Sharani

Miraculously perhaps, the last 47 years of my life have been overflowing with life and death has been almost a stranger in the circle of my closest family and friends. Granted death is the great equalizer and it has not passed over my doorstep completely. The grief that often comes in its wake, however, has been more unusual than common for me.

More than 20 years ago when I was still in college but transferred from Kalamazoo College (a small liberal arts college in Michigan) out to a large state university on the East Coast, I received the news that one of my Kalamazoo college chums had been killed in a biking accident most unexpectedly and tragically. The night before I received the news I was woken again and again from an attempt to sleep while vacationing in Wellfleet on Cape Cod by a raging wild thunderstorm and a dream in which she came to me but I didn’t realize in the dream that she had died.

Without hesitation I flew back to Michigan for her memorial service held at K College in which a spirit of true celebration and joy prevailed because she was such a beautiful person who cheered the lives of all she encountered. Her short life seemed to embody the truism that she was almost too good for this world and her departure a respite from its baser savages.

After the service was over, I found some quiet meditative space to have a conversation with her - not at her graveside but rather while sitting on a children’s swingset in a nearby park. In the privacy of my heart, I talked out loud knowing that she heard me and spoke my love and goodbyes punctuated by smiles and tears intermingled.

Fast forward to the present and now I have just spent the last ten days sharing a time of mourning for the death my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy together with my spiritual family gathered from across the globe. His life is already being memorialized and I particularly like the clip from ABC News “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” as well as NPR’s mention of him on “All Things Considered.” As someone who counted world leaders, Olympic athletes and Grammy award-winning musicians amongst his friends, peers and devotees; tributes are pouring in to places such as his official website SriChinmoy.org.

Now that the wake, memorial service and funeral are behind us, you will find me over on the swingset - metaphorically speaking - having a conversation with him and remembering my final sweet interactions as one of his students from the Rhode Island Centre who regularly attended meditation functions held by him in Queens, New York.

I experienced his blessings and encouragement right up to the last moment. With my birthday a mere 8 days prior to his death, I felt like he was inwardly feeding me waves of joy as I observed it. In New York for meditation centre activities on the weekend before his death, I sent a gratitude flower to his house and wrote a card which saw my thanks expressed much more deeply and flowery in style than usual. Perhaps some part of me knew I was writing my last note to him before his passing.

Traditionally play performances were a highlight of functions with Sri Chinmoy on Saturday nights at Aspiration Ground in Queens. We had just such a function on the Saturday night before his passing although not all the plays prepared went on because he wasn’t feeling well. While sitting in costume ready to perform a play with my centre leader Vijali, one of Sri Chinmoy’s students shared with me that after receiving the flowers I sent to the house, he had asked “Will she be in Vijali’s play tonight?” Our play didn’t end up going on and the part I would have played gives me the chills just to think of it.

I was to play a boss in an office who was in a state of distraction because his wife was quite sick in the hospital in England while he was working afar in India. His co-workers would ask him how he was and he wouldn’t answer or he would just say “Oh put that paper on my desk” when that wasn’t even what the person had just said to him. In that play written by Sri Chinmoy, his subordinate offers to meditate on his wife’s condition and once she recovers and visits his office she identifies this man as someone who appeared before her in the hospital and saved her life. This play is in fact partially autobiographical with Sri Chinmoy writing about his boss at the Indian Consulate from his early days in the U.S. in the 1960’s.

Oh how I wish real life had an ending like the ending of this play! This time the hour has struck and Sri Chinmoy will continue as my teacher as long as I live but no longer as a living spiritual master. Dearest Guru, I am writing this post dedicated to you as a final moment farewell. Can you please accept it as an aswer to your question “Will she be in Vijali’s play?” Yes I will. No matter the circumstance, the show must go on. I will be in the play. I will cherish your guidance in my life inside my heart as I continue to play on the life stage. Your final question of me will spur me ever onward even as right now I stop to tarry at the banks of the sorrow river in mourning.

Related Post: The Best Kind of Beautiful
Candle Photo: Jowan
Gratitude Flower Photo: Sharani

Back when I was hunting to buy my first house, my nature and tree-loving inclinations had me secretly hoping for a yard around the house with at least one nice tree. The realtor helping me in this house-finding mission would give me for sale listings in the vicinity of the apartment complex where I lived because I wanted to stay nearby if possible. I used to awaken in the early morning and go out walking carefully viewing the houses and trying to imagine what kind of home I would succeed in buying. One day I studied the latest additions to the MLS listings and saw that a house was listed in my price range only about a mile from my residence. I set out on foot to find this house for sale at such a reasonable price and crossed my fingers and toes that I would like it.

As soon as I located it during that morning’s walk, I instantly liked it from the front and the backyard beckoned. I somewhat boldly walked along the periphery of the property and my heart delighted in seeing a number of trees in a very nice yet not too large backyard. This house with the wonderful trees and yard did end up becoming my new home shortly after that morning peek into its promise.

Now many years later I continue to enjoy the trees in my backyard and whenever I sit under the three trees prominently towards the center of the yard I feel a sense of peace and contentment basking in the shade under their canopy of branches and leaves.

One day a number of years later as my car approached my house from a distance up the street I suddenly was struck by the difference in height of two trees in my backyard which are next to each other. All those years from the ground underneath the trees, they share a sense of sameness in my eyes, even with one being a red maple and the other a green maple.

