by Adarini Inkei
Geneva, Switzerland

Often I would call my Dad 'Guru' and Guru 'Dad'. It used to bother me that my tongue would play this type of trick. So one day, in a sweet, relaxed moment while chatting with my Guru, Sri Chinmoy, I casually asked him why this was happening to me. Guru gently replied, "It is quite normal. Your father brought you to me, so he was your first Guru".

This is why this story is mostly about how my father became Guru’s disciple, and why I will be eternally grateful to him.

Many years before this incarnation of mine, my father was having a rough time in Hungary. His father had died of poisonous water during the Second World War. At that time my father was four years old. But before that, something unusual had already happened. At the time of my father’s birth, my grandfather found a Guru and became vegetarian, which was very unusual at that time in a goulash-lovers’ country. My father maintained that diet in a fanatical manner even during his orphanage years.

Now we jump forward to when my father was 15 years of age. Being in a Communist country, the advantage was that playing sports was free. My father did judo and gymnastics as extracurricular activities. One day during recreation, my father helped a boy who had been beaten up by five bigger boys. In those days, fights among classmates were quite brutal. At the end of that one they were asking "to whom this ear belongs."

My Dad, despite having grown up without any religious background, made a deal with the Supreme: if the Supreme helped him escape from Communism, he would go and light a candle in the church every day. Then and there my father started planning his escape. Skipping a few incredible details, I will go straight to the juicy story. At that time he was 20 years old and the Hungarian Revolution had just started. The escape agent had been caught right in front of my father by the Hungarian military. Now my father was lost in the forest and started walking aimlessly, looking for a way out, when suddenly a light came straight out of his heart, guiding him out of the forest. It must have been amazing not knowing anything about spirituality, trusting basically the only thing that shone on earth at this moment of despair.

After many other quite unusual episodes, my Dad then boarded a truck with other escaping Hungarians. He was hoping for the final crossing to the other side, the 'free world'. This was when something more amazing happened – something that really shows that, when the Supreme wants you to be somewhere, He will find an instrument anywhere. The story goes something like this: The truck in which my father was hiding got pulled over by the Hungarian military and all the refugees were held at gunpoint outside the truck – except my father, who was the last one to exit the truck. He was held back with a rifle pointed at him. His first thought was, "That’s it, he’s going to shoot". But you will not believe what happened. Remember the boy that my father helped in a fight when he was 15 years old? Well, yes – it was him! He recognised my father and let him pass through the border.

On the Austrian side, all the refugees had to wait for the proper papers and a country of adoption. My father’s first choice was Sweden, but fate chose otherwise. In the office that helped all the exiled Hungarians was a man whom my father knew. He was in charge of sending people to Switzerland. So, within a very short time my father was sent to Winterthur, a Swiss city. This was another miracle, as some of the other refugees had to wait a very long time to get a country of adoption.

As promised, my father’s quest for spirituality got really intense – or rather, the Supreme’s promise to guide my father to Guru was fulfilled in October 1971. In a violent dream involving being shot at by arrows, my father ran to escape the arrows. Then, suddenly, a brick wall appeared with an image of a face on it. This was where my father took the ultimate leap of faith. He jumped into the face and woke up.

Six months later, in March of 1972 on a poster on a Geneva wall, my father recognised the same face he had seen in his dream. Recently, going through my father’s collection of photos and poems of Guru, I discovered the poster that 'found' my father on a Geneva street. The face on it was none other than Sri Chinmoy's transcendental photograph - the one his students use for meditation every day.

According to my research, in March 1972 a lecture on meditation was given by a Japanese disciple of Sri Chinmoy living in England; presumably the lecture advertised in the poster and the one my father went to. In those days, to be accepted by Guru you just had to send a letter and a photo directly to Guru’s house. Guru would respond himself with a letter. And this was how I became at the age of 7 a devoted, loving disciple of my Beloved Guru.

