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.

Dr Agraha: Wow. And then what was that whole experience like for you, when you met Sri Chinmoy, when you were lifted, and your good friend, too?

Rabbi Gellman: For people who are watching this who don't know what I'm referring to, let me bring you in, so you're completely aware of this extraordinary ability that Sri had. Its really, I think it's fair to say, a superhuman ability. Sri had built a device where he would sit in a chair, a bench and people would climb up this device. And there was a platform above the bench connected to a pole, the horizontal pole. Sri would grab the pole which supported the whole structure and push up so that anyone standing on the device would be lifted up. And just with the strength of his arms.

You know, of course, the legs are more are stronger than the arms, but just with the strength of his back in his arms, he would lift people up. And this is I mean, I don't want to be indelicate about the fact that I was overweight and Tom was overweight at the time, but with all of our clothes and shoes and it was a cold day, and we had overcoats. I would say the combined weight, plus the device of the two of us was 500 and some odd pounds. It was a huge amount of weight, certainly over 600 pounds altogether. And he just lifted us up.

And it's an odd thing to say that being lifted physically can actually lift you spiritually, because there there are two different domains, the physical and the spiritual. But that I think is one of the great lessons that Sri Chinmoy and his mission in his life brought to the world, that there is no difference. Physical perfection and spiritual perfection. And that one of the the real flaws - he would never say anything has a flaw, but my interpretation is one of the flaws of the Western religious tradition - Judaism, Christianity, Islam. The Abrahamic faiths is and this really came, I think, mainly through Greek ideas of body and spirit and soul of matter and form, that the body is the source of sin. The body is the source of our limitation and the spirit, the soul, in Judaism we say neshamah, the soul in Hebrew. These are different, they're immaterial, they have nothing to do with the body. They're weighed down by the body. They're encumbered by the body. And that is, that's not true. That is profoundly untrue.

And what happens is, in the West you have traditions of people who were great thinkers but who had ignored their physical health, ignored their bodies, and ignored the truth of their physicality. And what that does is, it eventually causes you to despair about the future of your soul, because what you're really doing is you're despairing about the future of your body. And I think when you look at Sri's unique trait, most unique trait, which was his surpassing joyousness, when you look at that, it really was the result of a body and spirit that were in perfect harmony.

And the second thing I would say in addition to the body-spirit awareness that that day brought to me, was the the idea that it is - it is not conceivable, it is not true, it is not even plausible, that God would give all the truth to one people, to one religion, to one nation, to one group. It's not true and it's not reasonable. Why would the God of all people everywhere, give everything to one faith, one people, or one philosophy?

Now certainly there are philosophies that are evil and destructive and God has shunned them and we should shun them. And, you know, there are there are practises and philosophies that are really destructive. But the truth of the matter is that, all of the lifting-up truths, all of the positive truths, all of the ennobling truths are scattered amongst the different religions. And so this truth about body and soul that Sri embodied really in this lift, I think that is an example of that fact.

And you can see how, outside his life, there is a kind of, at this point, a bleed-over of truth from the East to religions in the West. My successor in my synagogue, a woman rabbi, teaches a class in Torah yoga. Now, I don't know exactly what she does in the class. It's not important. The point is that she has used her practise of yoga to enrich her teaching of Judaism. And I was privileged to be a part of a meeting with the Dalai Lama, who was a friend of Tom's and a friend of mine, and he participated in some of our projects like our our HBO special and our book How do you spell God? And he understood this as well, that there's many paths up the same mountain. And that we are all climbers and that we need to learn from other climbers. What have you learnt about the mountain? What songs do you sing that help you climb? What foods do you eat that help you climb?

And so I learnt that from Sri, from his example. There are people who are perfected in the spirit and Tom Hartman was a man, who was not just my best friend, my partner in our work together. But he was my teacher as well. That's why our friendship was so much deeper than just a friendship. It was a missionary friendship - our efforts were all directed to sending out into the world a message. We know enough about how we are different. We do not know enough yet about how we are all the same. That was the message of The God Squad. And so Tom was was spiritually perfected. He wasn't, and I also wasn't and am not physically perfect. And and I think the gap was difficult for both of us. After his death his spirit came to me in ways that are really quite remarkable and jarring in a certain way. But it was quite clear that to me that the physical encumbrances of his Parkinson's disease and of his physical ailments have completely melted away and that his spirit was completely luminous. And it has been guiding me since his death.

One final impact of the visit with Sri was something I never told you about. And I have a little show and tell here - this is a gift from Sri to us.  Sri sent us this laminated song with a picture of us at the very first time we met. That was early in our friendship. It was 1987. And so here it is, the lyrics of this Sri Chinmoy authored song.

God Squad, God squad, God squad, God.
All love, all joy, no iron rod.
Christianity, Judaism embrace oneness,
heart and oneness, life and face.
Father Tom and Rabbi Gellman.
You have revealed God's special plan.

And then it's in music, which I can't read and I can't sing. So me attempt this. (sings song)

Dr Agraha: Well, bravo. It was very good, actually.

Rabbi Gellman: I have no idea if those were the notes he put down or that's the way you want it sung. But that's the best I can do.

Dr Agraha: Well, you did great. It brings it to life. You know, I could feel it much more when you sing it.

Rabbi Gellman: And so back to this point about Sri's physical development. It is common now for people to realise that yogins have physical abilities that are just striking. Yes. I mean, stopping their heart rate, you know, the the cliched stuff of walking on a bed of nails and walking on coals and being immune to pain and those kinds of things. But Sri's ability to lift weights that were - first of all, how old was he in 2001?

Dr Agraha: So that would have made him 70 years old.

Rabbi Gellman: So for a 70 year old man to lift over 600 pounds from a sitting position, not using his legs. I mean, if he had pushed with his legs, it still would be unbelievable. But just using his arms, and straight up push - it was a press, I guess - it's not doable. It's not possible for a 70 year old person to do what he did. Not possible. And yet it was, in the end, he did it. And I think actually that day Al Gore was about to be lifted. But Sri kicked out Al Gore that day so he could lift the God squad.

Dr Agraha: That's correct.

Rabbi Gellman: I can't lift you because I want to lift The God Squad on Father Tom's birthday.

Dr Agraha: That's right, I knew that.

Rabbi Gellman: So you meet a person who can do that, and you say, well, wait a minute, the limitations of our mind are artificial and the limitations of our body are artificial, and we are stronger and wiser than we could ever imagine if we will only exercise those capacities. So I learnt that from him as well.

And after Tom died - the final thing I wanted to say in memory of Sri and also to ask you if you've had similar experiences - when Tommy was alive, he had a deep interest, I wouldn't say it was an obsession, but it was a very, very deep interest in psychics. They talk to people. Mediums. Talking to people who could supposedly talk to dead people.

Now, my role, I think that God intended, clearly intended, was to be introduced into his life to keep him more centred. So that he didn't go off the rails. And the bishop was very pleased with my impact.

Dr Agraha: I guess he was!

Rabbi Gellman: Because many of the psychics that he hung around with would write books and dedicate them to Tom. And this was not good for his career as a priest. The Church looked askance at séances and consulting mediums. Which I completely agree with. I found that many of them -  Tom took me to one; of course, I won't mention his name because it was a story that doesn't reflect well upon him. We went to one of these meetings and it's in a community filled with Italian-Americans. So the room had about 40 people in it, all of them mourners, all of them looking to contact their dead relatives. The psychic was doing something and said, okay, I'm getting a message from the other side. Does anyone here know a Maria? 50 hands went up. Well, it's an Italian community, and I'm kicking Tom, hitting him with my elbow - What? Really? What a genius, he got in a room of 40 Italian-Americans, and someone is mourning a Maria?

Tommy was embarrassed, and I was out of my mind with joy because my job was to make fun of things that are not true. I'm a philosopher. I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, and I have a rational side. And I know how to destroy an idea. But my intellectual capacities to destroy false ideas also ended up destroying people. Because when you rip an idea out of them, it's like doing surgery without anaesthesia, it's just too painful. And they don't ever give up the bad idea. So what I discovered is that laughter, joy, humour was the anaesthesia that enables people to laugh at foolish ideas and enable them to freely let them go.

Dr Agraha: What a beautiful thing you learned!

Rabbi Gellman: And it wasn't anything I learnt. Well, I guess it's something that I didn't learn how to do, I just recognised that God had gifted me in this particular way. So anyway, so I said to Tom, Do you really? - and this was my rational side, when we were just alone, I would say, Tom, really? Really. Come on. Do you believe you can talk to dead people? And he said, Yes, I do. And I believe dead people can talk to us. And I said, okay, Tom, you need a drink, you need some drugs, you need something, because this is stupid. That's what it means to die. What it means to die is you lose your cell phone, it means you lose your capacity to connect to the world of the living.

I mean, I believe in the soul. I told him, and I believe the soul goes to God in some abstract way. But I didn't believe much more than that. Even though Judaism is very lush and elaborate about the soul, and that's where Christianity and Islam got their ideas of the soul. But we didn't just invent the soul, we got it from the Greeks because Aristotle brought it to the Middle East in 331 BC when he was the tutor of Alexander the Great.

So I said, okay, Tom, we're going to have to agree to disagree on this thing. Just do me a favour - don't do any high profile psychic stuff. Because there is a problem, rationally speaking, there's a problem with people consulting psychics, and it has nothing to do with whether they can or cannot talk to dead people. The problem is it destroys their grief work, accepting the reality of death. They're saying, no, no, they're not really dead. They're just somewhere where I need this psychic to connect to them. And then they don't mourn the same way. They don't accept in the same way the finality of death. And so that's the problem with talking to dead people, it prevents you from accepting their, their death because you think it's really sort of imagining that they just moved to Cleveland, which is you're not going to go to generally, but they might go to and then maybe they call you from there. So that's the idea, I said.

And he said, but Mark, you never talk about death and life after death, you never preach about it. I said no, because I think we should be focused on this world. He would say, well, but look at Mother Teresa and Gandhi and and Martin Luther King: they didn't give up on this world and they believed in life after death. And he totally convinced me that I should talk about life after death because of the hope that it brings people.

Anyway, as Tommy was dying, I had a problem. And that problem was he was dying. And the problem I had, was I had counselled thousands of people through death in my work – now, this year, 50 years of work as a rabbi – I had counselled people and I knew in every case that I counselled, they needed me or some other counsellor in order to get through their grief work. They couldn't do it alone. Some people do it alone, but mostly people need a guide, a helper, someone to help them. And I was about to go into the valley of the shadow of death when Tom died.

Dr Agraha: But you didn't have anyone.

Rabbi Gellman: I had no one.

Dr Agraha: No-one to help guide you.

Rabbi Gellman: No one. And it reminded me of this great story that a man comes to his teacher and says, I am deeply depressed because of the death of a friend, and I am sunk in and in despair. What can I do? And his teacher said, Well, this is simple. You go to this town and you ask to see the great clown Carlini. You go to see Carlini, and Carlini will heal you. Just with his smile, he will heal you. And so the man says to the teacher, no, my teacher, that will not work. The teacher said, why won't that work? He says, because I am Carlini.

Now I was Carlini. And I knew I needed someone. So I went reached out to Jean Kelly, you know, of the Interfaith Nutrition Network and the Mary Brennan Inn. And Jean is a truly actualised saint, I believe. And I said, look, Jean, I can't ask a rabbi to help me because they're all my students or they're all my admirers or they're all my detractors either way. They are of no use to me.  

