Section 4

Buying The Post

Last week I went to a candy store and bought the Post. It was not the Enquirer so luckily I was saved! My disciples always tell me I should not be seen buying the Enquirer, although reading it always amuses me. As I was buying the paper, a man with a moustache and beard asked me, "Are you Sri Chinmoy?"

I smiled at him.

He continued, "Are you really? I have come to your meditations at PS 86 on Parsons Boulevard."

I was carrying a bag over my shoulder, so he said "Now you are carrying a bag."

I said, "Now you see the difference from the way I am at meditation."

He said, "No difference!"

While I was paying for the newspaper, he was telling the shopkeeper, "He is Sri Chinmoy."

When I was coming out of the store, he was still gazing at me.

-7 August 1982

An Important Person

The other day I was in a store shopping for something for Alo. A very, very fat lady came into the same store to buy something for herself. The lady had her hand on a garment when she saw me. She kept her hand on the garment and started looking at me with such awe. Then she said, "Are you Sri Chinmoy?"

So I smiled at her. Then the owner started asking her, "Who is he?"

I have been at that clothing store on Jamaica Avenue at least sixty or seventy times, but the owner thinks that I am an ordinary person. After talking to the lady, the owner realised that I am an "important person." So that's how I became an important person overnight!

-11 September 1982

Filled With Saris

-13 September 1982

The Little Girl Who Wouldn't Move

I went to Dan Lurie's exercise store with Dhanu to buy some exercise equipment. A black gentleman came up to me, practically with folded hands, and asked with such respect, "Are you Sri Chinmoy?"

I said, "Yes."

He was so excited. He was telling his six or seven-year-old daughter, "That is Sri Chinmoy! That is Guru Sri Chinmoy!"

His daughter felt shy, so she stayed in one corner of the store while I was taking exercise on an exercise machine. After ten minutes she came over to watch me. Then she wouldn't move. She was standing so near me, looking and looking at my eyes for ten minutes, with her eyes wide open. Dhanu couldn't figure out why she wouldn't move.

-14 October 1982

A Mentor

Yesterday I went to an old bookstore and bought Mystics as a Force for Change by Sisir Kumar Ghose. He is a Bengali who lives in Shanti Niketan. He happens to be a very close friend of mine, plus one of my great mentors. He is extremely fond of me, and I am extremely fond of him.

I know him so well. He has been going to the ashram for the last thirty years. We used to walk along the shores of the Bay of Bengal together in the evening. Eighteen years ago he came to America to give lectures at Mississippi University. Some nice pictures of us together were taken while he was here. He brought me a beautiful small statue of Lord Buddha and other gifts. I remember them-especially a peculiar ballpoint from Shanti Niketan.

For most of the articles in the book that I bought, I had served as his messenger boy. During that time I was unofficial sub-editor of Mother India , and I used to take his articles to the editor. Also, I made arrangements for him to have an interview with Mother India .

I was so delighted and excited to see the book. It was $2.95. So I bought it and started reading it. I truly admire Sisir Kumar Ghose. He was such a nice, kind mentor. I am really grateful to him. My immediate offering of gratitude to this supremely noble soul can only be felt and never be described. Many, many things one day I will tell about him.

But after I had bought his book the funniest thing happened. That same afternoon I received a letter from Vidagdha saying that Sisir Kumar Ghose of Shanti Niketan had been one of the examiners of her doctoral thesis on my poetry.Melbourne University had submitted her thesis to various places, but the professors didn't want to examine it because they didn't know anything about the subject. Finally, Sisir Ghose accepted. He is head of the English section of the university at Shanti Niketan. According to him, Vidagdha should have also said something about my Bengali poems.

-28 October 1982

Such A Nice Man

I was at a fruit stand on 147th Street, beyond Jamaica Avenue. The Japanese girl there said to me "Hi! I have not seen you for a long time."

I said, "I have also not seen you for a long time."

Then I got seven or eight items. I came to her and she added it up on the cash register. It came to $13. I said, "It is wrong. Are you sure?"

She said, "Do you think I am overcharging you'"

I said, "No, it seems to me that you have not charged me for all the items."

Then she took the receipt out of the cash register and checked each item to show me that it was all right. I was wrong.

Then she said, "You are such a nice man!"

-31 October 1982

A Brother Named Sri Chinmoy

Yesterday I went to a grocery store nearby. When I went to pay, the man behind the counter said to me, "Do you have a brother named Sri Chinmoy?"

I said, "Why?"

He said, "You look exactly like him."

Then he looked at me again and dropped his bag of plantain chips and said, "Sri Chinmoy! Sri Chinmoy!"

He told me, "Two or three years ago I went to one of your meetings in Manhattan. There I saw you meditating." He couldn't believe that I would be shopping in a grocery store. He came from the Dominican Republic.

He was so excited. He told his friend, "Sri Chinmoy is in my store! Sri Chinmoy is in my store!"

-31 October 1982

The Disciple

Another day I was looking at wristwatches. On that day I was carrying two heavy bags.

A man came up to me and asked, "Are you Sri Chinmoy?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "I came to one of your Wednesday meetings. It was so powerful." Then he started telling me all about his Guru while I was standing holding the heavy bags.

He said, "I was initiated by my Guru. Now he has passed away."

I said, "Your Guru has left successors. You should follow his successors."

He said, "My Guru taught me Kundalini Yoga. But I don't get anything from his successors."

I said, "I don't teach Kundalini Yoga."

He said, "Do you think you could take me faster?"

I said, "You have been initiated by your Guru. Now he is the one to take you."

For ten minutes I talked to him, all the time holding my heavy bags. Finally I said, "Your Guru is the right Guru for you."

-31 October 1982

The St. Thomas Restaurant

In St. Thomas I was eating in a restaurant when a young man-one of the waiters-came up to me and asked, "Are you the same guy that I saw in the newspaper?"

I said, "I am the same guy."

Then somebody passing by said, "Yes, he is the same gentleman."

The first man said, "Oh, he is a great man!" Then he disappeared.

-22 November 1982