Sumangali.org: In The Spirit Of Serendipity

The Song-Bird of St Petersburg pays tribute to Sri Chinmoy at the Royal Albert Hall

Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov is a living paradigm in the world of music and poetry, justly lauded in his Russian homeland and throughout the world. Tapping the ‘infinite silence’ within as a source of his prolific creativity, his songs are his direct interpretation of the universal musical consciousness.

No wonder then that he found in Sri Chinmoy a profound inspiration. With almost 1600 books to his name and over 21000 songs, here was a Spiritual Master who shaped his own life’s service from the very fibre of music and poetry, singing the songs of Heaven into the ears of the earth.

Sri Chinmoy was born in East Bengal, 1931. Following an inner calling he moved to New York in 1964, to be of spiritual service and inspiration to the west. From then until his passing in October last year, his meditation brought forth a wellspring of creativity in many fields.

Sri Chinmoy met Grebenshikov in 2005, and offered him the spiritual name Purushottama. A unique friendship blossomed from there. The immediate bond between teacher and student was exceptionally deep given its outer brevity; a recognition and reflection of true inner harmony. In Grebenshikov’s own words:

“Before meeting him I could never imagine I would see with mine own eyes the enlightened spirit operating from within the frail human body. It made me realize we do not really understand how strange it is to be fully realized in the world that misunderstands Divine realization. And I am endlessly grateful for his love and unflinching selfless courage.”

As part of his soulful service, Sri Chinmoy offered over 700 free public concerts in the span of his life, which he dedicated to World Harmony. London’s Royal Albert Hall ranked among the most notable venues, where he last performed in October 2003. In this same spirit, and at the same venue, Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov paid tribute to him last week.

Under a 14-foot portrait of Sri Chinmoy, flanked by statues of Ganesha and Saraswati, the setting was an Indian garden at night. An enclave of trees and glowing candles waited on a backdrop of winking galaxies. Hoards jostled outside for a place in the hall, peering over galleries high up into the roof to catch a glimpse of the artist. The legendary Song-Bird of St Petersburg entered with a smile of joy equal to his air of poise and humility. As he took centre stage his audience could not have been more attentive, appreciative, or more alive with electric anticipation.

Some 20 musicians joined him, mostly from the Indian and Irish genres, and some of the finest in their fields. Two were from Grebenshikov’s original band Aquarium, which dates back to the early 1970s. The tabla talked in rhythm to four Irish bodhrans; a sarangi sang sweet melodies over a group of classical strings. The fiddle, tin whistle and Uillean pipes carried on an Irish banter with such unbounded effusion, precision and harmony, that the crowds could not contain their shouts of delight.

All the while Grebenshikov was an ocean of depth, speaking through an acoustic guitar as if it were a part of himself. His singing voice itself was, as always, an exquisite blend of strength and sensitivity; ageless and imperturbable wisdom with a sweet and heart-melting centre. The essence of the poetry, although mostly in Russian, could be felt even by the uninitiated, such was its earnest delivery.

The songs vaulted from pin-drop soulfulness to ebullient joy, via countless spirited forays into new musical realms. They stopped neither at folk, nor jazz, nor rock, nor classical, nor world music, but spun into a whirl of all these, where no division or identity could be defined, where music sprang forth unbounded and unadulterated from its source.

As a finale, Grebenshikov offered a bhajan he wrote in Sanskrit for the goddess Saraswati, and a loving song in the ballad style, which he wrote for Sri Chinmoy during one of their earliest meetings. The Sri Chinmoy Centre Choir accompanied him on the refrain:

“O, Guru Sat, we may be far apart,
O, Guru Sat, forever in my heart.”

It was a poignant end to a magical evening; an evening whose spirit seemed to have no age, no beginning, no end; no limits or worldly boundaries of any kind. With simplicity and utmost self-giving, Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov offered a tribute to his teacher which was at once fittingly grand, heartfelt and joyous.

IMAGES:
Portrait of Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov by Antonov Pavel

LINKS:
More about the concert at GrebenshikovConcert.com
Review by Tejvan Pettinger at SriChinmoyBio.co.uk
Photographs of the event by Pavitrata Taylor at Pavitrata.com
Download a PDF of the official programme (26Mb)

Emily Dickinson referred to herself as a pagan. Some biographers would go so far as to label her a druid for her worship of nature. But was this apparently stubborn heathen life really built on atheism?

On the surface what seems a blatant rebellion against the Christian reforms sweeping New England in the 19th Century could be misinterpreted as a lack of spiritual inclination. If we look beneath even a single veneer we will undoubtedly find true spirituality at the heart of her endeavour; far from snubbing God, but simply insisting on no less than a first-hand experience of Him.

The poet shunned religious doctrine, but did she shun religion? Certainly not as a whole, and even then it may be merely a matter of syntax. The words ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ may at times be used interchangeably, and at others a fine distinction must be made. Charles Anderson chooses to make no distinction, using the word ‘religion’ in its broadest, and perhaps most primal sense:

“The final direction of her poetry, and the pressures that created it, can only be described as religious, using that word in its ‘dimension of depth.’”

Emily inherited the Puritan traits of austerity, simplicity, and practicality, as well as an astute observation of the inner self, but her communication with her higher Self was much more informal than her God-fearing forefathers would have dared. The daughter of the ‘Squire’ of Amherst, she came from a line of gritty, stalwart pioneers, carrying what was almost considered the blue blood of America. Her family was far from poor, but she did not lead a lavish life, for the Puritans abhorred luxury and waste (even a waste of words, which trait the poet did well to inherit).

She accepted the Puritan ideals of being ‘called’ or ‘chosen’ by God, and fully embraced the merits of transcending desire, but not the concept of being inherently sinful:

“While the Clergyman tells Father and Vinnie that ‘this Corruptible shall put on Incorruption’ it has already done so and they go defrauded.”

She had faith in her own divinity, so perhaps she was yet more certain of God than her peers. She did not claim to fully understand Him, or even to have perennial faith in all His Ways—her poetry bears a continuing strain of doubt—but she certainly did not fear Him. The inner freedom this afforded her—rare for a woman of her time—brought her to the point of being almost cheeky in her familiarity and certainty. This confidence fed her poetry sumptuously, and gave it the well-known child-like quality. To her, truth was in nature. In that beauty she could see and feel God directly:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
I keep it, staying at Home —
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome —

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice —
I just wear my Wings —
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton — sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last —
I’m going, all along.

