by Purnakama Rajna
Winnipeg, Canada

I was not overly drawn to spirituality as a youth, except for a distant feeling that I would like to spend some time in a monastery one day. I was blessed with a childhood that seems exceptional these days: full of love, joy and happiness. I studied geology at university and basically was more or less happy, though somehow the real purpose of my life seemed to elude me. I was happy but not satisfied. I was doing well in sports and in my studies, but that didn’t seem to provide any real, lasting satisfaction.

After studying for two years I decided to take half a year off and travel around by myself in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. In a second-hand bookstore in Australia I had my first experience of something beyond the confines of everyday life as I was strangely drawn towards a book by the Hare Krishna movement. The experience repeated itself in New Zealand some weeks later with a book from the same series. This was getting intriguing! Their philosophy appealed to me and I gave the local Hare Krishna Ashram a call asking whether I could come and spend some time there. That did not seem to be possible so I decided not to go.
 
 However, as I was hiking the various long-distance trails of the South Island of New Zealand by myself, I had a wonderful experience one day. I was walking the ‘Abel Tasman Track’ and by the end of the afternoon reached a beautiful beach. There was no one around for miles and I had been walking by myself in silence for almost a day. I was in a serene mood that was nurtured by the sun slowly setting. Suddenly there were many dolphins very close to the shore. They were surfing on the waves. I was thrilled! I threw off my big backpack, took off my clothes and jumped in the water. The dolphins swam away, though, and slightly disappointed I returned to the beach. When I was halfway through drying myself, the dolphins reappeared and I gave it a second chance, getting back into the water.

 
 This time the dolphins didn’t go away. They didn’t allow me to touch them but they were all around me, less than a metre away, singing their high-pitched songs. It struck something in me. I was drunk with joy. I was raving like a madman in the water and it seemed a long time until the dolphins swam away. That was the first time in my life I experienced real joy, and the search for more had started. After a few more months of travelling by myself with lots of time to wonder and ponder about life, I went back to Holland.

The second day after my return I was approached in the street by a girl from the Hare Krishna movement. I talked a little with her and bought the book she was selling. I had to follow the Hare Krishna lead the Universe was offering, it seemed. I read the book and even wrote a letter to the swami who had written it. The letter was pretty presumptuous, I am afraid, but the swami figured out who must have sold the book to me and asked the girl to contact me. She called me one day and invited me to come with her and some others to ‘Radhadesh’, one of their big temples in Belgium. We would meet at their temple in Amsterdam and then go together to Belgium by car. As I entered their temple in Amsterdam in the morning, I saw the girl who had sold me the book sitting in a corner of the room threading small flowers together into a garland for Sri Krishna. The love and devotion with which she was working left a huge impression on me. I instinctively knew I also had this kind of love and devotion within me; I just had to find a way to express it.

The rest of the trip to Belgium was in every way a disaster, although Radhadesh was beautiful and some of the disciples really inspired me. I was making one mistake after another and started to feel more and more uncomfortable. I remember following the girl I knew into the women’s dining room to have lunch with her. I hadn’t noticed it was ‘women only’ until I was told in no uncertain terms to get out of there by an older lady. Another time I was loudly saying 'Enjoy your meal!' when everyone had just started meditating on their food. A whole lot more things like that happened. I left after one day to go home by myself. I was absolutely devastated; I was crying sincerely. I knew I had found what I wanted in life: to lead a spiritual life. However, this path was not meant to be mine.

I decided to study comparative religion in university, along with geology. It was in that department a few months later that I saw this absolutely tiny leaflet on a big poster board, among hundreds of other flyers, about a lecture by the Sri Chinmoy Centre. I went there in the beginning of 1999. The lecture was very nice and I felt very much at home. However, since I had been the only one coming that evening, there would be no meditation course the following evening. I went home with Sri Chinmoy’s book Meditation and the phone number of the person who gave the class in my agenda. I was so happy when I rode my bike home! It seemed there was no reason for it, but I was feeling absolutely elated. The weeks following the lecture I started cancelling all activities in the evening and would only read the book on meditation. Trying out some of the exercises felt a little odd, though. For months I kept calling the classgiver, but somehow there was never a new meditation course starting.

Finally there would be a course starting in Den Haag, the city where I grew up and where my parents still lived. I decided to travel there once a week to follow the course. Unfortunately, the first evening I showed up at the wrong place. After waiting for almost an hour I realised that I had gone to the wrong address. At that moment I almost decided to drop the whole matter. I was already on my way home when this tiny little voice in my head said: "If you keep giving up like this, you will never get anywhere in life." I had the correct address with me, but I didn’t know where it was. So I decided to phone my mother from a telephone booth and ask her to look on a map and explain it to me.

