear to speak-
My tongue is killed, my heart is weak.
I fear to think, I fear to think-
My mind is wild and apt to sink.
I fear to see, I fear to see-
I eat the fruits of ignorance-tree.
I fear to love, I fear to love-
A train of doubts around, above.
I fear to be, I fear to be-
Long dead my life of faith in me.”
I saw that Chris was looking at me very intently, and I said to him that that poem encapsulated exactly what I was feeling. And I told him that I knew that Sri Chinmoy was reaching out to me through the dream world, through the psychic world, and through the poetry world and he was telling me that I was meant to follow him. And two years later I met Sri Chinmoy at the Philadelphia Peace Concert, on my twenty-first birthday, and I got direct confirmation on the physical plane of what I already known.
Chris told me that it was so strange that everything aligned: the dream, the book, the poem, and he said that it is not a coincidence, but that there was a Higher Power involved. He was so moved! He said that I have a story to tell, and that it gave him chills, and he asked for the name of the book, and he pulled Beyond Within up on Amazon, and ordered it.
I know I have told this story many times, on this forum, and also to many people. But, in a sense, it is the only story I have to tell: how I found my Guru, how I went from deepest darkness to Light. I tell this story because nothing else really matters. And I think in this New Year, which will begin my 50th year, I want to make an effort to be as spiritual as possible. In 2025, only God matters, only the Supreme matters, only Guru matters. Nothing else is relevant.
Saw a teacher today sewing clothes and cushions for the kids. I was moved to see this, I really was.
Chicago Public School teachers are heroes, especially the ones who work in the “alternative” schools, i.e. prisons. I like going to the Cook County Jail actually. Often fights will break out on the tiers, and all the classes will be canceled for the day, so I’ll just sit at a desk in the prison teacher’s lounge and watch YouTube videos.
Recently I’ve been watching Sister Wendy’s “American Collection” art history videos that she made for PBS. She was a cloistered nun from South Africa who obtained permission to leave her trailer (she was an anchoress) and give lectures on art. Her videos are so fascinating and so deep. She mentioned that while she was cloistered, she would write letters to people who she knew were art lovers and she would ask them to send her postcards and photographs from all the museums they visited. As a nun, she could not travel. But she would spend many of her silent hours just meditating on the postcards of paintings from all over the world. I don’t know how many years she lived as a solitary nun- I think it was between twenty and thirty years. One day she received an inner call to share her love of art, enriched by decades of silent reflection on these reproductions of masterpieces, with the wider public. I love her tour of the Chicago Art Institute. I think it’s one of her best presentations. She looks so out of place in her flowing black robes, walking down the crowded streets of the Magnificent Mile and sweeping down the halls of the Institute. And yet, she still somehow fits right in. Chicago is a place for pilgrims of all kinds. This has been my experience.
I recommend “YouTubing” ‘Sister Wendy’ and ‘Art Institute of Chicago’ to find this particular video. It’s worth your time, absolutely.
I listened to Haydn’s symphony number 58 today. So inspiring! It is beautiful, subtle, mystical, rich, deep. Haydn wrote 104 symphonies, and all of them have reserves of imagination and poetry that dazzle me. The string quartet and the symphony both existed before Haydn, but Haydn gets great credit into evolving them into the proving grounds for compositional genius.
About six months ago, I met a journalist by a bus stop in the Edgewater neighborhood. We spoke for about ten minutes. I recited some of Guru’s poetry, and also some of my own poetry. Last week he contacted me. His supervisor asked him to write a piece on local Chicago poets. So we sat down for a three hour interview, and he asked me questions about every aspect of my writing process. I also told him all about Sri Chinmoy’s poetry, and how essential my Guru’s poetry has been to my own creativity. I recited about twenty or thirty of Guru’s poems and I also gave him copies of my own work. I also had my typed manuscript of “From the Source, To the Source”, which is Guru’s book that I am currently memorizing. He was astounded by Guru’s poetry. I recited some of those poems also from memory while he followed along on the sheet. He took out his phone and he photographed every page so he could study them himself!
He asked me how I found Sri Chinmoy and I told him everything. I was talking and talking about being a seeker and looking for a Master, and my first impressions of Guru, and the dreams I had of Guru, and how Guru took away my breathing problem, and the visions Guru gave me, and the man just listened with utmost soulful attention. He became like the Buddhist void, and I felt I was really talking to the vast omniscient vacancy within myself.
We also went over the poems I had printed out and brought, and he went over my poems with me line by line- repeating some of the phrases many times like mantras. I could tell he was deeply impressed! He asked me what my writing process was like and I told him that it takes me months and months of drafting to get a poem, but the final form, the final utterance will often come to me in a flash and I’ll write furiously. Then I’ll take that final burst of inspiration and refine it until I’m satisfied with each word. But to enter into that place of revelation takes me a few months of work. He asked me if I ever get stuck, look through my countless pages of notes, and discover a jewel just waiting for me in the middle of a notebook, and I told him that YES, this has happened to me several times- I’ll be drafting and writing, but the poem was already written a hundred pages back and I didn’t know!
I told him that my poems ultimately are a function of Grace, God’s Grace or my Master’s Grace. I often pray over a poem if I get stuck and can’t finish it. After ten minutes of soulful prayer, the lines will begin to flow again, if not that very day, then very soon after. When it comes to my best poems, I don’t feel like I’ve written any of them. I was just a channel.
At the end of our conversation he told me that he had been having a pretty bad day, but that our marathon conversation had raised his spirits immeasurably. I told him I was grateful to him as well for giving me the opportunity to rise into a much better consciousness.
We shook hands and so concluded my first literary interview!
I’ll post a link to the article once it comes out…
The other night I had an interesting dream. I actually have a large record collection, and in my dream I put on a record I have never listened to before. It was of a young man singing in a high falsetto, with utmost soulful feeling:
“I’ve been sailing a long, long way,
I’ve been traveling a long, long way,
I’ve been on a journey a long, long way.”
His voice was so lyrical and so haunting! I was shedding tears, both in my dream and when I woke up from it.
I guess my soul is the reality in me that possesses a singular longing for deeper things. If I could tap into that longing, I would be a superlative seeker. If I could feel the longing of my soul permanently, I would far surpass my present achievements.
It’s interesting how often Beethoven’s music cries, especially in his late string quartets. When I listen to the last movement of opus 131 in C-sharp minor, his fourteenth and penultimate string quartet, in this section there is tremendous dynamism and determination. But then the brio and gusto gives way to this quiet yearning, this tearful plea for God’s Compassion.
When I think of Michelangelo’s David, it is so splendid and so powerful. But then look at his last work, the Rondanini Pieta. Once again, the power surrenders to pathos. You cannot look seriously at this statue and not be moved. It’s interesting how both Jesus and Mary are looking down. One critic, and I am sorry I do not remember the scholar’s name, said that it suggests Christ the Divine and his mother the Divine, looking down from a higher plane and sympathizing with Christ the poor, broken man.
