Stories by Sri Chinmoy
at Nexus Resort Karambunai
Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia
My sister Ahana’s original name was Madhuri. In the Ashram life it changed. Ahana got very high marks in school. She was the best student. At one point the school wanted Ahana to go to a higher grade, two levels higher, but she did not want a double promotion. Then my sister Lily agreed to study together with her in the same class.
My father did something special in the village. Girls usually did not study. People felt that girls did not need to study. For the young village girls my father opened up a school. He bought the books and he prepared all the facilities. The girls came and studied at our place. Then my sister Lily gave up school and started teaching the girls.
My mother’s brother did not have any children. He was sad, and his wife was very sad. My mother said to them about Ahana, “This girl is brilliant. You can take her.” They were very happy to take Ahana to live with them.
This couple lived in the town, and we lived in the village. Ahana went to the town, and she very nicely got her high school degree. Then she went to college. She was doing very, very well. Alas, that was the time when our father was summoned by God. She wanted to continue her studies. Then our mother became very, very sick. By this time Lily and Arpita, the two older sisters, were already in the Ashram, so Ahana was the only girl in the family. She had to give up her studies to take care of our mother.
Ahana was my first music teacher. When I was four or five years old, she was the one who taught me songs. Still I remember how affectionate she was. She was the one whom I tried to fool when I was five years old, and I did not succeed! One evening I was very angry and I would not eat. I pretended that I was fast asleep. Ahana said, “Really great singers can sing in their sleep. If you are a great singer, then you will be able to sing in your sleep.”
Alas, I started singing! Then she grabbed me and put me on her shoulder, and brought me to the kitchen to eat. How I was fooled! I think many children would do the same thing at that age to prove that they are great singers.
We talk about the psychic being, the representative of the soul. The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram said that Ahana had the most beautiful psychic being.
Ahana went to God at the age of twenty-four. In our family she had the shortest life. She was the most beautiful and the most talented among the girls. She wrote very nice poems. Her poem Jago paran I set to music. Kindly sing it now.
[The disciples sing Jago paran.]
Now kindly sing my sister Lily’s song, Kabe amar.
[Sri Chinmoy leads the disciples in singing Kabe amar.]
Now I am requesting you to sing Man chale jai.
[The disciples sing Man chale jai, Sri Chinmoy’s song composed to the poem written by his brother Chitta.]
Now kindly sing Hriday’s song. That song I have sung thousands and millions of times!
[The disciples sing Tumi je hao se hao, the song Sri Chinmoy composed to the poem written by his brother Hriday.]
Sri Aurobindo wrote my name in a book when I became a permanent member of the Ashram. It was about Sri Aurobindo’s experiences during his prison-life. There he had the vision of Lord Krishna. Sri Krishna was guiding him. That particular book Sri Aurobindo signed for me. It was a Bengali book.
Sri Aurobindo wrote two books in Bengali. The one about his prison-life is Karakahini, and the other is Jagannather Rath, ‘The Chariot of the World-Lord’. He wrote two stories in Bengali. One is Kshamar Adarsha, ‘The Ideal of Forgiveness’. I put that story into Bengali verse with rhyme when I was fifteen, sixteen or seventeen. Then, after many, many years, I translated it into English. It would be in my book The Infinite: Sri Aurobindo that was printed by the Ashram. At Sri Aurobindo’s centenary time also it came out.
The Bengali version of that poem was read out to Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo appreciated it. He had two assistants. While one assistant was reading out the poem to Sri Aurobindo, the other assistant was coming out of the building. I was the volleyball captain, and I saw the assistant on my way to the volleyball ground. The assistant said, “Lord is now listening to your poem.” Then Sri Aurobindo gave a nice comment.
The other story also I rendered into verse: Swapna, ‘Dream’. At that time Sri Aurobindo was not in the physical.
Flame-Waves; The Infinite: Sri Aurobindo; The Mother of the Golden All; Chandelier — I wrote these books when I was in India and they were all printed by the Ashram.
Sri Aurobindo used to affectionately call my eldest brother “philosopher,” because he studied the Vedas, the Upanishads and all the scriptures. He was a real philosopher! Very often he received blessings and affection from Sri Aurobindo. When he had a headache, Sri Aurobindo used to enquire how he was doing.
There is a funny story that I have told many times, but no matter how many times I tell it, there will be people who have not heard it!
In the Ashram there was a particular singer. My brother and that singer were good friends. My brother developed a desire to learn how to sing, but he had to take permission from the Master, Sri Aurobindo. When my brother asked for permission, Sri Aurobindo wrote to my brother, “Music? It is all vital, vital. It has nothing to do with spirituality. Music is all vital.” My brother was so happy that he did not have to learn singing!
