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This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
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In 2001 we were in Brasilia, in Brazil. Usually when we go to a place, we research it. We try to go to different restaurants, thinking about what Guru would like. It’s not a place, like in Asia, where you will find Indian food everywhere. Guru loves his Indian food, and we all do. But there in Brasilia, we did not seem to find any.
One day Guru wanted to have Indian food in a restaurant. I remember I kept saying, “Guru, there is no Indian food here.”
He said. "There is! There is Indian food." He wanted to prove a point.
Earlier in the day this story takes place, Brazil was declared the first Sri Chinmoy Peace Blossom Nation in South America. Sri Chinmoy is seated in the middle with Olympic 800m silver medallist Joachim Cruz; Saraswati is at the far left
We were one hour looking. I would run in to each restaurant and ask: “Do you make Indian food?” “No.” “Do you make Indian food?” “No.”
Earlier that day, Sri Chinmoy also launched the Peace Run in Brazil; here he is holding the torch with Joachim Cruz
Alo Devi was getting tired. She said, “Devaji, we could go back to the hotel and the Annam Brahma girls could make you Indian food.”
Guru said, “No. There is a restaurant that has Indian food.”
After an hour or so, maybe an hour and 15 minutes, we went into a place, and I said, “Do you have Indian food? Do you make Indian food?” They said, “Yes, we do. What do you want? We can make you curry vegetables.”
So we went in—Guru, Alo Devi, Savyasachi and myself. We sit down and we were eating. Guru was eating his Indian food—very spicy, very delicious. They made it extremely well. Guru looked at me and said, “You see, you see. I said there is a place that has Indian food!”
So never, never doubt if your Master tells you something. Definitely believe it, because that is the case. We mentally think: “No, this is not that way, because we’re all in our minds. Only the Master knows best. So there was definitely a restaurant that had Indian food.”
Sri Chinmoy related the story to a disciple that evening:
Today I wanted to eat Indian food. Saraswati said that she had already made inquiries, and there is no Indian food available here in Brasilia. I said that there has to be Indian food. If I want to eat it, there will be Indian food. More than two hours we spent looking for it.
...Savyasachi was driving. Poor fellow, he is an excellent, super-excellent driver. Otherwise, somebody else would have done me a great favour and given up. Finally Alo and Saraswati got out of the car and with a little bit of Spanish, Saraswati asked one man. The man said to her in Portuguese, “You should go to see the president of all the restaurants.” He pointed to one restaurant and said, “The owner of that restaurant is the president of the restaurant owners’ association. If you go there, he will be able to tell you whether there is an Indian restaurant here or not.” He said that a few years ago he had eaten in an Indian restaurant, but he did not remember where it was.
We went into the restaurant. It was a huge restaurant and the noise was unbearable. Saraswati spoke to the president. The president said, “This is not an Indian restaurant, but we have an excellent cook. He can easily make Indian food.”
I said, “See, God does listen to my prayers.” Of course, it is human nature to doubt, but again, a challenge is a challenge...
Never give up! It was not an Indian restaurant, but the man was sincere. His cook made the food, and it was really, really delicious. They were so polite.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
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I will share a story with you that happened with my oldest son. When I came to Sri Chinmoy's Path, my youngest was 10 years old and the oldest was 16. Since the first day, I started praying to Guru to protect them.
Four years ago, I had a very strong experience of Guru's protection of my oldest son. He had a serious motorcycle accident and had to go to surgery. He broke some bones in his leg and his arm, also in his chest.
I was about to start teaching a meditation class. Before the class, when I was preparing myself, I received a phone call from my youngest son. He was telling me, "Mom, something happened—my brother had an accident."
As I'm a nurse, I immediately started asking so many things that my youngest son could not answer. I told him, "What do you know? Who called you? What happened?"
He said, "Please don't call my brother. He's having surgery. Later someone will call you."
I started making some phone calls anyway, but nobody answered. I had to give the meditation class, so I went to the class. I don't remember anything that I said or any mantra that I sang with the seekers. But I remember that in the silent meditation, I was always, always, always, all the time asking Guru to save my son because I didn't know how he was in that moment.
Then I left the meditation class. A few minutes later I received a phone call from one of my son's friends. He was telling me that my son was still in surgery and maybe I would receive some information only the next day. That all happened in the morning.