So I need someone and I want you to be my rabbi to help me through the pain that I know is coming to me when Tom dies. Because we all know this, the level of pain and despair you have at the death of someone you love is directly proportional to the amount of love you had for the person. The more you love them, the more pain you're in. There's no way out of that. The Buddhists understand that in their truth about dukkka, about suffering. And so I said, I know this is going to be the worst, because I couldn't love him more. And I need you to help me get through it. And she said, okay.

And so what she did was she set up a meeting, several meetings with Tommy when he was lucid, before he went into his end of life fog. And she said to him one day, you know, Tom, when you die, it's going to be nothing for you, because you'll simply close your eyes and you'll wake up in God's arms. But when you die, it's going to destroy your best friend's life. And you need to help Mark more than you need to worry about your own death. And he said, yes, I understand that.

So he looked at me and he said, Mark, what can I do for you? I said, well, I don't know, I think there's nothing you can do to take away the pain and it's going to be very long. I said, people who love someone deeply, in my experience, take over a year to get through their grief. And I just did an essay responding to a New York Times article about how long grief should last. And it's six years since Tom's death, and I just this year came out of my grief work. And the image that I had was that I was underwater holding my breath because I was like a cork pushed underwater by a big wave. Every day I would wake up drowning, and I would cling to a truth. And that truth was, you are a cork. You are a cork, and God made you to pop up to the surface with your spiritual buoyancy while God has given you spiritual buoyancy, and that will bring you to the surface. But it hasn't brought you to the surface yet, because whatever, it's because of the depth of your grief. But hang on, hold your breath, and someday you will fill your lungs with fresh air. And that happened just this year. And that it happened in a variety of ways.  

I said, Tommy, one thing that would help me after you die, is that you could settle our years, decades long debate. I said, I want you when you're dead to send me a message. That you're dead and everything's okay and whatever you want to put in the message, I don't care. But it has to be unambiguous. It can't be I'm okay, Mark, pray for me, no, it has to be something unique, special, inescapable, unambiguous, clear.

He said, well, what sign do you want me to send you? I said, I can't tell you that, because then that let's say, I say, send me a yellow bird; then every time I see a yellow bird, even though it's just a yellow bird... So I said, nope, you have to think of a sign. Just make it unambiguous. And he said, okay, I'll do that. And we went on to other things.

And then, of course, he died. And for two years after his death, in 2016 in February, nothing came to me. Nothing. And every year after I retired from the synagogue in 2014, every year my synagogue wanted me to come back to preach a sermon on the high holidays and the second day of Rosh Hashanah. I would always call up our friend Mike Pascucci, who introduced us, and have chicken salad at a diner near my synagogue on Jericho Turnpike every year. And so it was our tradition. The second day of Rosh Hashanah, two years after Tommy died, we're having chicken salad at the diner on Jericho Turnpike. And Michael tells everyone at the table to leave except for me because he wants to speak to me privately. So they they were all quite amazed and they didn't understand why he was doing that, but they laughed.

And he looked at me and he said. Mark. Who is Saul? I said, What do you mean, who's Saul? He said, well let me tell you. This morning, I'm shaving in my bathroom and Tom Hartman came into my bathroom. I don't know, a ghost, the spirit, a voice; I'm not sure what form it took. But it came in to the bathroom and started talking to me and he said, so you're going to have a lunch with my best friend today? And Mike said, I told him, yeah, I'm meeting Marc for chicken salad, it's the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and we do that. And he said, good. He said, when you see Marc, tell him this. Saul thinks he's in charge of heaven, and heaven is the most beautiful place you have ever seen. So he said, I got the message, and I'm giving it to you. But there's only one problem, Marc. I don't know who Saul is, and I don't know what the meaning of this is. And I said, Michael, Saul is my dead father. My father died in 2007.

Dr Agraha: Oh, my God.

Rabbi Gellman: And my father had a trait that I inherited, which is I like talking to anybody. He used to talk to, people who ran elevators, to the clerks. When you used to throw a dime into the tollbooth and the guy there, he would talk to them. Dad spoke to everyone. And he was friendly to everyone. And interested in everyone. And he always thought he was in charge of stuff. And the truth about my father is that he was never in charge of anything. He didn't have a very financially successful life, and even in our home, my mother was sort of in charge of stuff.

And so the statement Saul thinks he's in charge of heaven is exactly, precisely how my father's soul would react to being in heaven. And the humour of it is exactly Tom's sense of humour. My father is going around thinking he's in charge of this place. And here is the point. Michael, of course, did not know who Saul was. Michael did not know Saul was the name of my father. I had known Michael for many years and we had never spoken about my father. He never met my father. Tommy never talked to him about my father. So there was only one way. Only one way. And Michael was not a phoney psychic, who said does anyone know a Maria? He's a regular guy. So there's only one way that, Michael could have known the name Saul. And that's if Tom Hartmann's soul didn't die. And its in heaven, and it came to Michael, and it said Saul thinks he's in charge of this place.

My hair on my arms stood up. I couldn't speak because it was, it was the one thing that I had asked Tom to do - send me an unambiguous sign. And so this was totally unambiguous. There's no other way to interpret it. There's no other way to explain it.  You know, normally cynics would say, yeah, he did research. He found out about your family. You know, psychics do that. They find out about someone in the audience and they do research on their family and then they call up a name that they supposedly could never have known, but they looked it up. And that's one of their cons. But Michael wasn't that. No.

So the rational part of my brain said to the mystical part of my brain, just like it did on the day Sri Chinmoy lifted us. Your rational brain, Marc, cannot understand some of these things because you are not meant to understand them now. They are meant for you to understand them later in your spiritual journey. Whether that journey involves you returning in a new body or in reincarnation, or whether this is the only time, who knows? So after that experience, I had decisive, rational proof. Not mystical proof. But rational proof that death is not the end of us. And I have from that time till now, gone around speaking about the importance of believing in life after death. And I believe in life after death. And I tell people about how the hope it brings.

So after Tom's death, several people, many people said to me, including Michael, said, look, The God Squad was too important, for you to give it up because Tom died. So for five now, six years. I was looking for a replacement. And I you know, I even interviewed some people and I realised how foolish it was because what Tom and I had was the result of deep, pure love. We were friends first, and then we became teachers to the world and in our little corner of the world and. You can't just go out and replace that. There's no way to find someone like that. I thought about putting an ad in the paper: wanted, best friend, must be a priest. How stupid is that?

So finally I get a message from Tom directly to me that says you've mourned me long enough. Time to get on with the work of The God Squad. That was a year ago. So I have created a podcast which I want people to know about, and it's easy to find on any podcast platform. You just put in the God Squad podcast with Rabbi Marc Gellmann, right? They'll come up and the first season has 13 episodes, including the story about Tom and the chicken salad and and other things as well. And it's my way of continuing the message of The God Squad, and I hope to continue the podcast on into the future. And I hope I will be doing a an episode in the future, on the lifters, on Sri, and on being lifted into the air.

So in summary, that's what I know about Sri and what I love him for and what and and what I'm sure he is communicated when he was alive and after his passing to his followers and how grateful I am for his kindness to me and to Tom, and how much I appreciate and how proud I am of you and all of his followers who have created such a haven of love in the middle of Queens there in your outpost, and in your Centre.

And I think about all the doves that he drew, all the birds that he drew, the peace birds. And I think particularly now at this time of war, that that this message that you and I are sharing shouldn't be seen as some abstract message. It's a message about the war, it's about the suffering there. And how if people will mobilise their their ability to be lifters, in any way they can lift through good words, through solidarity, through kindness, through gifts of humanitarian relief. That that this war will will end and that the people of Ukraine will be redeemed.

And particularly this week, which this Friday is the holiday of redemption for Jews. In Passover, the Seder is on Friday night, April 15th, and of course, it's Easter Sunday. And Good Friday is also April 15th for Christians. And so this this whole coming together this week, I think is very much supported by Tom and by Sri. And I was happy to be a part of it.

Dr Agraha: Oh, my God. You just gifted me, when I share with everyone here, we have hundreds and hundreds of our members have come again for the first time all over the world in two years. We always get together every April and August. Because April is when Sri Chinmoy came to America and all our peace work began, so we're observing that. And it's kind of like a new beginning for us, too. And so to hear that story of yours, of redemption and rebirth, of hope, is just exquisite. So I'm just so grateful to you.

I wanted to share one poem that has been of huge solace to me. And everything you said about passing, I wasn't prepared for the pain that I would experience when Sri Chinmoy passed. That was in 2007, and the very last poem he ever wrote, he actually dictated it to me on the phone. I was in Seattle at the time, and it was this one.

My physical death is not the end of my life.
I am an eternal journey.

And what was a very strange thing was he would always dictate like even numbers like 50 or 100, 200 poems at the time. And then he would say, How many do I have? Oh, let me get to 100 or how many more? Let me do another 10, 20. So this one was like number 73. After that poem, he just hung up the phone. And it was just a few days before his passing. And I was I was saying. In my mind, I was sort of freaking out, you know, and I say, Wait a minute. And what's going on here? And then I tried actually calling. I had a number or I could call at his house. I tried calling the number and I knew he was at home. He did not answer. He knew I was calling anyway. It. And after that, somehow it went away from my mind, you know? And then just like a week later, he passed. And then and again, it was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. But we had lots of people that we all came together to Queens again. And actually his physical is buried at at the same place you came, we called it Aspiration-Ground where you came, and then you were lifted. I think I think you were lifted.

Rabbi Gellman: In the tennis court.

Dr Agraha: Right on the tennis court, exactly there. So that now is like a shrine area. Basically, it's all sacred for us and Sri Chinmoy is actually buried there. And we got special permission by, you know, the various authorities. But that poem kept coming back to me.

Anyway, so I thought that the journey that you've been through and to hear that story about your friendship, you know, with, with Father Tom and, and the your healing process is exquisitely beautiful, particularly those stories. And I mean, you have so much to teach and to continue teaching this so many people. I'm so grateful that you're continuing The God Squad, because I think Father Tom will also speak in and through you. And if there's something important he wants you to bring up to me, I don't think he'll hesitate to tell you.

Rabbi Gellman: I agree.

Dr Agraha: You have a communication channel now. So, I mean, he's established it. But he had to follow your rule that, you know, the promise you made him make, he had to do it in such a way that you would believe it. What an amazing story. Sri Chinmoy says that he was born into a Hindu family, but now he said, now my religion is to love God and serve humanity. That is my religion. And I'm wondering as you relaunch The God Squad, your feelings about that and the teachings of, you alluded to that of the great faiths and what they really teach us, this idea of loving God and serving humanity, how does that fit in with with your your understanding of the various faiths and your beliefs?

Rabbi Gellman: Well. My mantra from Judaism is Evdo adonai besimchua, which in Hebrew means 'Serve the Lord in joy'. And that was my understanding of my gift and my need. Let me say it this way. The key to happiness is to unify your gift and your need. That is the key.

