Aging Ashramites

When I see the Ashramites who are older than I am, how pitifully they walk! They take four inch-long strides and their whole body bends in different directions. Their faces are completely changed. While walking along the street, out of fifty people I would only see perhaps only one Ashramite that I knew from before. So many people who are older than I am by five or ten years have passed away. Wherever I went, there were all new faces. The old ones have all gone. When I went to the Samadhi, I could not recognise anybody. At the meditation hall, I could not recognise anybody. They are all new.

I think there are practically the same number of Ashramites — 2,000 or so — but most of them are new. People with whom I was brought up have all gone. Even many who were younger than I am have passed away.

My aunt is an exception. She is 95 years old. She is blind; she cannot see at all. She wants to live another five years, and then celebrate her centenary. There are three people who are one hundred years old in the Ashram. Let us see how many years more they can cover.

In India so many people die after the age of fifty years. It is from our Indian heat. If I had stayed more than two months there, I too would have gone to the other world! I suffered so much from the heat. The fan was emitting only hot air. When you stand in front of the Bay of Bengal, it is unbearable. The hot countries that we visit at Christmas are nothing in comparison to Indian heat.

From:Sri Chinmoy,My express visit to India, Agni Press, 1995
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/evi