I was married to Subarata, an Irish disciple, for 20 years. She passed away from a very rare disease in the year 2000. When she passed away, Guru said to me, “Do not grieve too much. The secret of life is that there is no death.”

One night, about three months later, I was back in New Zealand. I was asleep in my room and I got woken up at three o'clock in the morning. There was a very strong and very beautiful fragrance of flowers in my room. I had a feeling in my heart that her soul was there in the room and she had come to visit. I jumped out of bed and I sat in the little side room where she used to meditate.

Ten minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Ashrita or someone in New York calling me up. He said, “Guru told me to call you and tell you that your wife's soul is there in the room. She has come to visit you.”

We heard of Sri Chinmoy through a radio program that was conducted by one of his disciples. He kept talking about his teacher, Sri Chinmoy, and I wrote a letter to ask if we could meet Sri Chinmoy. So, he was in touch with us, and he invited us to come to his house.

Then he took us to the New Year's meditation. It was the end of 1973, and he took us to that public meditation. Nandita was very pregnant with Bishwas when we went. I was impressed because the disciples who were ushers, the disciples who were helping, were so nice. Guru invited groups up to sing or just to meditate on stage, and Guru himself spoke and sang.

But what really captivated me, what really excited me, is they showed a picture, a movie, a close-up of Guru's face while he was meditating.

Guru was flying through Los Angeles; he had a layover of a couple hours. So, the idea was that we would all spend time with him in the airport.

We sat waiting for Guru. It was very early in the morning, and we found a corner of the airport that didn't have anyone in it.

Before I flew down to Los Angeles, some disciples in Seattle told me their stories of meeting Guru for the first time. They told stories of seeing light and angels and all kinds of wonderful, fantastic things. This created some expectations in my mind. So in the airport, when Guru finally came, he came in a tracksuit, which I didn't expect, and Guru looked tired, and he was kind of limping because his knee had hurt. My mind started looking at these things and getting confused.

We found this corner and everyone, of course, was thrilled to see Guru. They were obviously feeling wonderful things, but I wasn't feeling anything.

I remember Guru running the 47-mile race at August Celebrations. It was the second time that he did it. We, the children, would stand on the course and sing songs. When Guru would run by, we would sing for him because he was really suffering. We could see him suffering so we would sing songs for him. Then when he went past, we would run across to the other side of the course and wait for him and sing for him there. Guru would give us a nice little blessing as he would go by.

Also during that Celebrations, Guru taught the children songs. There was a big group of children there. I remember learning Tomare Rakhibo. I think it was new then, and Guru was teaching us all. A lot of our interaction with Guru was Guru calling us up and teaching us songs or singing with us.

When I first moved to Queens, I was doing carpentry work. One day after my job, I was going to the Guru Health Foods store. I parked my car just on the corner below the block, just off 86th, 87th Avenue.

So, I bought my stuff, and as I was coming out of Guru Health Foods (which was right in the middle of the block, further down the hill, not at the corner the way it is now) …as I walked outside, I looked up and saw that Guru was walking down the hill. This was a summer day, and he was wearing shorts and a polo shirt. I just stood there with my hands folded. I was trying to be devoted.

   As Guru was walking down the hill, he saw me there. He stopped in front of me and said, “Sal, (at that time my name was Sal) …do you have your car here? And I said, “Yes, Guru.” He said, “Go bring it. bring it.”

But I had just gotten off my carpentry job, and the car was basically my work place. It was where my equipment was; all my tools were there. There was sawdust on the seat. There was sawdust on the floor. There were pieces of wood scraps everywhere and tools.

On the day of getting our names, Guru had told us that we would be getting them, so to come prepared and to be in our best consciousness.

We were all wearing white. One by one, Guru called us up. He would stand there and place his hands on our head. When I came up, he put one hand on my third eye and the other hand on the top of my head. As I was standing there, Guru kept one hand on my third eye and then he put the other hand directly on my spiritual heart.

The force was so powerful, I actually felt a physical electricity going into my third eye and in my heart centre. It was electric. It was so strong. I could physically feel this buzzing energy and my mind was completely blank. There were no thoughts, nothing. He was in complete control of me, of whoever I was. He completely took me out into this absolute, beautiful, wonderful, luminous, blissful state. That’s all I can say.

Then he started chanting my name. My name is Banshidhar. He chanted Ban…shi… dhar, Ban…shi… dhar.  He kept chanting this many, many times. I felt like he was pulling something from way, way, way deep inside of me. I never had that experience ever. He pulled something from way inside and it was coming out.

Some souls do have two lifetimes with Guru, like Nivedita. Nivedita was a Canadian disciple who passed away as Guru was speaking to her on the phone. Paramita, a fellow Canadian disciple, described it like this:

Nivedita’s passing, many years ago, was absolutely spiritually spectacular. She was in the hospital in a two-bed room, and the spiritual energy at her bedside was so powerful that you absolutely could not NOT meditate. You HAD to meditate, and the meditation was just going rocket-high. Even the lady who was the patient in the next bed was sitting up meditating and praying.

Guru was very, very kind to us and lavished food on us. If it was a guard's birthday, there would be a big celebration with Guru at his house. We'd all go.

Those were my favourite moments. If I look back at my favourite moments in my discipleship, it was sitting with Guru on the porch of his house with all the boys, the guards, and Guru just lying on his couch, sitting back, relaxing and just telling a story. Stories from the ashram days or stories about when he first came to America, or a story about some famous person.

Guru was in a sweet mood, a happy mood, a comfortable mood, and he could just relax with the boys and tell stories. Those are my favorite moments, because you felt Guru was happy and he was comfortable with us. He could just tell these stories and they were like golden moments and you didn't want them to end. You just wanted to sit on that porch for days and days and days and listen to these stories.

This was November 6, 1977. I was told the day before that Guru was going to give me my spiritual name. Guru was playing tennis at the school there, at the Jamaica High School track.

When he finished, he sat down and called “Lincoln” to come over. That was the last time he used my outer name. I kneeled down in front of him. As you might imagine, it was very emotional, very emotional.

He put his hand on my head and spoke the name. Then he gave an explanation as well. He described what and who Nayak is, what my soul is. I’ll just read briefly. Guru started: “With my heart's soulful love and my life's blessingful gratitude, I offer you your soul's name.”  

He said a few more things and then he said the name: “Nayak, Nayak.” Then he gave the meaning. I’ll just read the first part: “Nayak is the one who leads, guides, illumines, and fulfils the seeker divine.”  

You have to remember that this is the name of the soul, and the outer aspects are trying to become like that. That is the name of the soul, and that's what we can become. Of course, where we are now is not there yet.

Self-mastery
Is
My spirituality's present name.

Self-discovery
Is
My spirituality's future name.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. My spirituality, Agni Press, 1999

One day, I can't remember which year it was, I was living in New York. This was typical of life as a guard—you're just relaxing, doing this and that. The next minute you get a telephone call: “Guru wants to see you, here, now please!”

Suddenly Guru wanted all the guards down at the track behind the court, his special track. Guru wanted us to build a ramp, an incline so that he could train running uphill to strengthen his legs. Because Guru had serious problems with his knees—his knees were very, very injured—Guru wanted it to be grass on top of earth so it would be softer for his joints.

We started to build this ramp. It was a wooden structure. I think the ramp was about 30 meters long. I'm not sure about the angle, but it was about 30 meters long. Then there had to be half a meter of earth underneath the grass, inside the wooden structure.