Check your Front Tire

When I was 19 years old and still in college, I had to go home from school for the summer. I had recently joined Guru’s path and had been a disciple for only a month. I still didn't understand Guru that much and had a little bit of fear about the whole “being a disciple” thing, but as this story will show, I was also receptive to Guru’s influence and protection.

My means of transportation was my motorcycle, and I had to ride it home about 100 kilometers on the highway. As I got on the motorcycle, I felt a very powerful thought—you could say an inner voice—run through me. It wouldn't leave my mind, and it gave me two directives. The first was, “Check your front tire. Before you ride your motorcycle, check the front tire of your motorcycle.” And the second was, “Chant ‘Supreme’ all the way home.” (Sri Chinmoy’s preferred term for God was “Supreme.”)

I had not yet met Guru in person, and I didn't know where this thought was coming from. But it was extremely powerful and it wouldn’t leave me. So I checked the bike—I checked the tires, I checked everything. And I rode home very carefully at a minimum speed, chanting, “Supreme, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme” the whole way. I thought I was going crazy, but I felt compelled to do these things.

An hour later I was almost at my home town, riding slowly along a very fast highway, when all of a sudden the front wheel of my motorcycle started shaking and shaking. I couldn't handle the bike any more. I slowed down even more and was able to drift over to the shoulder of the road and jump off my motorcycle. The only reason this was possible was because I was prepared for it.

I got off, looked at my motorcycle, and saw that the front tire was totally flat—no air at all. At that point, I knew that Guru had just saved my life, and my faith in him increased by two thousand percent. Just like that, I had no more fear of Guru, because it was obvious that he had warned me about my front tire going flat an hour before it happened. I knew that if I had been riding normally along the highway, I would have definitely gotten badly hurt or even killed if I hadn’t received that warning from Guru.

When I got home and my parents asked me, “What are you doing with this meditation, with this teacher? What practical value does it have?” all I really had to say was, “Well, he just saved your son's life. That's pretty practical.”

My faith in God
Is my inner freedom.
My faith in God
Is my outer confidence.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. My Christmas-New Year-Vacation Aspiration-Prayers, part 8, #42, Agni Press, 2002