To the singer, who was going to be my brother’s teacher, Sri Aurobindo said, “He will not be able to carry one note correctly. He is useless. Do not waste your time.”
To the teacher Sri Aurobindo said one thing, and to my brother he said something else. Since the two were friends, they were exchanging their notes. My brother said, “You see, music is vital. I am not going to enter into the vital world.” And the teacher said to my brother, “You are a useless singer! Sri Aurobindo has said it.”
Like that, there were many, many affectionate letters from Sri Aurobindo. So many of the ashramites’ letters I had to read because I was the secretary of Nolini. Sri Aurobindo acted like their grandfather, not like their father. When complaints came, to one party Sri Aurobindo would say, “This person is so bad. It is beneath your dignity even to speak to him.” Then the other party got a similar letter. At times they showed each other their letters. How many letters I read! To both parties Sri Aurobindo wrote in the same way, like a grandfather.
I also do that sometimes. I have the same habit. When one individual criticises another, I may agree with the first one. Then the other individual gets the same message from me. In that way, both parties get joy. I do not know whether my disciples go and tell each other what they have heard from me. In Sri Aurobindo’s case, his messages were all in writing, so they preserved those letters. When two individuals quarreled, they could exchange their letters. One person would say, “You see, it is in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwriting. You can show me your letter, and I can show you my letter.” In my case there is no proof, but in Sri Aurobindo’s case there was proof in writing.
Such affection, such concern Sri Aurobindo had for his disciples!
India’s greatest dancer, absolutely the topmost dancer, was Uday Shankar. He was the number one dancer — nobody could come near him. He was the brother of the great maestro Ravi Shankar. I saw Uday Shankar once at the Indian Consulate when I was working there. He came to our Visa Section. He was very tall and majestic.
Uday Shankar wanted to come to the Ashram and dance for Sri Aurobindo, but Sri Aurobindo did not want to watch dancing. In Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting appear the words, “The Divine does not want a dancer.” Life changes! Today I do not want something, but tomorrow that very thing I may want. In my case, for instance, I disliked weightlifting from the bottom of my heart. As soon as I heard or saw anything about bodybuilders or weightlifters, I said to myself, “They are brainless!” That was my opinion of bodybuilders and weightlifters. In my Ashram life, on two occasions I took exercise with twenty pounds in a big gymnasium. Those two days I can recall, because I did not want to ruin my sprinting with weightlifting, and again, I felt that weightlifters were brainless. That was the opinion I cherished. Then, how things changed in my life!
We do not know at what point we are going to do something in life. In the Sri Aurobindo Ashram also it was the same. In those days in our Ashram life, dancing was forbidden. Then it was permitted. Uday Shankar’s wife’s name was Amala. She opened up a school in the Himalayas. One of the Ashram girls was sent there by the Mother to learn how to dance. She went, she learned, and then she came back and taught not only the Ashram girls, but the boys also. Some of the Ashram boys knew how to dance very well.
When I was living on 76th Street, near the Museum of Natural History, a few poems I wrote while lying down. Then I set them to music — all in the dark. A German lady was the owner of the house. She was so miserly! There was practically no light. Outside, in the front of the house, there was a light. Inside she turned off all the lights. She was so bad! She said, “After eleven o’clock or eleven-thirty you are not allowed to use light.” A little light came into my room from outside, and I had to write with that light. What could I do?
Three special English songs I composed in the early days: ‘I am a Thief’, ‘I am a Fool’ and ‘I am an Idiot’. Now kindly sing “I am a Thief.”
[The singers sing the song.]
In the name of soulfulness, do not sacrifice the power-aspect. I still remember how powerfully I sang that song when I recorded it. How full of life it was! Sing with life, dear ones!
Now kindly sing “I am a Fool” and “I am an Idiot.”
[The singers sing the songs.]
Marvellous!
When we remain entirely in the heart, we can accomplish everything. When the brain does not interfere, we can accomplish so much! When it interferes, we can accomplish nothing. Rely only on the brain, and accomplish nothing. If you do not allow the brain to interfere, you are brave. If you rely only on the brain, you are limited.
When we rely on the brain, the brain binds us. When we do not rely on the brain, there is nothing to bind us.
Published in The Path of my Inner Pilot
Life changes! Today I say one thing, and tomorrow I can say diametrically the opposite. I have proved it in weightlifting. Four thousand or five thousand people I have lifted, and I have also lifted heavy, heavy weights. The videos prove that I have lifted heavy weights. And how much I disliked weightlifting, God alone knows!
