My sacred experiences with Sri Chinmoy's Transcendental Photograph
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
There is a photograph of me in my highest transcendental consciousness. A seeker should always meditate on what inspires him most. Just because I am their Master, my disciples get abundant inspiration from meditating on this picture. If anybody looks at it with love, joy and devotion, no matter how much of a beginner he is, no matter which path he followed before, just because the person is a seeker, my inner consciousness will open its door to him.
Sri Chinmoy 1
My introduction to the path was when I went to my first meditation class one weekend. In our first session, we were doing some exercises on the candle flame and a flower. During this session, during these exercises, I saw a streak of light coming from my right side. But there was no window, no light, no door, nothing. So I was a little bit puzzled. What is this light? Where is it coming from?
During the intermission, I saw there was a frame against the wall. Its back was toward us, so I just looked at the frame. The light was coming from this picture. There was nothing else on the wall. At the end of the session, I went to the centre leader. I told her my experience and she said, "Oh, this is a Transcendental Picture of our Master. He was just calling you."
I had another very strong experience with the Transcendental. As Guru said, the Transcendental is not a picture. It is not a photograph. It is really something more.
In 1999 during the Christmas trip in Bandung, Indonesia, the leader of our Centres in France came to me and said, “Guru wants to give you your name.” I was a little bit surprised because just the year before this, our centre in Paris was disbanded. I was quite surprised that he would give me a spiritual name at this time.
During the first week of that trip, I was waiting every morning to get my spiritual name and had another very strong experience - an inner connection with Guru. I was ready to be called by Guru but it didn’t happen the first week. I was quite worried about that. After one week, we moved to another city in Bandung. Perhaps Guru has forgotten, or he sometimes says that he will give a name and then he doesn’t.
I was ready to accept this. I became very strict with myself. I had a small notebook, and every time I was thinking, saying or doing something not very nice, I wrote it down. At the end of the day, I was counting how many times I thought, said or did something that was not very nice. I was very strict with myself.
One morning we met for meditation in a small amphitheatre in the hotel. I was sitting in one of the upper rows. After meditation, Guru remained silent for a while. Everybody remained seated, reading or listening to music with their headphones. It was very silent, and I was just looking at Guru. I was quite far from him. At one point, he raised his head and looked at me. He nodded his head a little bit. So I understood that it was time for me to go up to him. I left the row and started to go down to the stage. The guards just stood up, ready to stop me because Guru hadn’t called me.
Then Guru said, "No, no, no." He motioned for me to come to him. I kneeled down on the stage in front of him to meditate. Then he gave me a piece of paper with my name on it. When he handed me the paper, he didn’t release it at first. For a while we were stretching out our arms toward each other. He didn’t move at this time—he was meditating on me and over my head also. It was a very, very strong feeling, and I was a little bit stressed about the situation. This is perhaps why he gave me another experience with the Transcendental.
After that, the disciples came to me and said, "How did you know that Guru would give you your name? He didn’t call you." I said, "No, I don’t know. I just felt it."
This next experience with the Transcendental came right after Guru gave me my name. When you receive a spiritual name, you recite this name 100 times and meditate in front of the Transcendental. I went to my room and I repeated my name 100 times. My name was quite complicated so I didn’t know how to pronounce it. But I did what I could.
After meditating a while, everything disappeared in my room—just the Transcendental remained. Everything disappeared around me, and there was real light flowing from the eyes of the Transcendental to my eyes. I could really see the light coming to me from the eyes of the Transcendental.
It didn’t last so long because just a few minutes later, there was a big bang on the door and my roommate Unnatishil came in and yelled at me, "Wow, you got your name!" So my meditation was finished.
Note: Sri Chinmoy asked that his Transcendental Photograph be given only to his sincere students, and not reproduced online. Therefore, the photograph is not reproduced here. To see it, we recommend attending one of the free meditation classes offered by the Sri Chinmoy Centre.
The inner world
Is not a mental fantasy —
It is an unfathomable Reality.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. Sri Chinmoy, Beyond Within — A collection of writings 1964-1974, Agni Press, 1975
- 2. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 42, Agni Press, 2005
A near-death experience
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
My father. an accountant mostly for small businesses in the Miami Haitian community, never understood why I studied computer science (and not business), worked in medical research, and had no interest in his line of work. He always hoped for a “Eureka” moment, where I would decide to take over his business. I had an aptitude for math (math minor), and helped him during the busy tax season, but found accounting to be very boring.