Finally, I received a call from my son and he said, "Mom, I'm OK. I'm alive. I had to go to surgery, but I'm OK. So don't worry."
I was telling him that I had already started to look for flights to England because he lives there. He told me, "No, no, please, Mom, don't come because I will stay in the hospital for some weeks. I don't know exactly but maybe things will go well and I can come home earlier. Please wait until I have some more information because if you come now, you will be allowed in the hospital for only 10 or 15 minutes. Then you will be alone all the time in my house."
He told me, "You have the Peace Run in Madeira, so please go. Please go. Then I will call you. You can organise everything from there."
Florbela is the Portuguesr coordinator of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run, the world's largest peace torch relay. This photo is from the Peace Run in Madeira in 2017, around the same time as the accident.
I did it, I went to the Peace Run. It was amazing and very difficult at the same time. Even while on the Peace Run, I started to organise my life in Portugal with my youngest son and also my work and flights to England. The next time my son called me, I told him, "OK, in a few days I will be in England." He said, "That's great because in a few days I can go back home."
Then he said, "Mom, I want to share something with you. I don't know if you will believe it, but when the car crashed with me and when my body was in the air, something held me. Before I landed the ground, something held me. I cannot explain, but I am sure something was holding me."
In that moment I started crying and I told him, "Of course, something held you. Because every day I pray to my Guru to protect you, to protect you and your brother. So I believe it completely." He said, "I don't know, I just know that something held me before I hit the ground."
This was such a profound experience because my son believes in God and he believes in Sri Chinmoy. I had given him a photo before he left Portugal. I told him, "Please, whenever you are in trouble or afraid or anything, please pray to Sri Chinmoy, to my Guru, to your Guru."
Something amazing also happened after this. A few days later, two days before I arrived in England, he called me and said, "Mom, I have to go to the hospital again. I am at home now, but I have to go to the hospital because my leg is not okay. I am in a lot of pain and I have a temperature. Something is happening. I am calling the ambulance." He went with a friend to the hospital.
I don't know how long after this call, I called him and he did not answer. I called his friend, who told me, "He is with the doctors. I don’t know what is happening.”
After a while, my son called me back and told me, "Mom, I have to go to surgery again. I have an infection. They told me that they cannot leave the material in the bone that they put before. So I think this will be much longer and I don't know what will happen." He was crying. I told him to be brave because I was coming.
The next day he called me. He told me, "Mom, you will not believe it. They gave me medicine and I went to get x-rays this morning. They told me that everything is okay. The x-rays show a completely different picture than yesterday." I was crying again. Then he told me, "You know, Mom, I prayed all night long. I was thinking about you. I was thinking about your Guru."
Two days later, I was with him at his home. I'm a nurse and I'm his mother, so it was a great moment. This is my story.
Florbela with her two sons, 2 months after the accident
I beg God for His Protection.
God says to me:
“Can you not see, My child,
That I have already given you
My Protection-Heart?”
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In Indian spirituality, the image of Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield is often used as encouragement to be like divine warriors, fighting for truth and goodness in the battlefield of life.
When our restaurant, Jyoti Bihanga, had only been open for a short time, we were not making a profit yet. I went to New York to ask Guru what to do. Should I declare bankruptcy or something else? I had papers with me with the figures on how much we owed and what our income was and all of that.
Jyoti Bihanga has now been open for over 35 years, and is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in San Diego
When I asked Guru about bankruptcy, he did not look at any of my papers. He said, "Mahiyan, you have to be like a warrior and fight. Pay this amount." Guru gave me an amount and said, "Pay this amount every month to your creditors."
It was much less than they were asking, but I contacted them all. By divine grace, they agreed to the amount that Guru told me to give. After maybe seven or eight years, the debts were fully paid. The amount Guru had given me was the maximum that we could pay and the minimum that the creditors would accept. It was perfect.
Never allow
Your doubtful mind
To boss you around.
God Himself has chosen
Your faithful heart
To be your only boss.
A playful father-and-son relationship between the Guru and the disciple
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Sri Chinmoy with his calf raise machine
There was one time Guru called me to New York because his knees were in terrible pain. I went to Guru's house and he called me over immediately and he said, "You have to make my knees better. You have to fix my knees; you have to fix my knees."
