Sumangali Morhall's Blog, page 7
May 19, 2012
God’s Great Experiment
This story was first published in Inspiration-Letters #25, an online magazine of articles, written by members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre around the world. The theme for this edition is “Living in the Now”.
My father forwarded an email to me this morning — one of those circulars sent between batches of friends and family. I always read them; I know my own friends and family would only share with me those topics that had profoundly moved them or amused them. This one must have been going around f...
May 13, 2012
The Humble Gourd
My mother was an engineer, and still is at heart, even in retirement. Growing up in her presence everything could be questioned or taken apart: physically or theoretically. I thus learned that the Way of Things followed logical reason, whether or not we understood that reason at a given time. We were scientists, artists, tailors, chefs and gardeners, mechanics and explorers, borne on the wings of patience and liberty. Life was a joint adventure: the victory craftily skewed to me; the mess and...
May 5, 2012
Accidental Spirituality
I did not have a religious or overtly spiritual upbringing, in fact the subject of God was conspicuous by its absence. I am grateful to my family for not forcing any beliefs on me, for deliberately letting me choose my own way, but it seems quite funny now looking back on my first encounters with religion, and my childly interpretations of them, not really having a clue what any of it meant inwardly.
I suppose my late development in a spiritual sense was partly down to the fact that I was not...
April 27, 2012
The Making of Auspicious Good Fortune
Auspicious Good Fortune is officially launched today, 27th of April 2012. I thought I would tell you the story of how it came to be, as this is a tale of mysterious good fortune in itself.
The end was really the beginning. The poem on the last pages of the book was written just after Sri Chinmoy‘s passing in 2007. I was sitting inthe place of meditation, known as Aspiration-Ground, where my Guru spent much of his time in New York. I had written down a few of my recollections in years past, but...
April 22, 2012
Back in New York
Sri Chinmoy, August 2005, by Prashphutita
I still go at least twice a year to visit the place where Sri Chinmoy spent most of his time –once in April and once in August. Some things are naturally different since his passing in 2007, but some things are still the same. Although I do miss the outer presence of my Guru, the feeling in that little corner of Queens, New York, is just as refined and powerful. I always come back thinking I have been away for weeks, even after days –vigour and inspira...
March 30, 2012
Emus and Egyptology
I live right on a railway line. The whole building shudders when the heavy freight goes by, and I can hear the echoing announcements from the platform when the wind blows the right way. Somehow I find it comforting. I always had a happy association with trains, even when I was little. They knew the way to mysterious exotic places like Brighton and Burgess Hill. Trains were harbingers of good fortune. They brought people I loved –my father from work, or other relations for family visits.
My ver...
March 24, 2012
An Early Friendship
Dogs were my first obsession, and from the time I could talk, I repeated an ardent desire to have one of my own. In the innocence of youth, my parents decided to grant my wish just before my brother was born. They soon discovered it was not their greatest plan, but I was euphoric almost to the point of madness.
Spaniels themselves are mad at the best of times, at least when nobody has time to train them. Left to instinct they revert to a state of random ebullience, as if their brains are full...
March 18, 2012
Ashrita Furman in the News
Ashrita Furman has been in the UK news quite a bit this week, leading up to his next record breaking attempt in Brazil: to jump rope 900 times in an hour. Underwater. In an aquarium tank. Full of manatees.
Ashrita currently holds 137 Guinness World records, including the one for holding the most world records. He attributes his achievements to Sri Chinmoy, having learned from him the art of meditation and the philosophy of self-transcendence since his teens.
My favourite article this week was b...
March 11, 2012
Making a Wish for Peace
Giant glass letters look out from a face of steel, the words like an ancient promise: In These Stones Horizons Sing. The roof shimmers like a beetle’s back in the new spring sunshine, crouching in a burrow of layered slate. I had been using a map until I realised my destination could be seen quite plainly from miles around – Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru, Wales Millennium Centre –a home for the arts and culture, covering nearly five acres of ground. I am to spend the weekend here with around 50 oth...
March 2, 2012
The Tiger-Striped Goat
Long ago in the 19th Century,
Sri Ramakrishna related a story to his disciples, which comes to me very often. As I recall, a tigress went to attack a herd of goats, but a hunter saw her and killed her. As she was dying she gave birth to a cub, who was left behind with the goats. Goats were all the little cub knew, so he thought he was one of them. The nanny goats nursed him, and when he was weaned he ate grass as they did. Even when he was fully grown, he would bleat like a goat and run away i...
