Singing to the Monkeys
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I’ll tell you a funny story. Guru had two monkeys, Jadhu and Madhu. There was a little monkey house off Guru’s porch at his house where the monkeys lived. My first job in the morning was to feed the monkeys. Each morning I would bring the food into the monkey’s house. They would come down and sit on my shoulder and they would sort of pick at the plate – it was a tin from Annam Brahma – and take what they liked. Guru would ask me if they ate.
One day, Guru told me to sing to the monkeys. I am a terrible singer. I don’t sing on key and I’ve been asked not to sing The Invocation because it puts everybody off. So I sang “Never Say No” to the monkeys. Guru would be sitting on the porch a lot of times, resting, looking out on the street. He had a couch there that he would rest on.
After about a month of singing “Never Say No,” Guru said, “Change the song.” So I sang “I dearly love my India and I dearly love my America.” And that one went on; but one is hard to sing, I love it, but I do not think I sing it right, ever.
One time I was driving Guru to the court (Aspiration-Ground, the tennis court we use as our meditation garden), and it might have been my birthday but I cannot remember. Guru said, “Please sing a song.” To be honest with you, I said, “Guru, I don’t know any songs really, I don’t know any Bengali songs.” And I didn’t. I said to Guru, “The only song I really know Guru is ‘Happy Birthday’.” So I start singing Happy birthday. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you….”
Really, I don’t know any rock songs, I don’t know any of Guru’s songs, except for The Invocation. Now I know seven songs, but in those days I didn’t know any songs. Guru started singing along with me, “Happy birthday to you….”
And then I said, “Well, Guru, I do know ‘America the Beautiful’ a little bit.” Guru and I both started singing “America the Beautiful,” but Guru knew it better than me, to tell you the truth.
The animal life and the human life
Are fast asleep inside you.
Do not awaken the animal life.
Only awaken the human life
So that it can be a good student
Of the divine life.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 40, #3985, Agni Press, 1982
'I accept you as a true disciple of mine'
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I became a disciple in 1975. I heard that Carlos Santana was going to be playing a concert at this Unitarian church; I was very excited because I knew he meditated. I went over a couple of hours early and I was sitting in the front row, but nothing was happening.
So I asked the person at the church when the meditation was going to be. He said, “Don’t worry, it’s definitely happening. But first we have a few children who will do piano and violin recitations.” And for the next hour and a half, I was sitting in the front row watching the children play their music.
Anyway, they finally showed up and there was a tremendous meditation. It was not an electric concert; it was a meditation with acoustic music. I had a really powerful inner experience. I felt that I was floating. I was having a kind of out-of-body experience. I had never experienced anything of that kind, and I was extremely enchanted by the experience.
So at the end of it, he mentioned that they meditated on a special photograph that they had on stage at the time. It was the Transcendental photograph. I saw a book called The Inner Promise, which had a very, very beautiful picture of Guru on the back. I so wanted to buy that book, but I didn’t have enough money. So I bought a Transcendental photograph for four or five dollars. Then I took it back to my dorm room and started staring at it every morning. Early in the morning, I’d put it on my pillow and try to meditate, although I didn’t know much about meditation.
.
So that photograph became my most prized possession. I kept it on an envelope taped to the wall. I had a few dreams about Guru, some very powerful dreams. I started to enquire about becoming a disciple, but I had never met any disciples or been to a Centre or anything. I found out that I needed to give my biography, so I applied to become a disciple by mail. I sent a letter to New York.
And so I waited. I was just waiting. Every day I was checking the mail. Several weeks went by and I had no idea what would be going on in New York. I finally received a tiny little card in a tiny envelope and I opened it up and it said “To my child. I accept you as a true disciple of mine.” There was a picture of Guru holding a flower. Someone had typed those words in pink typewriter ink, and Guru had signed it at the bottom.
I couldn’t believe it. I was very, very thrilled.
My Master-Lord, my Master-Lord, my Master-Lord!
Your choice was my soul.
Your Heart is my choice
To save my life from its bondage-voice.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. My Supreme Songbook, 2001
Крилете на радостта
В „Крилете на радостта“ Шри Чинмой предоставя инструментите, от които се нуждаете, за да се издигнете до върховете на човешките възможности – и да намерите своя път към вътрешния мир. В книгата може да откриете притчи, анекдоти, истории и стихотворения, предлагащи свежи прозрения за откриването на себе си и връзката ви със света.
