Utpal has published an intriguing story of how Snatak came to be a disciple of Sri Chinmoy back in the 1980s.

“…The next year, he went to England to study music.  He admits, “I became very very unhappy.  By my second year in England, I was really depressed.  Here I was trying to find a spiritual path for 9 years, and I hadn’t found anything! So at that point, every night before I went to sleep, I prayed and prayed like crazy, for many months, for me to find a spiritual master. ” Eventually he came across a poster at his school in Manchester, offering mediation classes, once again by the students of Sri Chinmoy.  He says, “that was it.” …” Read more at Long Journeys

As soon as I learned how to read, I became a fervent reader. I read all the books I could get from my parents and later from the library. I often read books not only for children but also for adults. Three to four books in one week were not too much for me. When my parents gave me pocket money, I saved it to buy books. My grand-mother gave me a Bible on the day of my confirmation, and I read this grand book from cover to cover!

I used to walk past the only bookstore in my little home town to see the new books on display in the window. One day – I was fourteen or fifteen years old – I discovered a book there called the Bhagavad Gita. It was quite expensive, and I did not know what it was about, but nevertheless it attracted me tremendously. In the following weeks, I often looked at it and finally bought it. Naturally, I read it immediately. That is, I tried to read it, but I did not understand anything in the book! So after a while, I stopped reading it.

When I was seventeen or eighteen, I began to do Hatha Yoga. I bought a book and did the exercises quite regularly. However, my goal was not fitness of the body; I wanted to learn how to read the minds of my teachers to know what questions would appear in my exams! Unfortunately or for-tunately, I did not develop this skill, so my school marks were not as good as they perhaps might have been.

During my studies, I had many new things to do and to think about – especially how to become really happy. But the things I tried did not work at all, and this continued when I started working. So I began looking around for an alternative life. Because I was fond of the Buddha and had loved Japan since my early childhood, I tried Zen Buddhism. I read books and attended a weekend session with a Japanese Zen Master. But to sit in the lotus position for hours hurt 66 my knees, creating severe pain that lasted for weeks. I made another effort and went to a Zen weekend retreat. But on the second day, on my way to the session, I had an accident with my car and could not attend. After this event, I concluded that Zen Buddhism was not meant for me.

My next attempt was Tibetan Buddhism. Again I read books and went to several pujas in a nearby Tibetan monastery. During this time, I saw for the first time a poster of Guru in Cologne. Being in a high consciousness, he looked very strange in the photo. I said to myself that I never, never wanted to be a disciple of this man!

I was not so happy with Tibetan Buddhism. When I learned that a Buddhist retreat in Germany was something like a very long self-knowledge trip, I totally lost interest. Being a psychologist, I had enough of such things! One day, I found another poster, which announced a lecture by Kailash, a psychologist like myself. I went to this lecture, liked it, and attended a follow-up and some other lectures given by a local disciple of Sri Chinmoy. This lasted a few months. After some time, I was eager to become Guru’s disciple, but nobody asked me to join the Centre, and I was too shy to ask.

Then Guru’s big Cologne concert took place. I was there but I did not appreciate it very much, because the people sitting near me were very loud and restless. The next day there was a seven-hour meditation, and I was invited to participate. I came late because I had to prepare for a psychotherapeutic examination, but also because I was a little afraid of the seven hours. I entered the room during an intermission and 67 found a place where I could see Guru very well. After the intermission, Guru announced that there were only two hours left of the seven because he had already meditated two hours in the early morning. At the end of the meditation, he asked whether some people in the audience would like to become his disciples.

Two or three raised their hands. Not me! I did not dare to. Those who had raised their hands were invited to come to the stage to meditate with him. When they returned to their seats, Guru looked at three people in the audience and meditated on them. One of those three was me! It was really an experience. It stirred my whole being!

Soon after this event, the whole Cologne Centre went to New York to the April Celebrations, and I was left alone. As soon as they were back, I gave the Centre leader my picture and a letter for Guru asking to become his disciple.

The 27th of May was the day of days! In the Cologne Centre, there was bhajan singing in the evening. Even though I had a very bad headache, I went to the function. However, I was irritated by the food and the incense, and the songs intensified my headache so much that I left the Centre after a few hours.

That night I had an initiation dream – but it was not me who was initiated: I happily watched Guru pouring a bucket of cold water over my younger sister! The next day, I was informed by the Centre leader that, during the bhajan function, he had received a call from New York saying that Guru had accepted me as his disciple. And now, nearly 25 years later, my gratitude to Guru for having accepted me is still growing and growing.

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 the 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; and 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 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 was overflowing 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, inevitably. 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.

But the search never ceased. I read every book on spirituality and any loosely associated subject that the Hamilton City Library could provide. The best one started off, ‘God is Love. God only loves. All God can do is love…’

And ended with, ‘Say Yes to God today—yes yes yes yes YES!’

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, so 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.