I sometimes mention music that moves me, and, on my recommendation, people go and listen to my musical choices. And often they are not impressed! The music that speaks to me on a psychic level does not necessarily speak in the same way to everyone. But this goes both ways. We all have our tastes in art. Even at the highest level, we see that Sri Aurobindo and Sri Chinmoy, two supremely God-realised souls, had different aesthetic tastes. Is it fair for me to say that Sri Aurobindo was interested in English literature and English poetry in a way that Guru was not? Or that Guru loved Tagore’s Bengali poetry more than Sri Aurobindo did? Even as Guru’s disciple, I see that my own artistic tastes don’t always align with my Master’s. Guru loves art songs. I prefer chamber music. Neither is superior. It’s just a different rasa (taste).
I encountered a song recently that touched me deeply. It’s called “Superman” by Five For Fighting. I think it is exceptionally beautiful.
The official music video is a celebration of young love, but I think the music goes deeper than that. For one thing, Vladimir Ondrasik’s voice is extremely haunting.
Incidentally, I greatly prefer the original video of the song, which has almost vanished from YouTube, but it’s just Ondrasik with his piano:
“It’s not easy to be me,” he sings throughout the song. And in the hands of a less gifted artist, this would sound either self-pitying or preening. But when he sings it, I think of the miserable suffering that Christ and Krishna went through on earth. The “me” becomes the universal “I” embodied by spiritual Masters. Like the young man in my dream, Ondrasik sings in a high, stirring falsetto.
There’s an echo of an echo in this song of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. At certain points, like the last “It’s not easy to be me,” I feel he’s dealing with the same Christ Consciousness that Bach treated in his music. Also, for some reason, when I hear this song, I think of the striking scene in Bach’s Passion setting where Christ lifts up the cup and says, “Trinket alle daraus” (Drink this, all of you).
Also, for some reason, I can’t help but think of the song Jim Henson, the creator of Sesame Street, gave to Kermit the Frog: “It’s not easy being green.”
Here are the lyrics to Superman by Vladimir Ondrasik, also known by his band’s name “Five For Fighting:”
“I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me
I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane
I’m more than some pretty face beside a train
And it’s not easy to be me
I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
‘Bout a home I’ll never see
It may sound absurd, but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream?
And it’s not easy to be me
Up, up, and away, away from me
Well, it’s all right
You can all sleep sound tonight
I’m not crazy
Or anything
I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
Men weren’t meant to ride
With clouds between their knees
I’m only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
Inside of me
Inside of me
Yeah, inside of me
Inside of me
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
I’m only a man looking for a dream
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
And it’s not easy, ooh, ooh, ooh
It’s not easy to be me”
He said that this song took him just forty-five minutes to write, and it came as of a sudden flash of God-given inspiration. But, he had already been working as a struggling song writer for twenty years at that time, and had never been able to release a single album. “Superman” was approximately his one thousandth song, and that was the one that made him famous overnight. I like artists who are so committed to their art, and who value the process more than fame or money.
The lyric “I’m only a man in a silly red sheet” speaks to me. As I walk a celibate path, I will not be a father. My own physical father vanished from my life many years ago. But I think he did the best he could, and I think of him as “only a man in a funny red sheet”. We all want to be special somehow, and it can be painful when we fail. I think a lot of my poems are addressed to my father, this man I don’t know.
I like the line “Looking for special things inside of me.” This has deep meaning. I think it means, “If you want to be special, look inside, dive into your unexplored depths.”
One of my very favorite of Guru’s answers to a question is this one:
Question: How can I get satisfaction right this minute?
Sri Chinmoy: “Go deep within. Satisfaction is there. That is the simplest answer.”
(From Perfection and Transcendence)
In this song, Ondrasik admits that he bleeds, and he daydreams, and puts on silly red capes (a symbol of lust) and has all of these self-destructive habits “digging for kryptonite on a one-way street.” And yet, he can sing about all these things with such composure and grace. There is divine longing in this song. It’s funny how anyone can be an instrument of God. Everyone prays, either consciously or not. One of my favorite of Guru’s poems from “A Soulful Cry Versus a Fruitful Smile” delves into this very issue:
“A thing I never cared to know:
Who is for God?
The thing I never cared to learn:
To cry for me.
“But I hear an inner voice
Telling me
That all human beings
Consciously or unconsciously,
Directly or indirectly,
Care for God,
And all human beings in their perfect sleep
Cry for me,
Poor me.”
(A Soulful Cry Versus a Fruitful Smile, Agni Press, 1977)
In my many readings of From the Source to the Source I stumbled upon this magnificent poem:
“My feet have wings.
They fly.
My hands have eyes.
They cry.
My thought has God.
It shines.
With God-Delight
It dines.”
I spoke to a brilliant scholar-disciple about this poem. I told her that I thought the first stanza, “My feet have wings. They fly” may be a reference to Apollo or Mercury, the god of winged feet. She said that if Sri Aurobindo had written the poem, then definitely that would be a quite reasonable interpretation. But she said that she doesn’t very many classical references in Guru’s poems. This doesn’t mean there can’t be such references! But she felt that “my feet have wings…they fly” refers to both Guru’s personal running career, and also to the millions of miles Guru has run through his disciples in the Peace Run and the great ultra-races like the 3100.
My own feeling about this line is that it transports us a little beyond the physical realm. Guru said that when he meditates in front of us that he becomes stock still, like a statue. But at the same time, his inner being is covering the length and breadth of the world. Also, Guru mentioned many times that his feet embody infinite compassion for humanity, divine Compassion. So, Guru’s Feet, God’s Feet, are always available. Krishna’s weak spot was his heel- this is where the archer’s arrow entered. So, the Master’s Feet are speedy, but also vulnerable. They are a symbol, the root, of his human incarnation. He chose to take human form, and to have vulnerable human feet: “Poor me”, “It’s not easy being me”.
I read recently in a disciple’s printed diary how Guru was saying he feels his voice has improved greatly over the years. His feels his younger voice was immature, and lacked resonance. I think Guru’s voice was always beautiful. But I think “My feet have wings…they fly” can refer to the youthful energy Guru had when he came to the West, the hope and joy he brought with him. Also, the idea of winged feet implies a new journey, a new adventure. I remember that From the Source, To The Source and A Soulful Cry Versus a Fruitful Smile comprise over one thousand poems, dedicated to his brothers Chitta and Mantu, respectively. So, the excitement in this line may refer to the adventure of composing one thousand rhyming poems in English. To be frank, these two books contain some of my very, very favorite of my Guru’s poem-mantras.
