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

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

Before he started studying meditation with Sri Chinmoy, Pulak was living and studying in Denmark.

I made a little shrine out of three rocks that abstractly represented to me some sage meditating. I found them on the coastline in Aarhus and put them together.

One evening I was taking a ferry to Copenhagen. I was at the back of the ferry. The sun was setting, the stars were coming out, and a flock of seagulls who were following the boat.

I was just kind of letting go of all my thoughts and getting absorbed into the atmosphere of my surroundings—the sound of the boat motor, the water churning and the seagulls and all the other various sounds. I was just getting absorbed into them.

Then I started imagining the stars were coming out and what it would be like to be a beam of light travelling through the universe. It was sort of a meditation. Then something really unusual started happening. I felt I was like I was expanding or elevating, almost like my body was elevating off the boat. I was hearing this music, which seemed like angelic music. It was as if I was just drawn into this other dimension that was totally separate from the physical world. It was on some spiritual plane.

Then I heard a voice. This is the crazy part. A voice inside actually said, “Come back to New York.” Then I started thinking, “What am I doing here? How am I going to get back into my body?”

I started feeling afraid, and it all went back to the sounds of the boat motor chugging, the water churning, and the seagulls squawking.

I assure you,  
Unlike the outer world,  
The inner world is not asleep.  
The inner world only watches and waits  
For a little receptivity  
From the outer world  
So that it can pour and pour into it  
Its unreserved blessings and love.  

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 57, Agni Press, 1984