A deplorable story34

I shall tell you a deplorable story about my Transcendental Photograph.

The lady who took the Transcendental Photograph came from Jamaica, West Indies. Her sister also became a disciple, and she stopped going to her church. That was too much for the priest! The priest went to her place, and there he saw my Transcendental Photograph. First he was stunned. Then he began saying undivine things about the Transcendental Photograph. She started crying because he was saying unkind things.

Right in front of her, the priest burned the Transcendental Photograph — only to lose her for good. She never went back to the church, and her children also did not go back.

That was the unfortunate treatment the Transcendental Photograph got.

Then again, there is a good story. At the Ashram I had a few wonderful detractors. God has so many enemies — what is wrong with me? I can also have critics! This particular person would always criticise me. He said that I was nothing, I was useless. But when he saw my Transcendental Photograph, he immediately placed it on his head. In front of so many people he said, “Here, Chinmoy is not a human being. He is God Himself.” He put the picture on his head with such love and devotion.

Then, after he returned the Transcendental Photograph, again he started his criticism. But when he saw the Transcendental Photograph and put it on his head so devotedly, he said, “Chinmoy is not a human being, not a human being.”

The mind changes for a few seconds, and then it goes back.

Again, a very, very long story you have heard about one particular lady. Ashok and Uday went to Pondicherry, and there that lady narrated to them the story of how she was longing to see a living Avatar and Sri Aurobindo showed her my Transcendental Photograph in the sky. Then she told them that Sri Aurobindo said to her inwardly, “Here is an Avatar, a living Avatar.” She was at that time not in the Ashram; she was in Calcutta. She got that message.


FSC 34. 31 December 2001, Inter-Continental Hotel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia