My Jharna-Kala Surprise
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
This was in 1984, I think. I was about 8 or 9 years old.
Guru was at Progress-Promise having a Jharna-Kala painting session. It was those big Jharna-Kalas, not the huge ones, but maybe 2 feet by 3 feet or something, not the little ones but the bigger ones, and quite a few of them.
Normally Guru had Ranjana or Sanatan or a few Jharna-Kala girls assist him by taking the finished Jharna-Kalas from him. But on that day, I assume Ranjana was not there and Sanatan was not there. Guru called me to come up on stage and assist him with his paintings.
Every time Guru was finished with a Jharna-Kala, he signaled me over and gave me the big painting. I was putting them on the carpet on the stage so they could dry.
This went on for quite a while. Guru did quite a few paintings, and I remember whenever he was painting, I stood at the very corner of the stage so I wouldn’t disturb him. I just waited for my next moment when I could go up to Guru and get my next Jharna-Kala.
I remember that while I stood there, I took it very seriously. I knew this was a very big job that Guru had given me. I was very concentrated and I also felt very proud in a good way that Guru allowed me to do this and that he trusted me to do this.
After Guru was finished, the Jharna-Kalas were for sale. My father decided that we would buy one. We didn’t have a lot of money but we bought one. I was allowed to choose my favorite painting to buy. I believe I chose the middle one that was lying on the floor. That Jharna-Kala is now in our living room.
Later on, Guru asked me which Jharna-Kala I had chosen, and I pointed to that painting.
Guru said, “That is also my favourite.”
Just Keep Your Heart's Door Open
Just keep your heart’s door open.
At every moment
You are bound to receive
Something special From your Beloved Supreme.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 92, #9151, Agni Press, 1983
'Concern is not a mere dictionary word'
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
On 9 September 2007, Vijaya Claxton, a student of Sri Chinmoy from New York, became the oldest American woman to swim the English channel. This story is told by Sahana and Bahula, who were her assistants on the support boat, and Nilima, who was keeping Sri Chinmoy informed of Vijaya's progress that day.
Sahana: Vijaya made several attempts to swim the English Channel. On one occasion I was on the boat as one of her helpers. She was close to finishing, and had been swimming parallel to the French coast because she could not break through the tides and get to shore. Finally, we saw the lighthouse which signaled the end of the coast. The pilot came out and said, “Whatever you guys do—praying or singing—do it. But if she misses that lighthouse, then there’s nothing I can do. She’s in the open sea, and we’ll have to pull her out.”
I immediately called Nilima, who was at Sri Chinmoy’s house with a small gathering of disciples. Vijaya had been fighting and fighting for nearly 22 hours and now everything was very, very close. At any moment she could be thrown into the open sea. Within minutes of Sri Chinmoy’s being informed, the pilot came out and said, “I can’t believe what just happened. The current changed direction. We’re putting the dinghy out.”
When the dinghy goes out, you know the swimmer has made it. Since the larger boat cannot go all the way to the land, the dinghy accompanies the swimmer for the last 15 or 20 minutes. Vijaya was finally able to break through the tide and was on her way to the shore. Hardly ever in my life have I felt such a real, concrete victory!
Bahula: While Vijaya still had a few minutes to go, the celebrations on the boat began. We were calling everyone and laughing and, at the same time, crying with delight. Vijaya swam onto France’s sandy Wissant Beach and stood up on the shore after having swum for 22 hours and 27 minutes in cold water. It was a soulful, glorious and unforgettable moment.
Vijaya’s friends and admirers were waiting at the dock back in Dover, England to congratulate and welcome her with open arms. On this sparkling Sunday morning, a group of former English Channel swimmers all turned out. Their heartfelt and sincere admiration for Vijaya was obvious. Alison Streeter, the 'Queen of the Channel', hugged her, shook her hand, and said, “Welcome to the club, Vijaya!” and added, “Another one for Sri Chinmoy!”
Nilima: When I think of my experience in Queens on the day of Vijaya’s successful Channel swim, I marvel most at Sri Chinmoy’s expression of concern for her effort and his constant involvement. There was no way I could have assisted on her boat, because just thinking of the ocean makes me seasick, so I was keeping in touch from New York. Sri Chinmoy asked if I would call Vijaya’s boat on my cell phone to see how she was doing at that moment, and thus began my task as Channel liaison. After speaking to Sahana on the boat, I conveyed to the Master that Vijaya was feeling quite strong, but was having trouble with nausea and seasickness. Shortly after that, I heard back that Vijaya’s seasickness had disappeared.