Emily did actually attend church regularly, sometimes traveling to hear some of the rousing and charismatic preachers who stamped their mark on that era. She was often moved by these sermons, perhaps as compelled by the speaker’s delivery and the construction of words as the message within them. But this was not enough to entice her to succumb to the fierce religious revival. One by one her friends received an inner calling and were ‘saved,’ officially accepting Christianity. Members of her close-knit family eventually followed suit, including her strong-willed father, and finally her brother, Austin, perhaps her closest ally. Emily would not commit to something she could not sincerely feel, even under the unthinkable social pressure that surrounded her.

Until the age of 30 she continued going to church, although she was excluded from certain meetings and services open only to those who had been ’saved’. She became increasingly reclusive throughout her 30s. It is tempting to see her seclusion as further evidence of spiritual asceticism. Her spiritual path was certainly intensely lonely in such a social climate, but she craved aloneness more and more, and seclusion somehow formed a symbiotic relationship with her art. Increasingly her art became an expression of her spirituality.

Immortality (“the Flood Subject” as she called it) consumed Emily’s consciousness. Dwelling on death was natural in those times as illness and general hardship frequently took lives around her, her awareness heightened further by the many years spent in a house adjoining a cemetery. But dwelling on death was also almost a spiritual practice, a ‘graveyard meditation,’ a means of focus, breathing life into the concepts of Eternity, Infinity and Immortality.

Poet and philosopher Sri Chinmoy said of the poet:

“Emily Dickinson wrote thousands of psychic poems. One short poem of hers is enough to give sweet feelings and bring to the fore divine qualities of the soul.”

“With a deep sense of gratitude, let me call upon the immortal soul of Emily Dickinson, whose spiritual inspiration impels a seeker to know what God the Infinite precisely is. She says:
‘The infinite a sudden guest
Has been assumed to be,
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?’”

From Patriots of America by Sri Chinmoy

What drove her consistently was that she needed truth, and at any cost. She needed to see it with her own eyes and feel it with her own heart, not grasp at it in the words of a clergyman but explain it to herself through her own words. It seems she was even ready to die for her cause:

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth, —the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Emily’s truth-seeking was a spiritual quest that governed her inner life, and naturally blossomed through her poetic works. Her own words, in a letter to a friend, succinctly claim Eternity and Immortality as her own. Perhaps they also presage the enduring spiritual appeal of her writing, far beyond the short span of her life:

“So I conclude that space & time are things of the body & have little or nothing to do with our selves. My Country is Truth.”

I was in the sea, snorkeling I think, or maybe diving. It was a long time ago. The sun heaved magnificent light into an already magnificent ocean, and all was bathed in lucid unearthly beauty below.

I was very fond of cowfish. They were like cartoons, little horns like raised eyebrows, boxy bodies puffing happily in and out as in a fit of laughter, big dark eyes, two arms fluttering—seemingly too small to do for anything but decoration. They always looked young, with childlike curiosity, as if so sure their own cuteness would keep them out of danger.

Their colours varied like all things in the sea, wearing different shades even when a cloud passed overhead. They were always brilliant, as if generating their own light, and always in such complex detail as if embroidered with a very fine needle and silk.

Someone caught one in one hand. The hand broke the surface and there she lay on the broad of the palm, in the raw blades of the sun, with no significant fins or tail to flip her back to safety. Her body looked instantly starved, the skin now dry in mottled greys stretched over a tiny twitching skeleton, eyes like dull flakes of flint, mouth and gills straining and sucking for a life she might never feel again.

I, like the cowfish, did not know the intentions of the human hand. For all we knew she’d breathed her last of the ocean, in the homely gardens of a coral maze. I held my breath with her, unable to speak or act in a daze of horror. The hand closed around her again

and let her go.

She puffed downwards as if squirted from the bulb of a pipette, her colours instantly proud and resplendent in the sun, now through its proper lens of sea. And she was gone.

I was told that it was all for me—so I may have a closer look at her when she was still. Still, I thought. But it was not her at all. Fish are colour and movement. I saw only the shrouds of death closing around her. Ridiculous. How can she be herself when she is in the air. I remained silent for a long time.

If it is true that fish have short memories then she would have been unchanged by the trauma, but I carry it with me everywhere. I glimpse her when I feel coerced by others—even when their intentions are innocent—to be something other than myself. True, I am in no mortal danger, but I am reminded that what is comfortable for others may be harmful for me. She reminds me to allow others their freedom too; to let them be as God made them, in their own proper environment. Only then may we each laugh and let our colours shine as He intended. I still have a way to go, but the shock of the cowfish makes me try.

“Accept God’s Will
Happily,
Rejoice in God’s Will
Proudly,
And move on with God’s Will
Speedily.”
—Sri Chinmoy
Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, 25101

It was an ordinary day in Ningbo, China, but an extraordinary miracle took place in a muddy 5-metre ditch.

Was it really a miracle, or simply the wise employment of a meditation technique? Maybe a combination of the two.

The Times reports:

“Wang Jianxin was working at a construction site in the booming city. The job that day for the 52-year-old worker was to dig a five-metre ditch…

“Without warning, a wall of the ditch collapsed, burying Mr Wang under a huge pile of earth. Like most construction workers in China, he had little in the way of protective equipment except for his tough plastic safety helmet. It was to be enough to save his life.” [original article]

The peak of his hat trapped a small amount of air in front of his face, which doctors said would usually have been enough to keep someone alive for five minutes. It was two hours before he was rescued. Mr Wang survived by practising Buddhist meditation techniques to stay calm, and minimise his use of oxygen.

