Guru was teaching us through his music

I remember Guru running the 47-mile race at August Celebrations. It was the second time that he did it. We, the children, would stand on the course and sing songs. When Guru would run by, we would sing for him because he was really suffering. We could see him suffering so we would sing songs for him. Then when he went past, we would run across to the other side of the course and wait for him and sing for him there. Guru would give us a nice little blessing as he would go by.

Also during that Celebrations, Guru taught the children songs. There was a big group of children there. I remember learning Tomare Rakhibo. I think it was new then, and Guru was teaching us all. A lot of our interaction with Guru was Guru calling us up and teaching us songs or singing with us.

Of course, we all know how beautiful Guru’s music is. From the very beginning, when my mother first became a disciple, I heard Guru's songs. We would learn these songs that were so beautiful.

Many years later, when I looked back, I realised that through the music, through Guru's singing and songs, Guru was teaching us, especially the children. We were learning how to meditate through the music. Because at that age we could not sit for hours and hours in front of a shrine. We couldn’t be silent for probably more than five minutes. But through the music, through the singing, we experienced so much of Guru’s consciousness. We received so much of his consciousness in his light and his love and his affection. I realised years later that was how he taught us. It was a spiritual teaching through these beautiful, beautiful songs.

Anyway, I went home from that Celebrations, and every night for weeks, I was upset. I was missing Guru so much and missing being in New York with Guru.

The contrast of coming home and going back to school and not being around all the disciples and Guru was really, really hard. I actually asked my father to build me a shrine, a beautiful shrine. That’s when I started to really meditate. I can’t say I kept it up regularly all through my teenage years. But at that point, I started to meditate regularly on a daily basis to try to feel the love, the sweetness and the affection that Guru had given us during the Celebrations.

My aspiration-heart
Is full to the brim
With God’s Affection.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 28, Agni Press, 2002