The San Francisco meeting⁵⁶

Just before the Sri Chinmoy Marathon in San Francisco, I was warming up. A former disciple of mine was near me, but I could not recognise him. He was taking Chinese exercises. Finally, one of my San Francisco disciples told me, “This is Devashish.” I had been pretty sure, but then I went closer and I did recognise him.

I said to him, “Do you recognise me?”

Immediately he blessed me, placing both his hands on my feet. His eyes were flickering and moving around. I blessed him and told him that his soul had come to me so many times. He was smiling and full of devotion, but his eyes defeated my eyes like anything in flickering. Because his present wife, or girlfriend, was blessing me inwardly — or rather, cursing me inwardly — I left.

At about two and one-half miles into the marathon, there was a turn, and as I was entering the turn, I saw him on his way back. He saw me from about 500 metres away and he raised both arms. I signalled him when we passed each other.

Afterwards, he came up to me and showed me how many exercises he knew. Each time he did a punching motion, it reminded me of his monkey incarnation.