There are countless legends from India of yogis, (obviously very advanced in their meditation practice) allowing themselves to be buried alive, and surviving for weeks or even years. I’m not about to discuss the verity of such stories, (let alone their questionable spiritual worth), but if a construction worker can survive for 2 hours on 5 minutes’ worth of oxygen, who’s to say those legends aren’t true? Just when you think you know what’s possible in this world, and what’s not…

“Be not afraid of the impossible.
Be brave!
God is always ready to help you
Conquer the impossible.”
—Sri Chinmoy
Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees #19030

• Image: Kedar Misani at Sri Chinmoy Centre Gallery
• You too can learn to meditate here

I met my second nephew for the first time last week, eight days after his arrival on earth (that’s me on the right, at a similar age). His expressions changed fast, as if dreaming. What could he dream so soon? Memories of other worlds or other lives perhaps. I wondered what his dreams would be in later life, hoped we would be friends, collect beetles in a jar, laugh together over a late lemonade in his grandmother’s garden.

He is huge for a newborn, with hot fists and a determined frown, but I was a little afraid for him. It seems brave to me to be born at all, to be human, to live on earth.

Despite its intensity, nobody remembers being born. Everyone uses their first breath to cry. Raw sound, cold, movement, pain, exhaustion, separation from the source, are too much to bear at once. There is no strength of one’s own to call upon, and nothing certain or familiar on which to depend. Julius Caeser, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Muhammad Ali, however mighty they became, each arrived naked and alone, and cried.

My primal bewilderment stayed with me longer than theirs, and perhaps longer than most. The cry silenced but was always there. Life was a fast road and the human vehicle seemed so brittle on it. I saw pain in others and felt it as my own. I grew no armour in my thoughts or senses.

I was a morbid child, my first dream in colour was of death. I lay awake in fear of everything, craving the release of sleep, but dreading my own dreams more than waking life. “Empty your mind,” said my mother, “think beautiful things or have no thought at all.”

So I made my first tiny flame of peace inside. It lit my world a little in that strange perpetual night; spilled into the darkness so at odds with my safe and gentle circumstances.

I worried about life and the end of it, about the world and myself in it, about being small and about growing up. I worried that God had forgotten me on earth. That’s the strangest thing: I was raised an atheist but always secretly believed in God, that there was more to life than earth, that death was not the end of it. Thank God for that.

It was a vague belief though, like a church bell ebbing and gathering on a faraway breeze, or a photograph faded almost to obscurity. There was nobody to sharpen the image for me. To own to another that I believed in God, and needed to feel closer to Him, would have seemed weak, delusional even; like admitting that I couldn’t handle myself.

But nobody knew anyway. Nobody knew where we are, or even how far the universe goes. Nobody knew for sure what happens after death. Nobody knew where God is. It didn’t seem to bother anyone. That bothered me most of all.

I blundered through my teens as well as anybody can, still haunted by fears I couldn’t name, increasingly sensible to the vulnerability of a world I didn’t understand. As I grew, so did the dark. I was trapped in it, a slave to my own fear. The faint memory of God was swallowed in it too, and I was terribly alone.

Luck has a habit of following me, especially when I need it most. A lady where I lived had taught herself to meditate, and gave me some books so I could do the same. She talked about God, naturally, like a friend. The picture grew in clarity again, in brief glimmers.

Through each attempt, I collected strength beyond my own ability, harvesting happiness from an orchard much more bountiful than my own, an orchard of sweet fruits that went on forever, where it was always summer. I dared remember that my life is not a solo voyage, but piloted by Someone bigger. At last I could breathe, as if for the first time.

One day I turned against fear, and it dissolved, like a serpent made of smoke. God had not forgotten me; I had been forgetting Him.

I was a fair-weather friend to God though. Meditation was difficult. Although I practised every day, my efforts lacked vigour, unless I was desperate or in trouble. I reached an agreement—a sort of dual tenancy—with the serpent of smoke. It was always there but it would keep to its own quarters. God lived somewhere upstairs, and I was often too idle to climb there, perhaps calling a perfunctory hello from the second step each morning.

Courage came then from more comfortable sources, the sort you can buy in a bottle or a pill, that you can win through fickle friendships and small outer victories. It was a cheap happiness, and like most imitations, it fell apart after a few years. I chased it, all over the world, but arrived back where I started, and that time with nothing.

I suppose it was a new birth, a blessing in the form of annihilation. There was an accident which nearly took my life. Soon after that I had no money, no job, no family near me, no friends, no home, barely any belongings, not a shred of hope or self-esteem. I was helpless as an infant. And I cried a good deal.

I knew I had to learn to meditate properly. I had to find someone who knew how to do it and could show me. I dug out the books the lady had given me and tried a new exercise: The Spiritual Guide. It started with imagination, as all visualisations do. I waited on a beach in my heart for someone to come and teach me, and eventually he did.

He was a beautiful Indian man, all softness and sweetness, but with the strength of a galaxy contained in a human form. He loved me, as if he had known me always. He listened and understood, without judgment or harshness. He encouraged me, sincerely, not indulgently, and not in words, but in silence, releasing wisdom and peace like fragrances. I had only to breathe them in.

Here was someone who knew. He knew God. Anything I did not understand, he already knew. He did not need to tell me; the fact that he knew was enough for me, to see it and feel it in him. He contained all opposites, extremes of all I had longed for: subtlety and certainty, beauty and practicality, and most of all, immaculate poise.

He did not answer me or solve anything directly, but having sat with him, I knew what to do in life, and felt the strength to carry it out. Over the span of a year I gained a good job, a car, and a beautiful home. I was safe and healthy, challenged by the world but no longer terrified by it.

I wanted to learn more, to meet with others who knew meditation’s secrets. I wanted to practise with them, find new techniques, exchange experiences. The Sri Chinmoy Centre was the first and only place I found.

I thought it had been my own imagination. How could such a man exist on earth as the one who had sat with me every day that year? There he was, in photographs and videos. He had come to life. He had been there all along. I could read his words and sing his songs. Eventually I could sit in his outer presence, as I had done so many times in my heart.

I cannot account for my good fortune. I am small and full of imperfection, but divine love touches all creation like the fingers of the sun. Luckily we need not wait to deserve it.

In Sri Chinmoy I found answers to questions I had not yet formed. In his brief life of 76 years he gave to all equally and abundantly: not what was deserved but what was needed. In poetry, in songs, in physical demonstration and silent meditation, he made maps for us: maps of immediate inner lands, and others we will not reach for a very long time.

Sometimes I miss him. I had ten years to become attached to the luxury of his living presence. But I know he has given me much more than I need, and much more than all the world can give me. When I miss him, I know I need only sit in my heart and he will come to me.

