The day before we left New York (for India), our realtor found what sounded like the perfect place for our new yoga centre. It had not been advertised yet because the owner was not quite ready. We went to have at least a look at the outside.
Nobody was home, but while we were looking around, the owner’s son came home for lunch. When we asked to see the inside, he said, "If I let you in my mother will kill me!" I promised, "We will stay only a few minutes. We are leaving for India tomorrow, so we can see it now or never. If we buy it, your mother will not kill you; and if we don’t buy it, she will never even know that we were here. I promise."
He accepted my logic and allowed us to whiz through on a 10-minute tour. Every room was beautiful—it was exactly what we were looking for. We told the boy, "This is it. We want it."
Of course, we wanted Guru to see it and give his approval before we signed the papers, so we gave my daughter the Power of Attorney. Gurudev would be back soon and if he approved, she would sign the paperwork on our behalf.
Back to New Rochelle from India
Our new house, right in the centre of New Rochelle, was on Bancker Place, a street that was only one block long. With no through traffic, it was perfect for a yoga centre. There was a little park across the street, which made parking easy for our students. For many years, the house had been owned by a minister named Rev. Bancker. He must have been a very spiritual person, because Guru gave the house a 90 per cent rating and said that he would meditate there after our return, and raise it to 100 per cent. With Guru’s wholehearted approval we moved to Bancker Place.
Wide French doors led to an entrance hall and a beautiful curved stairway. This led up to three bedrooms, plus a master suite with two rooms and a bath at the end of a separate hallway. A pull-down stairway led to a large finished attic.The living room, visible from the entrance hall through more French doors on the right, would be our exercise room. It was large and had about 15 feet of lovely built-in leaded glass bookshelves along one-and-a-half sides of the room and a fireplace opposite. The dining room next to it, almost as big as the exercise room in our former house, would be our meditation room. The extra bonus that thrilled me was a second fireplace in an upstairs bedroom, which I immediately claimed.
The first evening we set up a shrine and held our first meditation in the new yoga centre. It was unbelievably powerful. As I sat there I could feel the room crying for joy that there was something spiritual happening in it after so many empty years. When we finished, my son, Abhi, told me that he had also felt the room crying, so I knew it was not my imagination. What a wonderful atmosphere for a yoga centre!
Guru was still virtually unknown in the outer world and up until the time of our trip to India, he had discouraged disciples from talking about him, except to very sincere seekers. Jharna-Kala (Sri Chinmoy's art) did not exist yet and the only music was ‘The Invocation’ and a few chants from the Upanishads. There were no books, only Guru’s monthly Aum Magazine. During the two weeks that we were in Hawaii on our way to India, I received my first letter from Guru, saying that the time had now come to spread his light.
A letter from Sri Chinmoy, about two seeker-friends of Sarama's
In the 1960s many young people had been lured into the drug culture, looking for spiritual experiences. When they did not find what they hoped for through drugs, they turned toward yoga. Seekers were coming in droves. Sometimes they came in such large numbers that, one evening, I had to turn away eleven college students who had come for the first time. There was simply no more space.
The seekers were eagerly soaking up Guru’s philosophy at each meditation and spreading the word to their friends. Drugs were dropped, beards were shaved and these ex-hippies began to ask how they could become disciples of Sri Chinmoy.
Guru came to the house a couple of times to hold meditations and interviews. He meditated individually with each person who wanted to be his disciple in an upstairs room.
A reminiscence from Savita, one of Sri Chinmoy's students:
Meditation, 1977: Sarama and Savita, with Sri Chinmoy in the background
I did not have to travel to India to begin my spiritual search. In fact, my start began a few blocks from my home! Sarama’s Hatha Yoga Centre, Yoga of Westchester, was situated in her homein New Rochelle, N.Y.—a ten-minute walk from where I lived with my family. In my search to discover a deeper purpose to my life than the goals that my parents and society prescribed for me, I began taking Hatha Yoga classes with Sarama in the Fall of 1970 when I was fifteen. I greatly enjoyed these, but after attending the free meditation sessions that Sarama offered preceding or following the exercise classes, I realised that it was the meditation and spiritual lessons that I was seeking, more than the Hatha Yoga training.
Sarama led her students in chanting, reading from Guru’s writings and meditating silently on Guru’s Transcendental Photograph. I must say that I particularly loved the question-and-answer period that followed the meditations. Listening to Sarama speak about Guru was both inspiring and fascinating. She exuded a spiritual confidence—it seemed that there was no question that Sarama could not answer!
Story by Surabhi: In 1969 I was a senior at the College of New Rochelle, and I was interested in exploring meditation as a way of life. I was not happy with the fact that my classmates were getting distracted by drug experimentation, and I was starting to become disillusioned by the protests against the Vietnam War run by angry young professors. I was inspired by a 34-year-old student teacher named Adrienne Garnett, who was taking yoga classes at Bancker Place with a woman named Sarama. Since it was just a block away from my school, I went one evening, just for the meditation class after the yoga. I loved it! Sarama was a clear thinker with tremendous faith in the power of meditation and in her spiritual Teacher, Sri Chinmoy.
She taught meditation so simply that it was effortless. From that evening on, I did not miss a meditation session. Sarama invited me to clean her house twice a week in exchange for daily yoga classes as well as the meditation, and I began a radical change of lifestyle to vegetarianism and focus on the spiritual life. Even during Christmas break, I told my parents that I had a class, and did not go home. I hid in my empty dorm so I could continue Sarama’s meditation classes.
Then Sarama invited me to meet Sri Chinmoy, who was giving a lecture at a college. When I saw him, I heard a voice inside me say, “Welcome home to your real family". I got into an elevator to leave when the lecture ended, and Sri Chinmoy came into the same elevator. My vision changed and I saw him as Jesus Christ. (I had been brought up as a Catholic.) When the elevator doors opened, I hid behind a large poster display. I said to myself, “He knows I am hiding from him".
Sarama continued to guide me every day. When I graduated, she told me not to move back home, and she found me a place to live that was only a block from her house. I heard of the Centre, which was called the AUM Centre in those days. I wondered how to get invited to be a member.
Then one morning, while pondering this possibility after my meditation, I heard a voice inside my head. Christ said to me, “Take this new boat with this new Master, and I will be waiting for you on the other side". I practically ran to Sarama’s house and told her I must come with her to the meeting of the Connecticut AUM Centre. She smiled and said, “I was waiting for this day".