„Скъпи мои приятели, братя и сестри, аз съм човек на молитвата, аз съм ученик на мира. Моля се на Небесния Отец да изведе напред всичките ви божествени качества и многократно да ги умножи. Моля се на Бог да дари всеки от вас с Посланието на Своята Мечта - мира. Моля се на Бог да ви дари с безгранична радост.“
С тези думи Шри Чинмой започва своята книга „Крилете на радостта“. Шри Чинмой е международно известен духовен водач с хиляди ученици по целия свят. Той съчетава древна мъдрост със съвременни прозрения за това какво означава да бъдеш духовно търсещ през ХХI век.
Шри Чинмой вярва, че всички ние сме божествени същества. С „Крилете на радостта“ той насърчава всички нас да намерим мира и светлината дълбоко в сърцата си, за да можем да се справим с отрицателните преживявания и нагласи и да ги трансформираме в положителни.
„Какво е радостта?
Това е птица, която всички желаем да уловим.
Това е същата птица, на която всички се радваме, когато лети.“
- Шри Чинмой
A vision at 3 a.m in the morning
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I was at that time still a ski teacher, so in February, I had to be one week with some children at a children's class. I was supposed to teach them skiing in the Swiss mountains. I was there in a nice wooden house in the mountains.
One night, I woke up at maybe 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. It was pitch black. I was becoming very conscious. I had never been so conscious. In this vision, I saw Guru’s face, and from his third eye a streak of light came into my heart in a color like yellow or green, something like that. Now I know it's love, the colour of love.
It expanded and suddenly I was a pond of water. The water was falling down, a waterfall into the next pond, which was much bigger. Guru's face had disappeared, but I was the water of this pond and the next pond was very big. The whole pond fell down as a waterfall into a big lake. And that water again fell down as a waterfall into the ocean.
I was every drop of that ocean and I was floating as far as the ocean went. There was no limit, there was no end to this. It was just water, drop after drop after drop, and every drop was love. It was incredible, the ultimate experience of truth. My body had long gone. I was expanding and expanding in this love-flow, oneness-ocean-vastness. Then I was sleeping again, and next morning when I woke up, it all came right back.
I didn't go skiing with the kids that day. I told the older ones, you should teach them. I stayed in front of this wooden house and sat there meditating all day.
I was crying the whole day. The tears were running down my face. I realised I had experienced the highest truth. The ultimate had come to me in Guru, in Guru's blessing, in Guru's deep, deep love.
This was so strong that I felt like my life, my self… I was like an old trunk, an old tree that was growing before, not straight but winding. It was getting old and now this old trunk was splitting open. From the very depths inside, a new plant, a few leaves, grew straight up. They were fresh green and very beautiful.
From that day on, whenever I meditated, I had a goal to reach. The meditation was measured inside by the experience I had when Guru gave me his deep love.
I came to God
As a tiny, insignificant drop,
But He tells me that
He will not be satisfied
Until He turns me into
An ocean of love.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 37, #36301, Agni Press, 2004
The very first time I heard about my spiritual Master
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Whenever I remember how I first came to Guru, I get very emotional.
I was in high school. I was maybe 16 or 17 years old, and at the time I had recently moved from the island of Maui in Hawaii to Puerto Rico. When I was about 16, I started to have some inner spiritual yearnings and some spiritual experiences. No one, in my circle of friends in the school that I was going to, shared these kinds of experiences.
So, I started going to bookstores and looking for spiritual books. One of the very first ones I was fortunate enough to get was a book on yoga, a general book of yoga. It was not Guru’s book. I began reading about yoga and spiritual life. I started practicing the physical exercises of yoga and some basic concentration exercises on my own because no one that I knew in Puerto Rico was doing anything like this. Then I started buying other books and reading on Zen Buddhism and Hinduism and some other paths, but there was one message that kept coming out to me from each of these books. That message that these books were, these teachings, were talking about was higher worlds, higher levels of consciousness, how to achieve real inner peace. But they always said that if you want to achieve this, you need a teacher, you need a Master to guide you.
Every time I got a new book thinking I would be able to find something that I could use to develop my spirituality, sooner or later in that book, that line would come out, that teaching would come out: “You need a Master. You need a Master.”
Finally, one day I said okay, well I guess I should look for a Master. I started asking around, people I knew, if anyone knew of a yoga group that had a Master. it took a while before I actually found someone that could answer that question.
One day I spoke with someone and asked, “Do you know where I could find a spiritual Master?” This person told me, “Well, I do not personally have one, but I know someone who does go to a yoga centre and who has a Master.”
It turned out that that person was a young man who happened to live in the same apartment building that I lived in, on the same floor that I lived on, only about five doors down. This is in Puerto Rico, where there were about four million people living at that time. All of that island and all of those people, and that person was right there.
I was a young man. I was 16 and kind of shy. So, it took me a little while to get enough courage to approach someone I did not know. One day I was out on the balcony and I saw him going to the elevator. So, I said, this is the time. I went over to speak with him. Bear in mind that this was about 50 years ago, but I still remember this moment like it was yesterday.
