The bag lady¹²

About three or four days ago I was walking and running on 150th Street. When I was only three hundred metres away from my starting point, a bus stopped and an elderly lady with two shopping bags got off. The shopping bags were full of groceries. With greatest difficulty she lifted up one bag and walked towards her house on a side street.

I looked at her and said, “May I help you?”

She said to me very abruptly, “Of course not!” She spoke so sharply that she practically took my soul out of my body. Then she looked at me again and said, “You are such a great man! Are you not Sri Chinmoy?”

So I gave her a smile and I picked up the other bag and walked with her. When we got to her house, I put the bag on her steps. Again she looked at me in utter amazement.