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Moments with Swami Chanmayanandji......  My first exposure to Swami Chinmayanandaji was in 1961 in New Delhi, while sitting on a dozen pair of shoes — the only seating space available in a hall packed to capacity at one of his discourses. I was very impressed by his logic and dynamic personality. A few days later, I took my mother to visit him at his place of residence. In conversation, he asked my mother what I was doing. She told him that I had developed a ‘fad’ for spirituality and had given up studies midway in the first year of college in Bombay in order to study vedanta. She also told him that I had been wearing white khadi clothes, stopped seeing movies, even stopped going out to parties…. Swamiji was not impressed. He turned to me and said lovingly: “How will you master the great subjective science of the Self, which is far more difficult, if you are not able to cope with the objective sciences, which are much easier? First master the objective sciences, and then you master the subjective science.” Swamiji then turned to my mother and almost shouted: “Go and put her back into college!” He then looked at me and said: “Go and get a degree!” Later that day, mummy said that I had gotten her a scolding from the swami on her very first meeting! I went on to complete my studies and got a Masters degree in philosophy. I owe my education to him, the first of many gifts from him. It was much later that I realised that one cannot progress in spiritual life by ‘running away’ from the world. One has to perform one’s duties in life — and face the challenges of life — with a spiritual attitude, as a part of spiritual practice. Another defining moment with Swami Chinmayananda was when something in my life was causing a great deal of unhappiness to me. It is usually an excessive attachment to something or someone, which is the cause of mental stress. Swamiji noticed the unhappy look on my face and asked what the problem was. I told him. Three days later, during his lecture, he said: “We are bound by wrong thinking. Clinging bondages hinder us from progressing. You are looking for water in the desert. Poor desert! It does not have water to give you. If it had, it would surely give. All it has is a mirage. It is not the desert’s fault. You are looking for water where it does not exist. You want happiness from this world? But the world is like the desert. It does not have any happiness to give you. You are looking in the wrong direction. If you want happiness — take a right about-turn and look within!” These words shook me up. The whole thing just clicked. The sorrow lifted from my head — because the expectation from the world had suddenly gone. I felt free. We usually look in the wrong direction for happiness. The outer world can only give the illusion of happiness and that too, temporarily. I started to take the about-turn that Swamiji had spoken of. I began meditating regularly, in search of that fulfilment within. A few years later, there was another defining moment for me with Swami Chinmayananda. One morning after meditation, I was reflecting on how the ultimate Reality could have different attributes like ‘bliss’ and ‘consciousness’, when it was supposed to be one homogeneous whole. “Is the Supreme Reality bliss or is it consciousness? How can it be both?” This thought stayed in my mind the whole day.
In the evening, a visitor came to meet Swamiji and asked him a question on how and when this world was created. While answering her, Swamiji raised our minds from the how and when of creation to great heights of contemplation. He then turned around, looked deeply into my eyes for a couple of seconds and said to the visitor: “Keep that Krishna always in your handbag!” The lady looked bewildered. It was I who would always carry a Krishna in my handbag. Yet he was telling the lady to keep Krishna in her handbag! Swamiji continued: “Hang on to him only. Don’t leave him and don’t let him eat the butter. Don’t let him swallow the butter! Keep guard. Let the butter melt away.” Swamiji then elaborated: “In meditation, the bliss that you experience is not you, it is his. The bliss is his. He just lets you taste it. The consciousness that you experience is not you. Both bliss and consciousness are his. He lets you have a taste. But thereafter, don’t stay there, thinking that that is all or that you have reached. Know that they are his and wait for him. The reality can never become an object of your experience. From here, it is not for you to experience him. When he wants, he will come and lift you up. Wait there for him. Don’t leave him. Keep him always with you in your handbag!” I knew Swamiji for 32 years. During all those years, he was always there with the right guidance at the right time. These were my defining moments with him — at different stages of my life. As we enter his birth centenary year, I feel that he still guides me.When a master merges with the infinite Reality, then it is the infinite Reality that holds your hand. Chinmaya Mission has inaugurated a yearlong programme of celebrations on May 8 on the start of Swami Chinmayananda’s birth centenary year (source : SpeakingTree) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
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