Recently I was asked by a woman who reads my newspaper column, which is circulated around the country and Newsday carries it every week - 'The God Squad'. Jean Pepitone, who teaches the theology class at Mercy High School in Middleton, Connecticut, a Catholic girls school - she assigned as their final exam, that they should all write Rabbi Gellman a question about God. These are like 50 kids. So last year, it took me three months of my column to answer every one of their questions. And afterwards, she said they were they were just so grateful that you took the time to do that. Could we ask you could you do a Zoom class for them? Wow. So I said, yes, I can do that, too. So I did a Zoom class for the juniors and seniors. And at that point, the questions began to coalesce into one question. Oh, they had various versions of it, but it was all one question. Which was Sri's question, which is the question of every climber. How do I know that the path I'm on is the path God wants me to be on? How do I know that? It's the only important question.  

So I don't know where this came from, but I said to them. Well, the key to knowing this is first you have to know what you're good at. And secondly, you have to use what you're good at to make the world better. That is the answer to your question. However, it's very difficult. And I said, let's go back and I'll explain why it's difficult. You have to know what you're good at. First of all, that's very difficult, particularly for teenagers who don't think, many of them don't think they're good at anything. So, find out what you're good at. I said you have to ask people. You have to look into your own soul, but you're not going to find anything there because you don't know what you're good at. Yes, you have to ask people. So the first people you would think you should ask are your parents?

Dr Agraha: Yes.

Rabbi Gellman: But they are the last people you should ask. And the reason is they love you and they think you're good at everything. And the truth is, you're not good at everything. And they don't have the guts to tell you you suck. I knew I always sucked at singing even when I wanted to join the choir. But the truth of the matter is, you're not good at everything. And your parents won't tell you that. Generally, if you have honest parents, they will. But they don't want to hurt your feelings because they love you. I said the best people to tell you what you're good at is your friends. Your friends know what you're good at.

So I'm doing the Zoom class, and the girl stands up and says. You told us that, and I asked my friends. And they said I'm the best one at stopping fights. Oh. So there it is. There it is. So that's what you're good at. You're good at stopping fights. So what that means is you should be a fight stopper. Psychiatrists, a psychologist, a social worker, a school counselor. Somebody who stops fights. A mediator. Somebody. And you use that talent to make the world a better place. I said, that's the key to it. The key to it is. To find out what you're good at and, to make the world a better place. That's beautiful.

Dr Agraha: Wow. I love that. That's so wise, so helpful.

Rabbi Gellman: It's what I've learnt. So that experience of teaching these girls changed me. Because one night in my meditation, I asked myself, I said, Well, that was very good what you said for those girls. But you've never asked yourself that question. What are you good at? And I've been gifted to be good at several things. But what am I really good at? And since I grew up, as Tommy did in the sixties, and it was a turbulent time, and because I had intellectual capacities, I was smart. And I was also argumentative. And so I became, you know, one of those political activists. And I realised in my meditation that all my arguing, well, the war is good, this is bad, this is good, this is bad, all this, all my arguing had never convinced anyone of anything. And the reason is, no one is ever convinced to change a belief because they're assaulted. Because they are aggressively stripped of that belief. That's not how it happens. It happens because of love, and trust. And you grow into realising, what I believed about this was wrong.

And so what I grew into, which was essential in restarting The God Squad was, I had to face the fact that I'm not a good pundit, I'm not a good political activist. I can do it. I know the moves, but it's not my best part. And I realised my best part, the part in me that is a true gift, that isn't my talent, it's like just given to me, it was bestowed upon me by God, is that I am a storyteller of hope. I am a storyteller of hope.

Dr Agraha: That's beautiful.

Rabbi Gellman: And that is what I should be doing. So The God Squad podcast and everything else I do from now on in my life will be stories of hope.

Dr Agraha: How profound.

Rabbi Gellman: Really when you think about it - Sri was not a storyteller. Sri was a man of joy and singing and and just radiance, which is certainly one way to communicate joy. He wasn't a man of words in that way. You can't write thousands of poems and have each one be a masterpiece. They have a different purpose. And the purpose is to to strip, as I understood Sri's poetry, to strip the words of their toxic quality and let them shine with their loving qualities. That to me was his purpose. But the point of it is - everyone watching, everyone - there's something you're good at. And if you find out what you're good at, which you must do, it's your life's most important quest - what am I good at? And then do that to make the world better. Now you could find out that you could discover that you're good at punching people in the face. But that's not going to make the world a better place. So you must look at some quality you have that isn't destructive.

Dr Agraha: Well, one thing I want to say is that actually Sri Chinmoy did tell many stories. But but they're not as prominently featured, if you will, you know, as this poet, because he loved poetry more. There's a book of his stories with lessons that he told several books, but one got published by an outside publisher who sold Health Communications. And I can try and find that book and send it to you like.

So you -  it sounds like you're in constant communication with with Father Tom.

Rabbi Gellman: I mean, it's not like he communicates with me every day. But at this point, the channel is open. I think that's the perfect way to say it.

Dr Agraha: That's beautiful. I was actually going to tell, when you were saying about not believing in communication with people who have passed and souls. I was going to tell some stories about Sri Chinmoy describing his putting certain people in touch with their loved ones and pretty amazing stories. But but you already have discovered on your own that one, you've got that down pat. And even better than that.

Rabbi Gellman: Did he communicate with dead people?

Dr Agraha: I mean, what he says, is communication with souls for him and for a spiritual teacher is like drinking water. Sometimes people would be in the physical, but he would still be communicating with their soul. And very often it would happen that someone's soul, he's out walking, someone's soul would come to him and he's speaking with them. And almost invariably, like a minute or two later, the body would come, you know, and he'd see. But but it often happened with people who had passed. And he would tell us about a conversation he would have sometimes with very great spiritual luminaries.

Rabbi Gellman: So at some point, you know, you're enlightened. And that's the difference between Buddhas and ordinary people or saints in the Christian tradition, tzadikim in the Jewish tradition, where certain people can be completely realised in this life. And Sri was obviously was completely realised in this life. But it is so rare. It is so rare because of primarily the physical encumbrances, you know, your hungers, your appetites, what Buddhists called tanha, which means attachment, like my attachment to the dried fruit (which he has been eating during the interview). I am not completely realised but pretty damn close, as close as I'll ever get, or maybe not, I don't know. But anyway, I had this tanha, I had this attachment to hunger. And I think maybe it was Sri who was sending this lesson, which was here's some little dried fruit, and I'll just take a piece while you're talking, which got stuck in my throat (laughs) and so that's the lesson. Your attachments get stuck in your throat.

Dr Agraha: Oh, that's beautiful.

Rabbi Gellman: And you don't need those attachments. So I'm saying that that everything to me is a lesson.

Dr Agraha: It seems like you're so alive. I want to ask you one more thing - could you say a little bit more about how you viewed Sri Chinmoy? You just said something which will thrill everyone, of course, like how you saw him as a being on the earth, in the physical on his, the experience being with him yourself.

Rabbi Gellman: Well, everything I said about Sri up until now, I give you full permission to use, and I say it with with love and with gratitude for everything. I would say of the many achievements of Sri Chinmoy, by far the greatest was his achievement of the simplicity of joy. People imagine that joy is a complex achievement, that in order to be joyous, you have to know things you don't know. In order to be joyous, you have to own things you don't own yet. In order to be joyous, you have to have capacities you don't yet. None of that is true. What Sri showed in his life is a level of simple, what seems like simple joy, but it was enlightened joy. Totally different thing. It's the joyousness of a real life being. And he had that. And just to be in the presence of a Hindu mystic who understood this and who achieved this level is extraordinary. People focused on the wrong attributes of Sri. They focused on his physical attributes, that his body could do things no 70 year old man's body could do. And that's all true. But his remote achievement, his remote human achievement was in achieving the simplicity of joy and and in communicating that to people who might be uneducated, people who've never thought of themselves as spiritual being. And he gave them an inspiration to be able to do that. That was a gift. A true gift. To all the world.

Dr Agraha: That's like honey to my heart and soul, its so beautiful. You're really eloquent. I have learnt so much, I'm so lucky that I've gotten to speak with you. It's such an honour, and you're just full of joy yourself, actually. and I think that God has blessed you with so much wisdom and and the fact that you're learning at every moment. I mean, how old when you when Tommy came to you?

Rabbi Gellman: Well, it was 1987. When I met Tom, it was 1987.

Dr Agraha: But then how old were you, when his soul came to you with the message from your father?

Rabbi Gellman: That was three years ago.

Dr Agraha: Yeah, it was just three years ago. How old are you now if may ask?

Rabbi Gellman: I'm 74.

Dr Agraha: See, so you were 71 years old, and that radically changed your outlook on the world. I mean, it influenced it dramatically. I don't know if it changed, but it expanded it greatly. That's an amazing thing for any person to be so open at age 71, you know?

Rabbi Gellman: Well, one of the things that's happened to me is that when I finally, one day I woke up and I could breathe air again. My cork was underwater and I had finished the grief work with Tom. And I could breathe air again. And. And finally I could be happy again. But if you had spoken to me at any time between really now recently and and Tom's death in 2016, I would have seen a man who was underwater. To mourn someone for six years is painful. It's the most painful thing I've ever done in my life. And I couldn't because I'm so deeply attached. I am not naturally disentangled about the world. I'm naturally engaged in the world. I love the taste of food. I love the sound of a good symphony or a grea ballad or, you know, a beautiful day with perfect weather. Everything that is - we call it in Hebrew, gosh mute, which is material things, right?

Dr Agraha: The senses.

Rabbi Gellman: And it's funny because only rarely do I admire expensive things. You know, I grew up in the Midwest in the fifties and sixties. And so, you know, cool cars are still something that catch my eye. But other than that, there aren't any real physical things or accoutrements of luxury that that attract me on any level. Wow. But pure things, the way that clouds dance in the sky on a perfect weather day with with a cool breeze or something that's as perfect as you can make it. I bake. I'm a baker. And so I bake banana breads and cookie things. And I live in a gated community down here in Florida. And I give away everything I bake to mainly workers who are working hard in the sun. And I just give them these banana breads that I make, little loaves and biscuits and other things. And the idea of baking, I realised, what attracted me to baking, was not the food, the things you bake that you can eat. It's the giving away of what you see. I may have baked a thousand banana breads since we moved back from Los Angeles to Florida after moving from New York to Los Angeles. And of all the banana bread I baked, I have not eaten one of them.

Dr Agraha:  Really?

Rabbi Gellman: No, not one. I might have had a taste. Maybe of one occasionally. But basically, no, I just give them away because the joy in baking is giving them to others, giving them to people. A woman said to me, no one's ever given me a gift. Oh, no one's given me a gift.

Dr Agraha: No one?

Rabbi Gellman: No one, she said. And you know, one guy working in the sun, I told them in Spanish, I'm rabbino, rabbi, and he knew what that meant. And so the other day, I was out on the golf course. And I saw him, he said rabbino, rabbino, come. I came and he was clearing out coconuts that had fallen from the coconut trees and he had a machete and he went, whack, and cut the top off the coconut. And he handed it to me like a chalice, and I drink this sweet coconut. And it was a perfect day because he was able to return to return the gift, you know. So if you had talked to me before now, this surpassing joyousness not have been on my face or in my soul.

Dr Agraha: Well, it's a great, great gift from from your dearest friend, and I think God himself used Tommy to bring you joy again. I really believe it. And I think what he spoke were from God himself. I believe he was a channel and instrument. And when all of us will leave this earth, where we will meet, I think hopefully I'll get to see Guru there, Sri Chinmoy, I mean, and and you'll see Tommy and we'll resume.