Guru actually came in June of the same year to Geneva and again in the summer of 1973. My father had organised a conference for Guru. All my family went to wait for Guru at the airport. We then invited Guru to our small apartment to have tea and some delicious pink cake that my mother had specially made. We had photos of Guru on the wall and to us, the kids, Guru was our uncle.

I remember Guru touching our heads, my sister, my brother and me. This was my first conscious blessing. Even though on the outer plane I had no idea what was going on, I loved my 'uncle'; he was so beautiful. We also had a lovely boat trip with Guru. I think my first surrender-moment was when we were asked to sit next to Guru for a photo. I remember being squished under Guru’s arm next to my brother. I could not even lift my head, so tightly was I held there. What a blessing I got! But back then I was probably wondering how I could escape.

That evening Guru wanted my mother to come to the conference, so Guru requested Kailash, another Swiss disciple, to babysit us. I don’t remember how we behaved and I hope Kailash has forgotten – we the little monsters! We also had a picnic in a park where I was wondering why people were sitting so far away from Guru. He was all alone under a tree, writing. He looked so beautiful.

So this is the story of how my father and I became disciples. My father passed away in September 2003. During his years as a disciple he had many incredible inner experiences that only an Avatar such as our Guru can reveal to his student. Since we joined, it has been transformation at the speed of a bullet – even though I know that many opportunities were missed that could have made us fly much faster. But our Guru will never give up. He gives and gives and gives, even when our head hits the wall. My gratitude to my Beloved Guru is measureless for Eternity.

by Pragya Gerig
Nuremberg, Germany

I grew up in a little village in the countryside, where being Catholic and going to church at least once a week was a must. When I was a little girl I asked my mother, "How do you pray?" She told me, "You just have to imagine talking directly to God." This was the best part of my spiritual education.



When I turned 20 I moved to Nuremberg. In Nuremberg I attended services at different churches, but there I felt nothing. At the same time I heard for the first time of the teachings of Sri Krishna and Buddha. I learned that they had taught the same principles as Jesus – love, devotion, compassion, forgiveness. I felt confused, and since I often doubted certain things in the institution of the church, I stopped going altogether. I thought, "I will just be open to everything – one day I will find the right faith for me."

After I stopped going to church, I sometimes woke up in the middle of the night screaming and having the really intense feeling, "I have forgotten something!" At that time I did not consciously know what I had forgotten; but unconsciously I was searching for a connecting link with God. I converted from Catholic to Protestant and listened to various spiritual talks. Finally I went regularly to a Christian student community at the university. Whomever I met and felt inspired by, I asked: “Do you know the way to talk to God?” Even the priest at the university was asked this question. Every semester we had a brochure about the whole programme in this student community – from meditation to theatre practice. Finally the priest agreed to add one more item: “Talks about God.” Every programme was well attended, except for that one – it seemed nobody wanted to talk about God.

Then, finally, I thought I had found what I was looking for. In this student community I met some really inspiring girls who belonged to a Christian group. They lived a pure life – like nuns – in a normal world, with an open heart, and tried to be a shining example to the rest of the world. I was really impressed by them – how they behaved, and how strong their belief was. So I thought, “That‘s my new way.”

For years my boyfriend had been doing a kind of meditation of his own. Often I used to scold him, “That‘s just a waste of time, sitting there and doing nothing.” In the meantime my boyfriend had read a book about occult practices, and I thought, “Either I find him a meditation group that suits him, or I have to break up with him.”

Soon I discovered a poster for a lecture about meditation. It took me a whole day to convince him to come with me. The lecture and the person who gave it were not to my taste – I found everything quite boring. I would have left after five minutes, but my boyfriend insisted on staying, since I had bothered him the whole day and forced him to come with me. So I stayed until the end and even took a leaflet about their books with me.