I went over to him as he was waiting for the elevator. I said, “Good morning. A friend of mine told me that you are going to a yoga centre, and I am looking for a spiritual Master.”
He looked at me. He was a young man, maybe in his mid-20s, very nice, very humble, very sweet. The first thing he said to me was, “If you are looking for a Master, I know where you can find the highest Master on earth at this time.”
I was so excited! My eyes opened wide. He said, “He is always in samadhi.” He made his eyes go up like this. I had just read a book on Tibetan yoga that had pictures of Himalayan yogis in trance. I could not believe that this man was telling me about someone like that that I could meet.
Then he said, “His path is very straight and direct. It is like a blade of grass. If you walk on it directly, it will lead you to the goal. It is very challenging, but you will achieve your goal.”
Everything he was telling me, I had absolute faith in. There was not a trace of doubt or apprehension. I felt his sincerity inwardly and outwardly and I just knew the reality of what he was saying. I knew that it was absolutely true.
Then he said, “But that's all I'm going to tell you. You have to go there and experience it for yourself to see if he's meant to be your Master. Come to my apartment later on in the evening and I will give you the address.”
Needless to say, I was very excited. I had been anticipating this for some time. When the evening came, I went and knocked on his door. He let me in and said, “Okay, I will go upstairs to get the address.” And he pointed to a picture that was on the wall. It was a small Transcendental, a pocket-sized Transcendental on the wall. He said, “Oh, by the way, that's a picture of my Master, Sri Chinmoy.”
That was my very first time seeing Guru’s Transcendental photograph. Just a simple picture on the wall, and I was looking at it and looking at it. It felt so familiar. At the same time, it felt very ancient, like a great Master from ancient times. I was getting this wonderful feeling from it.
It is hard to put into words. My mind was completely blank. As I kept looking at Guru’s photograph, everything else sort of became in soft focus and disappeared. It was just his beautiful face, just shining. It was really something very magical, very, very mystical.
Then he came downstairs and gave me the address and the days of the meetings. In those days, it was Wednesdays and Sundays. He gave me the name of a disciple: Guru’s first disciple in Puerto Rico, Sudha.
He said, “Go there and introduce yourself. Tell them that I sent you.” He was a medical student, so he could not go to all the meditations. So, he said, “Go there.”
If you believe in your Inner Pilot
And can listen to His Dictates,
Then you do not have to cross oceans
To find an outer Master.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 4, #3291, Agni Press, 1998
Spiritual experiences on the pandemic frontline
These past two years have been extremely difficult for everyone, especially for our healthcare workers. Two nurses who are members of our Centre, Kritagyata Nicholls from New York and Florbela Caniceiro from Portugal, share their experiences of how their spirituality has helped them and the people around them.
Hope, courage, endurance and cheerfulness
by Kritagyata Nicholls, New York
I am a neonatal and pediatric intensive care nurse, with a background in psychiatric nursing. In 1991, Sri Chinmoy asked me to co-ordinate his humanitarian service programme The Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
When wondering how we could be of assistance during the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, I recalled my years in the neonatal ICU of Lenox Hill Hospital, where I would silently recite one-line poems of Sri Chinmoy’s while I was working. That one phrase became a powerful vehicle to bring a sense of peace and poise into our daily challenges at the unit.
At the beginning of the pandemic, our team also listened to interviews with doctors and nurses who were working tirelessly in our hospitals to save lives. They spoke of the need for hope, courage, endurance and cheerfulness.
Researching Sri Chinmoy's poems on these themes, we created Thoughts for the Day, which brought inspiring and encouraging words of wisdom to medical teams. Posters and banners were prepared for hospital Emergency Departments and related services.
The response was most inspiring from hospitals in Italy, Germany, Russia and the USA. I would never have imaged a huge banner of poetry in an emergency room, yet doctors and nurses found that the wisdom conveyed by these poems was deeply valued by patients and staff, and provided them with hope, strength and encouragement.
Our Work with Children
As a nurse, I saw first-hand how devastating the lockdowns and restrictions were deeply impacting children’s emotional health. Our experience has been over the years, that once children participate in making things better, it empowers them, giving them a sense of fulfilment in the knowledge that their efforts are really making a difference.
After listening to a speech by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, on the impact of the pandemic on the lives of children worldwide, and being aware of Sri Chinmoy’s dedicated service to the UN for 37 years, we initiated programmes to connect children in different nations.
In Kazakhstan children drew artwork as an expression of gratitude to doctors and nurses. The artwork was displayed as a huge poster at 40 bus stops in the capital city of Nur-Sultan, being placed just before the International Day of Healthcare Workers. The installation will be in place for almost a year.