When I was little, my mum had a penchant for Chinese antiquities. Along with a glossy rosewood coffee table, my favourite was a painted statue of Shou Lao, the god of longevity. He held a long twisted staff of many twining branches in one hand, and a peach (of unlikely proportions) in the other.

Although he looked at least 200 years old, he smiled as if mid-chuckle, and his cheeks had a crimson glow like the peach. We were told that the peach came from a tree that bore fruit every 3 millennia, and anyone who took a bite from it could live as long as they wanted.

Researchers say that by 2060 people living in the country with the highest life expectancy will live to an average age of 100. The average lifespan globally is double that of 200 years ago. But, say researchers Jim Oeppen and Dr James Vaupel “This is far from eternity: modest annual increments in life expectancy will never lead to immortality.” (Source: BBC)

Physical immortality is yet further off in some countries. There is a gap of more than 30 years between the life expectancy of the world’s poorest and richest countries, and the gap is widening. (Source: The Independent)

But maybe help is at hand, as Steve Connor reports in an Independent article: Who Wants to Live Forever (sorry if you get that Queen song in your head all day, I know, it happened to me too.)

“A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing.

If this work could ever be translated into humans, it would mean that we might one day see people living for 800 years. But is this ever going to be a realistic possibility?”

…

“There is, of course, a huge difference between yeast cells and people, but that hasn’t stopped Longo and his colleagues suggesting that the work is directly relevant to human ageing and longevity. “We’re setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life. If we can find out how the longevity mechanism works, it can be applied to every cell in every living organism,” Longo says.

“We’re very, very far from making a person live to 800 years of age. I don’t think it’s going to be very complicated to get to 120 and remain healthy, but at a certain point I think it will be possible to get people to live to 800. I don’t think there is an upper limit to the life of any organism.” ”

Of course I believed the story of Shou Lao, and at six years old asked myself how many more years I’d choose, if that peach on the dresser was not just ceramic. I’d say my answers have changed a lot throughout life, but now I’d definitely answer: as long as possible.

That’s not just because I believe in reincarnation, and want to delay my return to embarrassing teenage haircuts as long as I can. It’s because I’ve found what I’m looking for in life, I’m happy, and I want to hold onto that as long as I can. Believing in re-incarnation means believing in immortality at the soul’s level, but along with a new birth comes a new state of amnesia, and we are challenged with finding our long-lost happiness again.

On immortality, my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy says:

“In the world of consciousness each individual is immortal. An individual identifies himself either with the soul or with the body. If he identifies himself with the body, which is far from perfection, then naturally he feels he cannot live forever. But if he identifies himself with the soul, then he knows that he is immortal. The body will die, but when it is a matter of consciousness—which every man has and which he inwardly is—man is eternal, man is immortal.”
—Sri Chinmoy: How Can Man Live Forever

He goes on to say that age can be a matter of mental perception rather than just a physical inevitability:

“If the mind is used, then you are finished. When you are ten years old, the mind will make you feel that you are as old as ninety years! Only think that at this particular stage of life you are supposed to do something. Then after ten or fifteen years you are supposed to do something else. Continuously a new game is starting, a new part you have to play. Each time you are given a new role, you have to play it well. When you become a huge tree, at that time more responsibility comes. A tree has to give so much, so much. Under the tree at first only one pilgrim can stay. Later many individuals can come and stay. Finally, the tree has to feel the responsibility of giving shade, protection and shelter to all. The higher you go, the more shelter, protection and illumination you have to give to others. In terms of human age, you may be only sixty or seventy, but in terms of divine light and divine wisdom you will become hundreds and hundreds of years old.”
—Sri Chinmoy: Sri Chinmoy Answers 21

Maybe Shou Lao’s happiness is part of his secret then, and not the peach alone. Sri Chinmoy’s life of happiness and meditation allowed him to continue transcending his own astonishing achievements in weightlifting well into his eighth decade, until his passing last year at the age of 76:

“I am trying to inspire people who are not praying and meditating. I am telling them that everybody has a vital, everybody has a mind everybody has a heart, everybody has a soul. But they are not utilising these members of their inner family the way I do. Otherwise, if I had to depend entirely on the physical, I could do next to nothing. My biceps are not even 14 inches, whereas the biceps of other weightlifters are 21 or 22 inches. My calves are not even 13 1/2 inches, and theirs are 20 inches. Their muscles are gigantic compared to mine. I can lift as much as I do because I am taking help from the strength within me.”
—Sri Chinmoy on SriChinmoy.tv

In 2003 Sri Chinmoy met Fauja Singh, the UK’s sporting legend who rediscovered running age 81, completing marathons and competing for world records well into his nineties. In 2004 Singh signed a major advertising deal with Adidas called “Impossible is Nothing”.

So forget about retirement, if you want to live long and prosper, look busy. Take Shigechiyo Izumi as another example:

“As well as holding the title of the oldest man to have lived, Izumi, from the Japanese island of Tokunoshima, holds the record for the longest career. A farmer, he worked from childhood until the age of 105, in a career that spanned 98 years. In spite of a weakness for sho-chu (a barley whisky) and taking up smoking at 70, he lived to 120. He died in 1986.”
(Source: The Independent)

I will end with a quote for my teacher Sri Chinmoy, whose outer loss from the world is still great for those who had the joy of knowing him, although his example of self-transcendence will live on:

“Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality”
—Emily Dickinson

FURTHER READING:

• Tribute to Sri Chinmoy
• The Oldest People in the World

This is a short play I wrote, based on a story by Sri Chinmoy, called The Seeker-Writer. It’s a humorous story with a spiritual lesson behind it. Hope you enjoy it!

[Enter Writer]

Narrator:
Once there was a seeker who’d developed much sincerity.
By writing books he’d also gained considerable prosperity.
His first book was a comprehensive study of zoology,
His second was a very famous tome on anthropology,
His third one was his favourite: it was autobiographical,
His fourth was his most lofty, and was largely theosophical.
Animals, humans, self and God: each subject he’d applauded.
So by the greatest in each realm he hoped to be rewarded.

Writer:
Each book that I have written, let me go and read aloud
to the best in each field. They will certainly be proud!
The first one I will offer to the king of beasts: the lion,
The second to my country’s king: the highest human scion.
The third unto the highest in myself I shall address,
The last to God: my loftiest is certain to impress!

