My bus driving aspirations have washed up, but I did learn a little bit about driving a large vehicle. My instructor told me to look for the crack in the road. I had never noticed, but almost all streets in the US have a crack that runs through the middle of each lane. It’s from the tension and weight of all the vehicles, I think. He told me that when you find the crack, make sure that either the right wheel of the bus is over the crack, or that the nose of the bus is perfectly centered over it. In this way, you can always find your bearing on the road, and keep a safe distance between you and the other vehicles. He also taught me that steering is a little different with big vehicles as opposed to cars. To perform a parallel park or an offset park, you have to turn the wheel all the way to one side, wait until you are in alignment with where you want to go, and then turn the wheel all the way in the other direction to straighten it out. With car steering wheels, you don’t have to turn the wheel so much, as car steering is much more responsive. My instructor and I used to sing old spirituals together as we drove. I miss that.
I’ve been so engrossed in trying to get a new job, that maybe I haven’t been devoting as much time as I could to conscious aspiration. I like to designate at least four hours a day to spirituality. I think this is the minimum for people like me who’ve been on the path for thirty years. It’s just I’m bustling around, trying to find a new assignment, that I neglect meditation. I was walking through my apartment recently, looking at all the pictures I have of Guru, and I was shocked that I didn’t see or feel anything in any of them. They were just pictures of an old Indian man. Then I looked at the Transcendental. Nothing. It’s just a black and white photograph of a young man with his eyes half closed. I realised that the reason I didn’t get any thrill from the pictures of my Master is that I haven’t been meditating. When I stop praying and aspiring, all I have is the physical world. I canceled all my appointments for the day, sat down and just sang Guru’s songs for two hours with utmost devotion. Afterwards, I looked at all the pictures of Guru, and I felt his living presence, his divinity, his joy.
I was studying some of Vidagdha’s diaries of her life with Guru in the late Eighties and early Nineties. I came across an interesting passage. It pertains to a statue of Guru which had recently been erected in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Guru said that disciples should go every day to meditate and place flowers at the foot of the statue. They should worship it. Only then will people feel something in the statue. He said, “Spiritual aspiration, religious aspiration, has to come to the fore. Otherwise, statues will remain statues.”
This aligns with my experience.
My nephew does not follow any spiritual path and does not meditate. But once he came over to my house and saw a small Transcendental that I kept on a bookshelf. He picked it up and asked me who this was. I said “Sri Chinmoy.” He said, “Of course, your sister keeps some pictures of Sri Chinmoy in the house and so I know who he is, but she never showed me this picture.”
He held it up and said, “You can see he is nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He embodies infinite power and yet his eyes are so kind. He has completely transcended the human life. Those pictures my mother keeps are not Sri Chinmoy. This is Sri Chinmoy. This is who he is. This picture will be etched in my mind forever.”
Even in my highest mood, I have never responded to the Transcendental like that. Maybe that’s why we need to keep up our devotions. Sri Ramakrishna appeared before Sri Aurobindo in a séance and told him “Arabinda, mandir gado, mandir gado” (Aurobindo, build temples, build temples). Our temples include not just physical structures but also the Peace Run, soulful music, recitation, and Divine Enterprises. We can build these temples for seekers to come and receive Guru’s divinity. We owe them that much.
Very good, very helpful. I like this post. But four hours, that means I need to turn off my computer and spend the rest of the evening trying to aspire!