The next stanza reads: “My hands have eyes. They cry.” The great Professor-scholar with whom I consulted told me that only very rarely does she find mention of “hands” in Guru’s poetry. It’s very rare.
Off the top of my head I can recall just a few sublime references to “hands” in Guru’s poetry:
“…destroy the dark hands” (The Dance of Life)
“…a man-made umbrella, a God-made hand” (The Dance of Life)
“…the beautiful eyes and powerful hands of the real friends” (My Lord Reads My Letters)
All of these references are very significant. Guru doesn’t treat with hands lightly. The hands of a spiritual Master represent his mission, his action on earth.
She told me also that eyes in the hand is ancient symbol, found across diverse cultures, in both the Old and the New world. This symbol, the hand with the eye in the palm, reminds me of Guru’s talk about Compassion in The Quintessence of Knowledge-Sun:
“But the aspect that is Heaven-free does not touch the earth-bound consciousness. It deals with human incapacity on a higher level — you can say in a theoretical way, not in a practical way. On this higher level, compassion becomes the observer and not the doer.” (This reminds me of Christ and Mary in the Rondanini Pieta, looking down at the suffering Christ, the man.)
So, maybe this is why the eyes in the hands are weeping. The hands are here on earth, the Master is working to relieve the burden of human suffering. But the Vision is not theoretical, but practical, and suffers from the darkness and misunderstanding of this world. This darkness prevents the Master from manifesting his full divinity on earth, and hinders his mission in every way. This is why the hands weep, the practical hands.
“It’s not easy being me.”
The last stanza reads: “My thought has God, it shines. With God-delight it dines.”
I find it incredible that a thought, a mere thought can have God. But this is not the ordinary thought, from the ordinary earth-bound mind. Guru writes, in his poem, Immortality: “my mind a core of the One’s unmeasured Thoughts.”
This is “Mind” and “Thought” that has completely transcended all human conceptions of those terms.
The Professor then told me about Sri Aurobindo’s aside that never in his life was he able to shake the feeling that language comes from somewhere beyond the mind. This connects to the ancient Indian concept of mantra, inspired utterances that come from above.
In one of my best poems, entitled For the Monarch Butterfly, I wrote about “pensive thoughts of kings” (hence “monarch” butterfly) and I know that line comes from somewhere, but I have never been able to find the author. And I have come to feel, rightly or wrongly, that this line came to me from some inner world, that once or twice in my life I have got poetry lines that come from some source beyond. If I could draw from that source more often I would become a very famous poet. Alas, I don’t have that kind of access. Maybe one day.
“My thought has God, it shines. With God-delight it dines.”
I look at the first stanza and I think of the delicate human feet of the Master, his vulnerable all loving feet. I look at the second stanza, and I see the tears, the bleeding hands, the weeping, the unfulfilled mission and the continuous striving. And here in the last stanza, all fragility has been surmounted in this world of delight.
My thought has God, it shines. With God-delight it dines.
So in spite of all of the miseries and limitations of the earth, the Master, on another level is enjoying the thought of God, the bliss and delight of this luminous thought. I wish I could taste the bliss of this illumining, eternal Thought.
I remember the first blessing I got from my Guru. It was the Fall of 1998, and Sri Chinmoy and his students organized an aid station at the New York City marathon, as they did every year. I was a brand new disciple, and I was excited to help out. I don’t remember much from that year- I just remember handing out lots of cups of water, cheering on runners, and having a friendly discussion with an Australian disciple as to whether or not I should swat at the wasps that kept crowding around the juice station.
Anyway, the woman who directed all of the disciples in giving out refreshments complimented me on my work, and also thanked me for helping out on my birthday (November 1st). The next day one of Guru’s attendants said that this lady had been praising my work to Guru directly and Guru was wondering if I could stay in New York an extra day for a daytime function. When the attendant asked me about my plans I said that of course I’d be happy to stay!
The next afternoon there was a walk-by meditation at our Aspiration Ground/tennis court. The Master sat by his temple, all bundled up. We all walked by him as he meditated. When I passed in front of Guru he didn’t say anything. Usually Guru gave his spiritual children a flower and meditated on them for their birthday. But Guru didn’t do that. He just looked at me, for just a second. But that one second was special. That one second seemed suspended, removed from time. I felt I was a third-person observer, observing both Guru and me. In that detached, “suspended” state, I saw Guru’s face elongate and stretch until it embodied not only Guru’s face, but mine as well. It was Guru extending his own consciousness and personality to embody me. I also felt, as I was looking at Guru’s eyes, that I was peering into a tunnel, but that tunnel was sky-blue, and as I looked into the tunnel I saw that it was leading me to this vast sky-blue expanse, infinity. I also felt, in a more abstract way, Guru’s oneness-identification with me. I intuited that he felt and experienced everything I have ever suffered, and that my suffering now belonged to him.
It was just a second in time. He did not acknowledge me in any outer way. It was just a glance. But over the years I have come to feel it was one of my most significant experiences with Guru. He actually paid me a tremendous compliment by giving me his blessings in silence. He felt I was receptive enough to receive him that way. I hope to remain always receptive.
—-
I went back to prison for my most recent birthday, to teach. As I was putting my belongings through the x-ray scanner, the security guard, a Trinidadian man, looked at me and said “Your spiritual leader is from Pakistan?”
I said, “No, he is from Bangladesh. But, excuse me- how did you know I had a spiritual leader from India?”
He said, “I see it in your aura- he’s in your aura.”
I wondered why he bothers to use the x-ray machine if he has this kind of vision, but then I realised that subtle vision is probably better at detecting auras and x-ray machines are better at finding shanks!
—
I was talking to another teacher after school hours. This was just in a regular high school. He told me he swims often at the local YMCA, and he feels swimming is a meditation all by itself. So I recited the following poem from Transcendence-Perfection:
He swims in the ocean of hope,
He swims in the ocean of failure,
He swims in the ocean of tears.
Something more:
He swims also in the ocean
Of his surrendered will
To his earth-Heaven-life’s
Pilot Supreme.
(typed out from memory, so please check exact words)
Then he repeated, out loud, most soulfully, “Hope, failure, tears, will, pilot, Supreme.”
Then he said each word again: “Hope, failure, tears, will, pilot, Supreme.”
Then he closed his eyes and reflected in silence for a few seconds and said, “I really needed to hear this. Thank you so much.”
It’s interesting how Guru’s poems help me to create a bond with people. I like having that possibility to connect.
