The divine cheerers⁵⁹

Five minutes later I was running on the street where the Greek school is — the one which leads to Agni Press. As I was running, I passed a young girl of sixteen or seventeen who was riding a bike. She came up to me and said, “Hi, Sri Chinmoy.” She was smiling and smiling. Then for about 150 metres she rode beside me, and then she pedalled away quite fast.

When I came up to Agni Press, I saw her talking to a few of her friends, some boys. As soon as I came by, they all started shouting my name, and clapping and jumping with such cheerfulness. They were cheering me at every step: “Sri Chinmoy! Sri Chinmoy!”

When I got home I asked one of my disciples to bring me twelve apples and twelve oranges immediately. But he didn’t hear the word “immediately.” Twenty minutes passed and I said, “By this time those divine children will have disappeared.” So I asked another disciple to drive me in the car. Then I saw the first disciple. He was walking very slowly. I said, “What are you doing? I asked you to come ‘immediately’.” He said, “Guru, I didn’t hear the word ‘immediately’, I just heard ‘go and bring’.”

Anyway, I went to the spot to see if those children were still there. To my great surprise, the girl was sitting on the steps in front of the Greek School, with a friend of hers. Since both of them were girls, I didn’t think it would be proper to go and speak to them. “Best thing is for us to go to Guru Stationery and bring some girls,” I said. So we brought back two girl disciples who were working there to the spot where the two girls were talking.

When the girl saw our car approaching her, she stood up and jumped towards the car. “Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy,” she said. She and her friend were both jumping for joy.

I said to them, “Can I give you some fruits?”

The girl who was then standing beside the car said, “Of course. You are such a sweet, nice man. Can I kiss you on your hand?”

I said, “Oh, no!” I gave them each an orange and an apple. Then I asked, “Where are your friends?”

They said, “We'll go look for them.” They went into the school, but their friends were not there. When they came out, the other girl said how happy she was to see me running. She was also a runner, and she said that she had run in one of our ten-mile races in Connecticut. She had come into Guru Health Foods that morning to ask when our next race would be. Both girls were excited.

I asked if they would see their friends soon, so they could give them apples and oranges, but they said, “No, we will not see them.” I said, “Then I would like to give you again another orange and apple.”

A young boy was watching the scene. He was not one of those who had cheered me, but he said, “Can I also have an orange? I don’t care for apples, however.” He came up to me all excited, and I gave him an orange.