One or two weeks later I got the idea that I could try to do meditation on my own. I found a little booklet with a simple meditation technique, where you imagine the sun in your heart. I was sitting there for maybe ten minutes, imagining the sun in my heart, and when I opened my eyes, I was overwhelmed with what I saw. Thousands of streaks of light were coming out of my body and mirroring my subtle body, so that I was just facing my subtle self. I thought, “If a little meditation can give you this kind of experience, how will it be when you really meditate?” At that moment I remembered the leaflet with the books about meditation and immediately ordered the book Meditation by Sri Chinmoy.

When I got the book and started reading, I thought, “That‘s what I have been looking for all along!” In previous years I had tried to read a few books about Zen, but I always fell asleep after a few pages. This book I could read for hours, and it contained all the themes I always wanted to know about. So, Zen meditation was not meant for me in this incarnation. I fell in love with the meditation book and read it a few times within a week – but I had a kind of fear when I saw the pictures of Guru. Then the idea came to me: "You just have to look in the eyes of the picture. There you will see the truth." 

So I took the photo which was captioned 'Sri Chinmoy demonstrates contemplation' and looked into his eyes.

 As soon as I looked into his eyes, my heart started racing – really fast and hard. Light was streaming into me, and it felt like an explosion of light in my heart. I could see my whole body filled with glowing light. Before, I had read in the leaflet that Sri Chinmoy was a sportsman. At that moment I was directly connected with Sri Chinmoy, and so inwardly I said, "I am very sorry, but I have to shut the book! I am not a sportsman like you. I think I will get a heart attack if I don‘t close the book!" I never, ever had this kind of racing heartbeat before or afterwards. I closed the book and was sure that I had found a real Master.

From that moment on, the only wish of my heart was to become a student of this Master. Within a few days I wrote to the address listed in the book and asked how I could become a disciple. One month after I got the book I was accepted as a disciple.

One month after I had sent in my picture, my boyfriend sent in his picture, too. When I told him my experiences while doing meditation, he said to himself, “What she can do, I can do, too.” And later he confessed that within three month he had made more progress than during the previous seven years, when he was meditating on his own.

I am eternally grateful that I got the chance to meet my Guru, and to be his disciple.

Many students of spiritual Masters, when they look back along the path of their spiritual journey, often feel that there were a series  of significant "dots" that had to be connected in order for them to find that path; life events through which Divine Grace and the spiritual Master’s concern drew them ever closer to the Source.

My own story goes back to a few months prior to my birth. My parents emigrated from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the Caribbean nation of Haiti. By the time they married they lived almost a middle-class life, by American standards. They built their own home, my mother owned a very successful business as a seamstress and my father worked as an accountant. They had no real reason to leave Haiti, yet they felt a very strong pull to establish a new life in the United States.

But it was 1963, and the chance of an expectant mother (I was due in two months) from a poor country getting a visa to the United States was very small. Lo and behold, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince granted my parents visas. They sold everything, including their house, packed up and made their way to the 'Big Apple'. I was born in Manhattan. We later moved to Brooklyn, where we stayed until my father decided that the family should move to Miami ... fast-forward eight years to 1971.

The winter before my eighth birthday, as my parents were growing tired of the cold, snow, trains and concrete, they decided that Miami would become their new home and we would move before the next winter. I had completed about a month in third grade when we moved. As in New York, my parents enrolled me in Catholic school. Both my mother and I really disliked moving to Florida. We were saddened by having to leave the family behind. Being an only child, I missed my cousins and friends and I found my new neighbourhood friends so unadventuresome, as they only wanted to stay indoors, playing house and dolls. In New York, when the weather was pleasant, life for an 8-year-old was always outside. In Miami, the heat and humidity which pervaded most of the year meant parents kept their children more indoors.

