Author: Mahiruha

 

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.

It’s not easy to be me.

It’s not easy being green.

But this poem is a feast.

 

 

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 1^st).  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 26^th street to 32^nd 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.”

Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 76, Agni Press, 1983

 

 

 

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 85^th 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 22^nd, 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 85^th 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.”

(https://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/oo-9)

 

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 23^rd 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:

Love of Jesus

 

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.”

(Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 15, Agni Press, 1983)

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.

Sometimes finding a new job can feel like hitting a bunch of dead ends.  I wanted to go into medical tech sales.  Then I spoke to some salesmen in the field and realized that medical tech sales is their whole life- it is their dharma.  They work sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week to meet quotas, to read up on the latest technology, to take doctors and administrators out to dinner.  I respect their work ethic.  But it’s not for me- I need time to meditate and read spiritual books.

I wanted to become a freight brokerage salesman.  Once again, I did the research, I spoke to many people in the field.  I have never driven a truck, I don’t know how to trace loads.  I’m sure I could do it with enough training- and I wouldn’t mind making a hundred cold calls a day.  I have a thick skin.  I’ve been hung up on so many times during my job search that I feel that I could add it to my CV “I’m skilled at getting hung up on.”

Alas, most freight brokerages hire only people fresh out of college, and only then if they have already interned with the company while in school.  I’m young at heart, but no spring chicken.  Also, to be a successful freight brokerage salesman, you have to be on call all the time.  I want a job where I can put my uniform on a hook, go home, and enjoy my own time.  Like medical technology, freight brokerage demands a commitment I’m not ready to give.

I investigated other kinds of sales- real estate, insurance, HR software, home maintenance, and discovered that most of them involve more than a little bit of chicanery in the sales pitch.  Unless it’s a product I could wholeheartedly believe in, like selling discounted college textbooks for low-income students, I think I’d have trouble hawking the best life insurance policy if I knew deep down that it’s really just a rip off.

In my journey, I reached out to a lot of companies, spoke to salesmen in many different fields, read a lot of books on sales and persuasion theory.  I learned a lot from it, and I actually gained a lot of respect for people who work in the sales field.  It’s an incredibly demanding career that requires a special set of skills.  I’m sure I can do it- but I can’t believe that I would be able to balance a heavy workload and still study Guru’s books.

You only get one life.  There’s no such thing as a rehearsal for it.  This is it.  I believe in reincarnation, but I’ll never be me again, at least not this me- tattered and battered maybe, but it’s the only self I know.  I want to study Guru’s books.  That’s my sadhana.  I can’t have a job that would overrule my spiritual life.

But I need a job.

So I stumbled on a poster for a bus company.  The company offered paid training, and would make me a school bus driver.  I was excited.  For the past two and a half months I trained on learning the mechanics of buses and how to drive them.  I passed all three commercial learners permit exams, and all that was left was to learn to drive them.  My teacher was an old black guy, dying by inches of pancreatic cancer.  But he loved to teach.   I’m not a good student.  He had to shout in my ear to swerve to avoid road signs and cars.  I didn’t hit anything, but I got yelled at a lot, understandably.  He liked it when I recited Guru’s mantras.  “Water we need for outer purity…”

And I learned offset parking!  One of the hardest things to do with a big bus.  I didn’t think I could do it, but I did.  And then he started teaching me parallel parking.   I knew I was getting close to passing the exam and getting my Class B CDL (Commercial Drivers License), which would entitle me to drive all kinds of buses for the rest of my life.

The company sent me to the doctor to get the mandated physical.  I’m mostly blind in my right eye but I thought it wouldn’t be a problem because I have corrective lenses and I have excellent vision in my left eye.  I’ve driven a car for many years with no issues.  Alas, US DOT law requires two good eyes for bus driving and even with my prescription glasses my right eye wasn’t good enough.  I failed the physical and the doctor had to tell the company to stop training me.

A ray of hope: he told me that I can’t drive buses with only one functioning eye, but I can still get a federal waiver to drive trucks.

Bus driving gives me innocent joy- and I’m not sure truck driving gives me the same spontaneous joy.  But it pays really well, and it’s not a mentally demanding job.  It just requires good reflexes, patient attention and focus.  I have that.

To get the appropriate Commercial Driver’s License for truck driving, I would have to apprentice myself to a trucking company.  They will have me sign a contract, and so in exchange for training me I will have to be on the great American road for a year or two.  I won’t be able to really participate in any of the communal activities of my spiritual Path during that time, including attending Centre meetings.  I’ll be the bondsman of the company, chattel on wheels.