But one day, I can tell you, that just out of curiosity people asked Sri Chinmoy all kinds of questions. And he said that the flowers in heaven are out of this world. Beautiful gardens. There are gardens in heaven, and the colours are far richer, far more beautiful than we have on Earth.

Rabbi Gellman: You know, that's the other part of what Tommy told Mike, that heaven is the most beautiful place you've ever seen. And of course, he didn't explain why or what, but it's probably that - the colours, the flowers, the something. That's the part of his message - not the part about Saul, which just validated the message. But what does it mean that heaven is the most beautiful? What does that mean, exactly?

Dr Agraha: Exactly.

Rabbi Gellman: And I think I know something about what it means. I remember when I was a kid on Halloween and I would put a sheet over, you know, to be a ghost and run to get trick or treats from the neighbours in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And it was a safe time and there were no dangers. And I remember the smell of the leaves and I remember running, almost like I was flying. But my feet were touching the ground, but only accidentally touching. And I know, since I'm arthritic and, you know, the pains and aches of ageing and so forth, I know that in heaven I will be able to run, the same way that I ran when I was a child.

Dr Agraha: Absolutely. That's a beautiful story. You've been very, very generous. But you know what? I think that it's about time I allow you to eat.

Rabbi Gellman: Yes. And I will accept that invitation. God bless you, Agraha, and God bless all of the followers of Sri Chinmoy. And may God comfort you at this time and grant you a little piece of his simple joy.

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.

After the talk, I was able to approach Guru and ask him something. He was about to leave. He had on a winter coat and hat. It was very funny to see Guru with the winter hat and everything.

I was very Catholic. Religion was important for me, and the Christ also. I asked Guru: “Can you bring me to Christ? Can you bring me to Christ to see him?”

Guru paused for at least a minute or two—very, very silent. He said, "If you're very, very, very sincere." And he just left.

I was stunned by his answer. I was totally silent and something in me said: “This is a very authentic person.” What he said really affected me.

The next evening, we went to see Guru at the chapel in the University of Ottawa. He sang a beautiful song. When he sang, I went into another world. I didn’t even know where I was. It was then I decided: “This is my Guru.”

My brother and I joined the Centre. In those days, you could just go to the Centre and meditate.

Then one day we went to New York to meet Guru. We were very lucky to be able to see Guru, to be initiated by him. I realised after that I was very, very privileged because Guru was getting more and more disciples.

When I met Guru, we were alone in Divine Robe Supreme store, which was different from the store today. It was a big shop and we were alone. Guru talked about many things; he had been in Vancouver, which is another part of Canada, and he was speaking about that and about Ananda Niketan, a restaurant that disciples used to have in Ottawa.

Guru then rubbed his thumb on my third eye. I didn't know what he was doing. I was basically in a state… in another world.

Initiation is divinely meaningful and supremely fruitful.
During initiation the crying heart of the disciple says to the Master,
“I need you badly.”
The loving heart of the Master says to the disciple,
“I shall not only love you unreservedly, but also give to you unconditionally.”

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. AUM — Vol.II-5, No. 9,10, September-October 1978, Vishma Press, 1978

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 believe this idea from his book Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy is one of the fundamentals, because it gives humanity something that no philosopher has been able to offer so far. Religions do try to get closer here and there with some communiqués or mutual agreements or with some common ceremony or mass. But so far nobody has openly said what Sri Chinmoy said, which is that many paths lead to the ultimate truth. This is what makes him great.

He is great not only because of that, but also because he offered to humanity what humanity needs the most. And that is opening the inner doors to aspiration, aspiration for peace, aspiration to make the Earth a peaceful planet where men and animals and plants can co-exist in peace and harmony.

It is not necessary to always be right, but it is necessary that we learn how to listen to and communicate with each other with compassion if we want to live in a better world, different from the world of the past, which was riddled with wars , quarrels, envy and so on.

He was a man who tried to bring to humanity all these things, not by force, but by planting those seeds into the human soul. He would gather a lot of his students around him to help with his mission. You (Tyagavan) were also one of them and you helped with this mission in Slovenia. And your mission has borne thousands of fruits.

Some of them are, for example, Slovenia becoming a Peace-Blossom, Maribor becoming a Peace-Blossom, the theater in Maribor becoming a Peace-Blossom. And the list of such Peace-Blossoms, which you helped to establish in honor of Sri Chinmoy in Slovenia, goes on and on.

Another thing that shows how extraordinary he truly was is the events in the spring of 2004, when Slovenia was accepted into the EU, and Sri Chinmoy personally attended the main celebration in May of 2004. The celebration took place  at the Slovenian National Theater in Maribor. The title of the celebration was Opera Europissima, and was attended by opera champions from all EU Member States. And who opened this celebration? The first one to take the stage was Sri Chinmoy.

He greeted everybody and wished  peace and progress to all the people in the newly accepted states. After that, he offered a small concert. I must say, that even long after this event, people would come up to me in the street and ask me about it, because of the whole celebration, the part when Sri Chinmoy was playing his instruments, was the one part they remembered even weeks after.

This means that he touched people so deeply with his meditation and music that they really believed what he spoke of was real. And indeed, since then our country has been blessed with a relatively peaceful and fruitful period.

Q: Do you still remember the day Sri Chinmoy left this world, when you called me that morning and you were slightly confused?

People may not believe that when one leaves the material world, sometimes one says goodbye to people who were near and dear. This has happened to me twice in my life. The first time was when my mother died. Even today I can still see her, I can still hear her as she was leaving and saying goodbye to me before she left. And the second time it happened was when Sri Chinmoy died. This was at the time when we (members of  Slovenian parliament) sent a request to the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Sri Chinmoy. And in the evening before they would decide on the winners, I had a vivid dream in which Sri Chinmoy came to me, touched me and then slowly, slowly walked away in a beam of light. This confused me so much that I called you the very next day and told you about my dream. But as it later turned out, it wasn’t just a dream, it was real.

I have met Sri Chinmoy a couple of times in my life. And every time he made a great impression on me. An impression of a great spiritual being, who was not only spiritual in his words, but also lived this spirituality and brought it to humanity at large through his actions. I believe that before he left this world, he wanted to say goodbye to people who appreciated, respected and loved him.

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.

Early in 1993, there was no talk of a concert, only the Parliament. I confess I was relieved by this. (Sri Chinmoy had tasked me to organise large Peace Concerts for the previous few years).

I was in Ottawa for a work-related event when I received a call from Ashrita with a message from Guru. “Vivekananda’s soul came to me. He said that he lived 39 years on earth, so he has requested me to offer 39 concerts. The last concert has to be in Chicago and should be for 13,000 people.”

“Oh…okay,” came my not-so-enthusiastic reply.

A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was Ashrita with an addendum. He told me, “Guru said that Vivekananda actually wanted 39,000 people, but your soul immediately came to Guru and said that you would die a thousand deaths.”

My soul was correct.

In August of every year, Guru’s students gather in New York in celebration of his August 27th birthday. This is a 2-week event which includes meditations, runs, performances, singing and more. It is two weeks of inspiration. But 1993 was a very unique experience. Guru’s actual birthday event ended early and most of us packed up and left New York for Chicago on August 28th. Guru opened the 100th Anniversary of the Parliament of the World’s Religions with a seven minute meditation. This was an absolutely wonderful event and experience.

At that opening event, I swear Guru brought God down in front of thousands of people in absolute silence. The rest of the people who shared the opening dais with Guru just talked and talked and talked.

I was so proud of Guru, and equally proud to be escorting him around the crowd. I was in the elevator when a woman noticed me and recognized me as the individual escorting Guru. She said, “I wish he had meditated more and everybody else had talked less!”

“Me too!” I thought to myself as I smiled in acknowledgement.

Guru came twice to Chicago that year. Just two weeks after the Parliament, Guru returned to Chicago to offer the concert that Vivekananda requested. In his honor, we called it the Oneness-World Vivekananda Peace Concert.

O Chicago’s World Parliament of Religions!

The heart of an Indian monk,
Vivekananda,

Became your boat;

His soul became your boatman;

And his vision’s one religion —
God-love
—
Became your Golden Shore.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Vivekananda: an ancient silence-heart and a modern dynamism-life, Agni Press, 1993

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

Pulak was introduced to Sri Chinmoy through Sarama, who gave yoga and meditation classes near where Pulak lived.

So the thing about Sarama is, she didn't just bring people to Guru if she didn't feel they were quite ready. With me, she realised that I needed a little work before I would be ready.  I was a little maybe – I don't know what you would say – bohemian or so.

She said I had to stop smoking to see Guru. So I think I was working at the Bronx Zoo and I just said, OK, well, I'm going to quit smoking today. And I was able to do it like in just one day. And it was an interesting process. Every time I felt I needed a cigarette, I just sort of like said, well, no, you don't need it.  

I managed to clean up my act enough for Sarama to get me invited to April 13th Celebrations. The Celebrations that year was held at the Victoria Congregational Church right on 148th Street and 87th Avenue.

I remember when I was walking through the hall, I saw that Mahavishnu (John McLaughlin) was a disciple. While I was in Europe, I had become an admirer of his music. At Celebrations, he played acoustic guitar very beautifully. All the performances were so soulful and heartfelt. I'd never experienced anything like that before.

The first time I saw Guru, he was meditating to open the function on April the 13th, and then during the function he would sit there watching everything. Guru would be sitting there, in such a majestic way, watching.

Guru was just magnificent. Just seeing him, I mean, seeing him in person — I'm sure many have felt this — you see Guru in person and it's just like you're ready to do anything he asks you to do. In 1972 he was only 41 years old—a young person, a very beautiful presence.

Guru played the harmonium and sang. Then, I think it was one of the first performances of Tanima's group. The whole function, the whole feeling—I was just so transported by the atmosphere. Afterwards, there was a meal downstairs.

So, I went down and then Sarama introduced me to Guru. I forget what she actually said to Guru. Guru was kind of was looking above my head. He wasn't looking right at me, he was looking a little above my head. I don't know what he saw there, but he was concentrating there. Then he asked me what I did. I said, “I just do a lot of temporary jobs.” He looked at me for a moment and said, “Very good.” Then he walked off.  

Well, that was my first personal encounter with Guru. The next day I got the message that Guru had accepted me and that I was in the Connecticut Centre.

The outer teacher shows us the way
To reach the destination.
The inner teacher carries us
Compassionately, self-givingly,
Smilingly and proudly
To the destination itself.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 10, Agni Press, 1998

For many years, Guru did of a lot of weightlifting, attempting heavier weights, different kinds of weights. It was a big part of our life as guards to help Guru with the weightlifting, to help with the machines, to help transport things and to help with the Lifting Up the World With a Oneness-Heart lifting ceremonies.

I think every now and then Guru realised that some of us could not relate to the amount of weight that Guru was lifting. We had no way of understanding it. So Guru sometimes would get the guards to lift heavy weights.

One time on Aspiration-Ground in front of everybody, in front of everyone at Celebrations, I was trying to lift a weight, but I was having some serious problems.

Guru gave us two weights. We were trying to lift two weights that were both very heavy, and it was impossible for me. I did my best. It was so much fun to do it, to start to identify with what Guru was doing.