Never hate anything. Never hate anybody. If you hate someone, then all his bad qualities will enter into you. The best thing is only to see the good qualities in human beings. The bad qualities if you see today, tomorrow they will come into you secretly. Then they will devour you.
Again I wish to say, never, never speak ill of others. Alas, we human beings speak ill of others, and then we suffer.
Is there an antidote to jealousy-snakebite? Yes, there is an antidote, and you can be saved if you use it in time. If you do not apply it immediately, the antidote cannot save you. If you have a snakebite, very quickly you have to take treatment. If you wait for a few hours, it will be a hopeless case! You will not survive. The poison will destroy your system.
The answer is to establish oneness, oneness, oneness. If the affected party had established oneness, there would have been no problem. But jealousy started. What can you do when the problem has been going on for some time?
If you are very conscious, you will see that even the fingers are jealous of each other, the eyes are jealous of each other. If one eye has better vision, the other one becomes jealous. They do not want to work together, but they are forced to work together. If you concentrate on your little finger, your thumb and all the other fingers, you will see that there is subtle jealousy in your own fingers. They are like a family. The sisters and brothers live together, but one is jealous of the other. This is life.
Oneness, oneness, oneness!
Published in Our Sweetest Oneness
This morning, we have prayed and meditated for so many hours. Now go and do something on your own! You have pleased me in my own way. Now I wish you to please yourself in your own way. You can walk, you can swim, you can shop, you can learn songs. Or you can pray to the Goddess Saraswati.
[Sri Chinmoy chants in Sanskrit.]
Like this, I chanted millions of times in my youth to sharpen my memory, my retentive faculty. Then I was able to memorise page after page of history and other subjects. Many times in Pondicherry I showed this capacity to my sisters and my cousin. They would choose a poem of ten or twelve lines. After reading it once, I would recite it in front of them loudly, twice or thrice.
Question: Should we also try chanting this mantra?
Sri Chinmoy: You will not be able to pronounce the Sanskrit words and you will not know their meaning. If you know the meaning of the Sanskrit words very well, then only will you get the benefit. Otherwise, you will be repeating them like a parrot. When you use mantras, you have to immediately understand the essence and quintessence of the words.
Another invocation to Saraswati I learnt from our servant. When I was nine or ten years old, he taught me. That one was easier, but I preferred the other one.
One day I was meditating downstairs in the main Ashram hall. That was called the Meditation Hall. There was pin-drop silence. It was ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. The Mother would be coming shortly. We were all meditating, about forty or fifty people. It was half an hour at least before the Mother would come in and I was in a very high meditation. I saw the Goddess Saraswati descending with her vina. While descending, she was playing and playing and playing so hauntingly. Then she came and stood in front of me and broke her vina into millions of pieces — millions, I saw them! — and put them all inside me. First she played. Then she broke her vina into pieces and put them into me, into my heart, and she disappeared.
At that time, I was not reciting this mantra — far from it! I was doing a different kind of meditation, totally different. I was not even invoking Saraswati at that time. No, no, I was not thinking of her; I was not praying to her. The Cosmic Gods and Goddesses are not bound by our earthly time, so she descended. How will I forget that experience? Never! From the highest realm, Mother Saraswati came, playing her vina, and then she broke it into pieces. All the pieces she poured into me. Then she disappeared. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the Ashram Mother came down. In life, if you have a very high experience, never forget it, never forget.
Sri Aurobindo wrote about Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati and Mahamaheshwari in his book _The Mother_. He wrote it in prose. I made his book into poetry and it came out in the Ashram magazine, _Mother India_. The Mother of the Ashram was in the physical at that time. Such freedom they gave me! It is at least sixty or seventy pages. My disciples can read it, if it is still available.
In my Ashram life, I was blooming, blooming as a writer. In my American life, my writing has blossomed. Unfortunately, some people who deeply appreciated my writing in the Ashram later criticised me. They said I was writing “newspaper English.” Again, when I received sincere appreciation from a few university professors and when the critics read these comments, these same critics changed their opinion. They said, “We knew all along he was a writer.” From a writer of newspaper English I became an excellent writer again! This is how appreciation goes.
Just three weeks before Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize, one particular poem of his came out in a magazine. Alas, this poem was criticised so mercilessly. Then, when the news came about the Nobel Prize, the same critic absolutely extolled Tagore to the skies for that particular poem. This story is famous. Only three weeks prior to his Nobel Prize, how ruthlessly Tagore was criticised for his poem! Then, in three weeks, the story changed. The same writer found such significance in the poem. Life is like that.
Published in I Wanted to be a Seeker of the Infinite