Although life in Florida always seemed somewhat of a second choice for me, there was one significant experience which, to date, always remains with me. About a year or so after we moved to Miami, my fourth-grade class was chosen to sing during one of the daytime masses. At that time, St. Mary‘s in Miami was the only cathedral, and so on special days we would attend mass in this very beautiful church. Our performance consisted of Latin songs. l can still hear one of the songs so clearly in my mind – Kyrie Eleison. I was transported by the experience of hearing our little angelic voices echo in this beautiful cathedral – my first conscious spiritual experience.

My melancholic longing for life back in New York caused me to vow to return once I was 18. My mom and I would go back every so often, but once I reached 12 and could travel alone, I would go to New York every summer and stay for as long as I was permitted to. My favourite destination was with my favourite cousins, who lived in Queens Village.

During these years I would have existentialist-type of experiences of 'not feeling real'. This brings me to my second conscious spiritual experience. One midday, I was in the lunch line of our school cafeteria. I never shared these experiences with anyone else, but this time the feeling was so strong that I began to head towards Sister Mary, my teacher that year. I desperately needed to ask her, 'Do I exist?' But my fear of her reaction caused me to detour towards my friends‘ table.

At 15, I was a regular member of the church youth group, attending the youth mass on Friday nights, and despite Saturday night partying, I would also make the Sunday morning mass with my parents. 

One Christmas Eve, a couple months after my 16th birthday, my parents and I attended the special midnight mass. Suddenly, in the middle of the mass, a fellow church member had a heart attack. I had mixed feelings of compassion for him, along with a selfish disappointment that the beautiful mass had been interrupted. Shortly after, I decided that church was not for me and discontinued attending. On the one hand, the experience during mass was very uplifting – the singing, the contemplation, the peace – but once I left church it somehow vanished. That is why I was so disappointed on Christmas Eve. You see, Christmas mass was the highest experience of the entire year, and I would have to wait a whole twelve months to feel that peace and joy again!

My best friend in high school, who was a year ahead of me, began her studies at the University of Miami (UM). When I did not have to work early Sunday morning, I would spend the weekend with her at the campus dorm, enjoying the college life, while still a high school student. On one of these weekends I became friends with someone who would become a sort of 'mentor' to me. Most people found Johnny a bit odd, as he was a free thinker. He spoke and acted quite different from the rest of us, but I found him refreshing and fascinating. I learned about the purpose of yoga, the importance of eating healthy, and a vegetarian diet. I was not a big meat eater – I disliked meat as a child and wanted to become vegetarian. My parents would not allow it before, but in the summer before my 18th birthday I was allowed to make my own decisions. There was much to learn about 'eating healthy', as Pepsi Cola and chocolate cake were my breakfast of choice; the caffeine and sugar helped me to maintain an active life of lots of late night dancing, a part-time job evenings and weekends, little sleep and a challenging academic schedule, as I prepared for pre-medical studies.

Whether or not Johnny really was from Venus, I believed him and it was through him that I attended several different types of meditations, once I became a student at UM. We attended satsang at people‘s homes, free meditations and meals at a Hindu Temple Sundays, and I read a few spiritual books. On my own I began reading the Bible and nearly converted to a group who very strictly followed the Old Testament. A childhood friend, who was like a sister to me, was a member. They led a very clean lifestyle and all sounded good, except for their strong dislike for people who were NOT of colour.

Around this same time I attended several consecutive meditation classes on campus. Although I enjoyed them, I remember sitting in the class feeling as if a storm were raging inside of me. I was having such difficulty. Then I heard a voice say, 'You are not ready!' It was quite surprising, as I was not used to hearing inner voices. But I felt such a relief and inwardly answered, 'OK, that explains it'. I followed the voice and stopped trying to meditate.

As my friendship with Johnny waned, so did my spiritual seeking. I remained a vegetarian and occasionally over the years would try to meditate using a flute tape I had purchased in the meditation classes at UM. After a few minutes of trying to meditate I would think, 'Oh, this music is so weird. How is someone supposed to meditate to this?'