There's a great story. When I was on one Christmas trip, Guru said 'All of the guards, every single guard, has to make a weightlifting machine for me'. The thing is, at that time, it was 1992, I didn't know how to make a weightlifting machine. I'm not good with mechanical things or engineering or construction. I had no idea how to make a machine. I had no money, zero money. We were on this island, Tenerife, which is off the coast of Africa. It was a Christmas trip. I was wondering, “What am I going to do?” I was really getting worried. How am I going to make a machine? I have nothing.

One day I was walking by the beach in a bay with boats and things. There was this piece of wood that came in from the water, from the ocean onto the beach. It was a really horrible piece of wood, about one metre by two metres. It was broken. It was a piece of a boat or something. It smelled of fish because it was in the water. I dragged this piece of wood back to the hotel where we were staying.

When I got back to the hotel, I found a small piece of what we call a two-by-one piece of wood. I nailed it to the big piece of wood and I put some elastic band around the wood. This was my machine. It was a ridiculous machine. It was hopeless. I was hoping that Guru would not ask to see the machines because it was the most useless and ridiculous weightlifting machine. But it was the best I could do.

The other boys were making things out of metal with special welded parts and a really good machine for Guru to use. I had this ridiculous piece of wood, so I hid it away. I hoped Guru would not ask for it. But of course, on the last day, Guru said, "Oh Devashishu, where is your machine?"

I brought this machine, this piece of wood with another piece of wood and a piece of elastic. Guru was in the function room on the Christmas trip in a special area with a curtain around it. It was just me and Guru. I brought it in and I thought Guru would just laugh and tell me to take it away. But Guru said, "How does it work?" Then I said, "Guru you put your foot through the elastic and then you just pull." Guru said, "Let me try, let me try."

So Guru sat on a chair. He put his foot through this piece of elastic. I had to hold the piece of wood, the upright piece of wood as Guru pulled with his leg, because otherwise it would fall to pieces. I kept waiting for Guru to just laugh and say it was ridiculous. But Guru tried it. He tried it with both legs.

What I learnt from this experience was what Guru wants us to do. He doesn't want us to be brilliant and amazing and to be the best at everything. But he wants us to identify, to feel oneness, to follow Guru, to follow what he's doing, to identify with his weightlifting through his exercising. And through that we can have real joy. We can actually get tremendous joy, tremendous inspiration.

But if we just look at Guru's weightlifting and say, “Oh, I don't understand weightlifting. I don't understand any of that,” we sort of leave a distance between us and the weightlifting. Then we're never quite getting the inspiration, we're never really fully part of what Guru is doing.

Guru just taught us over and over again to have oneness, to have identification, to completely surrender and feel oneness with what he was doing. It was a really big lesson for me.

That machine, by the way, never went to New York. It disappeared.

The aspiring heart believes in
Only one road,
And that road is
Oneness-happiness-road.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 195,  Agni Press, 1993

I was what you call a classic unconscious seeker. I was an ordinary person in high school. I was an athlete, but I never heard of spirituality, meditation, yoga or anything like that. I went to university and I was a good student. I didn't do anything crazy, never tried any weird stuff, and was just an ordinary person.
    
I love to read though. I always enjoyed reading. I was an English literature major, and in my last semester I had to choose my courses. I chose a course which I knew nothing about, on Eastern religions.

So in my last semester of college, I'm taking a course on Eastern religions. The books were by Suzuki and Alan Watts. Those were the main proponents in the West on Eastern philosophy. Early in the course, the teacher mentioned meditation, just mentioned it. I was curious and wanted more information on it. After class, I went up to the teacher to ask him about what he could suggest, books to read on meditation.

I was waiting in line and as it turned out, there was a disciple of Guru's in the class. He told me afterwards that he never, ever did this before: he just walked up to me and interrupted me on the line and started talking to me. As soon as he started speaking to me, I think I became a disciple. He didn't have to do anything.

I met with him every day. Because I went to a Catholic school, we met in the church. He would meditate and we would meditate together. I would ask him millions of questions. But everything he said, I accepted. There was no hesitation. I actually think I became a disciple immediately, even though I wasn't conscious of what a disciple meant.

At this time, Guru had a Centre in Wilton, Connecticut. It was a small house in suburban Connecticut. It was a two-story house. On the second floor Guru held the meditation.

You couldn't see Guru if you weren't a disciple because all the disciples were up front and Guru was off to the side. So I stood in the back with my friend, who was a disciple, and just tried to absorb everything.

This was in 1971, May of '71, and at that time Guru was very approachable. After the meeting was over, Guru went down to the ground floor and sat in a chair amidst everybody. The disciple brought me up to Guru and introduced me to Guru. I still can see the whole picture. I can see Guru with his beautiful smile, sitting in the chair.

Then Guru said, "You have a very beautiful soul."
But I think everybody has a beautiful soul.

What you need
You can get only From your heart-book,
And that heart-book Is God’s Compassion-Eye.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 38, Agni Press, 2004

During the tenure of the first Victory’s Banner Restaurant, 1981-86, I would attend all the Christmas trips, which lasted two to three weeks back then. Sukantika, my spiritual sister who served as manager of the restaurant, would work overtime to cover my absence, so whenever Guru took his smaller European trips during the year, I would make an effort to send Sukantika.

Although the restaurant was always financially strapped, one year we were really hurting and didn’t have enough funds to send Sukantika on the mid-year European journey. I felt badly about this, and one day approached Guru on his porch, explaining that we didn’t have enough money and asking if it was absolutely necessary to send Sukantika. He said, “It is all a matter of consciousness. If her consciousness is going to fall, then she should definitely go. Consciousness comes before money.”

“Okay,” I replied, “I’ll tell her that.”

“Oh no, don’t tell her that!” Guru clarified. “Tell her that if she can keep her same good consciousness as it is and not go, then she doesn’t have to go.” Then he clarified, “The very suggestion that her consciousness may go down will serve as a seed to cause it to go down. Always say things in such a way as to inspire people, not discourage them.” It struck me how careful Guru is, down to the last word.

There is not a single seeker
Who cannot inspire others.
There is not a single seeker
Who cannot be inspired by others.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 93, Agni Press, 1983

I came to the United States from India at the age of twenty-seven. I came to Miami for my higher studies. I had started meditation in India on my own, reading some books. But even though people imagine that everybody in India meditates, that's not the case. I did not know a single person my age who meditated.

I was still hungering for a spiritual community when I came to Miami. There was a friend and classmate at the university who would bring me meditation books. She was going somewhere for meditation. She brought me Guru's books Beyond Within and Father and Daughter and other books that she had from where she went to meditate. The books really connected with me. I felt it was exactly the way I imagined meditation would be. It was focused on the heart. I was dying to go for meditation classes. This was 1993.

Finally in 1994, I started going for meditation classes. It took a while. My first meditation class was exactly what I had imagined. At the end of the meditation, I got to meet with the teacher, who was Durjaya from the Miami Centre. I still remember talking to him after the class. My soul was so happy that I was shaking like a leaf.

Then I started coming to the meditation centre. Actually, the first trip that I made to the Centre – it was a class, I was still not a disciple – I saw a double rainbow!

I have to say that I will be forever grateful to the Miami centre for all their love, their kindness, their warmth and the way they brought me into their hearts.

I will be forever, forever, eternally grateful to Guru because how he could bring me all the way from India to him here in the US? The outer reason was my studies, but the inner reason that I came to the United States was because Guru was here.

[Comment: Usually Americans think of going to India to find their Master. You did the opposite.]

Yes, wherever our Guru is, we have to go there. Soon after, in May 1994, I had the opportunity to come to New York. I had applied to be a disciple but I had not yet been accepted.

I first saw Guru in PS 86. It was crowded and I was all the way in the back of the auditorium. I couldn't see Guru very well but I saw the disciples and I remember them so clearly. Their smiles were so beautiful. I said to myself that even if I don't go very far spiritually, if I can smile like that, it's worth becoming a disciple.

In July 1994 I became a disciple. That was also a very special experience, very personal.

Divine journey

The divine journey
Is the continuous, eternal journey
That is not only nearing God-Reality
But is actually bringing God-Reality
To itself.
And this journey is not only the soul's
Continuous preparation
In us,
But also the soul's full blossoming
For us.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Silence-seed and sound-fruit, Agni Press, 1975

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.”

Sometimes there’s a delicate balance between what we deem to be life-struggles and what truly are our proper life-opportunities. Life is constantly challenging us with the opportunity for self-transcendence.

Responsibility cannot weigh you down
If you take responsibility
As a God-approved opportunity.
It can only lift you and your life
To the higher worlds.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 9, Agni Press, 1983

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.

Because I had said my last name was Palit, Guru started speaking about Biren Palit, who was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo at the Ashram in Pondicherry. (Before coming to the West, Sri Chinmoy spent 20 years practising meditation and spiritual discipline in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram). He invited the girls to sing a song called Tomari Hok Joy, which was written by Biren Palit.

He asked me, "Are you related to Biren Palit?" I said no, but I remembered my mother's uncle had been in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I said, "But I have a relative, my mother's uncle. His name was Sisir Kumar Ghose. Do you know him?" Then there was a fountain of conversation. It turned out that Sisir Kumar Ghose was like an elder brother, like a mentor for Guru at the Ashram. Guru had so much to say about him. That was my first introduction.

Sisir Kumar Ghosh was a professor in Shantiniketan. Shantiniketan is a university that was created by Rabindranath Tagore, a great Bengali poet and a Nobel laureate. Sisir Kumar Ghosh was a professor of English there, but he was also a great devotee of Sri Aurobindo. Guru would often say he had two homes. In his professional life, Tagore was his Guru, and in his personal life, Sri Aurobindo was his Guru.

Each aspiring heart
Is a special member
Of God’s immediate Family.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 29, Agni Press, 2002

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.

Back in England, I was still a hippie. We were sitting in a circle in a room in our house by the sea, on the south coast of England. The door opened and light came shining in from the hall. My friend David came in with short hair, dressed in white with Guru's transcendental picture. All of the other hippies went, “Arggh, what's this!” But I felt the bell ringing in my heart.

I went and stayed at the Sri Chinmoy Centre, which David, who later received the spiritual name Pavitrata, was running at the time. I saw the Transcendental [Sri Chinmoy’s most sacred photograph in a very high state which his students use in their meditation].  I read Guru's books for two days. I was on my own at the Centre. I just read Guru's books. I loved everything. Every time I turned the page, it was something more wonderful.

Then I read a book of rules. It said, "Cut your hair." My hair was very long. I said, “No, I'm going to keep my hair!” This was my 'free flag' flying.

That night, my hair started falling out. In the morning, I went to the hairdresser's and had everything shaved off. I thought, “If Sri Chinmoy can inspire me to do this overnight, what else can he do?”

I came to London and I went to the Sri Chinmoy Centre. I did not feel connected to the students of Sri Chinmoy who were present at the time. But the meditation was great! I didn't know what to do.

When I left that night, I stole a pencil that was in the hall. When I got home, I looked at the pencil, and it was an aphorism by Sri Chinmoy. It said, "I shall not fail you if you can dare to believe that I care for you.” So in 1974, I became a disciple.

