I’ve been very blessed to have had many spiritual experiences in my life.
In my childhood, I met a spiritual Master named Sri Chinmoy, and in his presence I had an experience of feeling the vastness of the universe inside my heart.
I grew up in a loving household with a mother who raised me and my sister to lead a pure life.
At that time my understanding of reality was to “be good to others.”
When I was a teenager I began having deeper experiences around the time of my 17th birthday. Then I started aspiring more consciously.
The first book which influenced me profoundly was Kundalini: The Mother Power by Sri Chinmoy.
Around that time I also read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.
These two books opened my eyes to a wide possibility of various intense inner realities which I had been asleep to before.
Sri Chinmoy had left the physical body at that time, but I felt his presence in my life very tangibly.
Very often I would read about a particular phenomenon or possibility that I would experience myself later. When this happened, I didn’t think that it was because I was so spiritual, but because I had a great teacher who could transmit experiences to us from a plane of consciousness where he was one with God- and I wanted to achieve that awareness inside myself.
Once, for instance, I was meditating on a couch and I entered into a very deep state of relaxation. I felt every cell in my body tingling with life energy. I was concentrating very deeply on my heart chakra, and at a certain point the energy popped out of my body through it. I found myself looking at my body from outside, with a cord of energy connecting me to it. I had no thoughts, but I was still aware- a continuous undercurrent of Will. It was a pure experience of consciousness, that I needed for my self-development. Before that, I didn’t know what the soul was, or that I had one. I had heard terms tossed around which were abstract realities. As the soul, I was able to freely move about the room, seeing in all directions at the same time, and even pass through walls and see the heavens up above. In the sky, there were stars filling the night with golden light, and I intuitively sensed that each one of those could help lead me back to my friend’s souls, like a map. I was energetically very light, and I could fly anywhere I liked. The experience lasted for a few minutes, but I went back into my body because I didn’t want to be away from it for long.
These things are only considered essential if the Supreme or our spiritual master feels it will be helpful for our spiritual progress.
The real task is in bringing the light of the soul into our daily lives and all our activities, which can be done through years of meditation and training- or God’s Grace.
We use the term “God” or “Supreme” interchangeably, but Sri Chinmoy didn’t want us to give up on “God” as such. Also, we feel that spiritual Masters like Sri Chinmoy have the light of God inside of them blossomed to such an extent, that they are like the ocean and we are like a drop.
A true spiritual master doesn’t believe in superiority or inferiority, he (or she) just tries to help us by guiding us from where we are to get to where he is, if we are compatible with his style of teaching.
Jan 28, 2024
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