A Celebration with Ananda and Darshanika Guruge

Sri Chinmoy, after Darshanika’s niece, Anjali, played the sitar and sang: I am 71 years old, and for the first time I am hearing somebody sing while playing the sitar. At the Ashram, I have heard someone sing while playing the esraj. From Shantiniketan an excellent musician, Shanti Ghose, came. He set to music also Tagore’s songs. He sang as he played on the esraj. But for the first time in my life, I am hearing somebody accompanying herself on the sitar while singing. I am very, very proud of you.

Remarks by Dr. Ananda Guruge: Your Holiness Sri Chinmoy, we come all the way from the West Coast once a year because when Darshanika celebrates her birthday, we find that the blessings that you confer on us, the whole family, bring us enormous joy right through the year. Right through the year, this evening remains fresh in our memory because we have been blessed by some of the dearest people that we have come to know, thanks to your guidance and assistance. Every one of your disciples has taken us as family. And Darshanika, even more than I, belongs to the family in every way. That’s why, even on the eve of her going to Sri Lanka for a family wedding, she did not want to break the tradition. So we are having the birthday a day in advance because tomorrow she goes back to catch a fight to Sri Lanka, where she will be for the next three weeks.

But in trying to do it, we had a double event today because the evening, as you remember, started with that most enchanting music of Anjali. And Anjali was playing not only for Darshanika, but for her own grandmother, whose real birthday is today. So you have been blessing Anjali’s grandmother the same way as you have been blessing Darshanika and our family.

Everything in life is a case of loss and compensation. We had planned to be in Chicago with you next week, listening to your beautiful music, the prayerful music concert that you are going to have there. In fact, as Chicago happened to be an intellectual base of mine for quite some time, and I have many friends there, I made it a point to address a little note to all those friends to say, “This is an opportunity that you should never miss. An evening of prayerful music by Sri Chinmoy is a memorable occasion.” And I told them that I have known you since 1989. I have been a friend, I have been a brother. So has Darshanika been a friend and a sister, and our friendship, our fraternal affection, has increased year by year.

This is the reason why we come to you, and we are very happy that once again you made it a great event for us. We know how busy you are. To the Chicago people I gave a list, a statistical table, starting from 1,500 books and so many songs. And I said 11 million sketches of birds, but I’m sure you might have even exceeded that, because I find that every time I write anything about your achievements, even before the ink is dry, that number is out of date. And that is the great mind that you bring to our attention, that you display for our guidance as a true karma yogi, a yogi in action, a yogi whose every moment of life is a prayer, whose every moment of life is a meditation.

Darshanika: Sri Chinmoy-ji, my dear friends and my dear family, I enjoyed so much the beautiful singing of my sisters and brothers, of such wonderful devotional songs.

Guru-ji, thank you so much for helping me to celebrate my birthday with you and your spiritual family. My thousand pranams to you.