Love is My Nest

At 83 years young, Snehashila is a fount of energy and inspiration, all of which she attributes to meditation and her teacher, Sri Chinmoy. Here she describes an experience of how she came to own her current house.

Snehashila Giving a Meditation Class in Russia, 2007

O, Thy Love is my nest.
Thy Smile is my rest.
Thy Grace is my goal.

- Sri Chinmoy

This poem, hand-written by Guru, is framed and hanging in the vestibule of my “nest”. Let me tell you how I came to have my house. It is a story that shows Guru’s power, sweetness and love.

Right after being accepted as a disciple, Guru asked my son, Dhanu, to telephone me and tell me to come to New York. I thought, “Isn’t that nice. He wants me to come for a visit.” But Dhanu quickly corrected me by saying, “No, not for a visit. He wants you to move to New York.” This was startling to me since I knew nothing about spiritual Masters, having been a devout Roman Catholic. In fact, my best friends were priests and nuns.

Weeks ran into months and then one day, almost unnoticed, I realised that I had been on the path for nearly five years—still living away from Guru. My birthday was coming up and Dhanu called to tell me that Guru really meant that I should move to New York and why was I delaying? When I packed I did not feel in my heart that I could stay in New York, so I took only a few belongings and very little money.

The day of my birthday was a very special one. Guru was going to Woodstock—one of his most favourite spots on earth—to give a Peace Concert, and he had invited me to be on the bus with him. As I boarded the bus, Guru said, “Anne, Anne, this is your birthday, and tonight as a birthday celebration, I am inviting all the disciples who have come to this concert to come to my home. I am cooking an Indian feast just to celebrate your birthday.”

I was very happy and I thought, “Isn’t that nice. On this path when you have a birthday, Guru cooks a feast to honour you.” Little did I realise that this was an unusual event.

That night of July 12, 1980, we were all sitting in Guru’s back yard when he approached me with a heaping plate of Indian food, a veritable feast, and presented it to me. Yes, it was delicious. The girls later told me that he had actually done all the cooking, that they had just done the chopping of the vegetables. After the meal, there was a cake which Databir had brought and Dhanu presented to me. After blowing out the candles, Guru said that since it was my birthday, I could ask him one question.

Lots of thoughts flashed through my mind. It was like in a fairy tale where you are allowed one boon. I didn’t want to waste it. After some thought I found myself saying, “Guru, for years you have been asking me to move to New York. Why can’t I do it?” Guru’s answer really shocked me. Because of my Christian background, he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich woman to get into Heaven.”

Guru made it clear to me that I was staying away from New York because I didn’t want to give up my security and money. I knew my husband very well and realised that he would never part with any money, but these words were just what I needed to finally leave him. Who needs money if you have such a caring, loving Teacher to guide you? I didn’t want to be one of those who chose money over God, so I never went back home.

One day soon after, Ashrita called and said that Guru wanted me to buy a house. I asked, “How can I buy a house? Doesn’t Guru know that I have no money?”

He answered, “I don’t know, Anne. All I can say is that Guru said, ‘Tell Anne to go buy a house.’ ” So I started looking for a house. I felt in my heart that there was a house out there that I could get if I just believed this.

Every day I went out looking, knocking on doors. One day when Guru was in the Smile of the Beyond, he called me up to his table and asked, “How are you doing? Are you so fussy that you can’t find a house?” I told him that I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making repairs, and so many of the houses were in disrepair.

Then one night at a function at Progress-Promise, Guru asked me to come up and tell of my latest house experiences. That night when I returned home, the phone rang. It was a disciple who had heard my tales of woe. He said that when he came into the house where he rents a top floor apartment, he overheard his landlord, Mr. B., on the phone with a realtor. He called me very excited and told me that I should look at this house, which was in beautiful condition. It even had a twelve-foot stained glass window.

The next day when I saw the window, I had to admit that it was pretty impressive and beautiful. It seems that a Catholic priest had this house built in 1900 for his widowed sister and her eight children. I set up an appointment with Mr. B. to view the inside.

When I arrived, I wasn’t very impressed by the interior for some reason. It seemed too dark. I did not want to hurt the man’s feelings, but I really didn’t think that this was the house for me. He, meanwhile, wanted very much to sell to a disciple because he had seen the change that Guru had brought about in the neighbourhood.