When my father fell ill, I held out the hope that he would recover from his illness. So I and my father’s former assistant (a good friend of mine from my undergraduate years who had worked for my father for about 10 years), kept the business afloat for about two months.
One evening, about two weeks before my father’s passing (he had been discharged from rehab at the nursing home), I had made arrangements to meet two clients in the office. I was completely exhausted—caring for my father, working full-time, squeezing in several hours a week for the accounting clients, while working on my doctoral studies. I so badly wanted to cancel, but my father's assistant had driven from very far to meet me and help out, and so I could not.
When I arrived at the office, one lady, a successful taxi driver, talked non-stop. All I wanted was silence, and kept wishing I had cancelled. Having spent one month by my father’s side in the hospital, prior to his discharge from the nursing home, the last thing I wanted to hear about was hospital stories, so I only half listened to the taxi driver’s hospital story.
Then I heard her say, “I was in a coma for two months.” My empathy and curiosity came to the fore and I began paying closer attention. She went on to say, “I had a brain tumor and required a 16-hour operation. I remember going into the operating room. At a certain point, I was rising up and I looked down and could see myself on the surgical table. I then went to the most beautiful place … it was all light … there was beautiful music. Then I reached a certain place and they (she never qualified who ‘they’ were) told me I had to go back. Next, I remember waking up and the doctor began explaining that I had been in a coma for two months.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! The story was classic rendition by those who recount near-death experiences you see on TV or read about. It also turned out that one day, perhaps about 4 years prior, I had used her services to go to the airport! (Haitian women taxi drivers are not common).
At that point, I felt this tremendous peace. My mind quieted, my heart opened. All was calm. The taxi driver was the instrument, and this would be confirmed once again, about two weeks later, just a few hours after my father actually passed. Guru had begun preparing me—reassuring me that my father’s soul would go to this beautiful place, as well!
My earth-bound life
Is fleeting.
But inside me is another life —
My Heaven-free life —
And that Heaven-free life
Is immortal.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 65, Agni Press, 1984
Scattering stardust from the Heavens
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 1970s, some years before a growing interest in meditation changed the course of my life, I worked for some time in the North West of Australia in an iron-ore mine.
Every few weeks a tropical storm would banish the sweltering heat and endless days of sunshine and for a few wonderful hours heavy rain would drench the parched earth. Overnight the red plains would explode with flowers and all night long the breeze out of the dark would carry the fragrance of red earth, eucalyptus and the essence of desert.
When I hear Sri Chinmoy playing the piano I am somehow reminded of this. Just as the occasional fragrance of eucalyptus still evokes memories of those outback years, so do Sri Chinmoy's wonderful piano improvisations evoke the fragrance of a meditative, inner world, the musical downpour nourishing the beautiful, wide open spaces of the soul. Amidst the sweetness, playfulness, power and freedom of the music you can unmistakably feel something extraordinary – for me it is a glimpse of the human soul, a fragrance of God.
Many people some day will come to recognise that Sri Chinmoy's vast pantheon of creative outpourings – his musical, literary , artistic legacy – forms one of the most remarkable accomplishments of all time. One of the secrets of this stunning legacy is that the artist has saturated all of his creation with his own profoundly spiritual consciousness, a fragrance that permeates everything that he has done. Among these many jewels, like so many bright stars in the dark sky of human life, you will be able to find some aspect, a star that will be your personal doorway into the life divine.
Someone will look at Sri Chinmoy's bird sketches and feel their purity and freedom and delight – another may read a poem that deeply touches the heart. A third may pick up one of Sri Chinmoy's books and in between the knowledge conveyed by language, by words, there it is again, the fragrance of an illumined soul, the beckoning open doorway that takes you out among the bright stars.
Sri Chinmoy's piano improvisations are one of my favourite doorways. Often at the end of the day, I light a little incense, put the phone on no rings and sink back into my old armchair in my meditation space. The volume needs to be loud – this is the powerful face of meditation, the swift brushstrokes of the artist portraying a cosmic canvas.
