Encountering The Infinite

My family and I were living on the island of Rarotonga at the time that Sri Chinmoy entered our life. Rarotonga is a tiny dot in the middle of the South Pacific ocean, about 4 hours flight north-east of New Zealand.

We had been driven there by a sense of dissatisfaction with our life in New Zealand which, while materially comfortable, was totally lacking any sense of true happiness or fulfilment.  Nipura, my wife had family connections there and we dreamed of settling in to a tropical paradise, raising pigs, chickens and our two daughters, Rupashri and Kallola, who were both under two years old at the time of our migration.

Sure enough, we settled in, set up a couple of small businesses, made friends with the locals and waited for happiness and fulfilment to come knocking on the door of our hundred year old coral and limestone not quite House and Garden mansion.

After nearly a year, I was a grumpy, overweight, bored, dissatisfied, intolerant, impatient, no fun guy – in short, exactly the same person who had left New Zealand behind.

One day, Nipura read out to me an advertisement in the local paper for free meditation classes. I wish I could say that the Voice of Destiny deafened me as she spoke, but, of course I’d be lying.

We went along to the classes and the first thing that struck me was the faces of the presenters and organising team – confident, focussed, dynamic and you guessed it, HAPPY AND FULFILLED. I didn’t know how, but I knew I wanted to be just like that.

The classes were fun and easy, and after a week our group of 25 people was asked if we would like to meet with Sri Chinmoy. Again, I wish that I could say that I felt the Hand Of Destiny nudging me insistently in the small of the back, but no, Nipura and I agreed that our social calendar was free that Saturday and what the heck, we might as well go along.

On that day, our life turned a major corner. Looking back on that meeting with Sri Chinmoy, I know that my lifelong search for the road to fulfilment had reached its goal. Our teacher, our guide, our dearest friend had come to Rarotonga  and having found us, has walked this road alongside us ever since.