The Bronx: Two sweet incidents

A very, very stout lady from the Bronx came a few times to the Indian Consulate when I was working there. She immediately became like my grandmother! She took me to her place and gave me so many things to eat. She became my real grandmother. That was my first Bronx experience.

I had a very, very devoted disciple from the Bronx in the early days. I gave her the spiritual name Ballabha. She used to come to meditate at my place in Manhattan. In those days there were about fifteen or twenty disciples. I used to stand in front of each and every disciple offering a rose. First I would give the rose and then I would look at the person and meditate. I was standing and they were seated. It was very nice.

One day this lady invited me to come with a disciple to her place in the Bronx. Can you imagine, she had kept all the roses, dried, in a jar. So beautifully she had decorated the jar. The dried petals of all the roses that I had given her she had kept. I was extremely, extremely moved.

Then she started talking about her brother. Again and again she was using the word “belligerent, belligerent!” Perhaps I had heard the word before, but it was not striking a chord. She was telling me, “My brother is belligerent, belligerent!” That word, “belligerent,” I learnt from her.

26 June 2005 Aspiration-Ground Jamaica, New York