Rabbi Marc Gellman is a beloved Rabbi and author of many children’s books. For many years he co-presented The God Squad, a nationally syndicated interfaith programme, with his best friend Monsignor Tom Hartman, who was known to all as Father Tom. Father Tom had a lifelong friendship with Sri Chinmoy, and introduced Rabbi Gellman to him at a ceremony where Sri Chinmoy honoured both of them for their outstanding service. Rabbi Gellman is interviewed here by Dr Agraha Levine.

Rabbi Gellman: So I'm happy to be with you. Honoured, really.

Dr Agraha: Oh, my God, we're the ones honoured. You know, by the way, I took the opportunity and looked up the date - it was May 23rd, 2001, when you and Father Tom were with Sri Chinmoy.

Rabbi Gellman: Right, and it was Tom's birthday, the 21st was his birthday. That's why we were there. It was actually, I kind of forced my way in. It was really a meeting between Sri and Tom about his birthday. And Sri was gracious enough to include me in that day. And I was so anxious and so happy and thrilled to meet him and to with Tom to get lifted by him.

I was searching for spirituality for about two or three years on my own. I can't remember exactly my age. I must have been around 21 or 22.

I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a meditation. It had a picture of Guru’s Transcendental photograph, the one his students meditated on. To me, the picture was very strange but something about it attracted me, and I decided to go with my brother. Guru gave two talks at Carleton University and Ottawa University. I think it was October or November. It was very cold. This was in 1971 or 1972.

The room was filled with people. Guru was meditating. It's very hard to describe this. Guru was meditating and he started to talk, but very, very slowly. And he smiled. To me, the smile… I never saw a smile like that. I was taken aback and it really struck my heart to see him smile. I couldn't quite understand what it was, but I could feel something from Guru.

Guru was talking about yoga and the spiritual life. He was speaking in a normal tone, but very softly. I realised that he was in a very high state. It was quite amazing.

An interview with scholar and National Book Award-winning novelist Professor Charles Johnson.

Dr. Agraha: Do you remember when you were the head of the creative writing programme, and you presented the World Peace Literature Award to Sri Chinmoy?

Prof. Johnson: That's correct. And I had that award made down the street from my house at a store that makes trophies. And I wrote the copy, I wrote the words. It was a great pleasure for me to do that, because Sri Chinmoy's publications, his writing of a spiritual nature, is voluminous. It's many, many, many, many books. And I think they are all very valuable, which is why it's for spiritual writing, this award.

Rudolf Moge was a member of Parliament representing the Slovenian city of Maribor, and a dear friend of Sri Chinmoy.

Maribor will always remember Sri Chinmoy with gratitude, as he was the only one who turned religion in the direction of bringing peace and progress to humanity at large. You could say that he is a modern Buddha, a modern Christ, a modern Muhammad.

The biggest message in his book Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy, which I call the Bible for this Millennium, is that if you want to get to the basic insights, to the truth or, as some say, to enlightenment, then you have several paths that lead to that goal. And there’s nothing wrong with going this way, that way, or any other way. The only thing that matters is our aspiration and the direction towards the goal.

I was working in a very fancy hotel in a jewelry store and I heard from some boys that Guru wanted to meet Muhammad Ali.

At the time, I literally hated Muhammad Ali; I found him to be vulgar, boisterous, arrogant, and I had no interest in the man at all, no interest. But one day when I was at work, I found out that Muhammad Ali was coming to Puerto Rico and that he was going to be staying at that hotel. I thought, “Oh, God, this is my job to break the news to Guru.”

He comes into the big lobby of the hotel. I am walking up and down the lobby thinking, “How am I going to approach this guy who I can't stand? I have nothing to tell him, and there is a huge wall of security.”  I'm literally walking up and down, looking at the floor, just trying to figure out how am I going to do this. Suddenly, I smack into a wall. When I look up, it isn't a wall, it’s Muhammad Ali.

I just smash right into him. I look up, and he is this big, big guy. I look up and I say to him, “I need to talk to you, I need to talk to you. I'm not a fan and I don't like boxing. I don’t even like you, but I need to talk to you.”

By way of background, in 1893 the Parliament of the World’s Religions met in Chicago as part of the World Exposition being held there. Of course, this was when the great Swami Vivekananda first became known to America. (Guru has written and spoken much on Swami Vivekananda. My sense is that they are like inner “brothers”.)

In 1993, one hundred years later, a second Parliament of the World’s Religions was being convened in Chicago. Guru was invited to open that event with seven minutes of meditation. I think that Guru himself considered this to be one of his most auspicious manifestations. And of course, there was talk of Vivekananda all that year.

This happened in 1998. We had just arrived in Cancun, which is in La Peninsula Yucatan in Mexico—a very beautiful place.

There had been unfortunately some very bad massacre in some tribal groups in Chiapas down in the south of Mexico. There were detectives investigating all of the foreign groups; they always think it is a foreign group that does something kooky.

There were two detectives that wanted to speak to Guru. I said, "Guru, there are two gentlemen here." I explained to Guru why they wanted to speak to him.

Guru said, "Don't worry—I will give them my transcendental smile."

When we performed in New York for Guru with Mountain-Silence, we played three songs as always. We liked these songs very much. After some other people performed, Guru called for me and talked to me.

He said, “Gunthita, not even one of the three songs performed were devotional. Please, please, in the future, when you perform for me, always choose devotional songs.”

Then he said, "When you give concerts and you play with devotion, then the people will receive." Guru said, "They will receive something from me." Guru meant from him and from our souls. He said that the only and most important thing is to play with devotion. The songs don't have to be slow or fast, but the devotion is the most important thing.

This is another story that happened when we were in New York. We went to the Connecticut Centre, which was in a basement. Connecticut is not far from New York. We were having a meditation, and Guru was just in front of us. We could sit right in front of Guru. While I was looking at Guru, I saw the third eye very bright, bright, bright. I can't explain. It was whiter than white. It was like when you see some people in India that have a fork shape on their third eye. I asked the person beside me, “Can you see Guru? Look… he's got….”  He said: “What are you talking about? I don't see anything.”

It was indescribable. The only visual I could see was like when a star vibrates and the light seems to just grow and grow. It was very striking and very awakening.

May my two human eyes
At every moment
Love and love and love
The celestial Beauty
Of my Lord’s Third Eye.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 35, Agni Press, 2004

The story started long before I became a disciple. Anwarul Chowdhury was the deputy secretary general of the United Nations. He was at the UN for many years and he loved Guru, just loved Guru. He eventually became an ambassador, so Guru always called him Ambassador Chowdhury.

Ambassador Chowdhury is a very literary person and he knew one of the best writers, the most famous writers of Bengal. Not from Bangladesh, but actually from Calcutta. The writer's name is Mani Shankar Mukherjee, but people just call him Shankar. His books are so famous that they have been made into films by well-known filmmakers.