The gift of gratitude
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
My most recent experience of gratitude occurred in a spiritual dream. We were at Aspiration-Ground, the meditation garden were we all meet in New York, as a very important play was about to begin. There were a lot of disciples there, as well as quite a few guests. Guru was standing next to the guests for a photo, and the media gallery was huge, with sixty to seventy videographers and photographers.
Guru then asked me about getting into Pilgrim-Dream-Museum, the house next to Aspiration-Ground where he hosted distinguished guests. I looked up and saw that it was already open. I told Guru, who began walking up there. I was behind Guru, watching him as he moved through the crowd and noticing the surprise and devotion of people as they saw him approach.
When we arrived at Pilgrim-Dream-Museum, I was overcome with a beautiful sense of gratitude at being given the opportunity to serve Guru in this simple but important way. Guru did not go inside but just moved around, giving me time to fully immerse myself in this powerful feeling of gratitude. I awoke with tears streaming down my face, knowing that this awesome experience was gratitude.
I realised that the experience of gratitude is purely a gift. It almost seems counter-intuitive because I always thought that gratitude was something that a person offered to someone else. But no, true gratitude is a beautiful, fulfilling experience that God just gives. There seems to be very little a person can do to earn it—at least as far as I can figure out. I am just hoping that if I value it, then it will come more frequently.
On the other hand, the experience of gratitude was so powerful that I am not sure if my outer awareness could deal with it. For me, it has only fully happened either when I have been in trance (once) or in a spiritual dream (twice). In each case, it felt like I was being inundated in the blast from a fire hose—it was absolutely overwhelming.
If you have gratitude,
You must realise
That your gratitude has come
From God Himself.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 11, 10606, Agni Press, 1999
The stage is set and the curtain has been raised
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
God has chosen the conditions under which you are living your present life. It is like a play. The stage is set and the curtain has been raised for you to perform your part and advance along the spiritual path. Your present conditions are the best possible ones for your advancement.
Sri Chinmoy 1
I just love this quote, as it puts my life situation into perspective and helps me find gratitude for life, as well as courage and inspiration to move forward and make progress.
Once we were embarking on a campaign of giving meditation classes. To help improve our presentation, we shot a video of a class with the idea we would watch afterwards to see how it could be better.
After I managed to overcome my initial discomfort of watching myself, I was fascinated to see the difference between myself pre- and post-meditation. It was dramatic. After meditating, I had so much more poise, more focus, more clarity.
I had always considered myself to be fairly even-keeled, so I had no idea that there would be a dramatic transformation taking place every time I meditated. All of the things I wanted to be could be achieved through the simple act of being silent for twenty minutes or so.
I began thinking about this discovery and came to the conclusion that when I am in this post-meditation state, there is a much greater chance that the choices I make and the decisions that I take will naturally be far more in tune with my higher aspirations. Furthermore, it became clear that my life direction was not based on a few key momentous decisions that I had to get right or forever hold my peace. It is more like the cumulative effect of a lot of small decisions. Consequently, the more I can be in a good consciousness though meditation, the more likely I will make choices and decisions that will result in a fulfilling, illumining and enriching life.
You simply cannot plan for every contingency and meticulously carve out a perfect life. Instead, you can simply get in touch with your higher self and trust that you will do the right thing at the right time and be guided to a life of fulfilment.
When you open yourself up to spiritual light, your life becomes easier. I think this happens because you consciously begin trying to listen to your higher self and to use that higher self as a guide in the choices you make and decisions you take. Consequently, you become more in sync with your destiny and begin to live the life that God wants for you and not the life your emotions or desires want for you. Essentially, you take a different path.
This new path, at first, is not very far from the old path because, like a fork in the road, you are still somewhat in the same area. However, as time moves on, those two paths—your life’s old trajectory and your new one—diverge, more dramatically, and you see how beautiful, enriching and fulfilling your new life is.
When you soulfully meditate,
The first thing you get
Is peace,
And this peace
Marks the beginning
Of your heart’s journey
Along the path of perfection.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. Death and Reincarnation, Agni Press, 1972
- 2. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 19, 1878, Agni Press, 1983
Sometimes it takes a crisis to make us see
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
I am inspired to share one story that happened in the last two years, after Sri Chinmoy departed this world, as a way to illustrate that he continues to watch over us all from the higher planes, though we may not always be aware of it.
One day I was driving back from an appointment on Long Island when I hit some traffic on the Grand Central Parkway and decided to get off and take the back roads through Jamaica Estates. I was driving at a moderate speed up a slight hill in this residential neighbourhood.
It was a small two-way street with cars parked on both sides of the street, which in reality left room for only one car to drive at a time – a very common situation in this area of Queens.