He saw that I did not want the house and offered to take off $5,000 because I was a disciple. That still wouldn’t do. Then he asked what it was about the house that I didn’t care for. I answered that it had to be completely painted and wallpapered. He then took off another $5,000 for that. I still wasn’t going to buy it. Then he asked me, did I like flowers? Of course, I love flowers and always had a huge garden in the home that I had left to move to New York. So he said, “Let’s go out and I’ll show you the garden.”

I thought, “What is there to see? It’s January; in the winter all the plants are asleep!” But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I agreed.

We went outdoors and right there, on this very brisk, cold day, sat a beautiful blue flower. I asked him, “Mr. B., what kind of flower is this? I’ve never seen such a bloom before.” He was just as surprised as I was and said that he had never seen it in his garden although he had lived there since 1925. I took this as a sign from God that this was finally the house for me to buy.

Now all I had to do was convince him that I could handle it financially, even though I did not have any money. It was a total surprise when he said, “Could you come up with $1,000? Can’t you borrow that much from one of your friends?” I called Ashrita and told him about this house and Guru’s answer came back in 20 minutes: “If Anne doesn’t buy that house, she will never have a house.” This man was willing to let me have a house that is worth something like $250,000 today for only one thousand dollars down, and he was willing to wait years for the rest. Can you see the miracle that our Guru has wrought?

Snehashila (New York)

Prayer Works

The power of prayer in organising a public concert by Gunthita from Zurich.

Guntitha's Music Group - Mountain Silence

Gunthita (Zurich)

Gunthita

Related

Interview with Gunthita – Life Voices at Sri Chinmoy TV

Mountain Silence – At Radio Sri Chinmoy

Mountain Silence – Listen Now

If He Is Not My Teacher

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 following three evenings until the end. Kailash told me that in case this nun stayed until the last evening, 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 fairytales, 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 stupid answer. After a few weeks Guru came to Munich, and since Dodula came to our Madal Bal store every week, I told her, “Next time I will not be here; I will go to visit Sri Chinmoy in Munich.” She said that she had written a poem for him and asked me if I could translate it and give it to him. I opened the envelope, and there was a photo of her inside. I asked her why she wanted to give Sri Chinmoy a photo of her (since I never told her how to apply to become a disciple). She said that since she had so many pictures of him, she wanted him to have at least one of her, just so that he knew who was thanking him for all his blessings and help.

Then I had to tell her that Sri Chinmoy happened to be not only a peace philosopher, artist, composer and poet but also that he was a spiritual Master of the highest order who accepted his disciples through a photo. She had tears in her eyes and said, “If he is not my teacher, then who is my teacher? I learned from him much more in these few months than I learned in all my 27 years as a spiritual sister in the convent!”

When Guru saw her picture, he accepted her as a disciple and said, “Christ has stolen her heart and brought it now to me.”

Gunthita (Zurich)

He Is So Beautiful

Puerto Rico

About three years ago, my mother was diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer that was quickly spreading. To be certain, she went for the opinion of three prominent cancer specialists in Puerto Rico. All of them concurred: she definitely had a serious form of cancer.

I became increasingly worried—I love my mother dearly and her suffering and imminent death were torturing my heart. Over the years I have met excellent physicians and naturopaths who have been very successful in treating cancer as well as other so-called “incurable” diseases. It was my hope to bring my mother to New York for such treatment.

Her main physician told her that she needed radiation, chemotherapy and most definitely surgery. I asked my mother to please hold off with all those therapies until I could consult with the doctor I had in mind, and to send me copies of her records. When I read her blood analysis, panic struck me hard, for it became real that my mother was very sick.

I had not wanted to tell Guru anything until I had all the information, but now pressure was mounting, and my mother was scheduled for surgery within a few weeks. Finally, I wrote Guru a letter explaining everything. I told him that I love my mother very much and that I was not ready to lose her, but I also told him that I was praying for God’s Victory in whatever form it would express itself.

Guru’s reply came immediately. “Ask her to please postpone the surgery for one month.” I immediately telephoned my mother and pleaded with her to please listen and follow Guru’s advice. She agreed.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have a cousin who is a very prominent doctor, and he argued that the surgery could not be delayed. He had all the members of my family in Puerto Rico on his side and they pressured my mother to concede. I was devastated. I would call her every day in tears and beg her. My poor mother was confused and frightened. She really wanted to please me by listening to Guru’s advice, but the family pressure was too much for her. So I told her, “Do what you feel you need to do. I love you and will support any decision you take.” This brought her a sense of peace, and she decided to go ahead with the surgery.

