by Devabala Malits
Györ, Hungary
Some people are already like saints or angels when they come to our path, adopting Guru’s requirements very easily and swiftly; they are fully ready for the spiritual life. Others are not. You can decide which category I fit in.
Before I went to my first meditation lecture, given by an Austrian disciple, I had never even heard the word 'meditation.' But being a college student with a limited budget, the word 'free' pulled me with irresistible power to any cultural event in the city. Everything went well – the lecture and the classes – and soon I was able to report to my friends on the really high and sublime experiences that I was experiencing during my deep meditations. Of course, every word was a lie, but it served my purpose, polishing up my image as 'a nice guy who is a little different from others.' During the last class, the teacher started to speak about God, a field among many others in which I unfortunately considered myself a real expert. Plus, the opportunity to send a photo to Sri Chinmoy to apply to be his student scared me totally. This was Guru’s and my soul’s first attempt.
What followed for the next two years was a typical Hungarian college life in the 1990's, with a lot of fun, wild parties, drinking, not studying, and so on. The only thing unusual was my 'casino life.' I had a winning roulette strategy, which was boring and required a lot of discipline, but it supplied me for years with far more than enough money. I didn’t need a free meditation class anymore.
At one point, I saw the same poster on the same spot as two years earlier, and I remembered the most beautiful music that I had ever heard. This music had been played during the first lecture. Luckily, I considered myself to be a music expert, too. So I went to the class just to buy an audio tape of the music group Akasha. That was the only thing that I needed from those God-explaining people.
My plan – just to go to the class for the tape – didn’t work out. I started to take the same classes again, having the same fake incredible inner experiences. Shortly after that, I started to attend the nice meditation centre in the city of Györ. I went regularly, every week, without becoming Guru’s disciple, because of my reluctance to give my picture for the application.
The next important event was Guru’s concert in Bratislava, Slovakia, where I – as a self-appointed music expert – was not impressed. As an expert in spirituality and God, I had no feelings at all. I didn’t stay for the function following the concert. To show off to my disciple-friends, I decided to run during the night to the Hungarian border, with the intention of taking the first train the next morning to my city. On the map it looked like a short distance. On a small map...
Luckily, after a few hours of roaming, someone picked me up on the highway and drove me for the remaining 20+ miles. I spent the night at the border village train station. My normal state of consciousness, even at that time, was to feel good and be happy; but that night, in that train station, I felt more miserable than ever before or since. Not sleeping, but still having nightmares, I experienced a feeling of being torn apart by unseen forces – a kind of serious fight in me, for me, over me. Afterwards, I was totally exhausted.
After this experience, I decided to give up my „spiritual“ life entirely. But my determination to not visit our meditation centre lasted only for a month or so. After a few weeks of being back in the Centre, my position as non-disciple in the meditation centre had become inwardly intolerable, so finally I had to give my picture. I took my acceptance as Guru’s disciple for granted – something well-deserved – not really knowing what the whole thing meant. After it happened, I went on living my 'spiritual life', which had the components of not meditating at home at all, leading the same old exciting, undivine life, but going regularly to a meditation centre, packed with disciples who were endlessly patient towards me. God bless them all.
But quite soon, a great turning point came in the form of a fellow whose nose was totally flat as a result of a motorcycle accident. One day, right after meditation at our Centre, I went, as usual, to a rock concert with my non-disciple-friends. During the concert, for some reason, I started to wrestle with this flat-nosed guy on the ground, in the dust. My friends grabbed him, and my job was to flatten his nose to an even greater extent. But right then, when I raised my fist, very strong feelings of Guru’s presence, of being in the Centre, meditating, singing came to me. I didn’t quite understand what I was doing there, fighting with someone, just one hour after meditation at the Centre.
So, I just walked home, knowing perfectly well that at that Hollywood movie scene, I had irreversibly chosen the life for which I had come into this world.
The next morning at 6 a.m., the journey started.