I arrived that evening at the meditation course more than one hour late, but it felt like coming home. That feeling basically never left me. Not only did the meditation techniques of Sri Chinmoy provide a definite sense of happiness, but my life had finally found its meaning in the pursuit of enlightenment or God-realisation, as Sri Chinmoy calls it. Finally all the pieces of my life seemed to fit together! I didn’t hesitate for a second when asked whether I wanted to become a disciple of Sri Chinmoy. I didn’t have a clear picture in mind about the relationship between the Master and the disciple, but I was absolutely determined not to let go of this new horizon that had opened up before me.

Somehow the first time I gave my application to become a disciple of Sri Chinmoy, the form got stuck in someone’s mailbox or something like that and it didn’t reach Sri Chinmoy. However, a few days later I had a life-changing experience. I was lying in bed one evening when I suddenly felt a strong presence in my room. It didn’t feel bad, but it didn’t feel good, either. I was afraid and stiffened in my bed. Then this presence entered my body and suddenly my world was upside down. Something raced from the bottom of my spinal column into my brain and I had an intuitive vision of a huge book, like a medieval Bible. A page of the book was turned and I was completely overwhelmed by an all-knowing feeling. It lasted only moments, but for those moments I understood everything of life and death. I didn’t see the book any longer; I had become the Universe, I had become knowledge itself. Truth filled and fulfilled me to the brim. Then, as suddenly as it had come, everything vanished and I was back in my bed, still uncertain of what had actually happened.

After this experience my meditations became deeper in sudden jumps and by October 1999 Sri Chinmoy accepted me formally as his disciple. The day he accepted me I was sitting on a train having (by my standards) a good meditation, when I saw a double rainbow with predominantly blue colours. I knew then that Sri Chinmoy had accepted me, although outwardly I heard only two days later.

I am immensely grateful to Sri Chinmoy for reaching out to me in the whirlwind of life. Up to this day I wonder at the seemingly small coincidences that led me eventually to him. The tiny leaflet, the soft voice in my head – I could have missed them so easily! But it seems when you are ready, your true Master pulls you towards him with an inevitability that not even death can match…

by Menaka
Ottawa, Canada

I grew up in France, in a Paris suburb, in a non-practising Muslim family. My parents were nonetheless God-believers. My father taught us the important surats of the Quran. He showed us the beauty of Islam, and respect for all religions.

As a young teenager, I was introduced to India and Hinduism by a friend. I recall being attracted by India. This land of spirituality was foreign but at the same time so familiar. I was told that with the power of meditation man could do extraordinary things, and I believed it. I knew already that the only thing that would really matter in life was spiritual growth.

In my early twenties, I moved to Montreal to pursue my studies because I was not satisfied in France. I fell in love with Canada and decided to stay. Even though I had everything to be happy, I could still not find satisfaction. I had the feeling that I was wasting my time, not achieving any spiritual progress but on the contrary diving more and more deeply into purposelessness. Even though I was aware of it, I could not find the strength to control myself.

Then my mother’s cancer reappeared. I will always remember that phone call in December 1999. My mother was confident that everything would be fine and that in six months she would be in good health again. As I hung up, I had the strong feeling that she would not survive this time. My mother had always felt that she would die young. When she first got breast cancer, I was 15 and my younger brother only 4. I remember praying to God to give her another few years so that at least my younger brother could be independent enough. God had been kind enough to give her another 9 years. This time, even if it broke my heart, I could only say, "May Thy Will be done."

I struggled in the two years that followed. For some time I would try to get closer to God with prayer and meditation (prayer mostly, as I had real trouble sitting still for more than a few minutes), and then I would fall deeper into material life so that I could avoid facing reality and my mother’s suffering. One day as I was in deep desperation at my incapacity to discipline myself and my total helplessness, I prayed to God to help me find a Master, someone who could guide me in my spiritual life and help me make progress. At that time I thought of a Sufi Master, because I was Muslim and I liked the universality of Sufism. However, I never made a step in that direction. Sufi groups were not lacking in Montreal, but something was holding me back.

In August 2001, my mother passed away. This was a wakeup call. I could not go on like that with my life. I decided to start a PhD with the goal of getting a job at the United Nations. I quit my job and moved to Ottawa. I needed a concrete change in my life and moving to a new city would help me to start fresh (and force me to learn English). So in January 2002, I started a new life in Ottawa. I was still desperately looking for something.

