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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 »
When I started to meditate under the guidance of Sri Chinmoy, the situation in the family wasn't so good because of the doubts of my spouse and my parents. I could not even talk about meditation. But I had a little corner in the basement where I could be by myself. It was in my office behind the door. I had set up a little altar, a very minimal altar, and I would meditate in the morning. I would try to wake up at least 20 minutes before François, my son, because when he was up, it was another world, since he was hyperactive.
Both children attended the local school. François was in grade 4, Julie in grade 2. At school, François always wanted to joke around and have fun. He would do things that distracted the teacher or made him/her upset. Julie, two years younger, was an example of conformity. François was the opposite! He was a little bit hyper, and this created challenges.
Julie and François
So I had started meditating to help me accept my son and not get too upset with everyday events, either at home or at school. Before the children woke up in the morning, I would go to my secluded area for about half an hour of relaxation, deep breathing, building up my tolerance level…
Little by little, I was learning the inner code of life. The one who, by most outer standards, had it made by age 40 was realising that inwardly, the journey was very challenging, yet beautiful and rewarding. But I needed lots of courage and the faith to accept with serenity the many inner and outer problems that I was facing.
One morning, maybe three or four months later, out of the blue, while the four of us were having breakfast, without me questioning him, my son spontaneously said: “Dad, since you started meditating, you have been treating me better!”
Well, you know, coming from your son, from a child who doesn't have any vested interest… to say, “Dad, you treat me better”...
I hadn’t been beating him or anything, but still, I realised that because of the meditation, because of Guru, I was finally able see the God in him. And the God in him wasn't so easy to see then, because when the school calls you every week and says that François was not at school again, or he's misbehaved, or he's got into this and that… He wasn't a bad boy, but perhaps because he was very intelligent, after he listened to something once, he had had enough. Then he would distract others and create mischief. This was a big problem for me. When I would go to the school meetings, teachers would say, “Oh, you're the father of François!” That wasn't meant as a compliment.
So, for him to say that I treated him better… To some extent, I could see the change in myself, but for him to say it, at 9 years of age, made quite an impact on me and reassured me that I was on the right track. What a realisation… what a confirmation that meditation was changing me and making me a better person, a better father!
To end this little story, I can happily say that now François is my best friend. After Guru, François is my best friend.
Since then, with his permission, I have quoted my son’s comment many times to stress the importance of meditation — while offering meditation classes, during my job as the director of a team of child welfare workers, when delivering presentations at various conferences, and now, years later, in my position as a professor of Social Work at the University of Ottawa.
I Challenged Yesterday’s Problems
I challenged yesterday’s problems
With my determination-power.
I am challenging today’s problems
With my aspiration-cry.
I shall challenge tomorrow’s problems
With my surrender-smile
To my Lord Supreme.
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 taught that spiritual growth means self-transcendence, constant expansion, always going beyond the boundaries set by our minds. To make that a concrete reality for us, he advocated long-distance running. The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team was a pioneer in the field of ultramarathons, specially in multi-day races, such as the triple ultra (700, 1,000 and 1,300 miles) and the six and ten-day races. In 1996, the team directed an unprecedented distance: 2,700 miles. The next year, Sri Chinmoy asked the team to put on an even more astounding race of 3,100 miles! Here was a race that defied all reason; only those willing to dive deep within and draw upon on the strength of their hearts and souls could even attempt the race. Since then, every year, (with the exception of the 2020 Covid hiatus, when the race was run in Austria), a small field of warrior-runners has braved the heat and humidity of summertime New York to circle a small sidewalk loop in Queens from 6 a.m. to midnight. for a maximum of 52 days. With the crucial support of many dedicated volunteers to set up and maintain the race site, to prepare food for runners and helpers, and to provide medical assistance, the race has led to many ultra records, has won the admiration and astonishment of the world, and has demonstrated the power of soulful determination and dedication.
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One thing that sticks out in my mind with this race, Guru had been asking us for four years to put the race on. Guru actually said at one point, “You have to put it on next year.”
Please understand that before that, one thousand three hundred miles was our longest race that we put on.
Again, it was transcending, like everything. Guru was pushing a new limit, and he finally had to say, “Do it next year.”
