5 plus 1 = inspiration and fun

I just turned 51 about a week ago and at first it all seemed rather anticlimactic after turning the big 50 last year.

Last night I was reading in Live in the Eternal Now, a new book of previously unpublished talks given over the years by my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy. When I woke up this morning, I felt energized and inspired by one idea in one of the talks which suggested that one could do certain activities and projects drawing upon the number of years one has been alive on Earth. For instance, he recommended that if someone was a good singer and liked to sing, they could sing every day the number of songs that corresponded to their age.

Suddenly I no longer felt deflated about turning the page on being 50 – the big half century! I could think of things to do with the number 51 in them and find inspiration in the notion of 5 + 1, feeling like a child at heart to counteract the other ways that my pace has slowed down as I get older.

Right now I am in New York for a few days to observe the 4th anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s passing on October 11, 2011. Students of Sri Chinmoy from around the globe have gathered for memorial activities, prayer, offerings of flowers and incense at the Samadhi burial shrine and a candlelight vigil starting at midnight on October 11th and ending midnight the following day.

While in New York for the memorial observance, when I woke up this morning I wanted to go walking on the 3100 mile race route which is only about a mile from where I stay when I come to New York for prayers and meditation with the Sri Chinmoy Centre.

As the year wanes, sunrise arrives at about 7:00 a.m. so I found myself walking the 3100 mile race route as the sun rose. I contemplated my inspiration to do things with the number 51 in them now that I turned 51 and next thing I knew I pulled out my camera and took 51 photos of the 3100 mile race route. I am quite fond of these photos – probably because they make me think of the immortal achievements that happen on that route, amidst the hustle and bustle of a service road onto a parkway, a park with playground equipment for children, an area to play handball, a baseball field and a vocational high school.

I hope a little of the enthusiasm and inspiration I woke with rubs off on you as you look at the photos. I am SO grateful to Sri Chinmoy for the myriad ways he finds to sleeplessly inspire humanity even though it is 4 solemn years since he walked among us on Earth.

Other posts about Sri Chinmoy’s Samadhi:

photo by Sharani - Monarch Butterfly

photo by Sharani - Butterfly at Roger Williams Park Zoo

A poignant moment during the New York observance of the 2nd anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s Mahasamadhi (passing from the Earth plane) came in the form of a butterfly.

A group of the late spiritual leader’s students were standing in formation facing the samadhi shrine and a butterfly came up from behind them and lingered over their heads before finally flying towards the shrine.

This was actually the second time a butterfly appeared and hovered nearby at this location – the first being during his interment in October 2007.

These butterfly moments seemed to carry an aura of significance on their wings. That it happened twice made me stop and wonder what is the symbolic significance of a butterfly in various cultures?  When I pursued my curiosity about the meaning associated with a butterfly, what I discovered gave me goosebumps.

Butterflies are symbolic in many cultures with transformation, death, rebirth, resurrection, the soul and everlasting life.

These butterflies served as symbolic messengers to remind all present that while the body dies, the soul is eternal and everlasting. Don’t forget this inviolable truth spoke God in the form of a butterfly. I am awed and humbled to receive this profound message in the form of a butterfly blessing.

In Animal Kingdom, a book of Sri Chinmoy’s commentary on various creatures, he writes the following about butterflies:

Butterfly: Prosperity

Butterfly, my butterfly,
You are the harbinger
Of man’s prosperity-life.
Your sweet arrival
Devours immediately
Man’s ceaseless strife.

Excerpt from Animal Kingdom by Sri Chinmoy.

As a delighted observer of the natural world around me, I focused in on a different kind of insect during a week’s memorial observances in 2007 directly after Sri Chinmoy’s passing. Read about a praying mantis which also appeared carrying a mystique of symbolic significance.

Here, too, is a slideshow of some photos I took at the Roger Williams Park Zoo Butterfly Pavilion in Providence, Rhode Island last May.

Gratitude Flower

• Listen to Radio Sri Chinmoy to hear some of the performances at last year’s one year observance.
• Read impressions from Kedar, a Swiss photographer, blogger and videographer who is a student of Sri Chinmoy.
• Read and watch moving tributes to Sri Chinmoy offered immediately after his passing on his official website.

I will also make the journey to New York for this year’s anniversary observances. I just spent time there last weekend to pray and meditate on my own 49th birthday. I felt many inner and outer blessings and special spiritual experiences during that visit. These experiences create yet another example of the continued sense of his inner presence and connection in my life despite the absence of his physical presence.

This continuing sense of guidance from my spiritual teacher makes me think that a Mahasamadhi anniversary can be as much a celebration of his life and gifts to others than for it to be a time for sorrow and mourning. I know there will be at least a few tears – there already were a few days ago – but mostly you will find me in a choir of happiness and praise for the profound encouragement, inspiration and peace that he shared  so completely with each and every person fortunate enough to know him.