At the beginning of September 2002, as I was walking to university, my eyes were attracted by a pink meditation poster with a black and white picture of a lotus flower (a very basic poster, but somehow I was attracted by it). Not long after, I saw the same poster inside the university; this time what attracted me the most was the word 'free'. I thought that if it was free it was probably a sincere offering, so I decided to write down the number. I waited a couple of weeks and finally called; a class was starting the following week.

At that point I was thinking of going back to Montreal, as the PhD programme in Montreal was of a higher standard and one of my previous teachers was trying to convince me to come back. But I had to act fast, as the session had already started. I remember making a list of pros and cons of staying in Ottawa. In the pros list was the meditation class.

Finally I decided to stay; I did not care that much about the PhD anyway. During the last meditation class, one of the teachers said that if we cared for the spiritual life and wanted to be serious about it, we could apply to become a student of Sri Chinmoy. This resonated with me. Yes! That was what I had always wanted: to give first and foremost importance to my spiritual life. So I decided to try this path. Slowly I discovered my Master and realised that God had not only answered my prayer to grant me a spiritual guide, but had given me much more than I asked for or could even dream of. I have never finished my PhD and I am not working for the United Nations, but I have something much more precious than that. My life has become meaningful and I have never been happier than since I became a disciple of Sri Chinmoy.

by Shaivya Rubczynska
Warsaw, Poland

It was freezing and snowing, February 1991 in Warsaw.

Two girls were standing in the street, facing the modest poster with just a few words on it.
"Look, it is for free", said one of them.
"Let’s go inside; we still have one hour before the theatre", answered the other one. "By the way, what is meditation?"

Inside the small performance hall, there were an astonishing number of people – more than 200. On the stage, a young man sat at a table with a tiny, black-and-white picture on it. Then he started his talk in German, translated by an old lady. He said that he was from Berlin and that the face in the photo was his Master’s. After a few minutes, I stopped listening. It was so nice just to sit there; I felt relaxed and peaceful.

Suddenly he said: "Now we shall do an exercise, and you’ll see for yourself what concentration and meditation are. Please, close your eyes."

I closed my eyes. Everything disappeared. I was inside a stream or waterfall of love and joy, something immense and strong, but delicate at the same time, an almost tangible and silky feeling of…of what? I couldn’t find a name for it, but it was feeding me as if I had been hungry for centuries without even being aware of it.  But I was sure that that force or that love was exactly what I had been waiting for forever. Did I cry?

"We have to go."  
"What?"
"Open your eyes. We have to go. We are already late."

On our way out, we stood for a while at the table by the door. There were some books and pictures of that man from the black-and-white photo. His eyes were strong and soft, sad and loving. The boy on the stage was saying: "If you want, you can bring your pictures tomorrow. There will be two more meetings."

We left. But I didn’t enjoy the theatre that evening.

"Why did he want us to bring our pictures?"
"He said he takes them to New York."
"Why to New York?"
"I don’t know,  but I think that man (referring to the picture) lives there."

Without seeking any further explanation, as if all was clear and decided, we had new photos of ourselves taken, and in the evening we gave them to the boy from Berlin. He said he would give them to his Master and perhaps he would accept us as his disciples. Meditation, Master, disciple – all this was so completely new, yet so exciting, and I had always been one to take a risk.

The boy left, and a few months passed by. The event was over, and I didn’t think of it any longer. At the end of April, he appeared again in Warsaw and said to me: "Sri Chinmoy has accepted you as his disciple."

I felt the needle of the compass whirling suddenly and strongly in the middle of my chest, and a feeling of incredible joy and victory. I started to laugh. The arrow had hit the centre of the target. 

Sarama Minoli
New York, United States

Anandashru Elliott
Auckland, New Zealand

Long ago, when I was a young farmer’s wife with two very small children, there was a time when I found myself in an awful "black hole" of depression. I had never been particularly unhappy in my life before then, rarely saw a doctor, and thought one would just say, "Grow up; you have responsibilities now." For many weeks I had been listening to a 15-minute programme, "A Faith for Today," on the radio every morning. Weeping copious tears, I would pray and pray to really believe in the existence of God and Jesus Christ – but please, please, not to remain indifferent any longer.

