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When in New York to visit my teacher Sri Chinmoy, I often have occasion to stop by my friend Anugata’s house which is just up the hill from Aspiration-Ground, not least because of the free internet connection that can be obtained if you lean your computer a certain way against the window Anugata lives upstairs, and in the stairwell there is the above beautiful framed picture of Sri Chinmoy. It is absolutely huge and takes up at least half the wall, and when I look at it I have this tremendous feeling that my teacher is really close to me - often my exit from the house has been delayed at least five or ten minutes just from looking at this picture.

The picture was taken by Projjwal Pohland from Germany, who over thirty years took many beautiful pictures of Sri Chinmoy - many of which can be found in his photo gallery - but none so beautiful as this, I think. I must ask Projjwal the circumstances under which the photo was taken. It somehow does not seem like other for-the-camera pictures - a lot of the photos where Sri Chinmoy sat for the camera have this tremendous air of dignity and inner strength, almost like a statesman, whereas this photo seems to embody something else entirely - love, concern, eternity - one can only grasp at words.

Actually, this unusual photograph also reminds me of an interesting anecdote about another picture of Sri Chinmoy (unfortunately I cant find an online version of that particular picture). One time when I was visiting new York, myself and Databir had a gentleman’s disagreement (for want of better words) during a frenetic game of early morning frisbee. By way of patching things up, the great and good Databir later that day brought me a very beautiful photo of Sri Chinmoy in deep meditation, eyes raised upwards as if soaking in the entire expanse of Heaven.

Apparently, Databir told me, there was a plan to put this picture on the front cover of one of Sri Chinmoy’s books. Someone else objected, arguing that Joe or Josephine Public don’t exactly come across someone in this state of meditation every day of the week, and that they might be a little startled - perhaps one of the stately photos mentioned above would be more suitable. The photo was presented to Sri Chinmoy - he looked at the photo for a few seconds, and then exclaimed in a childlike voice “But…it’s me!”. A very sweet reminder that these high states of meditation are not something a spiritual Master goes into from time to time, they are something that he eternally is.

At the end of each meditation function, we generally have the Indian traditional custom of prasad i.e. food that is blessed by the master before being offered to everyone at the function. I dareday some of the fondest memories many of Sri Chinmoy’s students have are of when he was giving prasad - one could very tangibly feel the light the master was offering both to you and to the food itself.

A lot of the time when Sri Chinmoy was giving prasad, he would first ask the children under eighteen to come up first who had come to visit with their parents, or the more elderly members of the audience so they could come up at their own pace. Other times Sri Chinmoy would ask us all to come up in stages - for example he might say those over 30 years on the path, followed by those over 25 etc. I remember one time he asked us all to come up by age, starting with youngest and ending with eldest. As the older members came up I remember Sri Chinmoy commenting how he couldn’t believe how young some of them looked compared to their age - a definite testament to the power of meditation.

One very fond memory I have is when Sri Chinmoy asked us to come up according to our religious background. First he called for Christianity. I didn’t really consider myself an orthodox Christian so to speak, but I saw a few others in the same boat getting up to go down, so I figured he must be talking about background rather than actual practise. Then he asked for Judaism, followed by Islam, which he referred to in such affectionate terms as his ‘dearer than the dearest’ Islam. I have always been very struck by Sri Chinmoy’s appreciation for this oft-misunderstood religion; Sri Chinmoy taught me in regarding other ways to the Goal than my own to move beyond mere tolerance (which often smacks of superiority) to a feeling of oneness, of feeling their experience as my very own. Then came Hinduism, Buddhism and finally Sri Chinmoy asked for those of no religion to come up, and a few people came. “I also have no religion“, Sri Chinmoy smiled sweetly at them. “My only religion is my love of God.“

(Picture by Adhikari Diganta Pobitzer on Sri Chinmoy Galleries)

I am just after finishing what might possibly be one of the most intense experiences of my short span of life so far. A couple of weeks ago, myself, Colm and Matthias participated in our first hill race (thats where the above photo comes from), and enjoyed it so much we decided to go to the second race, which was held in the foothills of the Wicklow mountains this morning.

Darkened skies and plenty of rain greeted our arrival, but of course silly me saw no reason to change from my shorts and flimsy T-shirt apparel. The first part of the race didn’t give much of a sign as to what was to come. as we clambered up the mountain, we were well protected by forest cover, and began to settle down and pace ourselves.

