Dear Tejvan,

This is a very good theme. I changed the spelling from "joining"
to "joy-ning" out of mischievous delight in playing games with words,
but it also expresses a truth. My joy-ning this path was not a mental
decision but a reaction to a meeting with Sri Chinmoy, where I felt
something even beyond joy in the encounter. I had been seeking and my
wife had been seeking right alongside me for some time. I did a
stretch at meditation in Thailand, and we even started a little
meditation group in USA New Jersey when we returned from Asia. There
was hunger in us. Prior to that I got into meditation almost from a
worldly desire to have the big knockout experience that I read about
and heard about from books and the spiritual grapevine. Maybe Buddha
knew something. Let's find out. Must be a really, really big
something or other of an experience. Hey, let's have that experience!

Once into meditation, I found that it did make you feel good and it
gave you an appetite for seafaring in that inner space. So, if
something makes you feel good, you want more, right? Right! Thus we
cruised the teachers and paths in quest of our teacher. Through one
event or another we went from our little town in New Jersey to the
Big Apple, NYC, and we saw the face of Sri Chinmoy. This man was
clearly inhabited by something special. The best thing was that I
could not put my finger on it. I could not define it. I could not put
it into a little box and say, "this is what it is". I had never met
such a man before. That very night at that public meditation in NYC
we became disciples. 1973. By the way, did you know that 1973 is a
prime number? That means that you can not break it down into the
multiple of any lesser integers. 1973 was truly prime. It was also a
year lying in wait for the advent of Tejvan--and you, and you and
you! We are all waiting for each other.

I have relived that evening many times in my memory, in my turning
over of the events of that night, of the joy, the quiet but firm
feeling that I had achieved what very few people in history achieve:
an encounter with the Big One. How could I be so lucky? No, no, it
couldn't be true, it couldn't be that I was meeting a God-Realized
Soul, no! But yes, it was true, it was really true. It was really
true that life was not a worthless meaningless piece of trash to fool
us and entice us along until we die. Oh, no! This was the famous door
opening, this was the light streaming through that little crack in
the door, open to invite us in to more light, more light. Joy! (Ning,
ok, -ning, too.)

To rhapsodize into an ending here, let me say that I feel like I am
beginning all over again right now. Yes, with Sri Chinmoy now in the
incorporeal dream of God, my faith in spirituality is challenged by
the challenge of connecting with my beloved Guru in his present form
and formlessness. This experience of Guru die-ing has greatly
increased my faith in God Almighty. There is just no way that that
incredible spirituality that encompassed so many inner and outer
forms and which weaved in and out of my life like smoke scattering
into the sky shall come to an end. NO! I mean Yes! Yes! to all the
inner feelings that continue to feel Guru's presence as vividly as
when he walked the earth. Amen.

Nayak

<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to some older disciples
about their experiences of joining the path, back in the 1970s
(before I was born). I always enjoying hearing how people make the
step to following a spiritual life.
>
> For any seeker, the time of accepting a spiritual path and a Guru
are very significant; it is a time of great enthusiasm and newness.
After years of confusion, following a spiritual path opens up a huge
range of possibilities. In one sense joining a spiritual life seems
to involve sacrificing aspects of our personal freedom; but, from
what I remember I never felt like I was giving up anything; in fact,
it was the opposite, I now felt free to pursue what I had always
intuitively wanted - it was just that, previously, I struggled to
find what 'it' was.
>
> I would be interested in hearing people's experiences of joining
the path. What inspired you to pursue a spiritual life? How did it
occur?
>
>
>
> ~
>
> Tejvan
>