I think that I learnt all of my most important lessons in meditation by simply observing Guru, just by being there around him. “God does not expect you to be perfect. He just expects you to be available.” Yes, just being available was almost enough.

I tried to feel that what I saw and felt in him was also within myself. So you begin with imitation, imagining inside yourself that self-same calm, that poise, detachment, radiant peace. Then imagination becomes a slowly blossoming reality, you can feel these qualities growing inside yourself – beneath the dross of imperfections, your little divine Self remembers and stirs. Guru was a mirror – look hard and often enough and there you are, smiling back at yourself.

Guru taught us many things that are simply not found anywhere else, little secrets unique to our path. And not just taught but brought them into our consciousness as the living breath of our discipleship, drilled us over and over until each lesson had sunk in. ‘Soulfulness’ for example – where else is this found? In our singing – “Be more soulful!” In our meditations – “Please be more soulful!” Or filing slowly along in a walk-by procession – soulfulness!

To be as close as possible to the consciousness of our own soul – its sincerity, purity, humility, sweetness – and then to maintain this as long, as deeply, as often, as consciously as possible in our lives.

In April 1982, one evening Guru inquired of those present if any of us were proposing to run in the Boston Marathon, only two days away. Nobody was. Clearly disappointed, he asked whether any of us would now do so – about a dozen of us raised our hands, myself goaded into acquiescence by my impulsive friend Simahin, and we filed past our smiling Guru on the stage. I was astonished by this sudden turn of events and amazed by my own mad act of abandonment – my first entirely unintended marathon!

The next night around 9 pm we caught Guru’s old blue bus for the overnight trip and now there we were, start time for the great Boston race, untrained, unregistered and looking for an opportunity to vault over the starting area’s picket fence without officials seeing us when the gun sounded.

We flew down the hill at a fantastic pace, trailing the greatest marathoners on the planet. I cast aside all common sense in the exhilaration of these first few crazy, high-velocity miles, impervious to all misfortune. But misfortune eventually came – and at 20 miles I remember slowing to a walk and shuffling up the aptly named Heartbreak Hill, much chastened by this first experience of ‘the wall’.

Racing down our avenue of dreams, we had felt like champions, that first thrilling mile a gauntlet of cheering, rapturous crowds – but with 42 kms of America’s countryside behind me, I limped across the line in 3:20, Simahin close behind me.

During our bus ride back to Queens, Guru asked us for stories. “I am the marathon Guru,” he said to us, half-jokingly, “and all of you will have to run at least one marathon before you go to Heaven.”

Then he told us how pleased he was with the handful of runners who had accepted his challenge and how much progress we make when we run. He added that our willingness and our cheerfulness were much more important than our timing in the race.

The way my Guru Sri Chinmoy affected me, in a large sense, is how we are all affected by each other’s consciousness. When you spend time with someone who is really happy, you come away happier than you were before.

Why do we choose someone as a friend? It is because we feel reinforced by their presence. This may not be conscious, but there is an inner kinship, and you are touched by that person’s life. You feel a sense of well-being in their presence. Of course, the opposite is also true. So on a very casual basis, all of us are affected by the consciousness of those around us.

With a spiritual Master, however, it is also more than that. To be in the presence of someone whose spirituality is that powerful lifts you. You walk away spiritualised by the encounter regardless of its nature. With a spiritual Master, you try to soak in what they are constantly emitting. This is something that has stuck with me throughout the years about Sri Chinmoy. 

Dodula: I was a happy nun at my convent. I had friends and was successful in my job working with children. The institution where I worked and lived was situated by the lake with a view of the mountains. I felt like I was at the zenith of my life. No outer circumstances could have made me leave the convent.

In 1988, I was taking an advanced training course at the University of Zurich so I could serve as a therapist for children with behavioural problems. I was hoping the course would help me to serve these young people better. I was looking for teachers whose theories reflected life; however, with the majority of the professors, I did not see any correlation.

One evening after the lectures, I was on my way out when I saw a poster in the foyer that said “Introduction to Meditation.” I thought to myself, “When I studied here in my younger years, this topic was unknown. But the Bible says, ‘Try all and keep the best.’” So I decided to attend and see what the evening had to offer. The lecture was given by psychologist A.K. Beyer (whom I now know by his spiritual name of Kailash). In his case, I felt that word and deed went together. After the lecture I registered for an upcoming meditation seminar.

Gunthita: When Dodula first came to Kailash’s lecture, she was dressed in her black nun’s costume. To everybody’s surprise, she was one of the ten people who signed up for the follow-up. Kailash spoke the first evening, and I continued the remaining three evenings. Kailash told me that in case this nun continued for the entire course, I had better not speak about how to become a disciple, in order to avoid problems with the church. Sure enough, she was one of the few people who stayed until the last class.

Right from the beginning she was so open to Guru. She loved his Transcendental photograph; she said it was always smiling at her. She bought many books, which she also gave to her nun sisters and the Mother Superior. She also bought quite a few pictures of Guru and put them up in her little room.

When I was in New York, I was inspired to tell some of the experiences she had with Guru’s music and with the Transcendental picture in connection with the children she was teaching. The stories were as beautiful as fairy tales, but they were real! Guru’s only comment was: “Is she not a disciple?”

I answered: “No, Guru, she has been a Catholic sister for 27 years!” Guru just smiled compassionately at my answer.