On the one hand I feel a call to the freedom of the Road, the vastness of America which has always inspired me.  On the other hand, I’ll be left to my own devices for many months.  I’ll have to swim in the sea of ignorance alone.

The value of Centre meetings for me is that at least for those three hours a week I know that I’m doing the right thing.  I’m focused on God.  I’m with other people who are praying and meditating and trying to perfect themselves.  For those few hours a week I know I’m pleasing God. Also, during my daily devotions, during those three or four hours of reading and singing, I know I am in a high consciousness, and I am doing what Guru wants.

But take me out of the spiritual environment and the spiritual community completely, and what happens?  I mean, I’ve noticed that when I talk to old disciple friends on the phone, our consciousness merges, and we become a composite person, and share each other’s spiritual qualities.  What I get from the spiritual community is my connection to a larger aspiring self, that is composed of all the people who follow the path of Sri Chinmoy.

Interestingly, when I had a profound experience of the presence of Jesus Christ at Guru’s August 23 2000 Riverside Church Concert, I felt that Christ was composed of the love and worship of all of his devotees, he embodied all the people who have ever prayed to him, who love him.  They are in him, and they make up his living body.  In the same way, the people who worship Sri Chinmoy make up his existence, they are an important part of who he is, they are his living self.  I can’t reject the Centre without rejecting Guru too.  Yes, I can meditate without being in the Centre.  But if I say I don’t need the Centre, I feel like I’m being crass.  It’s like you telling your spouse, “You know, I like and love you, but I don’t need you.”  You wouldn’t say that to someone you genuinely loved.  So if I say I love Guru but I don’t need the Centre, then there’s something about that statement that is a little dishonest.

A time comes in the life of every seeker when he realizes that he can’t leave the path, because the only thing he has is the path.  Many years ago, I asked Sundar if he had any advice for me.  It was 2000 or 2001, and I had just moved to New York.  He just said that I will be happier on the path if I aspire- if I spend my time reading spiritual books and singing Guru’s songs and participating in all the Centre activities.  These things are not required, he told me, but that if I want to be happy on the path, then it’s advisable to do these things, and to aspire.

Many years later, in 2018, I was talking to Sundar, and I wasn’t thinking of our earlier discussion, but I told him that I felt that sadhana is the only happiness.  We have to stick to our sadhana to be truly happy.  Sundar told all the people who came to that barber shop that day that “Mahiruha has given me a lofty message: Sadhana is happiness, stick to your sadhana if you want to be happy.”  Two people actually called me to thank me for sharing this thought.

He didn’t remember that he was the one who gave me that message!

What career path I will take isn’t clear to me yet.  But what is clear is that sadhana and inner happiness, founded on my own disciplines, must guide my life.  I have to turn God-ward, Guru-ward, to see the truth, and the road ahead.  Then only I can feel that the Master will make the decision for me.  And his decision is always infallible.

 

Recently I’ve been dealing with a personal problem, a vital issue.  I’m not sure my actions in this are terribly enlightened.  I offered it in prayer to my Guru a few days ago, and I found his answer helpful.  Of course, his “answer” might be the woven fabric of my imagination, or the throw up of my vital and mind; the answer could be what these parts of me want to hear.  But this is the message I got, if it is authentic:

“If you can’t surrender this to me, then I want you to accept the consequences, whatever they are, with a cheerful heart.  This is also surrender.”

I find this interesting.  I mean, the best thing is to never do anything wrong, and to act according to the will of our soul, with pure and perfect intention and effort.  But if I haven’t reached that point, I can still offer my actions to the Master.  And, as he said, if I can take the karmic consequences cheerfully then this is also a form of surrender.  Guru mentions various ways to know the will of God.  One way is to always act like an innocent child.  Another way is to meditate every day for long hours.  Another way is to ask the Master!   And then there is the way that Guru apparently mentioned in answer to my prayers: surrender both the actions and the consequences of the actions.  Don’t judge, don’t say, “Oh, I’m so bad, I’m so weak, I’m so disobedient.”  No, just offer it to Guru.  Let Guru see the action and the results that will or may come.  Let Guru be the judge and the fate maker.  This is the way I like.