—-
One of my friends, Dan, used to come by my register almost every week and ask me for a poem. He was really sad when I lost my job but we already had each other’s contact info so we recently got together and went to a Christmas brass concert at an old Catholic church in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago. The synchronicity of religions is really special, because the church has the feeling and décor of an ancient Hindu temple, a Krishna temple. I think Pierre Tielhard d’Jardin said that “All that rises must converge.” It is a temple that has kept all the old Cathoic reliquaries and altars and statues. It is lavish and simple at the same time, and full of heartfelt prayers. The music was beautiful, performed and sung by local musicians. I can always tell when performers feel and believe in the music. These people did. I felt I was meditating on Guru spontaneously a few times during the performance. I saw myself again as a new seeker, seeing Guru enter PS 86, in his blue dhoti.
Afterwards we were sitting in his apartment, drinking warm Amish milk, and he told me that his friends used to laugh at him when he told them that his Friday night plans were to go to the local supermarket and talk to the cashier!
I remember once I told him the following poem:
O Saviour-Christ,
Please tell me,
What did you mean
By your strongest affirmation:
‘I and my Father are one’?
Tell me in what sense you and your Father are one.
“O dear brother,
Of all people, how is it that You, my wise brother,
Do not understand my simple message?
On earth I am my Father’s Face,
In Heaven I am my Father’s Eye.
In that sense we are one, inseparable.
This is what I meant when I said:
‘I and my Father are one.’”
(From The Dance of Life by Sri Chinmoy)
And he reflected that we think of Christ as a person, but actually he is a spiritual energy, and that energy is involved in all of the lives he touched. He set something in motion, and all those people he touched went on to influence other people, but they are also part and parcel of that energy, that chain reaction of events. It is the combination of Christ’s human life and the system that he set into motion, and all the people involved, who make up the divine reality of Jesus Christ- face and eye.
I have quite a few friends who are Evangelical Christians, and they find Guru’s poetry helpful in their own prayer-life. Dan, for example, told me that Guru’s utterance “Patience is the light of truth” has become part of his own life-breath. I think these people are doing the right thing, because Guru’s poetry has to be lived.
I am happy and lucky to have a number of prayerful and soulful friends.
“To me, a seeker-friend is a rich supply of spiritual energy.” (Sri Chinmoy)
—-
I was at a wrestling tournament recently, and one guy, a 197 pound colossus ran up to me and hugged me. I thought I was going to get a cracked rib.
“Who are you?” I asked him after I had caught my breath.
He said, “My name’s Striker” (men who wrestle sometimes name their sons after wrestling moves. “Striking” is when, from a neutral position, you lunge at your opponent’s legs to take them down).
“How did we meet?” I asked him.
He said, “Last year you met me and my friend Will at the big wrestling tournament. When you found out his name was Will you wrote down a special message for him, and he framed it and put it on his wall. He told me it’s one of his most fond possessions.”
Then he pulled it up on his phone and I saw a handwritten note, my handwriting: “Fate shall be changed by an unchanging Will- Sri Aurobindo”.
I was so, so happy and so grateful!
Perhaps an “unchanging Will” should be added to the regimen of every wrestler.
I have no hesitation in sharing these messages with the world.
I live near the University of Chicago, and I often go to their big Harper Memorial Library, just to study Guru’s books. In the past, only when I was ill would I read Guru’s books religiously, for hours on end. These days, I don’t wait to get sick to read Guru’s books. I try to carve out time twice a week just to go to Harper. Each session lasts about three hours. I sit in a quiet corner of the cathedral like main reading room on the second floor. I’m surrounded by young people studying and writing exams. I sit in my corner and just read. Sometimes I’ll quietly read out loud, and I underline my favorite passages.
Last week, I was reading Meditation: God Speaks and I Listen (Part Two), and I encountered some very interesting passages. Seekers were describing to Guru their first experiences with him, but the language they used was so elevated, so powerful and rhythmic, and Guru’s answers took on a poetic quality that connected with the consciousness of each seeker. The last three questions in the book were especially moving and evocative:
Question: Was the Peace and inner Bliss that I felt here last Wednesday night a sign that I had been initiated?
Sri Chinmoy: “Last Wednesday I did not intend to actually initiate anybody. But when you stood in front of me, your soul immediately recognized my status, and like a child of two years, your soul threw itself into my lap and received all the blessings: Bliss, Peace, Love and Power from the Supreme. I emptied the inner cup that was full of ignorance and impurity and replaced them with Peace, Bliss, and Purity. Although this was not a formal initiation, I can say that you were initiated that night.” (Page 48)
In Guru’s book, Obedience or Oneness, there is a very interesting passage. Guru is talking about dealing with his disciples’ inner and outer problems. On page 3, he discusses how “…there are some disciples whom I consider very dear to me who have emanations of mine “assigned” to their souls. An emanation is my inner representative that is associated with a particular soul and has a free access to me.”
He goes on to say in the following pages that an emanation, one that is assigned to a particular disciple, will often observe the situation, and then will bring the situation to the attention of Guru’s soul, and then Guru’s soul will advise the disciple’s soul directly. But again, Guru’s soul may not inform Guru’s physical mind of either the problem or the solution. Guru remarks on the next page:
“In the ordinary human life unless the mind is aware of something, we feel that we do not know about it. But although the physical mind may not know something, another part of our being may be aware of it.”
I am connecting this to the above question and answer between the seeker and Guru. The seeker is aware of feeling “Peace” and “inner Bliss” but is unable to give the precise significance of the experience. So Guru translates the experience for this person on the strength of his inner knowledge of what occurred between his soul and the seeker’s soul- the soul recognized Guru and Guru emptied the inner cup of ignorance and replaced it with light. Like that, I often wake up in the morning feeling this state of high elation and joy. I know something has happened on the soul level between Guru and me, but I cannot grasp it. At my current state of evolution, I cannot say I am in touch with my inner being. But passages like this make me feel that such contact and knowledge is ultimately achievable.
The next question and answer is as follows:
Question: The night I met you I had a very dramatic experience. During the meditation you came over to me and put a flower into my hands. My hands weren’t moving at all, but there seemed to be a tremendous power that was pulling them. I was looking at you and I thought, “What is he pulling me for?” Then when you looked at me I felt as though my inner being was whirling around and exploding through the top of my head. Can you tell me what this means?
Sri Chinmoy: “Your outer world burst into pieces and entered into the inner world, where you have not only accepted me, but felt and realised my spiritual achievement and realisation. Your outer world of turmoil finally surrendered to your inner world of spiritual infinitude. This is a most beautiful and high experience.”
What I find striking about this question and answer is that the question is as elevating and illumining as the answer. Some of the phrases the seeker uses are extraordinary: “…my inner being was whirling around and exploding through the top of my head.”
It’s as if when people came into Sri Chinmoy’s aura, his very presence and aura lifted them up into a higher sphere where they could express their inner experiences with such accuracy and beauty.
I remember when I stood in front of Guru and asked him a question about Beethoven and Bach. It was a three part question about the spiritual essence of Beethoven and Bach, if we could get spiritual benefit from listening to their music, and what makes them so unique and so great.