We have had an ongoing programme called Drawings of Love where children send drawings to support children and adults around the world. This year children in Russia created artwork for children undergoing chemotherapy at the Raisa Gorbachev Memorial Institute in St. Petersburg. As both the donor and recipient children were experiencing a lockdown, this mode of communication coordinated by our team was most gratifying for all participants. Messages of encouragement, friendship and comfort were exchanged and turned into slideshows to share via hospital TV with all pediatric patients.
Comment by Ambassador Mehrotra
We had the opportunity recently to tell Ambassador Lakhan Mehrotra, Former High Commissioner from India to Sri Lanka, about our work with hospitals and children, and he said, "Sri Chinmoy’s words act as balm on bruised souls, and inspire those engaged in serving victims of Corona!"
The inner connection
a personal story from Florbela from Portugal
I have been a nurse for 31 years and a student of the spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy for 12 years. I have been a frontline worker in the fight against the pandemic, either conducting individual or institutional screening tests, treating the sick in their homes, and now most recently doing vaccinations.
The last two years of my life have been like all of us, very difficult. But for health professionals they were beyond difficult. They were frightening and during some periods, absolutely lonely. The move away from our family and the fear of death were always very present.
But what I would like to share with you all, is not the difficult part of this experience, but the fact how much being a student of Sri Chinmoy has helped me personally, and allowed me to help co-workers and – above all – our patients.
Meditating daily gave me the confidence and courage I needed to reassure colleagues that together we would make it! It gave me enough peace to always convey to the patients the relief they needed, for the fear that flooded them.
Reading Sri Chinmoy's books allowed my mind to have a period of rest, optimism, and to be refreshed to continue receiving all the information, which came several times a day and had to be put into practice quickly to protect people.
Sri Chinmoy's music made me feel his presence, his concern and love for all of us. It gave me hope!
Sri Chinmoy's videos were my companion when nothing else made me happy.
The inner connection with my spiritual Master saved me, in the most difficult time I have experienced so far.
But it goes even further. It has enabled me to help many patients during this most challenging time for humanity, and continues daily to enable me to help all the people I care for.
What I have received from Sri Chinmoy during the past 2 years cannot be expressed in words. I can only say: Gratitude! Gratitude for being able to have this life experience, is what I feel inside me the most.
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A new book about nature and spirituality
Listen to Nature: Living in Harmony with the Earth is a new book which presents a collection of Sri Chinmoy's writings on the environment. Through poetry, prose and question and answers, Sri Chinmoy explains the root of our own environmental crisis, how we can learn to love nature and why there is reason to be hopeful of creating a better future.
The new book has a foreword contributed by Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace.
[Sri Chinmoy] stresses the need for a deep spiritual connection with the natural world of which we are part and on which we depend.. Let us heed the words of this spiritual teacher before it is too late."
Jane Goodall
The book also includes several practical meditation exercises, where Sri Chinmoy offers us the opportunity to meditate on aspects of nature we often take for granted. Sri Chinmoy feels that developing this inner connection with Mother Earth not only feeds the natural environment, but can also bring peace to humanity.
Nature has its own rhythm, its own harmony, its own peace and joy. When you are identified, consciously or unconsciously, with universal Nature, it is all vastness and immensity. There you lose your own outer existence, the feeling that you are separate from other persons. In that state of unified oneness, you become totally one with universal Nature; you become part and parcel of the Vast and the Infinite. You forget your ordinary life, which is your physical frame, your name and your outer existence. In that state, you do not have to make your mind calm and quiet, for the mind is not functioning; you have already become identified with the treasure of universal Nature's consciousness.
Sri Chinmoy
Whilst Sri Chinmoy expresses his sadness at the way humanity has damaged Mother Earth, he explains this damage to the environment is a manifestation of the division, fear and greed which are predominant in human minds.
At the same time, Sri Chinmoy offers a message of hope, that through prayer, meditation and identification with Mother Earth we can help to heal the planet and restore the natural beauty of earth.
We must not underestimate the power of spirituality. Prayer and meditation mean new life. When we pray and meditate, at every second we are invoking God’s Compassion. We are saying that Mother Nature is being destroyed. But we have to know that Mother Nature is nothing other than God the creation. We are praying to God the Creator to save God the creation. So He who created this earth can once again create a new creation on the strength of our prayers and meditations.
Sri Chinmoy
This medium sized book is an excellent gift for anyone who has love for our planet and wishes to understand both what is going wrong, but also how we can help to protect and renew our connection with nature.
It is available to order from Heart-Light (USA) or The Golden Shore (Europe)
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