About 20 minutes into the race, myself, Colm and Matthias were following each other as the path turned to go up another mountain. And then things started getting surreal. First we went into open country, with no protection from the winds that were blowing. The road was straight, uphill and seemed to go on forever and ever. And then came the hailstones. Big ones. And we thought that was bad, but then we reached the top of the mountain only to find that we had actually been protected from the full force of the wind, now coming at us from the side at sixty or seventy miles an hour. All the big heavyset runners had an advantage here; for me it was all I could to to stop the wind blowing me off the path. At one stage, I got pelted by a particularly vicious hailstone, which was kind of the straw which broke the camel’s back; I just yelled out loud at the top of my voice, declared I wasn’t going to take this nonsense anymore, and set off at top speed to show Mother Nature that it had just messed with the wrong Irishman.

We turned again, with a near-hurricane at our backs, and into a whole different kind of craziness. Such was the force of the wind that it carried you along at top speed without any say-so on your part, and I had to summon all the dexterity at my command to stay upright amongst all the rocks and boulders. Such was the strength of the wind that it even blew me straight up a steep uphill section without any effort on my part. But then I had a crucial lapse of concentration and followed two other runners into what proved to be a wrong turn! It was pretty galling after all that effort to look back and see a slew of runners who were behind you make the right turn and powering on ahead. I did my best to recover but the damage was largely done and I ended up 20th or thereabouts, where I could have at least been in the top 10. Colm ended up sixth overall, the best runner from our Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team. He said he really had a nice experience during the entire race where he was chanting ‘I am not the body, I am the soul’ over and over again and he could feel some soul’s quality powerfully bursting to the fore.

Upon finishing, we all agreed we must be insane, because nobody in their right mind would find themselves doing something like this. But then again, nobody in their ‘right mind’ seems to be as cheerful, smiling and appreciative of the joys of life as the people you find participating in these mountain races. And yes, we’ll probably do it again, crazy people that we are.

One day during my visit to the Dominican Republic, a group of us decided to take a day to explore a cave in a national park perhaps three hours drive from where we were staying. Upon arrival we were all fitted out with caving gear and then given a horse to take us to our destination. We started out at walking pace, but then someone charged ahead on their horse and the rest followed suit. I remember looking back and seeing the rest of the crowd galloping around the corner in unison like something out of a John Wayne movie. My horse was pretty temperamental, preferring to take me through every bush and thicket on the path rather than stick to the road, but that’s because it was probably afraid of Balarka’s horse, which was trying to eat it. I’m not joking. Balarka’s horse would pull up alongside mine, turn its head towards my horse and open its mouth as wide as possible, wait for five seconds as if to ensure the largest possible bite, and then try to take a big chomp out of my horse. It’s a miracle I got the poor horse home in one piece.

I always enjoy hearing the myriad ways in which people embark upon the journey of self-discovery. When I was beginning to meditate, I eagerly devoured and personal accounts by people who meditated I came across, ehether it be in book form, video form or first-hand. I remember seeing this particular video when I first came to meditation class - in it Jogyata Dallas, who has spent the last 25 years as a student of Sri Chinmoy, talks about his own journey, which is fairly entertaining to say the least. We here in Dublin have a special fondness for Jogyata, not least because he and his wife Subarata gave the meditation classes that set our centre in Dublin into motion! We have a copy of this video in our centre which is beginning to get well worn with all the viewing, so it is nice to have it available to view on Sri Chinmoy TV.

You can see the video by clicking on the ‘more’ link:
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Many of Sri Chinmoy’s students read his poems and aphorisms as part of their meditation practice. Much of the time, people turn to his three major collections of aphorisms - Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, and Seventy-Seven Thousand Service Treees - but Sri Chinmoy also wrote many smaller collections of poetry as well. Here are some nice poems I found in two of these smaller collections:

From I Need only God:

How will you know
If you are divine?
You will know
If you are divine
When you discover
That without your body’s Himalayan achievements
The world can exist-
But not without your soul’s
One little smile.

I had many more lives.
I shall have many more lives.
But I have only one Master
And that is what I always want.
Who is my Master?
My own higher Self,
My Eternity’s All.

******

From Every Day a New Chance:

I may not know what it means
To be perfect,
But I do know what it means
To be happy.

Forgive
If you want to regain
The full freedom-joy
Of your mind and heart.

Not a fear-prompted prayer
But a love-inspired meditation
Can and does
Gladden God’s Heart.

(Photo by Pavitrata Taylor: Last August, when I was in New York visiting my teacher, some doves were released as part of a ceremony - this one, instead of flying off, stayed around till the end and then went)

I thought I’d share with you something I picked up yesterday on the flute. I recorded it with GarageBand, which by default gives you a metronome to accompany you. At first I thought it was a good idea, as my sense of rhythm is a bit all over the place, but firstly my playing and the metronome started to amicably go their separate ways, and then when the recording was over I couldn’t turn it off!