[Exits, and re-enters a forest scene. Enter lion.]

Writer:
Lion, lion, your life-force and power all admire!
Your mane so rich, your eyes so deep and wise yet full of fire!
Your poise, your grace, your speed and all deportment so majestic!
Your paws so lithe, your teeth so bright, your pouncing so elastic!
You are noble, for you only kill when you are hungry.

[Lion roars]

Writer:
Ah! and so it’s written, only roar when you are angry!
How dare you roar at me you rude and most ungrateful beast?
I sing your praise, and what? You want to make of me a feast?

[Exeunt]

[Enter Writer and King]

Writer:
Majesty! Your royal highest height of human highness!
This fine work of prose I bring to you, despite my shyness.
In it I explore the farthest reaches of humanity,
And in you I see the heights of goodness, grace and sanity,
So to you I offer my research on human nature.
Your kindness and compassion bathe this continent in rapture!
Faith and certitude arise in everyone you meet!
Bravery and wisdom just two puppies at your feet!
Blessèd are your people since your pure and noble birth:
In you we see the representative of God on earth.

King:
Thank you.

[Exit King]

Writer:
‘Thank you’? ‘Thank you’? Well my ears must need a clean.
How could it be that one so fine and noble speaks so mean!
I offer my own heart in words, all praise and admiration.
Is ‘Thank you’ all he has to say for such appreciation?
So for nought this life is spent in wordy adoration.
What can a humble writer do, when doomed by his vocation,
but weep into the night and seek the solace of his soul.

[Enter soul]

Yes! Let me read my third book, it is sure to reach its goal!
This, my favourite work of prose is all about myself,
How can I sit and let it gather dust upon a shelf?
Soul, my soul you are the brightest, dearest of possessions,
The purest and the best in me, imparter of great lessons,
To your beauty, this my earthly body is no parallel
You are the fastest whitest horse upon my life’s carousel!

[Soul smiles]

Fifteen minutes solid, soul, I have admired and praised,
And all you do is smile? Now I really am amazed.
Of all the aspects of myself I thought you were the best,
But you are much more mean and more ungrateful than rest!

[Soul stops smiling. Exit Soul]

But wait, my finest literary work I shall reveal!
If not beast or man or soul, then God will surely feel
The meaning of my words; their depth and clarity.
If no-one else, then God will see my brilliance and rarity.

[Enter God]

God, I stand before You now in grateful, warm elation
Reflecting in amazement at Your vast and grand creation
Upon your little Finger-Tip the planets make their dance.
Your Grace is in the eye of Time, of Mystery and Chance.
Throughout the universe Your fond Compassion reigns supreme.
I am glowing with delight to play my part inside Your Dream!

God:
It is all right.

[Exit God]

Writer:
‘All right‘? ‘All right’ only? No! Alas!
My finest and most lofty work waved off like so much gas?
How could God Himself be so devoid of love and gratitude?
To think I hoped to be like him! Well I don’t like His attitude!
I hoped at least my Heavenly Father could say something nice,
But in Him instead I found a heart as hard as ice.
I found only disappointment in so-called superiors,
Let me teach them something! I’ll visit their inferiors!
The tiger stands in second place for bravery and might.
I’ll choose my words to cunningly assure him of his height.

[Exits, and re-enters a forest scene. Enter tiger.]

Tiger, tiger burning bright! Your markings are the oddest,
But in the forest hierarchy, surely you’re too modest!
With your deft skills and courage all lions you’d defeat!
Such claws! such teeth! You’d mangle any hero into meat!
Lions are just pansies, all strutting, pompous fluff!
All they really do is roar to make themselves look tough!

Tiger:
Yes. Yes! Thank you little human! Now I see!
I’m Top Cat, I’m all that, it’s all about me!

[Writer nods]

[Tiger struts around, then finds a gold ring on the ground and carries it in his mouth]

Tiger:
What’s this? Let’s see, is it something nice to eat?
Yeuch, it’s made of gold! What use is anything but meat?

[Drops the ring by the Writer, and exits]

Writer:
O! Such a fine, expensive, jewelled, golden ring!
Such gratitude the tiger has to give me such a thing!
At last someone has felt my love, my efforts were worthwhile!
So much more one ring is worth than just one measly smile!
With pride and joy abundant now I’ll carry on my quest!
One realm adores me, now I’ll seek the praises of the rest.
If the tiger loves, then let the dumb lion abhor me.
If not the king, then let his minister adore me.

[Exits, and re-enters a palace scene. Enter minister.]

Minister, do you see you are much greater than the king?
Your humility is greatness, I am not just flattering!
Your selfless life in service to your country will pay off,
Every pauper, every lord to you their cap will doff.
With your virtues, wait and see, in time you’ll take the throne;
All the riches of this realm are sure to be your own!
You do all the work, and still the king gets all the glory,
But wait and see, in time it’s sure to be a different story.

[Minister looks around, gives Writer a big bag of money, then exits.]

A thousand rupees! I was right, and here’s the proof!
The so-called highest do not know and do not care for truth.
Those below them really see the wisdom of my mind.
In spiritual height I see they leave superiors behind.

[Enter Heart]

Heart, my heart, you are so nice, to everyone so kind.
They say the soul’s the highest, strongest, deepest, most refined,
But where is that fickle rogue? You’re here for all to see.
Your love so steady offers shelter like a generous tree.
Even doctors know you, and I feel you with each breath.
When you stop, I cannot live, and follow you to death.

[Heart starts to cry]

Heart:
Never! No! Words like that come only from a fool.
Have you not learned the ABCs yet at your inner school?
How can I ever match the divine beauty of the soul?
I am simple as a child, and earthly is my role,
I am honoured all my earthly life the soul to serve,
And praise for higher virtues I never shall deserve.

[Exit heart, crying]

Writer:
In passing on my lavish praise the heart was o so hasty
And to my soul, ungrateful, undivine and o so nasty!
How my heart is melting at my own sweet heart’s humility.
The heart’s the greatest part of me, the source of all nobility.

[Exits, and re-enters a Heavenly scene with a flower. Enter a cosmic god.]