Perhaps at first nothing much seems to be happening. But if you persist a little, listen with a widening heart, still mind, you'll start to feel something – as though glimpsing through a small clear window another inner, higher world. If you practice meditation a little, this window will gradually open wider. Some days you're overwhelmed by a feeling of indescribable beauty and peace, your eyes fill with tears at this engulfing joy and you're having the best meditation of your life.
Beethoven once said that whoever truly understands his music will forever be freed from sadness – I do believe that anyone who really understands Sri Chinmoy's piano improvisations, indeed his music as a whole, can become liberated from everything. Free of all constraint and limitation, free from mind, thought, ego, these rapturous performances are a celestial music of heart-melting sweetness, a glorious sound born out of the artist's absolute oneness with the Highest.
I feel so grateful to this traveller from the bright stars who lives among us for a while, scattering his music, songs, poetry – this stardust from the Heavens – and lifting our eyes and hearts upward, playing the piano and pointing with his music to our home high above.
Creativity
Without creativity,
No great soul
Can offer anything substantial
To mankind.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. The heart-tears of a God-seeker, Agni Press, 2005
Reuniting with Muhammad Ali many years later
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
So it happened that many, many, many years later, Muhammed Ali was retired and he had Parkinson's disease. For whatever reason, I decided to pick up a copy of The Village Voice. I opened the newspaper and right in the middle was this big advertisement for a movie—actually, more like a documentary—about a fight that Muhammad Ali had in Zaire, Africa: When we were Kings.
There was a raffle for tickets to the premiere and to have a photo opportunity with Muhammad Ali. I called the number and won the raffle! I was going to get to go to the premiere and also see Muhammad Ali one more time. Guru was so happy when I told him. He was so, so happy.
I took some flowers and a book and a Transcendental. My turn to see him came. It was going to be really fast: You go in, you stand next to him, they take your picture and you go out; you don't talk to him; you do nothing.
When I walked into the room where he was, it was very shocking to me because my memory of Muhammad Ali was this super bright and luminous and full-of-energy man. But when I saw him, his eyes were vacant, like nobody was there. It was very shocking and sad to see. When I got close to him and stood next to him, I said, “Muhammad, please look at me. Please look at me.”
He looked at me and I said, “Do you remember me?” He said, “No, tell me from where?” “Puerto Rico. I was the boy who introduced you to Sri Chinmoy.” I showed him a picture of the meeting. His face lit up, and for that moment, he was the Muhammad Ali I knew. “Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy! How is he doing?”
I told him that Sri Chinmoy was very happy I was going to meet him again. I said, “He would like to see you.”
Then he says to me: “I am a Muslim; he is a Hindu.” I said, “No, no, no, he is your brother. You are his brother. There is no Hindu, no Muslim. You are two brothers.” He said, “Yes, yes, yes, I want to meet him.” I went back out.
Later on, Guru met him again two or three times and eventually lifted him.
Physical brothers
Appear and disappear,
But spiritual brothers
Follow the path
Of eternal friends.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 240, Agni Press, 1997
The highest Supreme, in a small form
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Gunthita describes her first time visiting Sri Chinmoy in New York.
Next morning, Guru played tennis, but not at Aspiration-Ground. It was where we have our 47-mile race. The disciples were sitting around and watching. I saw how small Guru was and how he was playing tennis with his feet on the ground.
I started feeling down. I thought, “How can this be?” Because I had felt in my heart that he was so tall and that his feet were not on earth.
The disciples were sitting around and meditating, but I didn't realise that they were meditating. They didn't fold their hands. They were just sitting there and watching Guru. I thought, “How can these disciples be so lazy and just sit here while Guru is doing sports?” So I started running on the track, the 400-metre track. I wanted to show my aspiration. All by myself, I ran around and around.
I didn't realise that meditation is just to be with Guru, no matter what he is doing. Meditation is not just sitting with folded hands in front of Guru's Transcendental picture. Guru is our meditation.
Guru was playing tennis outwardly, but inwardly he helped me so much when I was running. I was praying to the Transcendental, "Help me, help me!" I was full of doubts. I had wanted so much to see Guru. Then when I saw him, he looked so small.