As I approached the top of the hill, I saw that a car was speeding up the other side of the hill, not seeing me – it must have been going at least 40 or 50 miles per hour, with its engine roaring. I jammed on my brakes, but there was no room for me to pull over, as there were parked cars on either side of the road next to me. I shouted Supreme (invoking God as Sri Chinmoy urged us to do when in danger) and prayed in that split second before what seemed an inevitable crash and very possibly the end of my life!
I do not know what happened, but then the speeding car was behind me, driving away fast. I could not explain it, as there was definitely not enough room for him to pass. Had Sri Chinmoy somehow de-materialised the other car and “lifted” it over my car to avoid a crash?
I glanced out my side window and saw an older woman standing on her front porch, looking puzzled. I shouted to her, “Did you see that?” She replied, “Yes, I thought for sure he was going to hit you.”
I was very shaken and drove home slowly, full of gratitude that I had been spared serious injury. For a couple of days, I was in the sort of euphoria that one gets after a very close call – life seemed so precious all of a sudden. It was a big lesson for me. It is so easy for our minds to think that Sri Chinmoy has gone to the higher worlds and left us behind to cope as best we can. Sometimes it takes a crisis to make us see that he is fully present and concerned at every moment of our lives – even when we are just driving in the car on some ordinary, humdrum day. When we can realise this, we can only offer our infinite gratitude.
My Lord tells me
That even if I do not see Him,
Even if I do not feel Him,
I must believe in Him
When He says
That His Compassion-Eye
Is upon me all the time
In loving watchfulness.Sri Chinmoy
The white bird and the lake
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In my early years of exploring meditation and the little-known subject of reincarnation, I came across a rather discouraging description of the long passage of time the soul supposedly takes from its very earliest entry into the earth arena until its full blossoming in God-realisation. Imagine, said the words of an old Indian text, a beautiful white bird flying to a large lake once every several thousand years and taking away a single drop of water in its beak. The length of time it takes for the bird to empty the lake is a description – metaphorical of course – of how long it takes for this journey to be concluded, for realisation or self-blossoming to be won.
A rather bleak thought! But encouragingly, it did add the further comment that for those who have a curiosity or an awakening interest in spirituality, the lake is almost empty and the long journey of the soul is not in front of us but already behind us.
Guru had an even more encouraging view of all this, and saw will power and intense aspiration as the key forces that govern the time we will take to achieve that final yoga or union with God… “We are our own fate-makers.” It is in fact we who decide how long our journey will take, not a pre-determined destiny. Sri Aurobindo concurs: “Fate can be changed by an unchanging will.”
Guru saw every kind of spiritual quest as something precious, every faltering effort at meditation a step towards illumination, each truth-seeker an awakening soul setting forth… and laid out very clear guidelines that would add velocity and direction to our journey.
Like the map of a beckoning new world, he plotted out the requisite steps for us to take, offered us guidance in our great search for happiness, and helped us navigate the challenging perils and shoals of our lives. He filled us with courage and purpose.
It is always a joy to share these key steps and the essentials of meditation with seekers in our workshops around the world – and to pass on to them the view held by all the great teachers, that they have each reached a very special point in their life journey. God has tapped them on the shoulder…. “Wake up!” Yes, we are meditating because our souls are responding to a call from God, from the universe. In the image of the bird and the receding waters of the lake, the long journey is now largely over, the goal almost won.
Your days of excellence-joys
Are ahead of you
And
Not behind you.
Why then do you not
Immediately run and declare,
“The Goal is won”?Sri Chinmoy
'I am the marathon Guru'
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In April 1982, one evening Guru inquired of those present if any of us were proposing to run in the Boston Marathon, only two days away. Nobody was. Clearly disappointed, he asked whether any of us would now do so – about a dozen of us raised our hands, myself goaded into acquiescence by my impulsive friend Simahin, and we filed past our smiling Guru on the stage. I was astonished by this sudden turn of events and amazed by my own mad act of abandonment – my first entirely unintended marathon!
The next night around 9 pm we caught Guru’s old blue bus for the overnight trip and now there we were, start time for the great Boston race, untrained, unregistered and looking for an opportunity to vault over the starting area’s picket fence without officials seeing us when the gun sounded.
We flew down the hill at a fantastic pace, trailing the greatest marathoners on the planet. I cast aside all common sense in the exhilaration of these first few crazy, high-velocity miles, impervious to all misfortune. But misfortune eventually came – and at 20 miles I remember slowing to a walk and shuffling up the aptly named Heartbreak Hill, much chastened by this first experience of ‘the wall’.
Racing down our avenue of dreams, we had felt like champions, that first thrilling mile a gauntlet of cheering, rapturous crowds – but with 42 kms of America’s countryside behind me, I limped across the line in 3:20, Simahin close behind me.
During our bus ride back to Queens, Guru asked us for stories. “I am the marathon Guru,” he said to us, half-jokingly, “and all of you will have to run at least one marathon before you go to Heaven.”
Then he told us how pleased he was with the handful of runners who had accepted his challenge and how much progress we make when we run. He added that our willingness and our cheerfulness were much more important than our timing in the race.