In the very next breath Guru said, "Oh, Pradhan, Pradhan. This morning I lifted 1400 pounds on my calf-raise."
I said, "Guru, you lifted fourteen hundred pounds and now your knees hurt? Guru, you know that little inner voice we're supposed to listen to? I'm going to be the inner voice of your knees: Eight hundred pounds is more than enough! No one else in the universe can lift that so it's more than enough.”
Of course, he ignored me quite nicely.
My relationship with Guru was typically quite playful. I always had a respectful and loving relationship with Guru, but it was also very father-son like. He would joke with me and I would joke right back sometimes, which most of the disciples wouldn't do with Guru. They wouldn't have that kind of playful relationship with Guru.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
There was this one guy who worked in the loading dock where I worked, where packages came in. He used to deliver packages and pick up packages several times a day. Anyhow, he was always in some kind of trance state when he came in. He hardly spoke. He looked very peaceful, and so one day I decided to sit down at the lunch table with him. I started speaking to him and telling him all of my philosophy and my ideas and everything. He was relatively quiet. Then he took out a book and opened it up to a certain page. He told me to read it.
This is what I read:
'Songs of the Soul' was Sri Chinmoy's ninth book, published in 1971
O my mind, no earthly chain can fetter you, you are always on the wing. No human thought can control you. You are forever on the move. O my mind, hard is it for you to believe in my soul's constant fulfilment and hard is it for me to believe that you are doomed to be the eternal victim of venomous doubts. Alas, you have forgotten. You have forgotten the golden secret: To remain in the silence-room is to open the fulfilment-door.
Sri Chinmoy from the book Songs of the Soul - the essay “O My Mind.”
An early poster advertising a meditation with Sri Chinmoy.
When I read that, I felt something deep inside my heart. I felt that these words expressed a truth that was inside of me, but was expressed so much more clearly and brilliantly than I could ever express myself. It was like an inner thrill went through me.
I immediately asked, “Who is this?”
He said, “Sri Chinmoy. He's my spiritual teacher.”
I asked him, “Is there any way I could meet him?”
Then he told me that Sri Chinmoy was here in New York and gave me a number for someone who was giving meditation classes and yoga.
For a long time
Speech was my only teacher.
Now I have a totally new teacher,
Silence,
And this teacher I shall keep
Forever and forever.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Sri Chinmoy in Madrid, 1984
As a family, we didn't have much money. We could never afford to go on the Christmas trips. But I had saved up some money for a bicycle. Alo allowed people to come to the trip for just one week in Madrid, a very short trip. So I put all the money that I had saved up for the bicycle to go to Madrid to be part of the Christmas trip.
My birthday is on December 27th. Guru asked me for my birthday to play on the stage. In the function room there was an upright piano. He said, "On your birthday you will play three songs."
This was a very big thing for me. I had very simple arrangements. Guru was sitting in his chair on the stage. I came up on stage and I started to play.
I didn't realise that while I was playing, Guru got up from his chair. He came and stood behind me and meditated while I was playing. Before I finished, Guru sat down, so I didn't realise Guru had done this. It was only when I had finished, and after Guru had given me some birthday presents, that somebody in the audience told me: “Do you know what happened? Guru got up and stood behind you while you were playing!”
I'm so grateful for this photograph because I didn't see Guru behind me. This is for me a very, very sacred and special photograph.
One of the gifts that Guru gave me was this little piano that you wind up and it plays music. It's very, very sweet. I have this on my piano that I use to practise and arrange music. I sit there and it reminds me of that moment in Madrid. This is where I feel that Guru started something in me. He sowed some seeds that I now see—now that I'm 50 years old—I see that Guru inspired me from a young age to do something with his music.
O divine Musician Supreme,
Do tune my heart-strings every morning
Before I begin to play on the world-stage.
I didn't realise that while I was playing, Guru got up from his chair. He came and stood behind me and meditated while I was playing. Before I finished, Guru sat down, so I didn't realise Guru had done this. It was only when I had finished, and after Guru had given me some birthday presents, that somebody in the audience told me: “Do you know what happened? Guru got up and stood behind you while you were playing!”