Rudolf Moge was a member of Parliament representing the Slovenian city of Maribor, and a dear friend of Sri Chinmoy.

Maribor will always remember Sri Chinmoy with gratitude, as he was the only one who turned religion in the direction of bringing peace and progress to humanity at large. You could say that he is a modern Buddha, a modern Christ, a modern Muhammad.

The biggest message in his book Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy, which I call the Bible for this Millennium, is that if you want to get to the basic insights, to the truth or, as some say, to enlightenment, then you have several paths that lead to that goal. And there’s nothing wrong with going this way, that way, or any other way. The only thing that matters is our aspiration and the direction towards the goal.

I was working in a very fancy hotel in a jewelry store and I heard from some boys that Guru wanted to meet Muhammad Ali.

At the time, I literally hated Muhammad Ali; I found him to be vulgar, boisterous, arrogant, and I had no interest in the man at all, no interest. But one day when I was at work, I found out that Muhammad Ali was coming to Puerto Rico and that he was going to be staying at that hotel. I thought, “Oh, God, this is my job to break the news to Guru.”

He comes into the big lobby of the hotel. I am walking up and down the lobby thinking, “How am I going to approach this guy who I can't stand? I have nothing to tell him, and there is a huge wall of security.”  I'm literally walking up and down, looking at the floor, just trying to figure out how am I going to do this. Suddenly, I smack into a wall. When I look up, it isn't a wall, it’s Muhammad Ali.

I just smash right into him. I look up, and he is this big, big guy. I look up and I say to him, “I need to talk to you, I need to talk to you. I'm not a fan and I don't like boxing. I don’t even like you, but I need to talk to you.”

By way of background, in 1893 the Parliament of the World’s Religions met in Chicago as part of the World Exposition being held there. Of course, this was when the great Swami Vivekananda first became known to America. (Guru has written and spoken much on Swami Vivekananda. My sense is that they are like inner “brothers”.)

In 1993, one hundred years later, a second Parliament of the World’s Religions was being convened in Chicago. Guru was invited to open that event with seven minutes of meditation. I think that Guru himself considered this to be one of his most auspicious manifestations. And of course, there was talk of Vivekananda all that year.

This happened in 1998. We had just arrived in Cancun, which is in La Peninsula Yucatan in Mexico—a very beautiful place.

There had been unfortunately some very bad massacre in some tribal groups in Chiapas down in the south of Mexico. There were detectives investigating all of the foreign groups; they always think it is a foreign group that does something kooky.

There were two detectives that wanted to speak to Guru. I said, "Guru, there are two gentlemen here." I explained to Guru why they wanted to speak to him.

Guru said, "Don't worry—I will give them my transcendental smile."

When we performed in New York for Guru with Mountain-Silence, we played three songs as always. We liked these songs very much. After some other people performed, Guru called for me and talked to me.

He said, “Gunthita, not even one of the three songs performed were devotional. Please, please, in the future, when you perform for me, always choose devotional songs.”

Then he said, "When you give concerts and you play with devotion, then the people will receive." Guru said, "They will receive something from me." Guru meant from him and from our souls. He said that the only and most important thing is to play with devotion. The songs don't have to be slow or fast, but the devotion is the most important thing.

This is another story that happened when we were in New York. We went to the Connecticut Centre, which was in a basement. Connecticut is not far from New York. We were having a meditation, and Guru was just in front of us. We could sit right in front of Guru. While I was looking at Guru, I saw the third eye very bright, bright, bright. I can't explain. It was whiter than white. It was like when you see some people in India that have a fork shape on their third eye. I asked the person beside me, “Can you see Guru? Look… he's got….”  He said: “What are you talking about? I don't see anything.”

It was indescribable. The only visual I could see was like when a star vibrates and the light seems to just grow and grow. It was very striking and very awakening.

May my two human eyes
At every moment
Love and love and love
The celestial Beauty
Of my Lord’s Third Eye.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 35, Agni Press, 2004

The story started long before I became a disciple. Anwarul Chowdhury was the deputy secretary general of the United Nations. He was at the UN for many years and he loved Guru, just loved Guru. He eventually became an ambassador, so Guru always called him Ambassador Chowdhury.

Ambassador Chowdhury is a very literary person and he knew one of the best writers, the most famous writers of Bengal. Not from Bangladesh, but actually from Calcutta. The writer's name is Mani Shankar Mukherjee, but people just call him Shankar. His books are so famous that they have been made into films by well-known filmmakers.

Pulak was introduced to Sri Chinmoy through Sarama, who gave yoga and meditation classes near where Pulak lived.

So the thing about Sarama is, she didn't just bring people to Guru if she didn't feel they were quite ready. With me, she realised that I needed a little work before I would be ready.  I was a little maybe – I don't know what you would say – bohemian or so.

She said I had to stop smoking to see Guru. So I think I was working at the Bronx Zoo and I just said, OK, well, I'm going to quit smoking today. And I was able to do it like in just one day. And it was an interesting process. Every time I felt I needed a cigarette, I just sort of like said, well, no, you don't need it.  

I managed to clean up my act enough for Sarama to get me invited to April 13th Celebrations. The Celebrations that year was held at the Victoria Congregational Church right on 148th Street and 87th Avenue.

I remember when I was walking through the hall, I saw that Mahavishnu (John McLaughlin) was a disciple. While I was in Europe, I had become an admirer of his music. At Celebrations, he played acoustic guitar very beautifully. All the performances were so soulful and heartfelt. I'd never experienced anything like that before.

The first time I saw Guru, he was meditating to open the function on April the 13th, and then during the function he would sit there watching everything. Guru would be sitting there, in such a majestic way, watching.