How I first heard about Sri Chinmoy

There was this one guy who worked in the loading dock where I worked, where packages came in. He used to deliver packages and pick up packages several times a day. Anyhow, he was always in some kind of trance state when he came in. He hardly spoke. He looked very peaceful, and so one day I decided to sit down at the lunch table with him. I started speaking to him and telling him all of my philosophy and my ideas and everything. He was relatively quiet. Then he took out a book and opened it up to a certain page. He told me to read it.  

This is what I read:

O my mind, no earthly chain can fetter you, you are always on the wing. No human thought can control you. You are forever on the move. O my mind, hard is it for you to believe in my soul's constant fulfilment and hard is it for me to believe that you are doomed to be the eternal victim of venomous doubts. Alas, you have forgotten. You have forgotten the golden secret: To remain in the silence-room is to open the fulfilment-door.

Sri Chinmoy
from the book Songs of the Soul -  the essay “O My Mind.”

When I read that, I felt something deep inside my heart. I felt that these words expressed a truth that was inside of me, but was expressed so much more clearly and brilliantly than I could ever express myself. It was like an inner thrill went through me.

I immediately asked, “Who is this?”

He said, “Sri Chinmoy. He's my spiritual teacher.”

I asked him, “Is there any way I could meet him?”

Then he told me that Sri Chinmoy was here in New York and gave me a number for someone who was giving meditation classes and yoga.

For a long time
Speech was my only teacher.
Now I have a totally new teacher,
Silence,
And this teacher I shall keep
Forever and forever.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 229, Agni Press, 1996