But inwardly I felt this big, big thing coming from Guru in his small body. I suddenly got the message: The highest Supreme has taken this small form to speak with us, to be with us, to be closer to us, his children. It is still that same vast big reality that I felt before seeing him.
The human Guru is only an instrument of the Supreme. I always say that I am not the Guru: the real Guru, the only Guru, the supreme Guru is the Supreme Himself. I am a representative of the Supreme for those who call themselves my disciples.
....When I tell my disciples to meditate on my transcendental picture, I take full responsibility for what I say. That is to say, the Supreme is in that picture. But the physical body that you are seeing, you may judge or suspect. You see that I am five feet eight inches tall and so many other things you see in my physical being. But inside the physical is the real spiritual existence, where my total oneness, conscious oneness, complete oneness with the Supreme operates.
...But if anybody here has ever gone really deep within and entered into me or entered into the Supreme, then he sees that in my deepest consciousness I am totally one with the Supreme. There can be no difference.
Sri Chinmoy 1
Then there was prasad. This was my first prasad from Guru. It was a melon, a big melon! It was so special. I never again felt such a blessing.
When I held this melon in my hand, I said to myself, "Oh my God, this is from God! How can I eat it?" I was just crying. Every time I tried to bite into the melon, I would start crying again. So I went back behind where nobody could see me crying and trying to eat this melon.
The Infinite has embraced the finite
The Infinite has cheerfully embraced
The finite
So that mortals can successfully grow into
The Immortal.Sri Chinmoy 2
- 1. Sri Chinmoy, The meditation-world, Agni Press, 1977
- 2. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 53, Agni Press, 1983
Meditation saves a prison inmate's life
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
It so happened that one day while Guru was at the Jamaica track, a prison inmate I had been corresponding with ran up to Guru and said, "Are you Sri Chinmoy?" and Guru said yes.
It turned out that when he was in prison, the inmate was being threatened by one of the prison gangs inside the prison itself. His life was on the line. Somehow he had started meditating on a Transcendental picture of Sri Chinmoy which I had given him in our correspondence.
He came out of prison and he saw Guru – the very person he had been meditating on – running on Jamaica track, and told him, "You saved my life." When Guru concentrated on it, he saw it was absolutely true.
After he had that experience with the young man running up to him at Jamaica Hills, Guru called me and and said, "I want you to take my books into prisons." That's when I started the Humanity's Perfection-Builders programme of giving meditations at different prisons throughout Canada and the United States.
God’s Protection
Is always eager to save my life
From untold dangers.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 37, Agni Press, 2004
One chance in a million
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
On the 17th of November, 1999, Guru lifted a total of 94,290 pounds in one evening, including a 300-pound dumbbell in each arm simultaneously. He was sixty-eight years old.
The next morning, I went to the airport and picked up some tapes of these lifts that the American disciples had sent over. All night I worked on trying to put them on the wire service of Reuters, a major news agency. Reuters even sent a cab to collect the tape at 3 a.m.
However, the video recording of this lift that came from New York was on a different system. Reuters was on one system and the tapes from America were a different type and size. The people working on the night shift at the news agency couldn't find an adapter.
I teach children how to play the clarinet and the flute. Even though I had had no sleep that night, the next day I taught children for 12 hours solid – without a break. That's what happens with me: no break. I taught for the whole day, but I felt fine.
As soon as I went to sleep the following night, the phone rang. It was the disciples from New York asking me to try again to submit tapes to the British media. That night I was working on it again. I mentioned it to some of my friends, the people I was living with. I said, "Oh, I'm so tired." They told me to turn the phone off or put it on silent mode.
This was my answer: “Guru may never, ever call in my whole life. He has never called here. There is one chance in a million that if I put my phone on answering machine, that would be when he would call me for the first time.”
Anyway, I did a little work and then I went to sleep.
At five a.m., the phone rang. It was Nishtha. She said, "Sahana, Guru wants to talk to you." It was THAT time when Guru called, the first time he called!
He said, "Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. Excellent, excellent, excellent!"
Prepare yourself always
For the Call
Of the Inner Pilot Supreme.Sri Chinmoy 1
- 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 5, Agni Press, 1998
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