The doctor wanted to operate as soon as possible, since he was scheduled to be on board a cruise ship for a three-week vacation. But God had a better plan. My mother was ready to go for surgery in two days, but there were no beds available for about two weeks in any of the hospitals where this particular doctor could practise. Since he was going away for three weeks, the surgery had to be postponed for one month.

One month later, when the doctor came back from his vacation, more tests were done before the surgery. There was no evidence of cancer, not a trace, as if it never happened. The doctors said that all along they must have had the wrong records, the records of another patient.

God and Guru alone know what happened. My mother and family are extremely grateful to Guru and God for this incredible miracle. The other miracle is that whenever my mother sees Guru, she becomes a beautiful child swimming in tears of joy and gratitude. She says, “He is so beautiful!”

Sevananda (Puerto Rico)

Picture top right: Flickr CC Oquendo

An Ever – Transcending Goal

Vasanti on right after a Channel relay swim with World Harmony torch, Sept. 2009 (with Viktoria from Iceland, left)

In 1985, I became by the Supreme’s grace the first disciple to swim the English Channel. (Another disciple did it one day later, much faster; his pilot had wanted to wait one more day for even better weather conditions.) It was a very, very special experience. I could feel the inner and outer support and oneness of so many disciples. And, as I was told, Guru was sitting at home, meditating for most of the time on my swim, always trying to get information on how I was doing.

I was blessed with an extremely easy swim. When I stepped into the Channel water at Shakespeare Beach at 7 a.m., others told me later, I was full of confidence that I would make it. After six hours into the swim, when I could see both coasts, I had the firm conviction that on the inner plane, it was already done—it just had to be executed outwardly. I felt carried by a wave of inner joy and bliss most of the time. After ten hours, the cross-current set in and it was slowly getting dark. Previously I could not imagine swimming in the dark. I would never have dared to get into pitchblack, unknown water at night. Now, with the gradual transition into night, I felt extremely comfortable.

I enjoyed the star-strewn sky above me each time I took a breath. And when I looked down into the black water—where earlier I had enjoyed watching the dance of the rays of sunlight—I started to see bright light once again. In the midst of the darkness, Guru’s face, his Transcendental, appeared. Because of the unpredictable, strong cross-current, I had to swim for five hours more, but it did not matter to me. For those hours, I was swimming into the light of the Transcendental, into Guru’s infinite consciousness of light and delight, which was right in front of me like an ever-transcending goal.

Vasanti (Heidelberg)

Heidelberg half marathon 2009

Visit Vasanti’s Channel Triathlon Blog for more experiences of training for Channel swim

Very Good

Sri Chinmoy playing tennis - photo by Prashphutita

Before Aspiration-Ground was built, Guru played tennis on a makeshift tennis court at Jamaica High School. The disciples watched and meditated from the sidelines. One day while Guru was playing tennis, I was visualising a film about the tennis star Jimmy Connors that we had seen the night before at Progress-Promise. The camera angles were imaginative and powerful and caught a gracefulness that Connors had when playing tennis. I was thinking that a film like that should be made of Guru’s tennis.

Just then, Guru looked over at me and blessed me. Weeks went by and I could not stop thinking about that blessing. I wrote to Guru and asked him if he was blessing me because he was happy I was thinking about him or because he liked the idea.
A short time later Guru said, “So Niriha, you want to make movies?”
I said, “Oh Guru, I was not thinking of my doing it. I just thought that someone should.”
Guru said, “You do it, you do it.”

So I started researching what equipment was needed and how much it would cost. Video was so new at the time that I did not really consider it. I was looking into film, but I discovered it was very expensive. A shop owner suggested I consider video, but in 1981 very few people even had video cameras and few stores sold them. I asked Guru if I should get a film camera or video camera, and Guru replied, “Video, video.”

The next question was how to get the money for the equipment. Within a week from the time I decided what equipment to get, my father informed me that he had just had a very successful transaction in his cable television business and that he was creating individual trusts for each of his seven children. I asked him if I could withdraw the amount I needed for the video equipment and he readily agreed. The timing was excellent, since I wanted to get the equipment soon—and since the “trust” rapidly disappeared when my father invested it in a bad scheme.

On July 27, 1981, with my brother holding the heavy video recorder while I held the camera, I took my first video of Guru as he played tennis at Jamaica High School. Guru looked over at us and said, “Very good! Very good!”
Niriha (New York)

One of Niriha's DVDs from Father's Day 2007

Niriha has been producing videos of Sri Chinmoy and Sri Chinmoy activities for the past three decades.