Purifying your mind by serving your 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 »
On my first Christmas trip, which was in 1990, I went to Hawaii and then Bali with Guru. Every morning, early in the morning, we would wake up about 4:35. We would go down to the beach and wait for Guru, and Guru would practice throwing shot put. He had many special shot puts made from lighter ones to very heavy ones. The heavy one was very heavy, maybe 80 kilograms. Guru would practice. We would give Guru the shot put and then we would also pick it up. There was a line of us and we would take it in turns to give Guru the shot put and then also pick it up.
With the very heavy weights, you would have to go very close to Guru. I was not super strong. I'd have to go very close to Guru to be safe and to give it to Guru safely. You were very, very close to Guru when you would do this. As a guard, often you would have to work around Guru. You learned how to purify your consciousness, to be in a good consciousness because when you're around Guru, you're very aware of his consciousness and you want to be your best too.
Just being physically around Guru, it is always a challenge to really lift your consciousness, to be in a very good consciousness, because Guru is very sensitive to the people and the things around him. It was a wonderful lesson to really clear your mind, purify your mind, and just be a complete instrument in that moment to serve Guru, to help Guru with whatever he was doing.
If you serve your Master
Sleeplessly and breathlessly,
In one incarnation you can get
The most astonishing results
Of one hundred incarnations!Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 5, #4890, Agni Press, 1998
My first service to Guru
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Guru had completed his participation at an international conference in Iceland, and he needed to leave a little early. The conference took place in 1975, and I was a very new disciple.
There were not many disciples there so I ran and tried to help him because I saw that he was leaving. I was a brand new disciple and something in me said that I needed to help Guru with his food or his shoes. So, I went right to the front row and got his shoes and put them on Guru.
It was 15 or 20 years later that Guru allowed me to massage him regularly. This was a great honour because Guru would let only a few people massage him. I was eager to serve Guru and Guru allowed it, so it is something that I always remember.
Each service-height
Is
A new progress-delight.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Enthusiasm, part 10, 2006
Three times our discipleship saved us
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
When Vyakulata left New Zealand after some years to live in New York, she left behind her bright yellow car and kindly invited us to use it whenever the need arose. One day I drove her car out along the southern motorway to perform as a clown at a kids’ birthday party in south Auckland, decked out in voluminous clown trousers, big shoes, red nose—the works!
Halfway to my destination, I was suddenly overwhelmed by sleep. I tried singing, putting my head out the window, shouting my name, anything to stay awake. Then I crashed, driving at 90 kilometres per hour, head-on into a concrete bridge column! The engine was pushed up into the passenger seat, the wheels were shorn off, everything was concertina’d into a crumpled wreckage. Fast asleep, helpless and with seat belt on, I was awoken by a tremendous bang on impact, and saw only whirling sky and flying glass.
Miraculously I was completely untouched—not a scratch or even a bruise. Ambulances came, police came, tow trucks came—everyone was astonished that I was alive, and even more so that I had emerged so totally unscathed.
Curiously, each time I passed this spot over the next few weeks—pointing out to my passengers the yellow splashes of wreckage still dotting the roadside—I could feel a force pulling me, as though down a dark tunnel, into the same place. Later Guru said that it was a hostile force that had attacked me, but that I had felt the arms of the Supreme around me and survived.
Years later my discipleship again saved me, when I was struck by lightning in Indonesia. I had a premonition that something bad was about to happen, so, while crossing a village street in the rain, I began chanting “Supreme” very fast. Then I was lying on the ground, numb and uncomprehending, surrounded by a circle of faces peering down at me, unable to feel anything down the right side of my body.
Later, partially recovered, I recounted my adventure to Guru. He smiled and said that I had been in a very good consciousness, leaving unspoken the clear implication that things could have been much, much worse.
Alone one evening in our house in Auckland, my wife Subarata saw a very large man with a club trying to get in one of our windows – we had no telephone, so instead she shouted at him. But then he tried to force a door. She sat at her shrine and prayed intensely for protection. Faith and belief and devotion are such powerful things! After some time she heard very clearly a voice saying to her, three times, “You are protected, you are protected, you are protected.” Then the intruder went away. She was so excited and thrilled by this experience, all her fear vanished. She was elated by the voice of her unseen guardian.
For protection,
More protection
And infinitely more protection,
Each human being
Must pray to God.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 23, #22309, Agni Press, 2001
Let go of anger
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Once I was staying at a hotel when Guru was visiting the West Coast. I was walking out in the hallway because I was furious with my roommate. Unexpectedly, Guru walked by, looked at me and said to “let go of anger.” Throughout the evening, my temper would start to flare again but I kept remembering Guru’s words and let go of the anger.
On another occasion, I was with the Christmas Trip, visiting Oahu, and went to see the Lyon Arboretum. Way in the back of the park, there was a long, very steep hillside. It was solid clay and wet from the rain. To help walkers, there were steps cut into the clay, all the way to the top.
Once I made it to the high point, I discovered that there was no level landing, only an abruptly steep and slippery descent. With my first step, I started slipping and sliding. Looking down the hill, I saw it was a long, nearly-vertical slope with nothing to break my fall, nothing I could grab onto. I knew in an instant that I was going to be hurt very badly.
But, suddenly, I thought of Guru's aphorism: “When a true disciple asks his Master for protection, the Master says, ‘Behold, immediate rescue!’” The words flew through my mind and suddenly I was standing still, on a very tiny but firm patch of ground. I was safe. Rescued.
My Lord’s Protection-Eye
Has always played the role
Of my life’s protection-armour.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 144, #14377, Agni Press, 1991
The world's first Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In 1986, Guru was asking everybody to organize their races on a one-mile loop. We arranged a mile loop in a park in London called Battersea Park. It was also, I think, the United Nations Year of Peace.
So, Bhavani said, let us call the one-mile loop the Peace Mile. Guru said, “Okay,” and on March the 15th, 1986, he flew to London to open the Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile. This was the first Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile, and here you see Guru standing in front of a tree with the flag. Guru was very proud of those flags.
When Guru went back to New York, he said that that day was the happiest day of his life. So, the Peace Mile is still there, and we still go around, walk around, run around, and so on.
Each time I soulfully pray,
God blesses me with the capacity
To walk in silence with peace
Mile after mile.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 233, #23291, Agni Press, 1996
My soul recognises Guru
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
There was something called the Yoga Centre of St. Louis. It was mainly hatha yoga, but they also were teaching meditation. I said, “This is what I'm looking for. I am looking for this.”
So, when I went back to New York, I decided I was going to search for a meditation group. Lo and behold, very shortly after, there was a meditation class being given on my floor, in my dormitory, by two disciples of Guru.
This was the early 1970s when all the boys had long hair, and these boys had very short hair. They were dressed in white and they basically just put up a photo of Guru. I felt something, but not a lot. I thought they were a little strange with their short hair. But at one point they said, “Our teacher is going to be giving a lecture at the law school. Would you like to come?” So I said, “Oh, sure.”
I should add, by this time I was not very happy. I had been searching and searching and searching, but I had started searching in the wrong ways and for the wrong things.
So, I went to this lecture. I was seated way at the back and the sound system wasn't working very well. I couldn't really understand what Guru was saying because of the poor sound system. and his accent was much stronger at the time. But when I saw Guru, as soon as I saw him, something in me leapt out. It was my soul. It just rushed to Guru and cried out, “Father, Father, Father!”
When and how
Father, when shall I realise You?
Daughter, you have already realised Me.
Father, when?
Father, how?
When?
The day you joined My Dream-Boat.
How?
Through your surrender-heart.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Three hundred sixty-five Father's Day prayers, #57, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1974
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