A vision at 3 a.m in the morning

I was at that time still a ski teacher, so in February, I had to be one week with some children at a children's class. I was supposed to teach them skiing in the Swiss mountains. I was there in a nice wooden house in the mountains.

One night, I woke up at maybe 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. It was pitch black. I was becoming very conscious. I had never been so conscious. In this vision, I saw Guru’s face, and from his third eye a streak of light came into my heart in a color like yellow or green, something like that. Now I know it's love, the colour of love.

It expanded and suddenly I was a pond of water. The water was falling down, a waterfall into the next pond, which was much bigger. Guru's face had disappeared, but I was the water of this pond and the next pond was very big. The whole pond fell down as a waterfall into a big lake. And that water again fell down as a waterfall into the ocean.

I was every drop of that ocean and I was floating as far as the ocean went. There was no limit, there was no end to this. It was just water, drop after drop after drop, and every drop was love. It was incredible, the ultimate experience of truth. My body had long gone. I was expanding and expanding in this love-flow, oneness-ocean-vastness. Then I was sleeping again, and next morning when I woke up, it all came right back.

I didn't go skiing with the kids that day. I told the older ones, you should teach them. I stayed in front of this wooden house and sat there meditating all day.

I was crying the whole day. The tears were running down my face. I realised I had experienced the highest truth. The ultimate had come to me in Guru, in Guru's blessing, in Guru's deep, deep love.

This was so strong that I felt like my life, my self… I was like an old trunk, an old tree that was growing before, not straight but winding. It was getting old and now this old trunk was splitting open. From the very depths inside, a new plant, a few leaves, grew straight up. They were fresh green and very beautiful.

From that day on, whenever I meditated, I had a goal to reach.  The meditation was measured inside by the experience I had when Guru gave me his deep love.

I came to God
As a tiny, insignificant drop,
But He tells me that
He will not be satisfied
Until He turns me into
An ocean of love.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 37, #36301, Agni Press, 2004