The Master had written a race prayer as part of a series that he composed weekly. I was happy when I realised that it had a swimming theme, so I conveyed the prayer to the boat. Sri Chinmoy also set tune to the prayer, as he often did, and Tanima, an excellent singer and musician, later taught the song to Sahana and Bahula over the phone. They sang it for Vijaya as she was swimming. The prayer reads:
My Lord Supreme,
No more will You suffer
For my sake.
My life has stopped swimming
In ignorance-lake.Sri Chinmoy 1
During Vijaya’s swim, Sri Chinmoy frequently asked what her situation was. Each time he was informed of a problem, the next thing I heard was that it had been resolved, as was the case with her early nausea. It was as if Sri Chinmoy was already aware of each difficulty, and was taking action to solve the problem on the spiritual level even as he was asking us for information.
During the last hour or so, everything was touch and go, with the real possibility—although Vijaya was very near the shore and swimming her hardest—that the tide could sweep her back out to sea. Through the phone I could hear the crew members screaming, “Swim! Swim faster! Go, go!”
When I told Sri Chinmoy of Vijaya’s dire predicament, he meditated deeply for a few minutes and then gave an enigmatic smile. I was on the phone with Sahana during the final moments, when the current suddenly changed direction, enabling Vijaya to swim to shore just in the nick of time. She took her first steps onto the French shore, and I was as thrilled and ecstatic as those who witnessed her success in person.
After Vijaya finished, Sri Chinmoy commented:
“Concern is not a mere dictionary word. Concern can be a reality of the heart. In my case, concern was a reality of the heart for Vijaya’s swim, not a mere dictionary word. I offered tremendous, tremendous concern for her victory.”
Vijaya later said: “I have always been a very determined person. My favorite poem by my spiritual teacher, Sri Chinmoy, is:
I do not give up,
I never give up,
For there is nothing
In this entire world
That is irrevocably unchangeable.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. My Race-Prayers, Part 3, #271
- 2. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 3, #233
Guru's Last Message
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Sahatvam: On the day of Guru’s Mahasamadhi, the sad message of his passing reached me while I was in the car driving back home. I had just given a lecture in Frankfurt on the subject of happiness. Could there be any bigger contrast? I was simply shocked. We all knew that Guru would not be in the physical with us forever; but as his love and concern for us had been so tangible in our hearts, we always liked to push aside that thought. Luckily, I arrived home without causing an accident.
While entering into my room, my eyes were filled with tears. The world I had been living in was totally smashed, no consolation in sight. I sat on my bed and looked around the room trying to find something that could relieve this state of inner turmoil.
Then suddenly my eyes locked on the pile of Guru’s books on my bedside table. I reached out and picked up volume 52 of My Christmas-New Year-Vacation-Aspiration-Prayers. I just flipped through it and somehow focused on the very last one:
“My physical death
Is not the end of my life –
I am an eternal journey.”
Right away I got a real shot inside my heart. That was Guru’s immediate answer to my grief. I felt a kind of relief, because Guru told me in his own way: “I am here with you. I shall never leave you alone. We are connected throughout Eternity.”
Although I still was mourning, my heart was filled with gratitude. Of course, we all are missing Guru’s physical presence, but our souls will always be in Guru’s Oneness-Heart.
Agraha: Guru used to call regularly to dictate poems to me. I used to love this more than words can describe. Guru was always very concentrated, but with perfect calm and in a most harmonious flow as he brought forward new spiritual wisdom for all humanity. Guru would always dictate a round number of poems – usually 100 or 200 at a time! Every so often, he might ask me how many poems he had dictated and then proceed.
Just a few days before Guru’s passing on October 11th, 2007, he called and began dictating poems. I was so happy – for I could always feel a small touch of Guru’s concentrated peace and creative genius also enter into me. Around poem 31 or 32, Guru dictated this poem:
“My physical death
Is not the end of my life –
I am an eternal journey.”
Immediately after, Guru hung up the line. I was actually very worried – the words, the uneven number, the sudden end to the call. I immediately called Guru’s house, where I was almost sure Guru was calling from, and there was no answer. I kept reflecting on this poem with much consternation. And then Guru called again the next day, and all seemed normal.
Guru passed just a few days later. I knew that Guru wanted this poem to be his last. At the time, I was almost inconsolable with the deepest grief of my life. Not long after, I remembered this poem, and I marvelled with gratitude at Guru’s boundless Love.
This was the last poem of the last book published while Guru was in his physical being.