Someone advised you

Someone advised you and helped you
In your search for Truth.
Once you discovered the Truth,
To your wide surprise
You saw that your previous Helper and Adviser
Was none other than God Himself.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 31, Agni Press, 1982

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 up in Cambridge preparing. Somebody called in the morning to tell me that Guru was still in London and that he would like to see the room where Sri Aurobindo had studied when he was at King's College in Cambridge. I was looking everywhere in the university. I was asking everybody, but nobody could tell me where Sri Aurobindo studied.

The place where Sri Aurobindo lived when he was in Cambridge was a very simple building. We knew it had been destroyed and didn’t exist anymore.

But nobody could tell me where Sri Aurobindo studied in King's College. I was running around and asking many questions, looking through many archival materials, but I couldn't find out where he studied.

Guru arrived and went into the garden of the Provost, the head of the university, the garden where we were doing the lifting. There's a bust, a statue of Sri Aurobindo in the college, which Guru asked us to put outside there. You can see it in the picture. Guru had this wonderful, wonderful meditation next to the bust of Sri Aurobindo.

Then Guru lifted all of the professors. While lifting was happening, I spoke to one professor. He said, "Oh yes, I know the place where Sri Aurobindo would have studied. I know it. It's a room in the college. It's actually the residential quarters now of one of the professors who lives here. He lives and teaches in that room."

The professor who told me this was Dr John Barber. He's a teacher, a professor of Russian studies. He spoke perfect Russian. He knows all about history of Russia and the language. He spoke to some of the Russian disciples when we were there.

He told me, "I know where the room is. It belongs to Professor Avery". He said, "The trouble is, that professor is the grumpiest professor in the whole college. Let me see. I will speak to him and see if we can arrange for Sri Chinmoy to visit the room."

The amazing thing is that we eventually we found where the room was. I told Guru, “We know where the room is, where Sri Aurobindo studied.” Guru was so happy. After the lifting, he went across to this room.

What was very, very interesting is that Guru suddenly changed. As he was going to go to visit this room, the room where Sri Aurobindo studied, Guru changed. He changed from the Master into the disciple. There was something in Guru's quality, in his consciousness that was very dramatically changed. He became all humility and like he was a disciple going to see his Master, like the best disciple ever. You could feel in Guru this intensity and humility and complete love and devotion for Sri Aurobindo. It was in every part of Guru's being. You could feel it. It was amazing. The feeling around Guru had changed. We guided Guru over there. You could feel as Guru was going, he was going to the room with tremendous humility and devotion.

This picture shows Professor Avery. He was very nice to Guru. He welcomed Guru into the room. It's his own personal living space and he spoke to Guru. That professor actually passed away a few years after this. Guru was trying to explain to him his whole connection with Sri Aurobindo. He didn't fully understand but he was very kind and very gracious.

There is a video of Guru walking in this room. At some point the professor asked Guru to sit down. Guru said, "I will not sit down in my Master's room. I will not sit." You could really feel Guru's devotion to Sri Aurobindo, his love for Sri Aurobindo. It was an amazing moment, amazing moment in the history of Guru's visits to the UK.

India's poet

India's poet,
India's seer,
India's Yogi-Avatar,
O Sri Aurobindo,
O Superman pioneer,
To you I ceaselessly bow.

Chinmoy 1

• 1. Sri Aurobindo: The Infinite, Agni Press, 1997

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.

Guru was like a child. He was with us and he was like another child. I was thirteen at the time. The children were mostly younger than me all the way down to four or five years old. Guru was so excited. He was really like a child when he was with us.

Guru played a little game with us. He said, “I want you all, each child, to guess your animal incarnation. What animal you were in your last animal incarnation.”

We all guessed. I remember that I thought maybe I was a dolphin because I loved dolphins at that age. Then Guru went around to each child and he told them which animal they were in their last animal incarnation. Mridanga was an elephant. Dipika was a dog. My brother Sahadeva was a cow. To another girl, Sudhira, who lives in San Francisco now, Guru told her she was a deer.

Then Guru told me that I also was a deer. Guru said that it was very unusual because in my case I was a deer for two consecutive incarnations. Guru said in my first deer incarnation I was not satisfied with my speed. The deer represents speed in Guru's Animal Kingdom book. As a deer, I was not satisfied with my speed. I asked the Supreme for another deer incarnation.

Those 'lucky' people who have seen my speed on the Peace Run will realise that I still have a lot more incarnations to go if I want to be satisfied with my speed!

What my heart needs
Is aspiration-speed,
What my life needs
Is dedication-speed,
And what I need
Is surrender-speed.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 172, Agni Press, 1992

I was married to Subarata, an Irish disciple, for 20 years. She passed away from a very rare disease in the year 2000. When she passed away, Guru said to me, “Do not grieve too much. The secret of life is that there is no death.”

One night, about three months later, I was back in New Zealand. I was asleep in my room and I got woken up at three o'clock in the morning. There was a very strong and very beautiful fragrance of flowers in my room. I had a feeling in my heart that her soul was there in the room and she had come to visit. I jumped out of bed and I sat in the little side room where she used to meditate.

Ten minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Ashrita or someone in New York calling me up. He said, “Guru told me to call you and tell you that your wife's soul is there in the room. She has come to visit you.”

I was very surprised, as Guru was 12,000 miles away in New York, and he confirmed the experience that her soul had come from the soul's the world into our world to visit.

The Master's Fruitful Answers

The Master’s fruitful answers
To his children’s soulful questions
Are as meaningful to them
As their highest meditation,
For his answers convince
Their physical mind
Of the messages they receive
From their spiritual heart.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 69, #6886, Agni Press, 1983

I remember Guru running the 47-mile race at August Celebrations. It was the second time that he did it. We, the children, would stand on the course and sing songs. When Guru would run by, we would sing for him because he was really suffering. We could see him suffering so we would sing songs for him. Then when he went past, we would run across to the other side of the course and wait for him and sing for him there. Guru would give us a nice little blessing as he would go by.

Also during that Celebrations, Guru taught the children songs. There was a big group of children there. I remember learning Tomare Rakhibo. I think it was new then, and Guru was teaching us all. A lot of our interaction with Guru was Guru calling us up and teaching us songs or singing with us.

Of course, we all know how beautiful Guru’s music is. From the very beginning, when my mother first became a disciple, I heard Guru's songs. We would learn these songs that were so beautiful.

Many years later, when I looked back, I realised that through the music, through Guru's singing and songs, Guru was teaching us, especially the children. We were learning how to meditate through the music. Because at that age we could not sit for hours and hours in front of a shrine. We couldn’t be silent for probably more than five minutes. But through the music, through the singing, we experienced so much of Guru’s consciousness. We received so much of his consciousness in his light and his love and his affection. I realised years later that was how he taught us. It was a spiritual teaching through these beautiful, beautiful songs.

Anyway, I went home from that Celebrations, and every night for weeks, I was upset. I was missing Guru so much and missing being in New York with Guru.

The contrast of coming home and going back to school and not being around all the disciples and Guru was really, really hard. I actually asked my father to build me a shrine, a beautiful shrine. That’s when I started to really meditate. I can’t say I kept it up regularly all through my teenage years. But at that point, I started to meditate regularly on a daily basis to try to feel the love, the sweetness and the affection that Guru had given us during the Celebrations.

My aspiration-heart
Is full to the brim
With God’s Affection.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 28, Agni Press, 2002

When I first moved to Queens, I was doing carpentry work. One day after my job, I was going to the Guru Health Foods store. I parked my car just on the corner below the block, just off 86th, 87th Avenue.

So, I bought my stuff, and as I was coming out of Guru Health Foods (which was right in the middle of the block, further down the hill, not at the corner the way it is now) …as I walked outside, I looked up and saw that Guru was walking down the hill. This was a summer day, and he was wearing shorts and a polo shirt. I just stood there with my hands folded. I was trying to be devoted.

   As Guru was walking down the hill, he saw me there. He stopped in front of me and said, “Sal, (at that time my name was Sal) …do you have your car here? And I said, “Yes, Guru.” He said, “Go bring it. bring it.”

But I had just gotten off my carpentry job, and the car was basically my work place. It was where my equipment was; all my tools were there. There was sawdust on the seat. There was sawdust on the floor. There were pieces of wood scraps everywhere and tools.

It was a bit of a mess, so I tried to clean it up quickly. I was really working as quickly as I could. I threw everything that was on the front seat into the back, and I brushed off the seat the best I could. I was doing everything. I was working feverishly to get it ready.

Before I could get it ready, I saw Guru at the door, knocking at the window on the passenger side. I reached over to open the door and let Guru in. Guru got in the car, and I said, “Guru I'm sorry. The car isn't quite ready for you yet.”

Then Guru said back to me, “You must always be prepared to receive the presence of your Master.”

It was like Guru basically branded those words on my soul. I never forgot what he said. Not that I lived up to it all the time, but at least Guru made me aware of what it was to be a true disciple.

You always have to feel that your Master is there, always there. He's always observing you, always with you, always ready to help you, whatever. He is always present for you.

Then I just drove Guru home.

God does not care for my perfection.
He does not care even for my preparation.
He cares only for my readiness
And willingness.

Sri Chinmoy 1

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

Some souls do have two lifetimes with Guru, like Nivedita. Nivedita was a Canadian disciple who passed away as Guru was speaking to her on the phone. Paramita, a fellow Canadian disciple, described it like this:

Nivedita’s passing, many years ago, was absolutely spiritually spectacular. She was in the hospital in a two-bed room, and the spiritual energy at her bedside was so powerful that you absolutely could not NOT meditate. You HAD to meditate, and the meditation was just going rocket-high. Even the lady who was the patient in the next bed was sitting up meditating and praying.

Around Nivedita’s bed were her children and a number of disciples from the Ottawa Centre. For hours we were there with her, just meditating and meditating in this absolutely incredible energy. Nivedita’s physical body was moving through the last stages of taking a breath or two, and then there would be quite a long pause, and another breath or two.

Somewhere during the afternoon, the telephone rang and Kritagyata answered. It was Ashrita, who said, “Guru is asking you to put the phone on Nivedita’s ear.” We could then hear Guru singing to Nivedita the song he had composed for her. And with Guru singing or speaking in her ear, she breathed her last.

I told her to sing. I said, “I will take full responsibility.” I gave her the full description of Heaven, and I said, “Today, as I am here, I am also in Heaven.” I was talking with her for two or three minutes, and while she was listening to me, she passed. What an experience!

Guru

About six or eight years later, my daughter Lisa was attending nursing school in Ottawa, and in her senior year they were being taught how to nurse people through the process of dying. The nursing professor wanted to describe the most beautiful death that she had ever experienced in her nursing career, and she proceeded to describe Nivedita’s death. Lisa went up to her afterwards and said, “I know that lady that you were describing.” The professor said, “No, Lisa, you couldn’t possibly. It happened many years ago.” But Lisa said, “Oh yes, I do. That was Nivedita Johnston.” And the professor said, “You’re absolutely right!”

About ten years after Nivedita had passed away, I was in New York at a function in the school. Guru gave out Prasad and a little girl of about five years old passed in front of Guru with her mother. Guru was looking at her and looking at her very intensely.

When everyone had passed by, Guru called the little girl back again. Guru wrote on a piece of paper and put it on her head. A friend of mine sitting next to me said, “I bet that Nivedita has come back again.” He was absolutely right.