At 26, some eight or nine years later, I had what seemed to be an ideal life – a good job at the University of Miami, earning a graduate degree part-time in the evenings at no cost, and good relationships – but something inside me began to question this life. Am I happy? Who am I? Why am I here? Will I reach my parents' age and find that I am still looking for happiness? 

At one point I began having what I would now call anxiety attacks, trying to figure it all out. I began seeking again, mixing with spiritual people, visiting health food stores, reading new age magazines. Once more I sat down to meditate and pulled out the 'weird' flute tape. This time the tape broke!

Around that same time, at the check-out line of the health food store I had begun to frequent, the cashier and I recognised each other. The questions went back and forth – Had he been one of my professors? Had I ever been to a meditation class? Did I do a meditation at UM? Finally, we made the connection he had been one of the instructors at my meditation class, where I got the "inner message". 

He then asked "Are you still meditating?". Immediately I felt as if my heart had dropped to the floor. As I answered, "No", a great sorrow came over me. I heard a voice saying, "All these years... you have not meditated!" Clearly it was the voice of the Divine – that same inner voice that told me, "You are not ready", and now years later asking me why I had waited so long!

It has been nearly three decades now since becoming a member of the Sri Chinmoy Centre, and I will be eternally grateful to the Supreme for guiding me along this path. Things that I never would have dreamed of for myself have developed – long-distance and multi-day running, singing in concerts, helping others learn how to meditate and visiting dozens and dozens of countries with our group. Above all I have been given the opportunity to manifest God‘s Light here on earth!

by Kaushalya Casey
Toronto, Canada

In 1971, in the Cover to Cover bookshop on Mountain St. in Montreal, I picked up a copy of Meditations: Food for the Soul and started reading. To my extreme surprise, the words were almost jumping off the pages! Such beauty, truth and immediacy! I had never had such an experience before, although I had read quite a few spiritual books. Having no cash with me, I asked the clerk if I could copy out a few aphorisms. Forty years later, I still have them somewhere in a notebook.

It did not occur to me that I could seek out this profoundly moving author – the transcendental photograph of Sri Chinmoy on the cover seemed to suggest an ancient Chinese Buddha, and I no doubt needed time to move away from a few bad habits acquired in the sixties, along with the rest of my generation.

A year later, I had done just that, and was now living in Vancouver. I saw a poster for the Aum Centre, as the Sri Chinmoy Centre was then called. That same 'Chinese Buddha' was on the flier, and I visited the Centre. Immediately I felt a strong presence in that house, as though I would surely meet a long-lost, familiar and loving friend around any corner. It was palpable. I put a smiling picture of Guru on my wall, and I would wake up at three in the morning to see it smiling powerfully in my direction.

When I wrote requesting to join the path, I told Guru - Sri Chinmoy - that I felt he had already accepted me. The compassion emanating from Guru's photos and the few books then available had stolen my heart. I am forever grateful that no weighty decision-making mental process was needed.

A few months later the Vancouver Centre received a LP recording of Guru reciting poems from his book My Flute. Again the power of Guru’s words filled the air. It seemed that we were hearing the actual voice of the universe. The depth and resonance of Guru’s words created a brand new experience for my poetic world. My Flute was like Heaven revealing itself, moment to moment, poem by poem.

In December 1972, I went to New York for the first time and my first meditation was at Sarama’s house. A blessed feeling of relief and lightness came over me: A being of such love and beauty truly existed with us here on earth! We were invited to Guru’s house, and even had the opportunity to ask questions and enjoy some inspiring conversations. Without even planning on saying anything, I suddenly said to Guru that I sometimes felt I was too weak for the spiritual life.

Guru replied - I cannot quote exactly - "Who tells you that? It is all your imagination. You have a good aspiring soul and you will do well on our path. Now you are in the boat. Just don’t jump out of the boat or you will be devoured by ignorance-sea."

I have often been thankful for those words, and I hope they give encouragement to some seeker weathering the occasional stormy elements.