Once I had almost finished collecting humanitarian aid for two or three truck deliveries that were supposed to go to Russia. Before the shipping, I and many other Austrian disciples went to Celebrations, a meeting of the disciples with Guru in America.

There, Kritagyata, a nurse who collected humanitarian supplies in America, told me that she had received a huge shipment of medical supplies for Russian children’s hospitals. The transport directly from America to Russia would, however, have been financially impossible and bureaucratically extremely difficult to manage by official means.

So the idea arose that we European disciples could take all these packages in our personal luggage back to Europe. At the next large international disciple meeting, disciples from other Centres could give these packages to the disciples from Vienna. The idea was that I would then add all these medical supplies to my already planned large aid delivery.

Secretly feeling relieved, I informed Guru that it was completely absurd to even think about bringing all these countless large parcels illegally to Europe in this way without Customs finding out. These parcels were significantly more voluminous than suitcases and, moreover, immediately identifiable from the outside as medical supplies. That was probably clear to everyone, and my many years of experience only made me smile pitifully at this idea. This is why, right from the beginning, I considered this project over and done with or rather hopeless and crazy. “One problem less,” I thought, but I did not know Guru that well yet.

The great sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar became a very dear friend of Sri Chinmoy. Both Ravi Shankar and Sri Chinmoy hailed from Bengal, India, and they shared the same mother tongue. Over time, Pandit-ji and Sri Chinmoy became extremely close, having claimed each other as true brothers after their remaining blood-relative brothers had passed away.

In the fall of 2005, I was at Sri Chinmoy’s home when I received a phone call from Ravi Shankar's wife, Sukanya. Her voice was trembling with unusual urgency: Ravi-ji was on his way to a hospital in Manhattan, where he was staying at the time, suffering from breathing difficulties. While Sukanya was simply calling to inform Sri Chinmoy, I immediately reassured her that we were all at her service.

Pandit-ji had been suffering from a weak heart for about a decade. Although Sukanya did not give any inkling of how serious his present condition might be, as soon as Sri Chinmoy heard the news, he immediately left for Lenox Hill Hospital where Ravi-ji had been admitted.

Sri Chinmoy quickly walked into the emergency room, sat down, and went into a very lofty consciousness amidst the chaos of the ER. It was in this high state of meditation that Sri Chinmoy remained for over an hour. Sukanya, who was by Ravi-ji’s side, knew Sri Chinmoy was there and was very grateful for his presence.

To win one gold medal at the Olympic Games is an extraordinary feat. To win nine gold medals is practically unheard of! And yet that is exactly what the great American athlete Carl Lewis accomplished, earning him many accolades, including the title “Best Olympian of the 20th Century” from Sports Illustrated.

In November 1983, the renowned Grammy award-winning music producer Narada Michael Walden brought Carl to meet Sri Chinmoy at his New York headquarters. This was nearly a year before Carl’s first Olympic competition in Los Angeles, at a time when Sri Chinmoy was intensely involved in running as a way to keep the body fit and as a form of spiritual discipline. Carl very sympathetically coached Sri Chinmoy in sprinting, and Sri Chinmoy wholeheartedly encouraged and guided Carl in his stellar athletic career, travelling to several Olympic Games.

Try to feel that the whole earth is behind you and that you are getting blessings, love, concern, determination and oneness from the entire earth. You have to convince your entire being that the whole Olympic stadium is for you, because you are not representing any particular country or race, but the entire earth.

Sri Chinmoy
advice to Carl before the 1984 Olympics

In December 2003, Sri Chinmoy set forth on a journey to Indonesia with a few hundred of his students from many countries. It was part of their annual Christmas and New Year’s travels to various countries. Their first destination was the beautiful green island of Java, the main island among the thousands of islands of Indonesia.

Indonesia has a very rich and ancient culture, with Islam layered over its previous religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The dynasty of rajas (kings) in Indonesia originally came from India. Sri Chinmoy specially wanted to spend some time in Solo, capital of the ancient Kingdom of Surakarta.  Although he had visited Indonesia on several occasions before, this was his first visit to Solo, the historic royal city of Indonesia.

Well known as a consummate diplomat and visionary, Vladimir Petrovsky served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs (1992) and the Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva (1993-2002), as well as First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union (1986-1991). Sri Chinmoy first met Vladimir Petrovsky in 1991, and a special friendship developed between the two.

In 1992, Mr. Petrovsky was appointed to the position of UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. In early April of that year, Sri Chinmoy heard that Mr. Petrovsky and his wife had recently moved to New York. Sri Chinmoy requested me to pay them a welcome visit. The Petrovskys had not yet properly moved into their apartment, which was still full of unpacked boxes, but even in the midst of all this chaos, they were extremely hospitable.

Mr. Petrovsky said to me, “I find this a very auspicious sign. We have just come to New York, and Sri Chinmoy wishes to offer me a message. In fact, I am about to leave for Libya tonight to meet with Colonel Gaddafi (who was then the leader of Libya). I have a very important mission to achieve when I meet with him. To tell you the truth, I do not have any fear, but I definitely have trepidation. I know these negotiations are very, very serious. I would like to succeed for the UN, and I am not sure I can. Again, with your having come to find me and to tell me about Sri Chinmoy’s very special encouragement and prayers, I am certain everything will be fine.”