The highest Supreme, in a small form

Gunthita describes her first time visiting Sri Chinmoy in New York.

Next morning, Guru played tennis, but not at Aspiration-Ground. It was where we have our 47-mile race. The disciples were sitting around and watching. I saw how small Guru was and how he was playing tennis with his feet on the ground.

I started feeling down. I thought, “How can this be?” Because I had felt in my heart that he was so tall and that his feet were not on earth.

The disciples were sitting around and meditating, but I didn't realise that they were meditating. They didn't fold their hands. They were just sitting there and watching Guru. I thought, “How can these disciples be so lazy and just sit here while Guru is doing sports?” So I started running on the track, the 400-metre track. I wanted to show my aspiration. All by myself, I ran around and around.

I didn't realise that meditation is just to be with Guru, no matter what he is doing. Meditation is not just sitting with folded hands in front of Guru's Transcendental picture. Guru is our meditation.

Guru was playing tennis outwardly, but inwardly he helped me so much when I was running. I was praying to the Transcendental, "Help me, help me!" I was full of doubts. I had wanted so much to see Guru. Then when I saw him, he looked so small.

But inwardly I felt this big, big thing coming from Guru in his small body. I suddenly got the message: The highest Supreme has taken this small form to speak with us, to be with us, to be closer to us, his children. It is still that same vast big reality that I felt before seeing him.

The human Guru is only an instrument of the Supreme. I always say that I am not the Guru: the real Guru, the only Guru, the supreme Guru is the Supreme Himself. I am a representative of the Supreme for those who call themselves my disciples.

....When I tell my disciples to meditate on my transcendental picture, I take full responsibility for what I say. That is to say, the Supreme is in that picture. But the physical body that you are seeing, you may judge or suspect. You see that I am five feet eight inches tall and so many other things you see in my physical being. But inside the physical is the real spiritual existence, where my total oneness, conscious oneness, complete oneness with the Supreme operates. 

...But if anybody here has ever gone really deep within and entered into me or entered into the Supreme, then he sees that in my deepest consciousness I am totally one with the Supreme. There can be no difference.

Sri Chinmoy 1

Then there was prasad. This was my first prasad from Guru. It was a melon, a big melon! It was so special. I never again felt such a blessing.

When I held this melon in my hand, I said to myself, "Oh my God, this is from God! How can I eat it?" I was just crying. Every time I tried to bite into the melon, I would start crying again. So I went back behind where nobody could see me crying and trying to eat this melon.

The Infinite has embraced the finite

The Infinite has cheerfully embraced  
The finite  
So that mortals can successfully grow into  
The Immortal.  

Sri Chinmoy 2

• 1. Sri Chinmoy, The meditation-world, Agni Press, 1977
• 2. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 53, Agni Press, 1983