These kinds of questions do not usually occur to me! It was Guru’s aura that drew that question out of me. It was his presence that asked the question in and through me. This is the kind of man Guru was.
To look at Guru’s answer to this particular question I find it interesting that he says that this seeker, in the inner world, “…felt and realised my spiritual achievement and realisation.”
I find the word “achievement” interesting.
Guru says of Ramakrishna:
“Ramakrishna achieved, but he did not manifest much… So Vivekananda collected the fruits of the tree that was Ramakrishna and offered them to the world.” (From The Summits of God-Life: Samadhi and Siddhi by Sri Chinmoy)
He says of Christ:
“The achievement of Jesus Christ is extraordinary. No spiritual seeker of the Truth can deny it.”
(From The Avatars and the Masters by Sri Chinmoy)
I guess I find the word “achievement” interesting because I don’t think of these great Masters like Krishna or Christ or Ramakrishna as having to achieve anything. They came into the world as great Avatars and they left behind their eternal Light. But they achieved their God-Heights. It was not simply given to them. They prayed and meditated and aspired and ultimately became world-Saviors. They achieved it.
Guru sheds some light on what it means for a Master to achieve God-realisation in the following excerpt from the short story “Khadal’s Daughter”, a dialogue between a rather unaspiring disciple and his patient, long-suffering Master:
“The Christ stayed on earth for only thirty-three years. But look what he achieved during those thirty-three years. You have been on earth for sixty-two years and look what you have achieved!”
“But Master, how can you compare me with the savior Christ?”
“Khadal, I do not see anything wrong with that. Like you, Christ was also a son of God; but look how fast he realised the Truth.”
(One Lives, One Dies page 13)
I read in Kailash’s wonderful book Compassion-Sea and Service-Plant (his recollections as a close attendant of Sri Chinmoy, and the Master’s comments) a very interesting remark about the Avatars:
“Christ, Buddha, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna all took different paths.”
It is interesting how the Avatars have so much in common, and yet they are so different. They took different paths, and they realised God in their own unique ways.
Guru says somewhere that to consciously accept the spiritual life is in and of itself a kind of unconscious realisation. Then, we make that realisation conscious through our sadhana, our prayer and meditation. So it makes sense that Guru would refer to this seeker’s perception of Guru’s achievement and height as a kind of realisation in and of itself: “you…have felt and realised my spiritual achievement and realisation.”
The last question and answer in the book is in some ways the most striking.
Question: “When I went home after I first saw you, I entered into a kind of dream where you were the only person who existed and my entire body was decomposed into raindrops. Could you explain this?
Sri Chinmoy: “Your entire being- physical, vital, mental, and psychic- was inundated with my infinite Compassion-Light. The rain that you were seeing was Grace, Compassion. The inner thrill that you felt was my wholehearted acceptance and immediate recognition of you that day. Your dream signifies my total acceptance of your spiritual life. I have hundreds of disciples. Some try to judge me. Some absurdly attempt to fathom my spirituality. And some wait to see whether I can please them. On very rare occasions people do accept me immediately, as you have done.”
I have typed all these questions and answers from this book from memory, for as soon as I read them I knew I had to internalize this and make it part of me. As I was typing just now, I felt a wave of bliss wash over me that is almost indescribable, and the palpable sense of Guru’s living presence and breath. I called four people on the phone last week, and recited these three questions and answers from memory, and these disciples were so moved by Guru’s words, and it felt like a meditation all by itself.
My favorite part of this question and answer is where the disciple says “I entered into a kind of dream where you were the only person who existed, and my entire body was decomposed into raindrops.”
When I first started substitute teaching, I found out that the city of Chicago pays more money if I go to high need schools, in the most dangerous neighborhoods. It pays a LOT more money to go to these Places: think Englewood, Austin, O-block, Garfield Park, Little Village. Lots of carjackings, muggings and shootings.
I was scared, but I like money.
And surprise, surprise: these neighborhoods are mostly on the South Side of Chicago, where there is a lot more nature, and the buildings date from the 1920’s, and there are huge urban parks and ancient trees, and old fashioned donut shops that have long since vanished from the posh north side.
Trust me- I went to sub for a school in Rosedale- one of the most gang-ridden areas of the city, but right next to the school was the aforementioned “Old Fashioned Donuts” and I swear on all that is holy I have NEVER in my life had such wonderful donuts or fritters. Also, the store has kept all the features it had when it first opened in the nineteen-seventies- a huge heavy cash register, old curtains, big wooden door.
I think I need to accept another substitute assignment in the far South Side…
One thing that surprised and saddened me about my substitute teaching work, is the fact that none of these schools have libraries. I’ve visited thirty schools, and not one of them has had a school librarian or a library. I made inquiries, and I discovered that the school system fired all their school librarians in 2015, and then they tossed out all the books. The rationale is that everything is online now, so we don’t need books anymore. They call it the new literacy.
For thousands of years, books have represented knowledge. Our Guru taught us to never touch paper with our feet, because paper embodies the Goddess of knowledge, Saraswati. Symbols matter. Books symbolize knowledge, wisdom. You can’t deprive children of books and then say that you really care about their education. I don’t care how much is on-line. Screens don’t have the quality that paper has- the subtle quality that has to do with the sacredness of knowledge.
Recently, I subbed for a school that actually did have a library. It’s called “Goethe Elementary”. In the office there is a portrait of Goethe painted by an unknown artist. It’s hung in the office for a hundred years:
It’s common to find beautiful works of art in these old schools, and no one knows who painted them, or when. In this painting you can see Goethe’s broad humanity and sensitivity.
Anyway, the school, Goethe Elementary, was one of the only schools which actually has a library and a librarian. And I saw some of the kids in my classroom had checked out books from the school library and I recognized some of them from my own middle school days.
In other words, the kids were reading for fun. Give kids books, and they will read them. It’s really that simple, but apparently somewhat beyond the grasp of the public school administration.
Anyway, I saw one boy had a copy of “Under Sea, Over Stone” by Susan Cooper, the first book in her marvelous “The Dark Is Rising” series, and I stopped in my tracks, closed my eyes, and recited from memory the poem that prefaces all the books in the series:
“When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone;
Five will return and one go alone.
Iron for the birthday; bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning; stone out of song;
Fire in the candle ring; water from the thaw;
Six signs the circle and the grail gone before.
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of old.
Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea.
All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.”
― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence
I read those books when I was in the seventh grade, the same age as these students, and I never forgot that poem. It has stayed with me.
When I finished there was a long silence in the classroom and then one boy spoke up, “Mr. Klein, I can tell you really like that poem!”