Guru set the hours. He said 6 a.m. to midnight. This is quite unique in itself. I know being around Guru for so many years, that Guru had set long hours for one or two projects. Often he would set hours to work, but such long hours were like, phew! boy!
I identified those hours with how Guru looked at his day in outwardly serving humanity. His day around disciples would often be about that time, from 7 a.m. to midnight. Guru came to the race, wow, five times, four times, six times a day.
I remember one time when Guru commented about the race, about the runners and the people in the race. He said, “These are the real impossibility-challengers. They have a dauntless spirit and they are indomitable in every sense of the term.”
So you have to put it in perspective. Most people, you tell them and they say that it’s impossible. People don’t imagine you can do this, especially around a city block. The fact that people are actually doing it is the most incredible thing.
Shatter, shatter
Your impossibility-fear
And your impossibility-challenges
Both in your inner life
And in your outer life!
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
After a while, Guru began writing the avatar plays. He wrote plays about the Buddha, the Christ, Rama, and Krishna, and Chaitanya. Guru wanted to perform the Buddha play for Secretary-General U Thant of the United Nations.
Even before that, Guru was writing plays, and of course he wanted them performed. I would be the spiritual master in a play, and if another play came out, I was the spiritual master in that play also. I was typecast as the spiritual master, so I was given the part of the Buddha in the Buddha play.
Kanan plays the role of the Buddha
Tanima was the director of that play. She also played the part of the girl whose baby had died and the Buddha said to her, “Bring me mustard seeds from the house that has not been visited by death.”
Hashi, of course, got the part of Sujata. When the Buddha was starving, she brought him some food. All of his ascetic disciples left him when they saw a woman, a girl, feeding him.
Sri Chinmoy garlands U Thant prior to the beginning of the play
I feel it is a great privilege to be able to participate in this spiritually rewarding experience, and for this I am most grateful to our esteemed teacher, Sri Chinmoy, for this innovative undertaking... I find that Sri Chinmoy has done a most remarkable job in presenting the play in simple, understandable language for the uninitiated. His stress on the basic characteristics of Buddhism, on compassion, love, renunciation, peace, should stimulate the thought of leaders of men and leaders of thought everywhere.
U Thant 25 May 1973
It was really one of the highlights of Guru’s manifestation to get the UN Secretary-General to come out on a rainy night to a farm for the Buddha play. Everyone had prepared for it. The carpenters had built the stage, and so many people were in the performance. That was a very great play.
We just want to watch God's Cosmic Play,
But God eagerly wants us
To participate in His Cosmic Play.
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 was blessed to have quite a bit of private time with Guru on various occasions. One time I approached him having allowed myself to be immersed by a sense of failure. I told him that I was feeling failure all around me.
He said, “It is not like that. You have to think of yourself as the lump of clay that the potter has. When the potter is working on the lump of clay, you cannot say that it is very beautiful. But he is working on it and it becomes something beautiful.”
Another example Guru used was the farmer who works in the field. He spreads fertilizer, and you cannot say that that is very beautiful. But eventually the farmer grows a bumper crop of food. So it was not that I was a failure, Guru explained to me―it was simply that I was not finished yet. I was witnessing myself in the process of being perfected.
Then Guru added, “If all else fails you and none of that works, just remember that you belong to me. You belong to me.”
He also occasionally gave me light-hearted advice. In the later years of Guru’s life, people would be regularly invited to his home, but this required an invitation. However, Guru had said to me, “Whenever you come to New York, you come to my house at 8:30. You don’t need to be invited.” This was really quite lovely.
One time I came to New York and went to Guru’s house as he had directed, and no one else was in the room we were in at the time. He said, “Oh, Pradhan, you are here! Come and work on my leg.” As a chiropractor, I used to work on Guru’s leg, doing chiropractic manipulation and also massaging it. On this particular occasion I happened to be exhausted.
“Guru,” I said, “Please forgive me. I know that I am not working on you with the same intensity that I usually do, but I am really exhausted and I just need a good night’s sleep. I will be fine tomorrow.”
Guru called out to the disciples in other parts of the house, saying, “Everybody, please come down. Please don’t ask Pradhan to do anything. He is working harder than anyone else in the Centre, so don’t ask him. Please, everyone, come down.”