I’ve never recorded myself before playing - what’s interesting is that things you think are awful-sounding when playing don’t sound near as bad when you listen to it. All the more reason to escape that critical mind, and just get into the heart, I say. The funny thing is that you actually make a lot less mistakes when you just decide to play from the heart.

I haven’t a clue what the tune is called - I got it off a YouTube recording of Mick O’Brien and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh playing about three years ago. When I was beginning to play the flute, Caoimhin very kindly and selflessly took the time to give me some valuable tips; any mistakes (and there are many) are solely as a result of a lack of dedication and a general I-know-best attitude on my part, rather than a reflection on his teaching.

Here’s the video so you can see what it should sound like: (Ha, that reminds me of one time I was in the car with my brother Colm and about to play an Irish music album he hadn’t heard before; I casually remarked that I’d learned some tunes from this album and he might recognise them. Bet you I won’t recognise them at all! he said, laughing)

I have just returned from three weeks in Dominican Republic, a gathering of students of Sri Chinmoy from all over the world. Every year, Sri Chinmoy would leave snow-bound New York and go somewhere where his constant creative output and tireless work for peace would not be impaired by the sub-zero conditions. He would use the occasion to visit like-minded workers for a better world to exchange inspiration, visit his meditation centres in far-flung locations, or simply as a chance for some time with his students. Our teacher is no longer with us, but this trip seemed like a perfect chance to meet together, share experiences and memories and continue the amplified impetus for inner discovery which our teacher’s passing has given us all.

For much of the trip I was not so much concerned with my new outer surroundings so much as my inner landscape - meditating three times a day, and exploring the creative realm by participating in performances of music and spiritual plays. However there were more than enough opportunities to get out and get to know the soul of the country. A few days into the trip, I joined the team from the World Harmony Run, the celebrated initiative to promote friendship through running that Sri Chinmoy gave birth to 20 years ago, and spent the morning visiting schools not very far from where we are staying. Often when we visit schools we give a very nice presentation, all centered on the theme that harmony is something that can be created by each and every individual; sometimes the schools themselves take up the baton and add their own special contribution.

Something very nice happened at the end of one of the meetings. We were all mingled in a sunny courtyard, talking and laughing with the children in the three or four words of Spanish we had, when all of a sudden I saw one of our team members running around, child perched on his shoulder, both having the time of their lives. Next thing I know all of the team were hoisting children on top of their shoulders - it seemed as if half the class were airborne as we ran, twirled, danced and whooped around the place. No-one wanted it to end.

Sometimes there are moments where the fetters of time just seem to drop off, and the hard facts of life recede into the background.

Right now I am in much warmer climes than I am used to for this time of year (namely, the Carribbean), here with all my friends from the Sri Chinmoy Centre. Just as when we meet in New York, there are plenty of meditation functions which mix silent meditation together with singing and instrumental performances, poetry and more besides. Around this time of year in particular, there are plenty of pieces of spiritual theatre which are rehearsed and enacted for our fellow students of Sri Chinmoy in the audience. In fact I was in one such play a couple of days ago, directed by my friend Kaivalya from London.

Kaivalya wanted to enact a scene from the Mahabharata - tha great Iliad-like epic of India - detailing the climactic lead up to the terrible battle of Kurukshetra. This battle is ingrained in the Indian psyche, for out of it comes the dialogue captured in the Bhagavad Gita, India’s equivalent to the Bible. I was to play the weak and blind Dhritarastha, whose passivity encourages his avaricious son Duryodhana ever closer to war, despite Krishna’s best efforts to avert it.

I was to sort out the sound too. Big climax at the end, I was told - lots of earth shaking, tremors, rumbles, sounds of war, that kind of thing. So I went hunting on the web, found lots of nice sounds, but nothing that seemed to evoke the moment.

However on the morning of the play, I remembered the GarageBand program that came free with my Mac. I had used it very briefly in the week following the passing of my Master as a way of documenting that incredible time of transition, and the thought came to me now - why not try to create some kind of score? So I cobbled together all the sounds I had, messed around with the keyboard sounds a bit, and lo and behold, I had something.