I had a co-teacher in the classroom that day, and he asked me if I could recite some poems, so I recited “Tyger, Tyger” by William Blake and “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats. Both of these poems marry sound with meaning, and have lots of interesting and evocative images. He told me he was very impressed. Later, some of the students approached me in the hallway and told me they liked the poems.
I don’t often have that experience- where the co teachers or administrators try to make use of my talents as part of the curriculum. I’m happy when that does happen. It makes sense that I would have that kind of experience in a school named for Goethe.
It’s funny- I often sit in on fifth grade or eighth grade classes, and I end up learning a lot! For example, I sat in on a Seventh grade Spanish class, and I learned that in Spanish, they don’t really use the phrase “to give birth”. Instead, they say, “Brought to light”- “Dar me a luz”- “Mi mama me dio a luz”- my mother brought me to the light. I really like that a lot- my mother gave me to light, brought me to the light. I think Guru would have liked this, too.
Once I accepted an assignment for an “alternative” school- “York Alternative High School.” It wasn’t too far away according to Google Maps, so I hopped on the bus and told the bus driver the address and he let me off in front of the courthouse. I searched for the high school, but where the school should be, 2700 S California, I saw only the Maximum Security unit of the Cook County Jail. It was surrounded by five concentric nests of razor wire.
I paced up and down the block from 26th street to 32nd street, and I saw that there was no distinct address for 2700 S California! The whole five blocks were taken up by the sheriff’s office and prison blocks!
Finally, in desperation, I called the secretary of the high school and told her I couldn’t find the school, and she told me that an “alternative” school means it’s a high school located inside the prison.
It took me forever to get through security. I had to get finger printed, lock up my phone and keys, and let the security officers rifle through all my bags. They told me that, if I wanted to teach in the prison in the future, then I had to bring only clear plastic bags, and no paper of any kind- no books or notebooks or pads or anything.
Finally I was allowed in, and the director of the “Alternative School” sat me down and told me not to ask the detainees about their lives in custody. My job is to educate them, not to learn about prison life or what crimes they committed that brought them there.
Finally, I was shown to my classroom. I looked over the lesson plans- an art history class, and then the guys were led into the class, all in light brown uniforms and handcuffs, and the warden unbuckled them and they all sat down and listened politely as I gave them a brief lesson on the history of Western Art. Then, we watched YouTube videos on street artists like Banksy and also local Chicago graffiti artists. Many of these kids were street artists themselves and could relate.
The boys were more polite than most high school kids. That’s not surprising. They either behave or they go back to their cell. I taught four periods that day. Towards the end of the last period, some of the guys in the class asked if they could watch YouTube videos of rappers- all of them incidentally young, female and attractive. I told them that that was not on the lesson plan, and I therefore had my hands tied. The young man responded, “It’s a good thing you don’t work here every day, Mr. Klein, because otherwise you’d probably get killed.”
I think he was joking. He was smiling as he said it.
Anyway, the rowdiness continued, and they shouted out the names of lady rappers they wanted to watch and I eventually had to call the guards in. The moment the wardens came in, all the boys stood up, faced the wall, with their hands in position to get handcuffed. They didn’t resist. They knew the drill.
Surprisingly, the prison had a better atmosphere than many of the high schools I’ve visited! Sometimes, when freedom is taken away from us, it can be a great boon to our aspiring self.
Sri Chinmoy writes in “Transcendence-Perfection”:
“If my life’s freedom dies,
What shall remain
In my heart?
Not the sighs of loss,
But the illumining
Surrender-tears
Of my gratitude-soul.”
As a spiritual seeker, I find I have to find ways to surrender my outer freedom to my inner life. I have to do this all the time.
Many of my assignments are not too far from the University of Chicago. There’s an old library on site that has been repurposed as a reading area. But whenever people walk in, they gasp! It’s like a cathedral! It has huge vaulted ceilings and floating candelabras and it’s all made of old stone, and it is vast and glorious. It is full of comfortable settees and big cushiony chairs and I go there often just to read Guru’s books. In the past few weeks, when I’ve been feeling so low, so drained and tired after a long day of the foibles relevant to substitute teaching, I just bring a sack full of Guru’s writings and I sit there and read for three or four hours at a stretch.
And I’ve made a thrilling discovery: I have, in thirty years of discipleship to Sri Chinmoy, just barely scratched the surface of his writings. This means I can spend the next thirty years, or whatever time is left to me, reading and studying his writings with much more intensity.
Sri Chinmoy writes:
“The book of your heart’s light
Is an excellent book.
Keep it always on your reading desk
To serve as your ever-ready reference book,
Especially when you enter into
The library of ignorance-night.”
There are some experiences I had with my Guru that pop up again and again in my mind. I remember once in the late Autumn of 2001, a Sunday function had just ended, and Guru’s car was going up the 85th Avenue hill. I saw an old Sikh man crossing the street, slowly, and Guru’s car was going slowly and Guru’s car drove past me and he folded his hands and bowed to me, but it was like this flash of light and etched in my memory is me standing on the curb with folded hands, and the Sikh man crossing the street behind me. It’s like an inner photograph. I think about that moment often.
On October 22nd, 2006, I asked Guru a question about Beethoven and Bach. I told him that I love their music, and these were my words, “Very, very, very, very, very much.” And Guru said, “VERY good!” The emphasis was on “VERY”, that he was so pleased that I have the capacity to enjoy this music. But when I got the recording, I realised he had not said “very good”. He had said, “Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah!” But I heard it as “very good”. It’s almost like I got the meaning of Guru’s utterance through the vibration that came from him, and that feeling or vibration was expressed to my physical mind in a way that would be easiest for me to understand. So, I heard “very good!”, as that was what Guru meant by “bah, bah…”
My question was about the essence or quintessence of Beethoven’s and Bach’s music, and when Guru started talking about Beethoven, he said that with Beethoven, when you think of him, it is like a huge tree, and I leaned into the microphone and I said, “YES!” But this also does not appear in the recording. It’s almost as if Guru was talking to me on a subtle, akashic level, and I was responding on that level as well.
Another time, my friend, Aron (not his real name), an inspired seeker from Israel, had joined the rest of us on 85th Avenue to watch Guru’s car go up the hill. As soon as Guru saw Aron, he reached out the window and blessed him four or five times with utmost joy and enthusiasm. He said something also to Aron, maybe “Bah!” Aron was smiling, almost crying with joy. He was so happy!
I remember once Guru was selling CD’s from the greatly gifted sitarist Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar’s daughter. I had spent the whole day cleaning my room, which was a very rare event for me at the time. Guru was handing out the CDs, and when he handed me mine, he gave me the brightest smile, full of joy, confidence and assurance. And for hours after that I felt resonating strings within me, just humming and vibrating with joy. I just felt I had become some stringed instrument myself, and I was just immersed in joy.
