A Guru House

I used to make hand-crafted candles, and many times I left candlewax heating on my stove at home. Once after I left the house, I kept feeling there was a problem somewhere. After some time I returned home, only to find the whole kitchen was filled with black smoke and the plastic shades and curtains were on fire, with the fire rolling up the wall to the ceiling. All the wallpaper and glue was on fire, and it was on the verge of popping into the uncontrollable stage. As I looked up at the ceiling, I remembered that my follow disciple Chetana, who lived upstairs, had just had her entire apartment carpeted with blue carpet! I just stood in the middle of this mess and screamed out, "Guru, if you really love me, you will make this fire stop immediately—because Chetana will kill me if I wreck her apartment!" Sure enough, the fire just continued to roll up to the ceiling and rolled itself out! Then I started desperately trying to clean up the soot that was all over the place before my roommate came home. Someone had called the fire truck, so when the firemen came to the door, I yelled at them to help me move the appliances so I could clean behind them. From the doorway they surveyed the mess—they could tell it had been a serious fire—and they said, "You are really lucky this is a Guru house! But do we have to take our boots off to come in?"

Chayanika (New York)