Category: Memoirs

It was part way through a bowl of shahi paneer at a local restaurant that I remembered Mr Ramesh. There was something about the chef that brought my old tutor back to me from a half-buried past.

I’ve always found the scent of freshly sawn timber intoxicating. There’s nothing like the grain of wood as it’s revealed in the cutting, shaving or sanding – a private journal of all its years and seasons.

York is a wizened little city, halfway from London to Edinburgh. Tourists come by their busload between the two, alighting for a day here, taking high tea, snapping group portraits against medieval backdrops.

This story was first published in Inspiration-Letters #25, an online magazine of articles, written by members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre around the world. The theme for this edition is “Living in the Now”.

I was pondering the subject of humility this morning, and came across a passage by Sri Chinmoy, where he makes a clear distinction between humility and unworthiness. I realised there are so many different interpretations of the quality. What is the true meaning?

I did not have a religious or overtly spiritual upbringing, and I am grateful to my family for not forcing any beliefs on me, but it seems quite funny now looking back on my first childly interpretations of religion, not really having a clue what any of it meant inwardly.

I was eighteen months old when advertisements came out for a major exhibition in London. The image on the station wall beguiled me: a gigantic burial mask, two wide eyes in frames of kohl, a gentle smile of gold and a collar of precious stones.

Dogs were my first obsession, and from the time I could talk, I repeated an ardent desire to have one of my own. In the innocence of youth, my parents decided to grant my wish just before my brother was born. They soon discovered it was not their greatest plan.

I am often reminded of a parable related by Ramakrishna to his disciples over a hundred years ago – a striking analogy of spiritual learning.

Valentine’s Day. What does it mean? The word ‘love’ itself seems to have so many connotations nowadays. By chance, February fourteenth is the day I became a student of Sri Chinmoy, so it has had a very different meaning for me these past 15 years, compared to all the ones it used to have.