How Sri Chinmoy made God our dear and intimate confidante

I think one of Guru’s truly remarkable achievements was to make God an absolutely living reality for so many of us. For his disciples Guru’s own intimacy with God was so obvious and compelling, his deference to God in everything he did so moving, and the godliness that he himself embodied so utterly beautiful that he quietly shunted – at least in my case – three prior decades of agnosticism into the waste basket.

Of all the things I have seen in this world, Guru’s physical presence was the most powerful, the most irresistible proof of God. Getting to know Guru was getting to know God – unmistakably this great yogi-soul had realised God and revealed the Divine at every moment through his own person and life. God was not a matter of belief or disbelief, a concept to be examined and argued, but there, in front of you. Look!

I was blessed with a long time to immerse myself in this – my dawning understanding of my Teacher’s height was forged and tested and proven over twenty-seven years. The Guru is a bridge between earth and Heaven, God’s intermediary, a step-down transformer converting the Infinite Power of the Supreme into a mana-geable voltage for earth’s consumption.

For us the mantra ‘Supreme’ has become our living bridge to God and often sustains our personal feeling of a loving, caring Supreme Reality with whom we are connected and a part. Guru introduced us all to God, emancipated us from the various handicaps and constraints of our fossilised, past religiosity or indifference and made of God a dear and intimate confidante, one to whom we prayed, opened our hearts, shared our secret thoughts, our worst mistakes, our gratitude and tears. In the light of this sacred rela-tionship and knowledge we can measure what is really important in our lives, or what is not – chart our course with ‘two things absolutely unparalleled, the map for the eternal journey and the courage for the immortal travelling’.*

Spiritual literature down through the ages is filled with profundities, atom bombs of Truth and Reality, gorgeous quotes that thrill the soul, the uncompromising and life-changing utterances of great sages and Masters. They are so powerful as to sweep aside an entire lifetime of cultural indoctrination – that tragic and ill-fated love affair with worldliness that we are so immersed in from cradle rock to last breath. Guru always had that effect in our lives – a reality check, bringing us back on course, reminding us of what it’s really all about.  In a world of enchanting distractions, a culture steeped in material ambitions that suffocate the spirit, how lucky we all are to have this exemplar, pointing the way home.

Two things absolutely unparalleled

My Master Lord Supreme,
I love You,
I love You only
Because You have given me
Two things absolutely unparalleled:
The map For the eternal journey
And the courage For the immortal travelling.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 9, Agni Press, 1981