Almost seven years ago, when I spent a few weeks in the summer in language training, I had a teacher who knew Bengali. Unusual for teachers training hopeless civil servants to get their required C-levels in French. But this teacher asked me if I could speak any other languages, and after he learned that I knew Bengali, he would intersperse a few words of Bengali here and there and make comparisons between French and Bengali.
J'aime. J'amais. Ami bhalo bashi. I love.
French has two ways of addressing "you". Tu and vous. Bengali has three. Tui, Tumi, Apni.
Jomoge. Jumeau/Jumelle. Twin.
He didn't tell me until after the course was done why he was interested in Bengali or why he would run in a marathon every year that didn't seem to have any purpose - not raising funds for any reason, not to see who would win, none of the typical reasons.
After I had passed my test and had just come back to say good-bye to him, he said he had something for me. It was a poster for a play that he was going to be in. Two Spiritual Lions. He said he had directed it and was going to be acting in it. I promised I would go to see it.
Before the night of the play, I looked it up. It was a play written by Sri Chinmoy, a Bengali spiritual leader who promoted peace and harmony through sport. One of the many things he had done was to start the World Harmony Run, a global torch relay, seeking to strengthen international friendship and understanding.
I was so taken by the play, I started to read more about Sri Chinmoy, who also taught meditation. I found his words comforting. I kept The Wings of Joy on my night table and read it again and again, and uploaded Flute Music for Meditation on my iPhone.
In the last few weeks, I returned to Sri Chinmoy for comfort. I bought a book of his meditation techniques. One of my favourites has been this:
Remain unaffected by the waves. Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface, there may be a multitude of waves, but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our inner existence, our true existence - that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then, when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoil will just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thought cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all one-ness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. So when we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation.
The things happening to me are the waves and I am trying to be unaffected by them. I am trying to remain in the depths of the sea and my inner existence.
It doesn't always work, but it helps. And when I am scared, I read a few more of Sri Chinmoy's words. He also helps me to understand why suffering is necessary. It is a purification of the soul. Suffering can be to atone for sins in a previous life - Dharma - but it can also be to allow one to understand humanity better, an experience that God wants to have through us.
Sri Chinmoy passed away just a few days before I went to see my French teacher's play. But he did not consider death to be the end, just part of the spiritual journey.
And I never saw my French teacher again. I think he came into my life to introduce me to Sri Chinmoy (and help me get a C in French). Who would have thought that it would be a Franco-Ontario who would bring a Bengali spiritual leader into my life?
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