The Mysterious Bloom

I often find the smallest, simplest things most encouraging.

I was staying in a hotel recently with Sri Chinmoy and some of his students. My roommate was to arrive a few days late from the UK so I had the room to myself for a while.

One afternoon I came in to find one gerbera in a little vase on the desk. It seemed to have been put there very deliberately, with a neat array of foliage behind, but it had no card.

It was neither my birthday, nor any other special day. I wondered if the hotel had put one in each room for hospitality, but I asked a few friends and they had received no such floral gesture. I waited to see if one of my friends had sent it in a moment of playfulness and kindness, but nobody owned up as the days went by.

It was a small thing, but it inspired me a great deal. Of all the flowers, the gerbera is my favourite and has a special significance to me.

As the days unfolded I realised that whoever had sent it, had sent it unconditionally. How rare and precious in this life!

However it came there outwardly, I decided it had come from God, and I treasured it more than any flower I can remember receiving.