Writer:
Cosmic god, I come to offer you all my devotion;
I found that God is empty of all Fatherly emotion.
I spent my life in serving Him with each breath of mine.
‘It is all right,’ He said! How very cold and undivine!
God does nothing well! I made of Him a lovely fuss,
And did He even thank me? How can the world be thus?
‘All wrong,’ I say. My praise was lofty and immense!
I think He has grown old, and is no longer speaking sense.
Your beauty and your wisdom are remarkably superior.
You need not be suspicious that my motives are ulterior;
I see in you the future God, and offer my obeisance.
I bow to you. In you I hail divinity’s renaissance.
I place the flower at your feet which God did not deserve.
In my undying service, I shall love without reserve.

Cosmic God:
Idiot! Get out with your foul words to the Supreme!
I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when He lets off steam!
How can you appreciate the Love He has for all
With such a craven attitude and with a mind so small?
How dare you place a flower at my far inferior feet?
As wasteful and ridiculous as pearls cast in the street!

[Enter God. Cosmic god places flower at God's Feet]

Supreme, I bow to Thee, to Thee, Supreme I bow and bow.

[Exit God and Cosmic god]

Writer:
Respect is due, I say again, if not before then now!
All of my devotion for himself he could have kept,
But he gave it all to God, I swear I could have wept!
Now I know for certain that the highest are inferior,
And that the so-called greatest are in no way superior!
In so many ways I put my theory to the test
And now I think it’s time for me to take a well-earned rest.

[Lies dow to sleep. Enter Saint]

Writer:
Is it a dream? Are you a saint or do my eyes deceive me?

Saint:
A vision and a saint I am, I hoped you would receive me.
You’re a fool. Your silly theories only tricked your mind.
You tried to seek the highest, but you left the truth behind.
God sent me to you, and with some exasperation.
When the lion roared it was with joy and inspiration!
Your love brought him new courage so he spoke his mighty thunder.
It was his way of thanking you, and showing you he’d heard.
What did you think, he’d dance a jig? Or twitter like a bird?
What of the king? You think he likes verbose appreciation?
He thanked you, and you felt such vehement indignation?
He hears praise from many who are greater, more refined,
Less long-winded than you are. To thank you was most kind!
You were lucky that he let you ramble on at will.
From him a nod is praise indeed. A ‘Thank you’, greater still!
And from your soul you think a smile is such a common thing?
Did you hope to see it jump for joy or start to sing?
Your soul is God on earth, and its smile is His Divinity!
To know that you have pleased your soul is to receive Infinity!
Talking of God, there is one more thing I have to say.
‘It is all right’ means that you are right in every way!
God told you to your face your words were all perfection.
You became disgusted, but you missed His true Inflection!
For God to give such praise means all your words are ratified!
Much more than you deserved, but still you were dissatisfied!
Only a fool would choose self-pity over glory.
Your call, your life, your progress, end of story.
The highest are the highest, but those who won’t believe
Are missing out on blessings they could easily receive.
If we are earnest, pure in faith, and true unto the soul
We may let the greatest lead us to the highest Goal.

—The End—

• You can read the original story by Sri Chinmoy at SriChinmoyLibrary.com
• Other rhyming plays plays by Sumangali at SriChinmoyCentre.org:
  • Krishna’s Supreme Love
  • Music and Religion
  • Satyavama’s Perfect Husband
  • The Pilgrimage to Santiago

I’d put off visiting Scotland for over a year, even though York is inexcusably close, and even though a very kind open invitation stood since I moved north from Wales. That’s the trouble with open invitations, and things that are close: they hover just below the top of the list of things one may do, pipped to the post by others with deadlines and narrower windows of opportunity.

Through the dinge of a train window, hedges sprawled in intricate skeletal black, bothered only by crows. The sky of England sat thick and woolly, like something you’d find in an old ottoman. I entered then not just another country and culture; the hedge, the sky, the crows were identical, but carried the sense of an entirely different soul.

Arthur’s Seat, a questioning hook-nose of a mountain, reared out of flat browns and greys. A manmade mountain reached beneath: dark blocks of stone just discernible as ancient dwellings. “EDINBURGH: Inspiring Capital”, sped past on a building sign. Indeed, thought I, just then basking in its strange and powerful beauty. The train seemed to pull in to a work of fiction.

I gaped a good while in admiration at a church, the shape a child would draw for a space ship—aimed for Heaven rather than the Moon, presumably—black as a crow, in curled stone, seemingly too delicate to stand for long, yet as old as if it had grown up there as a brother to Arthur’s Seat.

I arrived, upon a short walk, at the “Old Town”. There, my Scottish friend told me, they built so many layers on top of each other because the surrounding land was swamp. It looks just so, as if they needed to be strong enough to hold fast to each other over centuries, lest they fall in, each wall a fortress of blank dark grey and turrets, up and up and up. Here and there tall alleys, or “closes” form chinks in the Royal Mile; chinks of strange blackness rather than light, climbing beguiling pathways, each with a curious historical tale. Despite the cold air, darkening sky, blackened churches, grey terraces, and obscure alleys, there is nothing of the bleak or eery about the city. Contrarily, its strength lends an inner warmth; a motherly sense of safety and familiarity.

A reformed coffee addict, I struggle a good deal this time of year when Starbucks roll out their Gingerbread Latte. I don’t care who knows it: call me shallow, call me a marketing sheep, my heart glows at the sight of that round green logo, and I look longingly in, or go in just to drink tea. I know I could do that anywhere—anywhere in the world—but strangely, a high stool by a Starbucks window is one of my favourite places for sightseeing. There in a street of kilt tailors, haggis mongers and cashmere shawls, I could fully absorb the details and subtleties of my new environment.

I had an appointment with two friends and colleagues to talk over some business before an evening meditation at the Sri Chinmoy Centre. “Meet us by Greyfriar’s Bobby.” they said, “If you get lost, anyone can tell you where he is.” I didn’t get lost, so there we stood: me and a bronze statue of a Skye terrier, on the corner of Candlemaker Row. I had to stand a little way off in fact, as he is quite the bigshot and often has his photograph taken. “Let’s go to Starbucks,” said my friends when they arrived, “it’s just around the corner.” I smiled, and once again narrowly triumphed over the guile of ginger coffee.