One morning, after the broadcast was over, I was washing up the breakfast dishes and crying into the sink as usual, when my view through the window and across the valley was silently rent down the middle with a slight zigzag shift, and the world changed. The view was the same, yet all looked subtly different, slightly shimmering. It seemed as though the trees along the distant horizon had joined hands and were dancing, for one thing – but my real understanding was inner. I saw, somehow, or rather understood, how everything IS. I saw how all things are connected and that love is the key, and I was swept along and upward in a joyous unfolding vision of how this could blossom into Heaven on earth one day, with love for one another spreading across the land and around the world until it encompassed all nations and all mankind. All the time I found myself whispering, 'Of course, of course!' as if in ecstatic recognition of something long forgotten.

This is the best I can do by way of explanation. At the time, I tried to write down all that I had 'seen' – and could not. It was somehow impossible to express the wonder of it in ordinary words. One of my favourite talks on the radio had been on Jesus’ teaching, 'You are the light of the world…' I knew this parable but always assumed that it applied to his disciples only. Now I knew it meant me, and you, everyone on earth.

I was totally uplifted. I knew the light shone from my eyes, my face was radiant and my heart overflowed with happiness and love. (This was not just a mood swing! I have never been depressed again in all the years that have passed since.) I had been given far more than I had asked for.  Now I did not just believe. I knew.

Today I feel that, in answer to my genuine, anguished cries, God’s Compassion came down mightily and temporarily lifted the veil of maya, or illusion, long enough to give me the answer I so desperately sought. Then the veil descended again, inevi-tably. The high consciousness also descended, slowly, without lots of prayer and meditation to maintain it, and I was left with just the essence of the experience to sustain me. I attended churches of several different faiths but could not find lasting inspiration anywhere and gradually just returned to 'normal.' But that knowledge was always there, deep within – God IS.

The search never ceased, however. I read every book on spirituality and any loosely associated subject that the Hamilton City Library could provide. There was a book on meditation that sounded interesting, and just what I needed, but I tried it only once, on my own. One day there was an advertisement in the Waikato Times: 'Four meditation classes for $25.00.' So off I went. My only recollection is that we sat in a circle on the floor in a darkened room with a lighted candle in the middle. I found it weird, sitting in the dark with shadowy figures all around, and made no progress.

The following year a small paragraph appeared in the local mid-week paper; a lady called Subarata, from Auckland, would be coming to Hamilton to give free meditation classes. Feeling a bit dubious after the last strange experience, I wanted to give it another try but thought it would be nice to go with a friend. I asked my daughter on the off chance that she might like to come with me – and she said she would.

During the introductory meditation, I concentrated hard on my breathing and the 'little imaginary thread in front of the nose," and soon found myself focused on a space, like a tiny rift between clouds, where it seemed something important was just out of sight, but which could be revealed at any moment.  Entranced, I gazed yearningly at that space. Time passed. Then, as from a distance, I heard a quiet voice saying, "Now bring your attention slowly back to the room…" Oh, no, No, NO! But that was it. What else could you do?

I never saw that space again – the doorway to the ever-beckoning Beyond? But my course was now set fair towards it, toward my goal – and my Guru. Though I did not know it then, again I would be given more than I could ever have dreamed of asking for.

Those long ago peregrinations that led to discipleship owe much to a dear and now departed companion, my wife – Subarata. Irish-born and fiercely independent, she had asked her parents for a one-way ticket to New Zealand as a 20th birthday present. They consented – and so it was that I first met her in 1975 in the city of Hamilton.

Through chance or fate, she knew somebody that I knew, and on this particular day both of us decided to visit this mutual friend. I hitchhiked 400 miles, she had flown 13,000 miles – and when we met on that summer afternoon long ago, in an instant we became friends.

Reclusive by nature, we lived in remote places, often going for months without seeing anybody. Subarata loved animals – in one mountain hideaway she acquired three pet wild pigs, two beautiful Border Collie dogs called Scruffles and Scobie, a white Palomino horse named Trigger, four nameless and disapproving hens, some zebra finches and a madly eccentric pet lamb called Darley. Goats also lurked, and once a pet fawn – unsnared from a fence – stayed for a brief convalescence.

When Subarata’s visa expired, the Immigration Department gave her three days to leave New Zealand, so in the small South Island town of Motueka we got married in a registry office. We were both indifferent to marriage, so there was no ring, no flowers – it was as meaningless as signing a bank deposit slip, but it enabled her to stay.

