Question: With what movement is Swamiji connected in New York?
Sri Chinmoy: I am not connected with any movement.You came by yourself?
Sri Chinmoy: No, I was brought up in a spiritual Centre. I stayed for twenty years in a spiritual Centre in India, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. For twenty years I stayed there. I went there at the age of one but they were not accepting children. But I stayed there from the age of twelve until I was thirty-two. Twenty years I stayed doing intense meditation and all that. My brothers and sisters were all there. I am the youngest of the lot and my sisters and brothers are still all there. Some of them have been there for thirty years, forty years, in that Centre.
I got the Command from within. The Supreme within me demanded it. In the beginning I was afraid, but I was compelled. My American sponsors also insisted. I said, “Well, if it is the Supreme’s Will, I have to accept.” And I came here. We do not decide anything. We wait for the Command. Where is India? Where is New York? I had to come.
Did you go to Europe first?
Sri Chinmoy: No, I did not go to Europe. Only on the way we stopped there for two and a half hours. Otherwise I did not go to Europe. I have been here in the U.S., in New York. I have gone to quite a few states to give talks. I went to Canada. Most probably at the end of my visit here, I will go to California. Again, these are all speculations. We do not know actually what will happen. Here I have come. Who knows if I may come here again. I may not come here at all.
You have to come back again.
Sri Chinmoy: We don’t decree such things.
But you must try to arrange it.
Sri Chinmoy: We say that the Guru is always at the command of his disciples. If the disciples want him, the Guru is bound to come. There is no alternative.
If a child cries, the father will not feed himself, but he will remain unfed and he will come to the child, to try and feed the child. It is like that.
We need to be fed.
Sri Chinmoy: You have here so many spiritual figures for guidance. I am so glad that at least Puerto Rico has been blessed with spiritual figures. There are places, unlit places, where spiritual figures have never come and it is quite unfortunate.
