Part I

Invoking the queen of sleep1

These words that I have just set to music, Ghumer rani, have a story behind them.[fn:: SCA 1230,1. The complete words to the song are:
Ghumer rani ghumer rani barek dekha dao
amai chhere dure theke tripti bujhi pao_] The words I wrote in Shanghai, where we stayed for one day after flying from New York. I was desperately trying to sleep, but sleep was not descending and so I was writing poems and invoking the queen of sleep. I was saying to myself, “If I cannot sleep when I desperately need it, then I will suffer. Perhaps I will develop insomnia, like Swami Vivekananda. He used to roam from one place to another. From Calcutta he would go to one place, then another place, only to sleep. But sleep did not descend. How he suffered from lack of sleep!” So I was wondering if I would develop that same condition. My connection with Swami Vivekananda is so powerful, so strong; it is closer than the closest. All of a sudden, in his subtle body, he came and stood in front of me and started scolding me in Bengali. He said, “You are _not going to have that problem that I suffered from for many years, eight or ten years, or even more. You are not going to have that kind of disease.”

On the one hand, Swami Vivekananda shows me tremendous, tremendous affection and fondness, like a brother, my real brother. On the other hand, he is very, very powerful in scolding! What can I say? If you are younger in the family, you deserve it!


SCA 1230. Sri Chinmoy offered these comments in Sanya, China, on 25 November 2004.