Whenever I visited Guru in New York, it was usually an escape from my responsibilities in Chicago. With that escape came more opportunity to meditate, and maintain what appeared to be better spiritual discipline.

Therefore, I was surprised when Guru told me that when I am in Chicago, I make more progress. This was exactly contrary to my perceptions. So I said, “Guru, you know, I don’t see it. You say I make more spiritual progress back in Chicago. I don’t feel spiritual progress in Chicago. I feel nothing but struggle, nothing but difficulty.”

And he said, “No, no, no, it’s not like that. Think of the weightlifter. The weightlifter lifts weights. Now, you can take all the weight off the barbell and the weightlifter says, ‘Oh, look how easy it is for me. I can lift the weight so many times.’ Now, put weights on the barbell. Immediately he will see it is much more difficult to lift. But in which way is he developing more strength? When the barbell has weights, of course.” He added, “True, it is more difficult to lift. But at the same time, he is developing more strength. In life, what are your weights? Nothing other than your  life’s responsibilities, or you can call it your duties. Your life’s responsibilities are the weights. So when you go back to Chicago, you assume your life’s responsibilities, and it is these responsibilities that compel you to develop inner strength.”

When our restaurant, Jyoti Bihanga, had only been open for a short time, we were not making a profit yet. I went to New York to ask Guru what to do. Should I declare bankruptcy or something else? I had papers with me with the figures on how much we owed and what our income was and all of that. 

When I asked Guru about bankruptcy, he did not look at any of my papers. He said, "Mahiyan, you have to be like a warrior and fight. Pay this amount." Guru gave me an amount and said, "Pay this amount every month to your creditors."

It was much less than they were asking, but I contacted them all. By divine grace, they agreed to the amount that Guru told me to give. After maybe seven or eight years, the debts were fully paid. The amount Guru had given me was the maximum that we could pay and the minimum that the creditors would accept. It was perfect.

Never allow
Your doubtful mind
To boss you around.
God Himself has chosen
Your faithful heart
To be your only boss.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 163, Agni Press, 1991

I first came to New York as a disciple in August 1996. I came to the Celebrations and got to meet the disciples from Miami when all the Florida Centres were performing for Guru.

Tilvila very excitedly told Guru that I was from Bengal (the same region of India that Sri Chinmoy was from). Guru looked at me and asked, "What is your last name?" I said, "My last name is Palit." Now in India, by somebody's last name, you can tell which part of the country they're from and their caste and everything else.

Then he asked me, "Where are your parents?" Unfortunately, I had lost my parents about two years, maybe a year and a half prior to becoming a disciple. It was still very raw, very difficult. I remember standing in front of Guru and not wanting to answer that question, but I had to say, "I don't have parents."

I think this was one of the very, very special moments. Guru just paused for a second and I felt love that was thick like butter, engulfing me completely.

Guru said, "I don't have parents too." His love, his concern, his blessings just sort of descended all at once and completely filled me up.

When I was younger, I decided to travel around the world. I went to Greece and lived on a boat and sailed around all the islands. I went to Israel and lived on a kibbutz and learnt about socialism: it's like an ashram in some ways, it’s a co-operative farm. I learnt that socialism is very difficult to practise. Also, I became interested in reincarnation; when you accept reincarnation, politics looks different. It's not so important.

I went to Africa and then across the sea to India. I was a wandering sadhu. I had many adventures in India, which I'll talk about at another time. But something important happened. I read the Ramayana and I visited many beautiful, beautiful places. But I didn't find the spiritual truth that I'd been looking for.

When I got on the aeroplane to come back to Europe, I prayed to God. I said, why haven't you revealed your Truth to me here in India? I got on the plane, and as it took off, there were complimentary magazines, Time magazine and Newsweek magazine. I opened the page and read a review of a concert at Carnegie Hall with a British jazz musician called John McLaughlin. He was called Mahavishnu. He had very short hair and was dressed in white. He dedicated the concert to his Guru Sri Chinmoy. I felt a bell ringing in my heart.

It was 1978, and I had just moved to New York, to finish my Bachelor of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music. A friend invited me to come to see Sri Chinmoy at a public meditation. At that time Sri Chinmoy used to offer a public meditation once a week at St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University. I had not practised formal meditation at that time, and also did not know what having a Master meant for one’s spiritual life. I had taken some classes in Kundalini Yoga, mostly for relaxation, but did not feel at home with it. A few years before, an acquaintance kept asking me, "Have you read the Upanishads yet?" He asked so many times that I ended up walking into a bookstore and requesting a copy of the Upanishads. So I started reading the Upanishads. Some passages I found beautiful, while other passages were incomprehensible to me.

On this particular evening in July of 1978 I entered St. Paul’s Chapel without any expectation. After all, I did not know what a spiritual Master was, and I did not know what meditation was, either. I had been searching for the Truth for a few years, but did not know how to find it! My only advantage that night was that this search of mine had left me quite empty inwardly, bereft of many things that might otherwise have stood in the way... I remember walking up the steps of the chapel that night feeling fresh, with no expectations, as I was totally ignorant of what meditation was, and what a spiritual Master was as well.

Guru's music is a very big connection between him and my soul. He has said that his music is not secondary to his meditation, and if you know how Guru meditates, you know it's the infinite consciousness.  

I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like a river or an ocean, but it's a river between earth and heaven. It is a direct connection. You touch the river here, but the river touches Heaven also. So, what happens to me is I that I make arrangements for Guru’s music intuitively, so I feel my soul in the music that I do.

Sometimes the songs will come to me asking me to do something with them. You probably all know the song Asundar je bhitar bahir.  A few years ago, I was in Manhattan with some boys. We had a class and we were leaving, we were going to get pizza. Suddenly the song was coming very powerfully and knocking in my heart. You know, it's a very sad song. But I remember when Guru composed that song in Brazil, I remember falling in love with that song immediately because it is so, so tenderly human.

Guru came to England many, many times. He gave several concerts at the Royal Albert Hall; many beautiful experiences meeting people.

But one of the very special memories for me was Guru's visit to Cambridge University in 2003. Guru was coming to Cambridge to honour professors, to lift professors in the Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart programme.

I was asleep in New York when the phone rang, and I was invited to go up to Guru's house. That was about 1:00 in the morning. I went to his house, and there were about six boys and maybe six girls there in the room.

Guru didn't say very much, but he asked us to walk around the room as a walking meditation past him and round the back in a circle. We walked around him about seven or eight times very, very slowly.

When I walked past Guru, I began to see this extraordinary being that I had never really seen before. It was like I was seeing who Guru really was, this extraordinary, beautiful being inside a physical body. Guru looked like some very ancient, very majestic and quite incomprehensible spiritual force. I realised that I was really getting a glimpse of man in God or God in man, that there was this very powerful being inside the finite body that was Guru. I realised that Guru would always be beyond my comprehension, that my mind could not fathom how vast Guru really was.

Guru was in Scotland and he left Scotland. We thought Guru had gone back to New York. Ashrita called London and he said, "Guru is not in New York. Nobody knows where he is." 

In London we got a call from Guru. The father of Shankara and Dipika, two of the British children, whose name was Ongkar, was a disciple to the end of his life; he has passed away now. That year, he was opening a new divine enterprise, called Run and Become, which still exists. The shop was not open to the public yet. It was still being refurbished. Guru asked us all to meet there.

He came in the evening and we all met in this shop, which had two floors, a ground level and an upstairs level. Guru said all the children should come upstairs with him and for all the adults to stay downstairs. He invited all the children to come upstairs.