As if for the first time ever, my eyes were opened to an altogether different viewpoint through the sight of the trees in my backyard from afar as they loomed up over the roof of the house. “Look at how much taller the green maple is than the red,” I exclaimed to myself. That tree on the right is very, very tall - infinitely higher than the one next to it and appears to be one of the highest trees on the entire street. How is it possible that I never noticed before the impressive height of this tree compared to the others? From the ground-level underneath the trees, they seemed precisely the same and I never would have noticed the one’s towering height over the others if I had not viewed them from the crest of the gentle hill a few houses back from mine.

What a lesson this observation hinted at! Depending on the viewpoint, one might apply the same analogy to the world of people instead of the genus of trees. When a great man or woman bends down in humility and self-giving to share the flowers and fruits of the tree with people found at the foot of the tree, we might never realize just how high into the thin altitude of greatness this giant among men and women truly was.

Such is the man Sri Chinmoy , my spiritual teacher for the last 22 years, who to my deep sadness passed away on October 11, 2007 at his home in Queens, New York.
His spiritual philosophy always emphasized the importance of humility and the obstacles inherent in pride and human ego in the quest to find true satisfaction in life. In one poem he writes,

To become spiritually tall, taller, tallest,
We must be always
On our knees.

This poem from a series of poetry by Sri Chinmoy is aptly named in relation to this tallest tree musing since the book’s title/series is Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 23.

His lifetime of offering and service in so many walks of life glowed with a sheen of greatness that I have never witnessed by any other person alive today. Yet this giant among men also dedicated his every breathing moment to instilling a sense of gratititude, encouragement and support for all he came in contact with. He composed countless songs in honor of friends and guests, wrote at length about all he admired - even in great detail about the diversity of religions and spiritual teachers through the ages in such a manner that you would feel “here is a follower of Christ, here is a follower of Buddha, here is a follower of Krishna” depending on which passage you read from his prolific writings.

I honestly and deeply believe that there was never a moment that he was not trying to see the best in all whom he met and he truly is a teacher whose middle name is encouragement and positive all-forgiving divine love. He coaxed forth potential and promise that I never in my wildest dreams imagined might be waiting dormant within me.

Like a towering tree that sends forth countless seeds and fruits to germinate and sprout in the future, his influence will resonate long after this end of his life at age 76. With thousands of students and well-wishers from across the globe arriving in New York to pay homage to this beloved man who touched countless hearts, I think of the tree in my yard looming high above the others yet sharing a message and perspective of unity and equality when viewed from underneath the bottom branches. I am fully confident that the many centres based upon his teachings will continue to blossom long after his death. I know that my own lfe will continue to bask in the wisdom his life embodied until I too reach my end. Thank you Sri Chinmoy. Thank-you from the bottom of my heart.

Read More Details About Memorials and Tributes to this Great Soul

Maybe it was the misty morning. A dew stew swirled about. Due to a lingering lack of rain, the fall foliage is a little dull this year. Finally today the misty dew coating the leaves during a morning walk before work added a saturation shot better than a Photoshop edit.

Then again, maybe it was the blush of birthday magic adding an enchanted flavor to my surroundings. My spiritual leanings include a philosophy learned from meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy that one’s soul comes center stage on the anniversary of the day we take incarnation. Indeed, my day would include an extra dose of meditation and contemplation before it drew to a close. Whatever the reason, all I know is that as I walked a mile out and back early in the morning, my ever-familiar surroundings turned into a beckoning adventure.

A few of the trees were turning technicolour and I began an impromptu scavenger hunt to pick up pretty leaves to bring home. Maples are a money-back guarantee of fall beauty but as I walked along my quest evolved into finding as many different kinds of leaves as possible. Species such as oak were old friends but as I honed in on my route through the neighborhood all manner of unfamiliar leaves jumped out at me.

My hands were soon overflowing with various shapes, sizes and colors. How is it possible that I have walked these streets countless times yet never noticed the diversity of trees in such a small radius in relation to my house. I felt almost like a time traveller back to childhood when we had to collect leaves and iron them between waxed paper for science lessons in school. What shall I do with them today I thought? I have to rush off to work in short measure.

With a kind of childlike glee, I decided to arrange them around a flower box sitting on my porch and take their picture. The centerpiece was a smiling rock I keep perched on the flower box. Bravo - a taste of all these jewels captured by a camera in a group portrait.

Like our fingerprints or snowflakes or human souls, no two leaves were completely alike. The uniqueness of each leaf preached a sermon to me about the glories of God’s creation and the specialness of each person’s voice in the choir called life. What a perfect lesson from the universe to ponder on one’s birthday as we humans are as uniquely individual as these diverse leaves I brought home. Spiritual visionary Sri Chinmoy speaks of this uniqueness and its relation to divine unity in his following words,

As you say, each child is unique; this is absolutely true. God’s creation is like a lotus or a rose. Each petal is unique in its own way. Through each individual child God is manifesting Himself in an unprecedented way.

Each child is bringing down a new message from God which was not known before. Naturally, if the world accepts it, the world is getting new light, new power, new joy, new love. So what you are saying, that each child is a miracle, each child is unique, is so true, because God wants to manifest Himself in infinite ways, in infinite forms, in infinite Light. A child is here on earth to show us that God does exist, and God is manifesting through that child.
Excerpt from Four Summit-Height-Melodies by Sri Chinmoy.

This simple task of collecting different species of leaves started my day with an opening paragraph of joy and beauty. Time and again Nature is my teacher and companion. I feel blessed whenever she steps forward to teach me important life lessons. Next time I observe the trees found amongst my midst, I will do well to remember that classic lesson - No two the same yet all are one.