Guru gave a little speech about what a great victory it was for the soul. Guru said, “Our Nivedita had found us again.” She had incarnated in what was then East Germany. The little girl remembered all the pet names she had had for her disciple friends in New York. She remembered them all very, very well. She remembered working in the Divine Enterprises in New York and all her friends. All the connections were very strong. She remembered them all very clearly.

Life is a journey.
Death is the continuation of the journey.
Heaven is a temporary rest
For the commencement and fulfilment
Of a new life, a new hope
And a new promise.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. My Christmas-New Year-Vacation Aspiration-Prayers, part 4, Agni Press, 2001

It was interesting. With meditation, sometimes your soul's memory of the past would give you little glimpses into forgotten times. One example of that: Many years ago I had a friend who lived far away, but every time I saw him, once a year, sometimes twice a year, I always had this feeling ‘I know you from somewhere’. My mind had no idea where or when. But the feeling of recognition was very strong in my heart.

One year on my friend’s birthday, Guru called him down and was meditating upon him. Then Guru looked across at me and he said, “You two have been friends for many hundreds of years.” It confirmed what my heart or my soul had told me: This person is someone I knew from another life from another time.

Today
My heart is blessed with a new friend:
God's Compassion-Eye;
My mind is blessed with a new friend:
God's Forgiveness-Heart;
And my life is blessed with a new friend:
God's Wisdom-Whisper.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Today, December 6, Agni Press, 1996

When I was going to graduate from high school, I was approximately 16 or 17 years old. I had just come to the Centre, and I asked Guru what I should do when I finished high school. After he asked me a few questions about the things that I enjoy doing—which at the time was just art and writing—he encouraged me to study journalism because he felt that it would be very useful to his mission if someone could write for the media.

And so that's what I did. I studied journalism and public relations. I was hired by the university when I graduated. I worked for about eight years in that field, doing photography and journalism within a university.

Of course that was a long time ago, and since then over the years, I have done various things. I worked in the printing industry because in the Puerto Rico Centre we used to print Guru’s books. It was from years of printing Guru's writings that I learned all about that world of printing presses. Eventually I was able to also work in the outside world in that kind of thing.

I must say that we were so fortunate to be able to have Guru physically there to tell us and guide us outwardly as well as inwardly of what we should be doing in our life. That's a supreme blessing.

About this subject of when we are at a place in our life when we want to know what we should do next or what kind of work we should do, Guru has given some very specific advice about this. First of all, Guru has said that before we do anything we should always meditate and ask for inner guidance and supreme guidance. But he also said that if you want to make a decision in a field that you are going to have work in, simply imagine yourself doing that thing and observe how much joy you get from it. In that situation you would use your heart to choose that which gives you the most joy. That is Guru’s advice as far as what to do next in one's life. That is very good guidance.

Your Master's inner guidance

Whether you are meditating
In your Master’s physical presence
Or somewhere else is unimportant.
No matter where you are,
If you think of your Master
And meditate soulfully,
You are bound to get his inner guidance.
And this inner guidance,
Which is his inner oneness with you,
Will last forever and forever.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 57, Agni Press, 1983

I was kind of a shy boy, young boy, in those days. It took me maybe a few weeks to get enough courage to go ahead and decide to go to the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Puerto Rico. I'll never forget when it happened. It was my birthday, and I was sitting at the dinner table with my family. I was living with my parents at the time. I was still in high school. I was sitting there having my meal, and from deep inside of me came this affirmation, out of the blue: “I am going to the Centre this week.”

So, I went. The first time I went to meditation, it was Wednesday evening. It was on the second floor in a small apartment, in a very humble area in Puerto Rico. There were between 20 and 30 people in this small meditation apartment.

Now, Guru was not physically there, but when I went in, I was clutching one of those yoga books. It was like my security blanket. I remember we waited in a separate room while they were preparing the meditation room. I was asking one of the older disciples—his name is Ananta and he passed away some years ago—if he thought it was good. He said, “Oh, yes, it’s very good.” They were very sweet. There was a vibration, an atmosphere there that was extremely powerful but also very peaceful. My heart was pounding with excitement.

So, the time came, and they called us into the meditation room, a very small room. In those days they would turn off all the lights and there would just be candles, with the candles on Guru’s chair in the front where Guru would sit when he visited, and candles and different shrines around. So, we were inside this real temple, there was a very sacred, very mystical, very, very inspiring feeling.

Sudha was the Centre leader. She was an extremely close disciple to Guru. She was at the time an older woman. She looked like Indira Gandhi—if you ever saw a picture of Indira Gandhi. Sudha had Indian features, although she was a Puerto Rican woman. And many years later, I heard Guru had said that she was his daughter in a previous life.

Sudha started the meditation. She sat on the floor next to Guru’s throne, facing us on the side very humbly, and she read one of Guru’s aphorisms. We chanted and then we all went into silent meditation. But because this was my first time, all I knew about how to meditate was to do some breathing exercises, some pranayama. So, I started doing that. Sudha mentioned that we should look at Guru’s Transcendental photograph because she saw that a few of us were new. So, I started looking at Guru’s photograph and breathing in his breath.

It only took a few minutes for me to calm down, and then such a tremendous force, just a tremendous light came down. I could feel it come down in the room and lift me up.

Actually I felt like it was shooting me up. I felt like a rocket going up into the sky, and I could see the earth like a ball, like you see in some of those photographs taken from outer space of Earth, the green ball. I could see it going away as I was going up. This tremendous force was pulling me from the top of my head, yanking me up.

While that was happening, there were absolutely no thoughts in my mind. I mean, the force was so overwhelming that it completely lacked any possibility of thought. I was just flying upward and completely under the spell of this tremendous power.

I just wanted to keep going. It was so wonderful, so blissful. It was just an incredible experience! But it came to a point where I felt like I had stopped. I was frozen way out there someplace. I kept wanting to go on. But now that I look back, it was like my own fears or my own ignorance or limitations were preventing me. It was like I couldn't go any higher. I was stuck. But up there.
 
Eventually, at some point, I could hear them chanting AUM.  So, I sort of started floating back down into my body. When I finally came to and opened my eyes, I was a little disoriented. But I was absolutely certain, without any trace of doubt, that this was where I belonged.

Meditate, meditate, meditate
Soulfully, sleeplessly and self-givingly,
For meditation is nothing other than
Our supreme ignorance-shattering vision.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 239, Agni Press, 1997

I got a call on the phone from a disciple, a doctor in Vienna. He was very Austrian, very matter of fact, and he just said to me, “I'm trying to get a message to Guru that Shamita is dying.” Well, that got my attention!  

He explained that Shamita, a musician who plays the cello and is a very good ultra-runner, had run an ultra-race in Austria and had collapsed.

So, I knew that Guru would want as many details as possible. I remember writing them down. Pratush said that her organs were shutting down, which apparently is very, very serious. The doctors thought it was just a matter of time till she died.

Well, of course, I knew how serious that was, so I remember I ran out of the store, just dropped everything and ran out of the store. I remember jumping on my bicycle and pedaling like crazy to Guru's house.

I thought it strange because normally each morning I would come to Guru's house, I would go upstairs and I would show him the video of his lifting from that morning. But that particular morning, I had not been invited. So it was very normal for me to come to Guru's house. I remember knocking on the side door and being let in. I went upstairs to see Guru. He was resting on the porch, sleeping or semi-dozing, and was being massaged by a disciple.

I knew normally never to disturb Guru when he was like that. We think he is resting, but he said he always would be doing enormous number of things occultly, inwardly, and we should never disturb him when he's like that. Well, it was only a few seconds. I was kneeling there before Guru. Really, it was only a few seconds. and Guru just opened his eyes and totally unperturbed said, “Is there anything?”

Well, I gave the message. I gave the details. and Guru literally closed his eyes for just a few moments. Then he opened them and looked at me and said, “Oh, good, you're here, you can go and get the videos from upstairs and show me my lifting.”

It was so interesting how your mind sort of locks, because I knew Guru had done everything in those few seconds. I mean, you feel it, mentally I knew it, but it was actually too much for me to even comprehend that, oh, Guru now wants to see his lifting? I mean your heart always knows that Guru will deal with it. But it was very interesting because one part of my mind was “Well, Guru has dealt with it,” and the other part is “Well, how is that possible?” It was just so quick and instant, and then Guru is, “Okay. that's dealt with. Now we have to do this.”  

Then, of course, we found out a few hours later that she had made a miraculous recovery very quickly from that moment onwards, against all medical expectation.

Each divine experience
Is a miracle.
Is there anything special in life
That is not a miracle?

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 14, #13624, Agni Press, 1999

One time in I think it was 1997, we had a Christmas trip in Mexico. On the Christmas trips, I worked very, very hard. I had to get up very early. I had to deal with some things in Guru's hotel room and I did a lot of media work and a lot of getting Guru on television. So, it was an exhausting time and a very busy time. I filmed for Guru to archive, but also, I did a lot of events which we would take to television. We used to get Guru on television a lot in all these countries.

After Guru held a concert one night, I was coming back to the hotel. I was not in a good space. I was very tired, but also mentally I was not in a good space, and you could say spiritually, I wasn't in a good space, since they often go together. I remember waiting in the lobby for Guru. I was some distance away because I knew I wasn't in a good consciousness, and I didn't want to bother Guru. There were a lot of disciples in the hotel lobby. I was tucked right away, almost out of sight.

When Guru came in, Guru just looked at me and waved me over. I thought, “Oh, no, I'm going to get a scolding.” But Guru was very sweet. He just told me, “Go and buy me some drinks.” Whenever Guru asked you to do something, you had to do it straightaway. So, I ran upstairs to where there was a small shop, and I bought a selection of drinks. I gave them to Guru and all my problems were gone.

Years later, I told Guru the story and asked him, “Did you specifically know that I was unhappy, or I was having problems? Did you specifically know what the problem was? Is that why you asked to me to get the drinks?”

Guru said, “I didn't specifically know what the problem was, but I could feel something wasn't right. So I used that outer action to heal you inwardly.”

Offer all your problems to God
As you would offer Him flowers.
He will be more than happy
To accept them,
And to make your problems
His problems.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Morning invites my heart. Evening invites my life, Agni Press, 1992

Interviewer: Recently, I've been watching the video that you have made on the meeting of Guru and President Mikhail Gorbachev, which took place in 1997. There was another part of this video after the meeting when Guru was gathering with the disciples and discussing this meeting. Guru seems to be so excited about that meeting, because it seems like Guru was really setting Gorbachev apart from all other politicians and prominent people that he communicated with in his lifetime. Could you please comment on this relationship of Guru with Gorbachev?

Mridanga: Well, I would have to agree. I've never seen Guru so happy than when talking about President Gorbachev. I mean, to me, I never see Gorbachev as a politician. Of course, he is. But Guru held him as someone much, much, much higher.

Guru said that he had a connection with President Gorbachev previously and that Gorbachev was a very, very special soul brought down for a special reason.

Even if you look historically just at what Gorbachev did, okay, we all know that. But I don't think I've ever met a politician that's been as receptive to Guru. I mean, it's almost like Gorbachev recognized Guru, his height somewhat, and Gorbachev just happened to be a politician.

But regarding that meeting, you're quite right. Beforehand, Guru was so intense, excited. Guru was pacing up and down, checking that everything was correct in the room. Guru was so excited to see them.