The experience was one of those first glimpses of the manner in which Guru would take us far beyond our comforts and customary ways and open doors to many great adventures and discoveries. Running the marathon was part of our spiritual training, teaching us fearlessness, obedience, self-discovery, transcendence and the principal role of grace in the lives of those blessed to have a Teacher.
When God touches
The divine in me,
I run and run
Towards my Destined Goal.Sri Chinmoy
George Washington’s Luminosity-Soul
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
On one very special occasion in 1975, Sri Chinmoy invited questions from visitors about America’s bicentennial. One boy from Boston asked about the soul’s qualities of George Washington. Guru went into trance and his face transformed into Washington’s face before our astonished eyes. His face took on the square jaw and clamped lips of the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of our first president as he answered, “Luminous, dynamic, truth-loving and self-giving.” 1
(Sri Chinmoy’s ability to identify with another person and actually take on their qualities shows in another beloved photograph⎯one taken while he was meditating on the Christ, which radiates the humility and compassion that he felt from the Christ.)
When it was my turn, I asked the question that had haunted me that entire year, as Guru had encouraged us to participate in all the patriotic activities commemorating the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. I asked how we can feel patriotic when the actions of the present American government seemed so out of keeping with America’s divine qualities. Only a couple of years before I had been involved in strikes and riots and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam!
Guru gave the perfect answer, one that I still find helpful today. In short, Guru said to take America as your mother and the government as your big brother. Just because you do not agree with everything your brother is doing, doesn’t mean you can’t love your mother!
America’s special strength
Lies not in frightening the weak
And challenging the strong,
But in strengthening the weak
And
Illumining the strong.Sri Chinmoy 2
Simple blessings
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
My first significant experience with Sri Chinmoy was at the Seattle airport in 1996. I was just five years old at the time.
My sister and mother and I had gone to visit him along with a bunch of other Seattle disciples, because his itinerary brought him there for a few hours. At that time, you were allowed to go into the gate through airport security without a ticket.
At one point Sri Chinmoy had offered prasad (blessed food), and I was in the line to take some. He called me over to stand next to him and pulled my arm to have me sit next to him. We were facing a crowd of people, just the two of us. I remember the very surreal feeling of being with someone so “famous,” and how wide and vast his consciousness was. I felt it stretching out into Infinity, filling the room and the building and city and entire world. I felt like I was a little drop next to the ocean, and his infinite heart was pulling me inside. I also felt his voice in silence inside my own heart, echoing “we are the same.”
At the place where his hand touched my arm, a very powerful vibration like a solid bolt of energy was tingling and electrifying my body like a conduit. In retrospect, I feel this is one of the moments he “initiated” me, or gave me a direct taste of the experience he’s having all the time. And I can say with full confidence and utmost certainty that that moment has been with me wherever I have gone, and will remain with me no matter what I do for the rest of my life!
After taking a photo of the two of us, he asked my mother and sister to join us and we all posed together.
P.S. This is my favorite photo of Sri Chinmoy, or Guru as I call him, because in it he is exhibiting both immense strength, soulfulness and power, coupled with infinite sweetness, kindness, softness and gentleness. I aspire to be like that, with such a lion-heart.
My sister and I first visited New York when I was 8. It was during the off-season in New York, not when Celebrations were happening and everything was crazy.
I was at Aspiration-Ground relaxing, not doing anything, just writing some silly things in my notebook.
Sri Chinmoy was preparing for a public weightlifting exhibition, a programme called "The Body's Fitness-Gong, The Soul's Fulness-Song". He was testing some lifting machines on the clay surface of the tennis court.A boy who was assisting Guru called up to me where I sat in the bleachers, next to my mother and sister. Guru wanted to use me as a warmup. I came down and gave him a big smile.
Guru lifted me several times and invited my sister to join me. Next he brought down the sister of this boy who was assisting Him. The three of us were lifted together.
What struck me most about that experience was that I wasn’t trying hard to be a good disciple or please him in his own way, but he totally honoured me and gave me lots of joy. I had not done anything to deserve it. Instead, he just gave it unconditionally.
I learned a valuable life lesson from this experience. To this day, it is in the quiet moments by myself that I feel his presence most strongly and am able to tap into the highest consciousness full of peace, joy, fulfillment and satisfaction all around me and within me. Especially in the beauty of nature, I feel so close to the Divine. I don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to search for it or find it within me. It is all around us at every moment if only we are receptive enough to feel it – or even if we are not.
Thank you to Sri Chinmoy and to his disciples, who enabled me to be raised in this loving, supportive environment. You continue to shower me with your blessings!
God awakens my life with His purest Concern.
God blesses my life with His sublimest Thought.
God has awakened me. I am no longer asleep.
God has blessed me. I have emptied my life of problems.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Meditations: food for the soul, December 24, Agni Press, 1970
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