Another time, Guru mentioned to one of his visiting guests, the sister of one of his close disciples, that she had been a devout Buddhist seeker in Burma in her past life, and that she visited many, many sacred temples and stupas in Burma. I felt a lot of joy when I heard Guru reveal this woman’s prior spiritual Buddhist incarnation. When it was time for prasad, as I was passing by him, I saw Guru blessing me in a way he never had before. His head was moving up and down so slowly, and his eyes were flickering like the shutter of a camera, at a million revolutions a second. I felt, with no outer evidence or corroboration, that the Buddha used to bless his disciples like this. Guru was expressing his oneness with the Buddha by showering his blessings on me in this way.
Another time, when Guru was honoring the memory of his dearest friend, Pir Vilayat Khan, who had just passed, when Guru asked us to pass by him, Guru gave me just the sweetest smile, just the kindest, sweetest smile. I felt that had my life been a little different, I might have followed the Sufi path, and have been happy in that mode. (I am, of course, extremely grateful that I found Guru and his path)
Just an interesting aside: I have heard that Pir Vilayat Khan’s disciples were the only people that Guru would freely allow to touch his feet.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to read Guru’s books, to immerse ourselves in his writings. Recently I encountered a young man sitting by himself at the old indoor basketball court at my local YMCA. He told me his name was Logan. We spoke for a little bit, and I put on my shtick for him, about my imaginary rattlesnake and my homicidal aunt who just got out of jail (I have no rattlesnake, and no aunt). He laughed, fortunately.
Then we started talking about different college majors and he told me he was studying liberal arts, so a general, non-specific study focusing on the humanities. I told him that it is good to cultivate a life-long habit of reading, and I try to read for at least three hours a day (Guru’s books of course!), and not to confine his learning to four years at college.
I also told him that when he reads, he should make an effort to read from actual books, not from any phone or computer. I started quoting Guru’s comments on how important paper is, how paper embodies and preserves the achievements of the human brain, which is nothing but light, and that paper is also sacred to the goddess of learning, Saraswati, and that it is a crime to ever touch paper with the feet. If we want to absorb the subtle, delicate qualities of whatever we are reading, we must read that thing from ink and paper.
“Very elegantly stated!” Logan replied. Of course, everything I was saying came straight from Guru’s books.
I like what Guru says in his inspired book Obedience or Oneness:
“My writings are not borrowed thoughts, but the expressions of my own experience. Some philosophers, professors and scholars borrow ideas from others; the ideas they write about do not come from their own realisation. In my case, my grammar may be absolutely wrong, but the consciousness that I reveal is a divine consciousness. So even if I say, “I goes,” there is no problem. But when I say “I”, it will carry tremendous spiritual strength and spiritual power. This is true not only when I say it, but also when all spiritual Masters say it.”
I didn’t mention Guru’s name on this occasion, but I still felt Guru’s Light operating as I spoke to this boy in the basketball court, sharing Guru’s thoughts about the importance of physical books.
Interestingly enough, I dreamt a couple of nights ago that I attended a performance of Bach’s B-Minor Mass in an old church in Chicago. Many disciples were there. Before the concert started, in my dream, I caught myself remembering the following question and answer:
[Why] Is that… when you are in churches you can feel the love?
Sri Chinmoy: “It is because thousands of people have prayed there for many years.”
(https://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/med-16)
And, even in my dream, I felt that Guru’s words are not just words, but they are surcharged with light, power and beauty. From this church I saw in my dream, I had that experience of feeling serene and gentle love.
Two years ago, I had to take a week and a half off of work to deal with a health issue. I just spent my time, hour after hour, day after day, studying Guru’s books. I cherished them like never before. And the day I got back, I felt like I was seeing everything through the filter of the Transcendental Photograph! I saw his Transcendental in front of me, and I felt I was meditating on it while doing my daily tasks and taking care of the customers. One of my supervisors told me that I looked really good. I could tell he could feel the peace and joy that I had received from Guru’s writings. And the fact that I saw the Transcendental the entire day, reinforces my belief in Guru’s oft-repeated maxim, that his books are one of the easiest ways to enter into his highest consciousness.
Interestingly enough, Sundar, our barber-scholar-humorist-seer, told me that Guru said you don’t have to buy all of his books. You can buy one book, and if you can read it every day, that is enough. You just need one book. You will get Guru’s consciousness. Sundar said, “Guru wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true. Why would he say that in the first place? It’s bad for business!”
I was speaking to a friend today about one of my highest experiences, the Riverside Peace Concert that the Master gave on the 23rd of August, 2000. It is such a majestic cathedral!
I remember that the organ was the last instrument Guru played that day. And as he was playing, I felt this coolness come over me, and I heard, or I felt that I heard, a voice repeating, “Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary…” and I felt this otherworldly love, like love that sweeps like a wind off of a distant ocean. It was just this pure, sweet, mysterious love. I felt that this Consciousness was descending into the room, and I felt the voice whisper again, “It’s an Avatar. It’s an Avatar. It’s an Avatar.” Over and over, it just said, “It’s an Avatar.” And I knew it was referring to another Master, another Avatar who had just entered the room- Jesus Christ. I remember everyone was enthralled, enraptured, stupefied. We all knew. My first impression of Christ was, “Oh, he’s another Buddha!”
I’ve always thought that I had Christian incarnations, that I have a link with Christian spirituality, so why would my first impression of the Christ be “Oh, he’s a second Buddha!”?
I asked this question of Ushashi, who wrote “Thy Will Be Done: A Christian Journey to Sri Chinmoy”, about her experiences as a Protestant Minister, and how her spiritual seeking eventually led her to Guru’s path. She told me that perhaps I have also been Buddhist, and that I was trying to assimilate Christ’s presence and divinity in a way that would be relatable to a Buddhist- that Christ is another Buddha. This is not totally illogical. In Guru’s play “The Son”, when Jesus Christ is studying in a classroom in India, the teacher points to him, and says of Christ, “He is a world-saviour. He is another Krishna.” (https://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/son-12)
Again, maybe I responded that way to Christ, by thinking of him as the Buddha, because these great Avatars all come from the same room, and are brothers.
I think I felt Christ’s Third Eye, his supernal Will- Power, just unthinkable, unfathomable Will-Power, overwhelming Will-Power, luminosity and divinity.
I also felt that Christ travels with his companions, his dearest devotees. I felt that he brought not only himself and his mother, but hundreds or thousands of his dearest devotees, adorers and worshippers. They travel with him.