I was invited to help make a mandala, part of a double birthday celebration at the Meditation Centre that night. I was in my own Heaven with such simple yet detailed occupation, thrilling at the shades of colour the rice turns when dyed and drained, coaxing it into fine shapes on a printed template. I was amazed and touched by the splendour my friends created between them, under the auspices of “birthday cakes,” more a matching pair of edible temples. They told me of past visual extravaganzas for other birthdays, effusions of heartfelt creativity and childlike joy.

Birthdays are always given a lot of significance in the Sri Chinmoy Centre; Sri Chinmoy says that on a birthday, the soul remembers and renews its promise to God; the promise it made in Heaven for this lifetime. It is therefore a day of soulful meditation, of gratitude, and of divine happiness.

“Each birthday is a petal of a flower. The flower, petal by petal, blossoms and then it is ready to be placed at the inner shrine in the aspiring heart.”
—Sri Chinmoy, Reality-Dream

I love to visit different Sri Chinmoy Centres around the world, as there is always something new and inspiring to be enjoyed in each place, even though we all share the same spiritual path.

As we came back out into the cold, the famous terrier caught my eye again. I asked my host why this little dog was honoured so in bronze. She enthused a long while and promised to lend me a book when we got home.

I unwrapped the bundle of flowers I’d brought for her, and her housemate passed me a random vase to put them in. “I know this vase.” I thought, then checked myself, certain I must be confused. “No, I know this vase.” The pink ribbon around its neck was faded almost to white, but I knew the shape of it in my hand.

2003 was the last time I’d been in Edinburgh—Sri Chinmoy happened to be there on my birthday. I’d dragged a dear long-suffering friend around all the flower shops in the city for the whole day to find the “right” vase of flowers to give to my Guru. Finally I found a plump handful of freesias and gerberas in shades of light pink, and a simple bulb vase. It did not look special to anyone else, but to me it was potentially perfect. In a hotel lobby I proceeded to take at least half of the stems away—the imperfect and overly fussy—to leave a very zen clutch of sprigs. I trimmed them further and moved them about for another half hour, defying anyone who came within a metre of my craft, and bearing the brunt of a little friendly teasing. It was not so much the result I sought, but more the route: the intensity of a working meditation, the striving for Heavenly perfection through a limited earthly medium.

In the evening Sri Chinmoy called for me, meditated with me for a few moments, then passed me a gerbera from the vase. It was more profound and significant than I can express. All that came tumbling back as I placed flowers in the same vase at my friend’s apartment, now four years later, this time white tulips and freesias.

It seemed much longer than twenty-four hours later that I stepped back on the train; I suppose I had gained much more than twenty-four hours’ worth of happiness and inspiration. I opened the little paperback with a Skye terrier peering from the cover, fiesty yet wistful.

Bobby belonged to a lowly shepherd named John Gray. Such was the dog’s devotion, he lay on his master’s grave in Greyfriar’s Churchyard from the day the shepherd died in 1858. For fourteen years, until his own death, Bobby guarded his master, leaving only once a day to eat. Gaining the status of “stray” rather than “saint”, or even “orphan,” merely due to his species, Bobby faced extermination by the authorities, or at least expulsion from his post: dogs were not allowed in graveyards, and dogs were not allowed to live at all without a license. His devotion won the hearts of the local children, who saved up their pennies in a big bag to buy a license between them. His exceptional manners earned him access to the grave, further defying human regulations.

The tale itself is no doubt greatly romanticised by its author, Eleanor Atkinson, but any historical inaccuracy is surely only in the finer details; the devotion and loyalty of dogs has the power to melt the hearts of our much more sophisticated species. Are we really so evolved? Perhaps, but perhaps we still have much to learn from our little canine brothers.

“Very, very early a dog learns that life is not as simple a matter to his master as it is to himself. There are times when he reads trouble, that he cannot help or understand, in the man’s eye and voice. Then he can only look his love and loyalty, wistfully, as if he felt his own shortcoming in the matter of speech. And if the trouble is so great that the master forgets to eat his dinner; forgets, also, the needs of his faithful little friend, it is the dog’s dear privilege to bear neglect and hunger without complaint. Therefore, when Auld Jock lay down again and sank, almost at once, into sodden sleep, Bobby snuggled in the hollow of his master’s arm and nuzzled his nose in his master’s neck.”
—Eleanor Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby

More on a love of dogs at Sri Chinmoy Centre:
Inspirational Dogs, by Sumangali
Puppy Powers, by Sumangali
Return To Puppy Powers, by John Gillespie
Puppy Powers Revisited, by Jogyata Dallas
Savernake, a poem by Sumangali
The Guide Dog and Her Man, a poem by Sumangali

Is there such a thing as a junkophobe? That’s me. I buy the same thing over and over because I keep throwing useful stuff away; I’m ruthless to the point of impracticality. I can’t tolerate anything old, broken, unlovely, unclean, or out of place.

Then what is this old Cheese Doodles packet doing here? Cheap crinkly empty bag, garish primary print, “Made with real cheese” blaring from the top, like that would make it ok. It’s taped into a big silver book of handmade paper, Indian beads hand stitched onto the front. It sits beside seven others, now amongst my most precious possessions: one of raw silk in a rainbow weave and coloured pages, one embroidered with satin ribbons, one with my name across the face of a dog, and a felt-tip drawing of a bird.

Words are scrawled inside: rough shapes of words, the pen hurried or tired, the phrases hackneyed and dull, but this content has held me stunned over the last two days; compelling as an elysian dream remembered at daybreak.

These, my journals of the last ten years, have stayed mostly unopened. I wrote them for a future self I thought I would not meet for many years to come, never imagining my Master would leave his earthly frame for Heaven so soon.

I knew such apparent debris would turn to treasure then. The spent packets of blessed food from Sri Chinmoy’s hand are now a link to another world which used to be my own; a world of outer instruction, more subtle, more powerful, more inwardly refined than I can even comprehend, let alone fit into the bounds of words. The Path of The Heart; The Silent Teaching; the sacred life of meditation; the unviolable bond between Guru and disciple.