I laughed, saying, “Guru, please stop!” There is a certain amount of self-indulgence in thinking that one is so tired and working so hard. Guru called me out on this lovingly and amusingly, and of course my tiredness immediately disappeared.
Patience Is Light
To please the Supreme
In His own Way
Is not possible overnight.
If you are sincerely and consciously trying,
What you need is patience.
Patience is light,
Patience is strength,
Patience is peace.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In the early days often at night, Guru would go to someone’s house and there would be a party, a meal, and Guru would sit around. Everyone would eat and then people would ask Guru questions.
Everyone had Guru’s phone number. If you weren’t feeling well, you could call Guru up and say, “Guru I have a headache, I have a sore throat.” He would bless you, put a force on you. These were very, very different times.
People were often curious about what animal they were in their last animal incarnation. You could just ask Guru, and he would say what you were.
This was one of those meals. Hashi (my wife) and I were there, and Hashi was looking around at all the disciples. There were maybe twenty disciples, and she said to herself, “I know the last incarnation of everybody who is sitting here, but I don’t know mine.” After she thought that, Guru said out loud, “Hashi, what animal were you in your last animal incarnation?”
Hashi said, “Guru, I don’t know.”
Guru said, “It starts with an F.”
She sat there and went flea, frog, she started thinking of every animal that started with an F. Guru didn’t tell her that night, but the next day or a few days later, he told her she had been a fox.
When I first came to the Centre my head had been shaved. In those days after a function, there would be a meal, somebody would cook a meal and we would eat it. Then we would wash the dishes. Guru was sitting at the table in the kitchen, and I was washing the dishes. One of the girls saw that I had fuzzy hair and she said, “Kanan looks like a koala bear. Was he a koala bear, Guru?”
Guru said, “No, he was a cow.”
For some reason this was quite shocking to me. I think most boys want to be a lion or a horse or a bull, something like that, but not a cow. A cow is a female animal! Of course, Guru could feel my shock, so he said, “A nice gentle cow.”
Gentleness
Gentleness Is one of the roads
That leads us far,
Very far,
Towards our self-perfection.
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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This experience is kind of neat because spiritually if we open our eyes, which many of us are not able to do so much, we realise that there were many inner things going on in Guru’s life. It was not too often that Guru shared the inner level that he was operating on. But this is one example at Aspiration-Ground.
This was 1983 or 1982. We had finished Aspiration-Ground tennis court in 1981, and Guru threw himself completely into playing tennis for hours and hours on end. We would play that first year and a half or two years, probably three to four hours every day.
People would be sitting in the stands, and Guru would have a rotation of six or seven different disciples who would play Guru in tennis. They would rotate in for two games, and then the next player would come out and play Guru. So there was a routine and an organization. Guru would always be out there so you would always see Guru. To see Guru play and run and get such joy gave everybody tremendous happiness and joy.
It was usually summertime when we played. We were out there for one, two, or three hours playing. It got quite repetitive: we were chasing balls and playing tennis. This particular day, all of a sudden Guru stopped and put his arms down at his side and started meditating very abruptly, very unexpected. When we were around Guru, often he would meditate, and the meditations would go into very intense deep silence. The disciples recognised it for the most part when Guru was meditating on something serious inwardly.
I would compare it to Centre meetings, where you would be meditating and there would be a silence. It was very obvious that something else was going on. When Guru stopped like that, you felt that immediately.
He meditated and he was looking at the ground. Then he gazed up and was meditating beyond the trees at the sky. Two or three minutes went by. It was fairly quick. Then Guru just started playing tennis again. After Guru finished playing tennis, one of the disciples asked what was going on. Guru said, “There was a beautiful fountain of colour coming out of the earth. Beautiful colours going up to the sky.”
He pointed to the court exactly where the fountain was and asked us to place a marker that would stay at that spot.
About a year later we had an anniversary and we remembered certain things. The fountain was one, and I asked Guru, “Is the fountain still there?”
Guru said, “Yes, it’s always there.”
Fill the Heart
Empty the mind!
Lo and behold,
Right in front of you
There is a fountain of peace.
Fill the heart!
Lo and behold,
Right in front of you
There is a fountain of bliss.
Guru said, “No, he was a cow.” 