For that particular meeting, the disciples had been in most of the night setting up the room. Guru wanted to show Gorbachev several videos. I was at Guru's house till about 2:00 in the morning, with Guru telling me what to put in these videos.

I came in to the meeting room at about five in the morning with all the cameras and set them up. Of course, it was a problem making sure that there would be enough tape to cover the whole meeting. There were also various other technical problems, so I was very nervous making sure that everything was working. I was in the room until about 15 minutes before the meeting was meant to take place. I was supposed to start the cameras and then leave.

It's always very worrying when you are not there, when the cameras are rolling, because anything can go wrong. But I was also lucky because Sagar was there, and Sagar is very technical. So, I had quite a lot of confidence in him. I remember waiting in the hotel lobby for a long time. I was so nervous. Has it happened, has it worked out? Then I got the telephone call, “Come up, you know, it went well.” And I was, like, yes!

I came in and Guru was so happy and excited. Guru was talking so fast and so loud about different parts of the meeting and one of the first things Guru said to me, of course, is, “Did the cameras work?” So, I quickly went and checked, and thank God, they all worked. It was such relief for me.

Then Guru had me wire the camera to one of the hotel televisions so we could play it back and show the disciples some of the meeting. That was such a happy time because Guru was so happy. I mean, it was rare to see Guru that happy and excited except when Gorbachev was involved. After the meeting, after it had gone well, Guru talked and talked and talked and talked! Of course, we watched some of the video, and we laughed. Gorbachev came and looked at the artwork or the flowers, and it was just so cute. We really re-lived it. But at the same time, Guru would be talking, talking: “This is what happened… He was so happy about this….”

So, we had the video and we had Guru’s narration at the same time.

President Gorbachev:
A man in a million,
A heart in a billion
And A soul in a trillion.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. President Gorbachev: the home of Oneness-Peace-Dream-World, Agni Press, 2001

I can tell you the outer circumstances about how I came to the path. At the time, I was studying music, studying grand piano. I just got the feeling that I should learn to meditate because that would help me with my piano performance. This was in 1982. It was my final year of music study. I got the feeling that I should find somewhere to learn to meditate, I should look in the newspaper and that there would be an advertisement for meditation classes.

So, I looked in the paper and there were two advertisements for meditation groups. One of the groups was much closer to my house and it was called the Sri Chinmoy Centre, which I had never heard of. But because it was close to me, that's the one I went to. The disciples later told me that they only ever placed one advertisement in the newspaper. That was the only time they ever put an advertisement in the newspaper. That was the day I got the idea that I must look in the newspaper to find an advertisement.

So, I was coming to meditation classes for nearly six months. I was not looking for a Guru or a spiritual master or a spiritual path. It never occurred to me that these things were important. But I was enjoying coming to the Centre and I was enjoying reading Guru's writings and listening to Guru’s music. More and more, this was becoming a very important part of my life.

The disciples even said to me, “Oh, you should send your photograph to Guru and apply to become a disciple.” But I said, “No, I don't need that. That's not important.” That just shows you how stupid and how ignorant I actually was!

One day, Guru was going to phone the Centre. All the disciples from around Australia came to Canberra for this phone call, which was only for disciples. But the Centre leader at that time got inspired to invite me to come to the telephone call. He asked, “Would you like to come and hear Sri Chinmoy speak on the phone?” I said, “Yes, of course.”

When Guru phoned, he spoke to every disciple individually. And to each disciple, he gave a special message and his blessings. Everything was on the loudspeaker telephone so you could hear everything Guru was saying to each person.

When Guru had spoken to every disciple, then Guru said, “Is anybody else there?” There should not have been anyone else there because it should only have been disciples. So, I came to the phone and introduced myself. I said my name and that I had been coming to meditation classes. Then I waited for Guru to say something, because for every disciple, Guru gave a message, he spoke something personal. But in my case, absolute silence. Guru did not say a word.

There was this long silence, and I became a little uncomfortable. I did not know what I was supposed to do. I felt I had to break this silence. I had to say something. But what do you say to a spiritual master? So, I said the only thing that came into my head. I said to Guru, “I want to become your disciple,” because that was the only thing that I thought you should say to a spiritual master. Then Guru ended his silence. He chanted a very long “Aum” and said, “I accept you as a true disciple of mine.”

My mind was immediately confused. I said, “Where on earth did that question come from? I never, never wanted this. I've been tricked!” But at the same time, I was extremely happy, more that I had ever felt in my life. It was as though the weight of my whole life was taken from my shoulders and I felt like I could sing and dance for pure joy.

O Yogi of the highest magnitude, initiate me.
Today offer me Your initiation.
Today I shall learn the immortal message of transformation from You.
I shall not wander any more in the farthest corners of the world.
I shall only dance in the city of the heart.
Inside the city of my heart
I shall sing songs of Love Divine
And I shall see myself in the mirror of my sanctified heart.
Today I beg of You to offer me only one thing: silence, silence.
O Yogi of the highest magnitude, initiate me today.
(Translation of song “He Jogiraj dikkha amai”)

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Garden of love-light, part 2, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1975

I’ll tell you a funny story. Guru had two monkeys, Jadhu and Madhu. There was a little monkey house off Guru’s porch at his house where the monkeys lived. My first job in the morning was to feed the monkeys. Each morning I would bring the food into the monkey’s house. They would come down and sit on my shoulder and they would sort of pick at the plate – it was a tin from Annam Brahma – and take what they liked. Guru would ask me if they ate.

One day, Guru told me to sing to the monkeys. I am a terrible singer. I don’t sing on key and I’ve been asked not to sing The Invocation because it puts everybody off. So I sang “Never Say No” to the monkeys. Guru would be sitting on the porch a lot of times, resting, looking out on the street. He had a couch there that he would rest on. 

After about a month of singing “Never Say No,” Guru said, “Change the song.” So I sang “I dearly love my India and I dearly love my America.” And that one went on; but one is hard to sing, I love it, but I do not think I sing it right, ever.

One time I was driving Guru to the court (Aspiration-Ground, the tennis court we use as our meditation garden), and it might have been my birthday but I cannot remember. Guru said, “Please sing a song.” To be honest with you, I said, “Guru, I don’t know any songs really, I don’t know any Bengali songs.” And I didn’t. I said to Guru, “The only song I really know Guru is ‘Happy Birthday’.”  So I start singing Happy birthday. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you….”

Really, I don’t know any rock songs, I don’t know any of Guru’s songs, except for The Invocation. Now I know seven songs, but in those days I didn’t know any songs. Guru started singing along with me, “Happy birthday to you….”

And then I said, “Well, Guru, I do know ‘America the Beautiful’ a little bit.” Guru and I both started singing “America the Beautiful,” but Guru knew it better than me, to tell you the truth.

The animal life and the human life
Are fast asleep inside you.
Do not awaken the animal life.
Only awaken the human life
So that it can be a good student
Of the divine life.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 40, #3985, Agni Press, 1982

Whenever I remember how I first came to Guru, I get very emotional.

I was in high school. I was maybe 16 or 17 years old, and at the time I had recently moved from the island of Maui in Hawaii to Puerto Rico. When I was about 16, I started to have some inner spiritual yearnings and some spiritual experiences. No one, in my circle of friends in the school that I was going to, shared these kinds of experiences.  

So, I started going to bookstores and looking for spiritual books. One of the very first ones I was fortunate enough to get was a book on yoga, a general book of yoga. It was not Guru’s book. I began reading about yoga and spiritual life. I started practicing the physical exercises of yoga and some basic concentration exercises on my own because no one that I knew in Puerto Rico was doing anything like this. Then I started buying other books and reading on Zen Buddhism and Hinduism and some other paths, but there was one message that kept coming out to me from each of these books. That message that these books were, these teachings, were talking about was higher worlds, higher levels of consciousness, how to achieve real inner peace. But they always said that if you want to achieve this, you need a teacher, you need a Master to guide you.

Every time I got a new book thinking I would be able to find something that I could use to develop my spirituality, sooner or later in that book, that line would come out, that teaching would come out: “You need a Master. You need a Master.”

Finally, one day I said okay, well I guess I should look for a Master. I started asking around, people I knew, if anyone knew of a yoga group that had a Master. it took a while before I actually found someone that could answer that question.

One day I spoke with someone and asked, “Do you know where I could find a spiritual Master?” This person told me, “Well, I do not personally have one, but I know someone who does go to a yoga centre and who has a Master.”

It turned out that that person was a young man who happened to live in the same apartment building that I lived in, on the same floor that I lived on, only about five doors down. This is in Puerto Rico, where there were about four million people living at that time. All of that island and all of those people, and that person was right there.

I was a young man. I was 16 and kind of shy. So, it took me a little while to get enough courage to approach someone I did not know. One day I was out on the balcony and I saw him going to the elevator. So, I said, this is the time. I went over to speak with him. Bear in mind that this was about 50 years ago, but I still remember this moment like it was yesterday.

I went over to him as he was waiting for the elevator. I said, “Good morning. A friend of mine told me that you are going to a yoga centre, and I am looking for a spiritual Master.”

He looked at me. He was a young man, maybe in his mid-20s, very nice, very humble, very sweet. The first thing he said to me was, “If you are looking for a Master, I know where you can find the highest Master on earth at this time.”

I was so excited! My eyes opened wide. He said, “He is always in samadhi.” He made his eyes go up like this. I had just read a book on Tibetan yoga that had pictures of Himalayan yogis in trance. I could not believe that this man was telling me about someone like that that I could meet.

Then he said, “His path is very straight and direct. It is like a blade of grass. If you walk on it directly, it will lead you to the goal. It is very challenging, but you will achieve your goal.”

Everything he was telling me, I had absolute faith in. There was not a trace of doubt or apprehension. I felt his sincerity inwardly and outwardly and I just knew the reality of what he was saying. I knew that it was absolutely true.  

Then he said, “But that's all I'm going to tell you. You have to go there and experience it for yourself to see if he's meant to be your Master. Come to my apartment later on in the evening and I will give you the address.”

Needless to say, I was very excited. I had been anticipating this for some time. When the evening came, I went and knocked on his door. He let me in and said, “Okay, I will go upstairs to get the address.” And he pointed to a picture that was on the wall. It was a small Transcendental, a pocket-sized Transcendental on the wall. He said, “Oh, by the way, that's a picture of my Master, Sri Chinmoy.”

That was my very first time seeing Guru’s Transcendental photograph. Just a simple picture on the wall, and I was looking at it and looking at it. It felt so familiar. At the same time, it felt very ancient, like a great Master from ancient times. I was getting this wonderful feeling from it.

It is hard to put into words. My mind was completely blank. As I kept looking at Guru’s photograph, everything else sort of became in soft focus and disappeared. It was just his beautiful face, just shining. It was really something very magical, very, very mystical.

Then he came downstairs and gave me the address and the days of the meetings. In those days, it was Wednesdays and Sundays. He gave me the name of a disciple: Guru’s first disciple in Puerto Rico, Sudha.

He said, “Go there and introduce yourself. Tell them that I sent you.” He was a medical student, so he could not go to all the meditations. So, he said, “Go there.”

If you believe in your Inner Pilot
And can listen to His Dictates,
Then you do not have to cross oceans
To find an outer Master.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 4, #3291, Agni Press, 1998