So I went to Kaivalya (who was playing Duryodhana) and Vidura, who was playing Krishna (for those of you who know the Mahabharata, that’s probably a bit confusing, since Vidura is also the name of a historical character in that great epic) and presented them with the first draft. Too subdued, I was told. The beginning of the score documents a very intense scene where Krishna, seeing Duryodhana attempt to capture him, laughs out loud, showing the assembled audience as he does so a glimpse of his fearsome power as the Lord of creation and destruction - his Universal Form, as it commonly called:

“Krishna laughed, loud and long. Even as he laughed, he began to glow like lightning. All the devas emerged from his body. It was a terrifying aspect. There was Brahma the Creator, on his chest the eleven Rudras, on his shoulders Indra, Varuna, Kubera and Yama, Agni glowed in his mouth - all the gods assembled in his form. Balarama at his left hand, and on his right, Arjuna, behind were Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva and Yudhisthira - all the heros were there. His arms were many. They held the weapons Panchajanya, the chakra Sudarsana, the gada Kanmodaki and the sword Nandana. Fire spread from his eyes and nostrils. No-one had the power to look. All eyes were closed except those of Bhisma, Drona, Vidura and the great Rishis. Even the blind king was given the power to see…

Dhritarastra: You are the Lord of the earth, and I have seen your form. Having seen you, I do not want to see anything else….”

So I was asked to try and capture something of that terrifying power.

So myself and Vidura went up to my room and did some apocalyptic laughter into the microphone, and I played around with things a bit. Unfortunately so much of my time went into recreating the first part of the score that I basically gave myself twenty minutes to do the rest - the climactic drums and tremors leading into the final declaration of war - so that bit sounds rather lame. In fact, I had to ask my brother Colm to play some ‘war drums’ and include it into the score literally five minutes before we were to go onstage.

So here it is, warts and all - I recommend it be played loud just as it was indended in the play.

The first minute is Krishna’s expansion into his universal form, then a lull for Dhritarastha to say a few words, and then finally the build up of drums whilst Krishna and Duryodhana switch from jaw-jaw to war-war (to grave-turningly misquote Winston Churchill)

The irony is, it never got used in full. During the play, as Krishna began to laugh and radiate power, it was played at full volume, drowning out everything else (according to plan). However it was so loud it triggered an automatic cutoff in the sound system so most of it was never played and the play finished in silence. The audience of course never knew any different, but we as the actors were definitely left with a sense of what might have been.

On the morning of 14th April 1950, a large comet slowly moved across the south Indian sky. My spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy, then a young man of nineteen, was captaining one of the two soccer teams that were playing that day in the spiritual community where he spent his adolescence and early adulthood. Suddenly, upon sighting the comet, the head of the spiritual community stood up and folded her hands in the traditional Indian gesture of solemn respect. Both teams followed suit, standing there in the middle of the field, hands folded, in absolute silence. With the passing of that comet something most profound had just departed the earth; on the sacred hill of Arunachala, the great spiritual Master Sri Ramana Maharshi had breathed his last that very morning.

Question: What is the significance of a comet?

Sri Chinmoy: When something most precious leaves the
earth-consciousness, then a comet will be visible. From the
spiritual point of view, when you see a comet, something very
significant has taken place on earth.

On October 24th 2007, a small comet called Holmes suddenly became visible in the Perseus constellation of the night sky, increasing its luminosity by a trillionfold. It was a breathtakingly starlit Saturday night as we came home from a beautiful meditation with fellow students of Sri Chinmoy from many different countries, and one of us got the inspiration to look up the thoughtful link that Sarah posted on the Sri Chinmoy Inspiration Group provided to find the comet.

Find Cassiopeia, I told Steve when he arrived back at the house. Now go to the middle of the ‘W’ and make your way down the line on the left side and keep going; that’s Perseus, the great hero, readying an imaginary bow for the shot. I made a circle with my fingers around Perseus’s left shoulder and told him to look through it; inside the circle was a triangle, consisting of Mirfak (the brightest star in the Perseus constellation), another star, and Holmes. It’s the fuzzy one. Stars are as clear as pinpricks; comets are blurrier and more diffuse. That’s our comet.

The sky was speckled with stars, and to most people on earth it would be indistinguishable from any of the rest of them. And then some people look up and out of all those dots find the one thing that is special to them.

“And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better, like that. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens . . . they will all be your friends. And, besides, I am going to make you a present . . .”
He laughed again.
“Ah, little prince, dear little prince! I love to hear that laughter!”
“That is my present. Just that. It will be as it was when we drank the water . . .”
“What are you trying to say?”
“All men have the stars,” he answered, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You–you alone–will have the stars as no one else has them–”
“What are you trying to say?”

“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You–only you–will have stars that can laugh!”
And he laughed again.
“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, ‘Yes, the stars always make me laugh!’ And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you . . .”
And he laughed again.
“It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh . . .”

(excerpt from The Little Prince, by Antoine de St Exupery)

“When we concentrate on the divine heart and feel the real divine heart, we will see that inside it the entire universe exists, that the heart is vaster than the universe itself”: that’s what our teacher once said. And inside this heart, one fuzzy speck in the sky watches overhead, and smiles.

I know what I know, and it is enough.

* * * *