In 1979 we consulted the I-Ching, the mystical Chinese Book of Changes, and followed its murky promptings to Australia. We travelled from Perth in the West to Adelaide in South Australia via circuitous ways and innumerable adventures, eventually settling out near Port Adelaide and beginning another kind of odyssey. For it was there that we found the Sri Chinmoy Centre.

Travelling east from Perth, you can cross the endless Nullarbor Plain by road along the Eyre Highway – a 2,700 km epic – or in leisurely fashion on the Indian Pacific railway, gazing out for two days at the vast, unpopulated desert which features the longest dead straight stretch of rail in the world – so flat you can see the slow curve of the earth’s rim. But we flagged a car on the edge of that red expanse, sharing the journey with two strangers who ended up being firm friends and who gave us four months of work in their outback motel, the Quorn Mill Motel. Subarata became the new waitress for the tour bus arrivals, I a charlatan wine waiter and handyman, and we lived in a caravan parked up in the dusty backyard of the motel.

Sometimes our new friends towed our caravan-home 200 miles north and left us for a few days at road’s end in the empty, endless hills, their rust-orange escarpments and valleys of pale eucalyptus spread out in all directions. We wandered under extravagantly beautiful sunsets and dawn skies filled with flocks of wheeling birds, their wings turning grey, then pink, then silver as they turned in unison in the first sunlight, an aerial spectacular high up against the blue, exulting in the new day’s gift of life.

Then we moved to Adelaide. One afternoon late that year, as randomly as a feather carried on a breeze, we crossed a city street and wandered into a café in search of a cooling drink  and that was how, in an utterly fortuitous, whimsical moment, we first encountered the name of Sri Chinmoy. That profound and life-changing moment seems so capricious. Might the breeze have carried us as easily through another doorway to a different end? I don’t know. But there he was, smiling at us from a photo on the cafe wall, and inside both of us something far away stirred. Was it the recognition of something preordained, a whisper from the awakening soul? I do believe so.

Then we responded to an unrelated 'learn to meditate‘ advertisement – and there Sri Chinmoy was again, in his transcendental aspect, on Sipra’s shrine. Unusually, in this first introductory session, Sipra left us at the start of our first exercise to go shopping, returning sometime later to check on our progress! Perhaps when the God-Hour strikes, technique and training hardly matter – grace smoothes the way and clears away all obstacles!

Shortly after, we went to New York. We first saw Sri Chinmoy at an evening meditation, sometime in early 1981. There was white light all around him and something stirred in my memory, a pleasing feeling of recollection and of coming home. We stood afterwards in the school corridor down which he walked on the way to his car, and in those few moments I think something quite significant happened. Guru looked at both of us and smiled very beautifully – his eyes flickered up and down and he was looking at my heart centre. I could feel something happening there, a block removed, a small explosion of feeling. After that, I never worried about how to meditate any more – I felt it had all been taken care of, an initiation of some kind, and that meditation was really a gift or an act of grace. We just had to be willing to keep trying.

This outer tale is nothing much, but I sometimes wonder at the inner things hidden from our understanding, and marvel that two people such as we could be so blessed. This gift of discipleship irrevocably changed the course of our life-river and set us firmly on the great journey back to God, that supreme quest and highest calling that lies at the heart of each and every human life.

While still a student, my mother was taking an interest in Eastern philosophy and yoga. After some years, she joined a group that followed the teachings of a spiritual Master named Sri Ramana Maharshi. They had a very beautiful centre in our little town, Zrenjanin – an old house all arranged in Indian style. I was still a kid then, and, as far as I knew, my mother was just going to yoga three times a week. I remember telling her, as I looked at the photo of Ramana Maharshi that was hanging on the wall in her room, that one could really see that that man was truly good.

At the age of 13 or 14, I was passing through a difficult period. I started noticing a change in my school friends, and something within me was really in pain as I saw them starting smoking, drinking, becoming arrogant adults. Typically, at that age, you try to do everything so that others will accept you, but I found everything so unnatural and unpleasant that I started thinking that something had to be wrong with me. I must have been born at the wrong place and at the wrong time, I thought.

In October 1993 the first lecture on meditation and the teachings of Sri Chinmoy took place in our town. It was divided into three evenings. At that time I was in my first year of high school. My mother asked me if I would come. I said, "OK, why not?" – although not with a great interest.

I came to the second evening. The room was totally filled up with people. I remember the pleasant smell of incense and the predominant blue colour. I found the lecture quite interesting and came the third evening as well.

Then, Tyagananda, the lecturer, gave us a sheet of music – two songs by Sri Chinmoy. First he played them on the tape recorder and then we sang them. When I heard the first notes of the song Usha Bala Elo in the recording, I was completely amazed; how could something that beautiful exist on earth? Guru’s music enchanted me.