'My silence is my highest offering'
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In 1989 a one-mile loop around the spacious acres of the Auckland Domain was dedicated as a Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile, and our city mayor, parks authorities, and various Olympians and notables came to welcome Guru. This occasion linked Auckland to a worldwide family of over 800 locations dedicated to peace globally—parks, cities, mountains, historical sites, and places of beauty on five continents, called Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms. Named after the project’s inspirer, the network of Peace-Blossoms was simply intended to provide focal points for peace in local communities.
In Auckland a blue and white plaque had been installed, offering both a measured mile for joggers and runners and providing an inspirational quotation about peace for passersby.
The brass band from a local girls’ school had also been invited to add a little colour to the occasion—unwisely, as it turned out—and they belted out a series of strangely incongruous Christmas carols, months away from Christmas and all hugely out of tune. At every apparent lull in the proceedings they would start up again, as though responding to some invisible cue—we often had to wave our arms at them to stop!
As well, one zealous player always ended her efforts with a loud protesting blast on the trombone as if someone had trodden heavily on her toes. The intensity of Guru’s presence was mixed with a comical element, as though two different worlds had confusingly come together—though Guru himself was hugely relaxed, seeming to enjoy this strange mélange.
My wife Subarata had also invited a clown, another bizarre yet somehow rather endearing oddity, and in all the video footage of this great occasion, there he is in his multi-coloured striped trousers and oversized red shoes, juggling happily or cheek-and-jowl with the mayor or waving at the camera. All of this created an air of informality, a light and spontaneous touch in which Guru himself was complicit. Guru walked and jogged around our newly dedicated Peace-Blossom mile and organized a spontaneous series of races for the disciples and others present. The mayor demurred, excusing herself from athleticism by pointing to her high-heeled shoes.
I had almost completely lost my voice—the tax from sleepless nights and stress—and my opening remarks on this wonderful occasion, little more than a few inaudible, whispered croakings, rivaled the brass band’s curious contribution. I invited Guru to speak and he took the microphone as though to do so—then he simply meditated for quite a long time.
The power and unexpectedness of Guru’s long silence, his calm disregard for convention, his absolute spiritual authority and composure, and the sudden surprise of his meditation swept everything else away and restored the occasion to what it was meant to be, something momentous and deep and lovely—for a great Master had just passed through our little world.
Later Guru said, “My silence is my highest offering.”
The whole world moves on,
But I stand still.The whole sky descends,
But I stand still.The whole earth aspires,
But I stand still.With my outer stillness,
I see the Feet of God.
With my inner stillness,
I become the Heart of God.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. The Wings of Light, Part 11
Every second with your Master on earth is precious
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
The Masters speak of the inevitable dry spells along the journey to our self-realization. I experienced one after twelve years on Sri Chinmoy’s path, when I felt flat for a number of weeks. I thought to myself, “I have not made any spiritual progress,” and one day I simply knew I had to go to New York to be with Guru.
I arrived very late, and in my morning meditation the next day, I felt no enthusiasm to be seeing Guru soon. I went to Aspiration-Ground (the tennis court where we met) despite this, where there were only a few dozen disciples waiting for Guru’s arrival. Suddenly, I felt a strong inner push to get my camera from my accommodations―just a small, ordinary camera. I ran as fast as I could so that I could return quickly, saying to myself, “Every second with your Master on earth is precious.” (How quickly things had already changed for me inwardly!)
I made it back before Guru arrived, and when he did, he called for a photographer. This day was one of his tennis anniversaries, celebrating his accomplishments in playing the game.
I looked around and none of the usual photographers seemed to be there, so I went and stood on the far side of the net. He would play a set with one of his tennis court assistants; they would then come to the net, Guru would place his tennis racket on the person’s head in blessing, and I would come close and snap a picture of the moment. Guru had asked for a photographer knowing that for each player, the blessing-photo would be a treasured memento. Somehow I got the inner message to run for my camera even though I was in the depths of a spiritual dry spell!
After he had played tennis with all of his assistants, I went back up to my seat in the bleachers. On my way I passed an older Canadian disciple, Nivedita, who was like a mother to the Canadian girls. I knelt down by her chair for a moment and said, “Isn’t Guru amazing?” because by now my inner joy and fulfillment had returned.
Nivedita told me that recently Guru had inwardly prompted her to phone her “daughter” Sarita, but she had been involved in a serious family issue and had not done so. At the time of my spiritual “flatness,” Guru had been in Germany, I was in Halifax, and Nivedita was in Ottawa―demonstrating the universal oneness of the Master with each of his disciples.
The inner dryness
Surrenders to
God’s Grace-Rain.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 31
How I learned my most important meditation-lessons
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I think that I learnt all of my most important lessons in meditation by simply observing Guru, just by being there around him. “God does not expect you to be perfect. He just expects you to be available.” Yes, just being available was almost enough.