This experience was special for me, most sacred and special, because it is the only time I ever had a truly collective experience on this path. Hundreds and hundreds of us felt it. You can read about other people’s experiences at this concert, now twenty-five years distant, here:
One thing recently struck me about this concert, and I wanted to share my thought: Here, all of us, Sri Chinmoy’s disciples were just basking and basking in the light of Lord Jesus Christ, but Guru did not stop playing the organ. He did not outwardly acknowledge Jesus Christ’s presence in any way. The Supreme wanted him to play the organ to reveal His Light, and that was what he was going to do. Nothing was going to shake him or deter him from that purpose. He could have stopped his performance, and asked us to rise and fold our hands. He didn’t. He knew that he didn’t have to say anything. We were spiritually developed enough to feel it. This is one of the ways Sri Chinmoy honoured his own disciples’ spirituality. He didn’t have to tell us everything. We can know certain things ourselves.
Also, Guru said that his most important quality was poise, equanimity. Guru once said that his poise was one of the easiest things for seekers to see in him- that he is always fully in control of every situation. Nothing can shake him. Not tragedies or triumphs, or even the presence of Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Guru has his poise, his most important quality.
I like this poem, from “The Goal Is Won”, as it touches on the qualities of love and poise:
“Love-wind blows
In all directions,
Cheerfully, speedily
And
Fruitfully.
Who divinely follows?
Emperor-Calm
Of Eternity’s Height.”
(Sri Chinmoy, The Goal is Won, Sri Chinmoy Centre, New York, 1974)
Another thing: when Guru wanted to go and see Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Mother adamantly opposed this. She did not want him to see another Master. In fact, it was forbidden for Aurobindo’s disciples to go see Ramana Maharshi, because they felt his presence would be too powerful and it would take them away from the Ashram.
But at the Riverside Church, Guru mediated for us the experience of the Lord Jesus in His aspect of infinite Glory, and we were all adoring and worshipping Him. How many Masters would be generous enough to let their students admire and adore another Master, another Teacher? But this aligns with what Guru said- that no other spiritual figure has ever appreciated and honored the other Masters the way Guru has. This speaks not only to Guru’s kindness and magnanimity, but also to his own height. Guru’s title for his play about Krishna applies also to himself, for Sri Chinmoy is equally “The Singer of the Eternal Beyond.”
My spiritual community, the Sri Chinmoy Centre, holds two important “Celebration”-style events a year. Each event lasts about two weeks. One, in April, honors the anniversary of his 1964 arrival in the West. The other, held in August, commemorates his birthday. A lot of Yoga retreats emphasize silence. You go into nature, and you hold silent meditation for weeks on end. Our meditative events do incorporate some silent meditation, but we also do a lot of singing and chanting as well as put on spiritual plays. We also just hang out a lot and talk! It’s a good thing that we do not just observe silence, as that would be very difficult for me. I’m a natural extrovert.
I almost did not attend this past August Celebration. I was offered a new job just before the celebration- a part-part-time position as a school bus safety monitor- buckling the kids into seatbelts, making sure nobody wanders the aisle while the bus is in motion, asking the children to keep the noise level to a low roar. But, I spoke to the HR manager, and she said that they are well staffed, and that it would be fine for me to go.
This led me to my second conundrum- I had no money. Really! But I had bought the ticket months prior, and because I help out with arranging accommodations for the event, I do not have to pay my board. But still, I would be skating close.
I meditated on the picture of my Master that I keep in my room- his Transcendental, taken in his highest consciousness. I worship this picture. For me, it does not represent the human in my Master. It represents God. I approached the Transcendental Photograph and I prayed for days. I told it my position, that I have no money, that I just started a new job, that I am in dire straits. And I got the vibration from the picture that it totally understood! It did not really mind if I did not go.
I thought, “I could go, in theory, but it’s not practical!”
So, I decided not to go. And I felt my Master’s support and understanding.
Then, a couple nights later I had an interesting dream. I live in Chicago, and I meditate at our Chicago Sri Chinmoy Centre. I guess I can call it a meditation space or a temple. It’s decorated with many pictures of my Master in states of high consciousness. Whenever I go there, I feel this vibration of serene, pure love. Anyway, in my dream we had lost our lease for the space, and the Chicago Sri Chinmoy Centre was to be dismantled. My Centre leader and the other disciples were putting everything away in boxes, with the help of some professional movers. They were working in one room, and I was by myself in the shrine area. The Transcendental was alone on the wall. I could hear them working in the next room, but they couldn’t hear me. I sat down in front of the Transcendental and folded my hands. I felt I would never see the Transcendental again, and I looked at it with such longing, but also grief. “Oh, Guru,” I said repeatedly under my breath, “Oh Guru, oh Guru.”
And I felt a voice within me say, “Not oh, but ah!”
And that was the dream.
What does this mean?
Not oh, but ah.
I remember the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
“My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah my foes
And oh my friends
It gives a lovely light.”
I’ve always thought that the poem would read better:
“Oh my foes
And ah my friends”
This is because “oh” can be an exclamation of shock or sadness, whereas “ah” sounds more like revelation, or the joy of reunion.
When I woke up from the dream, I was in tears. I just lay in my bed, and I felt I was rocking in a cradle, and I felt bathed in warmth, in love.
Not oh, but ah.
I lived with my Guru for the last ten years of his earthly life. And I can say from my own inner experiences with him, in dreams and in meditation, that my Guru lives! And he is telling me in this dream, that the very act of aspiration is a miracle. Every aspiring day I live, every day that I make the time to meditate, to pray, to read his books, I am accomplishing something. In our path, we accept the world. We live in society. We manifest what we get from our meditation in the wider world. Therefore, aspiration is revelation. This is true for all spiritual paths, but especially for this one, in which we emphasize the acceptance of life.
I also think that his statement “not oh, but ah!” means that my Guru already thinks of me as one of his chosen children, his close and intimate disciples, and so therefore all the major decisions in my life should be made by him. If I don’t express my faith in my actions, what is this faith worth?
So the next morning, I was praying in front of the Transcendental, and I told Guru that I’m grateful he understands my financial position, and why I can’t go to Celebrations because of my financial problems. But while I was talking to Guru, I was tapping away at the computer, not really knowing what I was typing, or only half knowing. But I looked at the Photograph and Guru seemed a little amused. And then I looked at the monitor, and I saw a message from Bank of America, thanking me for ordering my first credit card. My flight was in six days. The card arrived the evening before my flight. It’s a starter credit card, with only a five hundred dollar balance. But it was enough to get me through our celebrations.
I don’t know if the dream I had related directly to Celebrations or not, but I think it pointed me in the right direction. While I was biking home last night, I saw the most remarkable golden light in the sky, and it touched the tops of the clouds. But they were low hanging clouds, like clouds from a fairy tale- massive and touched with crimson and gold. I felt the evening sun represented divine hope, and the lofty, mighty clouds stood for human promise. I felt I was between them. Hope and promise.
Not oh, the bitter reality, but ah, the infallible dream.
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.”