Mostly these packets, photos, notes, bulging out of pages, are triggers to more abundant memories than those recorded. A concert ticket took me to the first time I saw Sri Chinmoy in person, Heathrow Airport 1997. In a bustle of artificial light and noise and movement, waiting for his arrival, I entered into one of the most profound meditations of my life. He passed by, looked into me with such surety and pure affection, I knew my life had found its home. Here at last was a teacher who could take me to God; a journey I knew I needed more than my own breath. His was the most familiar face I had ever seen, recognition flooded with sanctuary. Tears of relief followed me for twelve continuous hours.

* * *

Today I met with four others to meditate, the thirtieth day after Sri Chinmoy’s Mahasamadhi, an official end of mourning. One of our little band was raised a Hindu, as was Sri Chinmoy, and told us that in India, family members take lotuses on such a day, to set them adrift in the Ganges with a prayer. Perhaps we could do the same as a symbolic mark of gratitude and respect.

We took golden roses with only stubs of stems to help them float. We walked a long way down the river Ouse, slipping on the cobbles in the damp of autumn, checking at intervals with each other if “this” could be the “right place.” Two lads, three girls, and one sleek white dog named Pearl, seemingly out for a weekend stroll.

Who would have thought such profundity would come to pass on a rotting jetty by a rowing club somewhere in North Yorkshire. In the space of moments, so many impulses rose up in me that I have not dared to feel these past days. It seemed we grew up all of a sudden. Orphaned, we had only each other then, with whom to carry the legacy of a sacred life into an unknown future, to offer to others what we have had the unimaginable boon of receiving.

I set the small bundle of softness on the wide mass of water and watched it bob away. It seemed to have its own light, glowing with a joy and purity I thought only Heaven could conceive, smiling and shining at the onset of an unknown journey; a warm light above the dark and changeable—on it, in it, yet apart from it. I touched my fingers in the water, then to my head and heart, making some unspoken promise to this beautiful city where I was raised: a sudden totality of love and oneness.

We parted, all but wordlessly, and I went home. I smiled to the homeless man selling magazines and gave him a pound—I will not give to beggars, but he works hard, all in joy and fun, to make others smile. I saw myself in part in him. I smiled to the youth absorbed in a greasy paper of chips and scraps. I smiled to the aged lady struggling in pain and fear from the harbour of her own front door: I saw myself in part in her, and felt only love. I smiled to the big girls in skinny jeans, cursing and shouting (in fun, or in fear of not being heard?); the lady in shades on an overcast day; the pub landlord at his back door in a dressing gown, ruddy from the night’s excess; the sulking seven-year-old whingeing to her Dad for something vitally important.

Today I saw myself in part in them all. Or was it God?

“Thou art one Truth, one Life, one Face.
Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme!
I bow to Thee, I bow.”

—Sri Chinmoy
from Invocation

Image: Pranlobha Kalagian

Alleluia: Qui timent Dominum
“He healeth those that are broken in heart: and bindeth up their wounds.”

This line shines from the page handed to me at the entrance of King’s College Chapel, part of a sung mass I am about to hear.

I have been here once before, many years ago, in the company of my Spiritual Master, Sri Chinmoy. He had come to pay homage to his own Guru, Sri Aurobindo, once a student at Cambridge University. I sat in these very pews and heard a similar mass. So much has changed in me since then, but the chapel stands quite the same: a vote of integrity in a changing world.

Almost everything reminds me of Sri Chinmoy, more now than when he was alive. The earthly loss of him, less than a month ago, is still raw in this fragile human heart. One thought is still enough to prick my eyes with tears. But just as the reminders of him come swift and hard from unexpected sources, so does solace to counter each blow. I am in Cambridge to meet with other students of Sri Chinmoy—about a hundred from Britain, Ireland and France. There is no sweeter solace than the family feeling amongst those I love.

King’s College Choir is considered one of the finest in the world, and I am especially fond of religious music. “We pray that you will sense something of the presence of God…” says the printed welcome. I pray the same, and that prayer is soon answered.

The ceiling is all half fans of stone, delicately crimped, sweeping to meet each other along the nave. It is as well to be indoors on a sunny day, if “indoors” has such a body of stained glass. The robes of saints glow as magnified rubies, sweet strong faces, soft leather shoes, strange serpents, rocks of orange gold, all the tales I do not know, as I was not raised a Christian. It is enough to gaze up to them and see the devotion that made them reflected onto me.

The Dante Quartet arrives accompanied by all its stately poise, then the choir in red and wide pleated white, some so tiny, barely old enough to leave their mothers’ sight. Schubert’s Mass in G could not have found a more subtle and receptive home, warm pure notes climbing the golden-white stone.

One—is he even ten years old?—commands a solo so brilliant, so strong, each note exquisitely tuned and executed, such as any cherub would envy. I study his features for the source of it, but find only a tiny boy, soft face bespectacled under a wide brown side-parting, standing quite firmly on the earth in sensible black shoes. Baffling.

The Bishop of Winchester treats us to a sermon on “Continual Godliness”: to maintain a general goodness in our own lives. Rather than thinking it the sole property of our elders and mentors, seeing it as something real and achievable. A most encouraging reminder.

Amazed, I remember the tune to one of the hymns. I disliked hymns at school, simply because they came at a very difficult time of life. Rather than giving me strength they always pulled me into melancholy—the jollier the worse somehow. But perhaps I am grown out of that phase: I hear only the jubilant praise of one God, my God, as we sing into a listening cavern of coloured glass.

Out in the autumn chill, we seem suddenly caught in an old movie; these views are such a dear part of England, and a dear part of my own memory. I breathe in their dignity and nobility, hoping to carry them home as inner souvenirs, so much more real and valuable than postcards.

The trees are in that state of perfection which only lasts two or three weeks. Red flames litter the roads, and yellow half-fans, delicately crimped. My walking companion tells me these particular yellow leaves were just so in the days of dinosaurs. I feel a sudden solace in that fact, and their mirroring the shapes of stone I had seen earlier; a hint at God’s Constancy perhaps.

We drink some tea and eat together, then watch a slide-show of Sri Chinmoy. To see him in health brings him so alive. To see his smile brings me tears: tears of thanks to God that I could spend these years absorbing all I could of his wisdom and joy.

Riding home I let my thoughts spin out from a melting sun as it disappears into a pine forest. Memories become a potent balm, softening the recent sense if loss. The heat of grief dissolves like the sun.