I tried to feel that what I saw and felt in him was also within myself. So you begin with imitation, imagining inside yourself that self-same calm, that poise, detachment, radiant peace. Then imagination becomes a slowly blossoming reality, you can feel these qualities growing inside yourself – beneath the dross of imperfections, your little divine Self remembers and stirs. Guru was a mirror – look hard and often enough and there you are, smiling back at yourself.
Guru taught us many things that are simply not found anywhere else, little secrets unique to our path. And not just taught but brought them into our consciousness as the living breath of our discipleship, drilled us over and over until each lesson had sunk in. ‘Soulfulness’ for example – where else is this found? In our singing – “Be more soulful!” In our meditations – “Please be more soulful!” Or filing slowly along in a walk-by procession – soulfulness!
To be as close as possible to the consciousness of our own soul – its sincerity, purity, humility, sweetness – and then to maintain this as long, as deeply, as often, as consciously as possible in our lives.
And then those other spiritual secrets like ‘self-transcendence’ – words on a page suddenly brought to life, transformed and elevated into the highest spiritual teachings. Under his tutelage and personal example, these simple concepts became our path.
For me, one of the most astonishing assertions in all of spiritual literature is Guru’s concept of realising God, or more startlingly, becoming God. “Man and God are eternally one,” Guru writes in Yoga and the Spiritual Life. “Like God, man is infinite; like man, God is finite. There is no yawning gulf between man and God. Man is the God of tomorrow; God, the man of yesterday and today.” 1
Applied to everyday human life – karma yoga – Guru wonderfully develops this in guidelines of behaviour both for oneself and in one’s relationship with others. Consider, for example, his beautiful words to restaurant owners: “While you are cooking, you have to feel that you are cooking for the Supreme Guest, the Supreme Himself, who will eat in and through the hundreds of people who will come into the restaurant. Do not think of the people who are coming to eat as human beings . . . The Supreme is the Supreme Guest, and as a guest He is coming to you in hundreds of human forms.” 2
And about oneself: “God is constantly taking birth at every moment inside you – in what you say, in what you do and in what you become . . . With each new thought, each new idea, you can feel that a new God has dawned, a new God has taken birth.” 3
Man’s eternal question is:
“Who is God?”
God’s immediate answer is:
“My child, who else is God, If not you?”Sri Chinmoy 4
Guru’s radiant personal example every day reminded us, and will forever remind us, of the fundamental truth of our own God-becoming. He was the supreme proof that God exists, for us the great personification of divinity, and his legacy – especially his published writings – insists on the infallible truth of our own ultimate godliness. In the many trials of our lives he was always our compass, always realigning our wayward steps back to the great pole of liberation. Remember, he is still telling us, to see and feel the divinity within yourself and always see it in others.
Sometimes when I meditate on you, my disciples, in my own highest divine consciousness, I definitely see you as my Lord Beloved Supreme. I do not see you as human beings with human imperfections. No, at that time your outer bodies disappear and your souls I see as the most perfect representatives of our Lord Beloved Supreme. That is the time when I get the utmost happiness. I swim in the sea of ecstasy.
Sri Chinmoy 5
- 1. Sri Chinmoy, Yoga and the spiritual life. The journey of India's Soul., Agni Press, 1971
- 2. Sri Chinmoy, Dipti Nivas, Agni Press, 1976
- 3. Sri Chinmoy, God-Life: is it a far cry?, Agni Press, 1974
- 4. My Lord's Secrets revealed, Agni Press, 1971
- 5. Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 1, Agni Press, 1995
Tennis in the dream-world
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Some years ago, the father of one of our Auckland disciples died – ‘passed on’ is a better term, for as Guru mentions, the secret of life is that there is no death. The son mailed his father’s photograph to Guru, asking his spiritual Master to bless the father’s soul and help him on his way.
Some weeks later, in a vivid dream, our Auckland disciple saw his father playing tennis with Guru, a clear event on another plane of consciousness, so real that he woke in the morning feeling greatly reassured. Guru was surely showing him that he would take care of his absent father (who incidentally loved tennis).
In the morning after the dream, he went out to the letter box to collect his mail. There amongst his letters was the photograph that he had sent to Guru some weeks earlier. The photograph of his father had been returned to him and on it Guru had drawn two little tennis rackets. Guru was showing him that the dream had been a reality. Guru was confirming the dream was real, and that he would take care of the father’s soul.
Dream, always dream.
Do not forget that
God used His Dream
To create the world —
And He still continues.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Enthusiasm, part 11, 2008
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