Usha Bala Elo, performed by Agnikana's group

Soon after, we had to decide whether we would join Sri Chinmoy’s path. It was not easy for my mom, as she really loved Ramana Maharshi. But on the other hand, she was in need of a living Master and she really felt something in Sri Chinmoy. Eventually she decided to become Sri Chinmoy’s disciple. I gladly joined her. I will never forget these first days at our meditation centre. Finally I felt at home. With such joy I attended every meeting; I would run from school after classes to the Centre to be ready for meditation. And how much delight I was getting from Guru’s songs! That delight remains the same even now.

I realised that actually I was born in the right place, at the right time – a blessing unparalleled!

by Apaga Renner
Graz, Austria

One beautiful, warm spring day I was walking – very happy with myself and the world – along the Salzach River, which runs through the city of Salzburg. (This sounds tacky, but it really was like that.) A poster on a pillar of the bridge caught my attention. I found the poster ugly, but I was magnetically attracted by the line: 'Lecture with practical meditation exercises.'

Since I had started Hatha Yoga at the age of 13, it made sense to learn meditation as the next step. Hatha Yoga had really strengthened my body and my nerves: I was flexible and had not gotten sick even once in 15 years! However, it had not given me the capacity to properly direct or control my thoughts and emotions. And how can you be truly happy without being the „master in your own house“? Plus, I was fascinated by the possibility of not having any thoughts at all!

The lecture was scheduled for the coming Thursday in Salzburg. That evening I got a phone call from my boyfriend (and now husband), Dipavajan, who was studying in Graz. I was surprised when he told me that he would be coming to Salzburg on that very Thursday. Cheerfully, I told him that I had been planning to 'drag' him to a lecture that evening – whether he agreed or not.

There was a moment of silence on the other end; then he asked me more about the lecture. Finally, he said in a happy tone of voice that this would be just perfect because he had actually been planning to attend this lecture with me.

'Ah, and how do you know in Graz what lectures we have in Salzburg?'

'I went to the same lecture yesterday in Graz, and the lecturer said he will be giving one in Salzburg on Thursday!'

My husband and I have always, independently of each other, moved forward in the same direction in our inner search and development.

The lecture absolutely thrilled and surprised me. It seemed as if the lecturer read my soul: in order to explain his concepts of the reality of our world, he even used the same examples and metaphors that I myself had often used to explain my ideas and thoughts in conversations.

The meditation exercises that we practised during the lecture were also a very intense experience for me. After the lecture I had taken my decision: I wanted to learn meditation!

For this reason, I attended the meditation classes following the lecture. A new world opened up for me: spiritual songs, a large variety of meditation exercises, conversations with other seekers about inner experiences, and the feeling of inner joy and 'lightness' afterwards – this was for sure something I had been looking for all my life!

All these spiritual treasures had, of course, a source: Sri Chinmoy (even though I wasn’t too aware of it at first). At the end of the class we were offered the opportunity to become Sri Chinmoy’s disciples. I did not hesitate for a second, since my main concern, at that point, was not to lose this wonderful world of meditation.

This enthusiasm for spirituality I have maintained to this day – it has even increased with time. The initial curiosity – the captivating question 'how will it feel?' – gave way to calm certainty and the joy of silence – a silence in which I can now dive every day. This state of being is infinitely more exciting and fulfilling than I had ever imagined. But this is of course not the end. There is so much more to discover, and our inner joy is a quality that increases in intensity as we progress towards realisation.

About nine months after my husband and I had become Sri Chinmoy’s disciples, we were able to meet him in person. At first I probably stared at him with big eyes – after all, you don’t meet a spiritual Master every day! Also, at that time I actually had no idea what a spiritual Master really was.

However, in the nineteen years that I have been following his path, I have had ample opportunity to get to know him better. And the deeper my spiritual experiences become, the more I am able to expand my consciousness and the stronger I feel his loving guidance every day of my life. His physical death has not changed anything in this inner guidance, for a true Master-disciple relationship happens on the inner plane and transcends the limits of time and space, life and death.

Nobody can give proof of this; one can only experience it. In the same way, many, many other people who were disciples of authentic Masters have experienced it in the course of history. Indian literature, in particular, is full of their fascinating and inspiring stories. I can only recommend that anyone who is interested in these inner realities reads the stories of those fortunate enough to have a true spiritual Master.