Of course, along with acting and offering the action, and offering the eventual fruits, I also feel a strong urge to spend many hours a day reading Guru’s books, diving into Guru’s consciousness.  In my case, I think the steady intensification of aspiration must accompany my offering to Guru of what I think is wrong in my life.  They have to go together- offer the actions, and cry for God, for His Grace.  This makes sense to me.

When I lived with Guru in New York, during the last ten years of his earthly life, I made a lot of mistakes, I had a lot of problems.  But I felt that Guru always took my side.  He always made me feel he was on my side.  For example, I could never go on the Christmas Trip.  But I remember in late November 2005, it was the day before Guru left, one of the last trips, Guru had us walk by him.  He knew I couldn’t go.  When I walked by him, he looked at me with such concern.  He held my gaze for a long time and turned his head to see me walk away.

Two years ago I got very sick. I was bedridden for six or seven days.  All I did during that time was read Guru’s books- eight or nine hours a day.  I read them voraciously, and I took notes in the margins.  Some of them I read out loud from cover to cover.  I did nothing but read his writings, day after day.  After three or four days of intense reading, I felt Guru come into my room and sat by my bed. I could feel him with me, palpably in every way.  He said to me, “I love your aspiration.  I love your ignorance.  I love everything about you because I love you.”  Then he went away.  But the fragrance of his presence remained for days.

Once again, Guru had given me a fascinating message.  What I do outwardly is of no consequence relative to my openness to Guru’s love!  Am I going to perfect myself?  Am I going to transcend the sea of ignorance with my own efforts, and maybe a stepladder?  It’s absurd.  Guru has an extremely beautiful aphorism:

“Hope is at once our ancestor and descendent.”

(Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees)

It is hope that has gotten us this far, and it is hope that will push us forward to a new and higher life.  I can say the same about Guru’s love.

I got this experience in the context of a whole week reading Guru’s books voraciously and with utmost devotion.  I did not get this message out of the blue.  What’s important is maintaining contact with the Master.  This is especially true when the mountain of my mistakes looms large.  It’s funny- Guru said many times that when his disciples do wrong things, they don’t pray afterwards.  They just cherish a guilty conscience and suffer.  Prayer is so easy, but they won’t do it.

Please pray.

I have a friend whose been on the path longer than I’ve been on earth.  He’s an old man with callused hands and a skin problem.  I don’t see him much in New York these days, but I still call him from time to time.  He’s a soulful man, whose spent his whole life taking low pay menial jobs so that he has time to meditate.  I’ve visited him a few times over the years.  The very walls of his house resonate with his meditation-power.  When I used to work at the Oneness-Fountain-Heart, we were often extremely short staffed.  Once he came to help me as a selfless service.  He doesn’t know how to wait tables, and he works very slowly.  But the moment he came in, he gave me the most beautiful smile.  I had been having an aggravating day, but his smile made me forget all my problems.

I called him recently, and told him I’ve been having issues.  He said he didn’t need any outer details, but he offered to meditate with me over the phone.  We just meditated together.  I felt waves of love and light emanate from our silent phone communion, these waves just inundated my whole being.  We meditated for ten minutes.  At the end I said, “Thank you” and he said “Thank you too.”

I think our greatest service to the world is in our consciousness and aura.  That’s why we aspire.  Guru writes, and I apologize for quoting this so often:

“Inner wealth is to be acquired for distribution, and nothing else.”

(Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees)

For the past two days I’ve been listening obsessively to John Legend’s great art song “All of Me”.   At points in the song, I feel Guru is seated somewhere on a throne, a dear disciple is singing this song for him, and Guru’s is nodding, with his eyes closed.  Any song I love, Guru will also love, on the strength of his oneness.  “All of Me” I am sure will endure, as Schubert’s songs have endured, as Bach’s arias have endured.  It is a classic and will one day be added to the vast tapestry of classical music.

The melody is mesmerizing.  The words are obvious poetry.  It has a touch of Vaishnava beauty, just pure bhakti.

“I give you all of me, and you give me all of you.”

“All of me, loves all of you- loves all your curves and edges, loves your perfect imperfections.”

It reminds me of what Guru said to me, that he loves me, he loves me for who and what I am, and this love has no price tag and no condition.

Dave Hurwitz is one of the most brilliant critics alive.  And we have in common that Haydn is both of our favorite composer!  Here is what he has to say about another classical ensemble, the Beatles, and how we know they have entered the canon of classical music:

https://youtu.be/uRUYIPzFp4M?si=_Wkn8pUx0A-wu8FH

–Mahiruha