The Hidden Path (WINNER OF THE BEAUTY AWARD for Spiritual)

The Rest Of The Tour

How can one know who his spiritual teacher is?...His heart looks at the spiritual Masters and makes the choice. When the heart sees a spiritual Master, if it is overwhelmed with joy, then there is every probability that that spiritual Master is the right one for the seeker.

- Sri Chinmoy

The next day, after a well-deserved shower and having slept for a few hours in a cheap hotel, I felt much more cheerful. In spite of the fact that our accommodation was clearly situated in one of the post-WWII-communist concrete buildings.

With all the charm of an underground car park.

Still, the doom and gloom from the night before had completely disappeared and after having had a decent morning meditation, I was ready to face my (spiritual) life once again.

The breakfast, consisting of stale rolls with butter and jam as well as black tea, was not thrilling. But sufficient to assuage my hunger and enough to keep me satisfied. Besides, following the wise advise of my much more experienced friends, I had brought some snacks on the trip.

Around noon, we met Sri Chinmoy and all the disciples from the day before at the river Spree for a boat ride.

Had we initially thought that we had timed our arrival to be rather early, we soon discovered that this was a relative term: masses of people were crowding the pier already and it was quite a challenge to get through to those few, who held detailed information about the program... and the tickets.

In order to become spiritual, one needs certain qualities like open-mindedness, a strong inner cry (also called aspiration), a good heart, discipline, purity and a few more. To be organized, however, is not usually one of the prerequisites... and it often shows. (And – yes – I also include myself in that statement.)

When dealing with only a handful of people, one can always manage somehow. But when it comes to bigger crowds... Let's just say that these are great opportunities for everybody involved to develop certain important spiritual qualities like patience and inner peace. And in that case, even more importantly: intuition!

Unfortunately, intuition has a habit of not necessarily working simply because we want it to and patience and peace are not that easy to acquire.

Anyway, after some running back and forth (or rather: pushing blindly through the crowds), we were lucky to get hold of five tickets, one for each of us girls (the boys had already obtained theirs by the time we had arrived, but as they had allegedly been unsure, whether they would meet us in time...).

Unfortunately, the boat consisted of two decks and our tickets placed us in the one below the Sri Chinmoy's. Meaning, that we were able to hear (his microphone was linked to the intercom), but not see him.

Still, the atmosphere on the boat was magical: the thick fog surrounding us gave me the delightful impression of floating in a protected, spiritual pod, somewhere in the vast universe.

Sri Chinmoy gave a talk, he recited poems and sang some songs for us. I managed to meditate practically the whole time (that morning I had been able to take a shower, after all, and I was able to sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor), deeply enjoying the peaceful, serene feeling on board.

Near the end of the trip, the master offered prasad, which gave us the opportunity to go up to the first deck and get quite close to him. So close, in fact, that one would probably have been able to touch him, had one been inclined to do so.

Like the evening before, he sat facing us in a wide chair with his eyes half closed, meditating on each one of us as the line slowly passed by.

Gradually moving closer and closer to my goal at the bow of the boat, I could feel the spiritual intensity increasing with every step I took. When I finally reached the end of my journey in the form of the master - only separated from him by three boxes next to each other containing small prasad items - I had the impression that the vibration was so... dense, I was almost able to see or touch it. And I was definitely, definitely able to feel it!