The story of getting my house is an interesting story.
One day, my mother invited me to go downstairs to the house where there's a safe, the family safe, where she keeps all the treasured papers. She opened it up and the first thing she gave me was a copy of my bachelor's degree from the university, which I had never seen before. This was in 1980, and I graduated back in 1970.
My father passed away in 1968. But on this occasion, she brought out all the money and the documents, and the stocks that my father had left me. I think she was under instructions to give this stuff to me when I got married. But she was beginning to see that that wasn't going to happen.
In any case, suddenly I had all this wealth on my hands. So, I went to Guru, and I asked Guru what I should do with it. Guru said, “Buy a house.”
This was in February, and Guru said to buy a house in time for April Celebrations, then I could put a lot of disciples in the house for April Celebrations.
I went around looking for a house and finally I found one that Guru liked. So, you know, there was an old lady living in it who said that she could be out by March 31st, which meant we could have it ready for Celebrations.
I got a mortgage. I did the whole closing with the lawyers and everything. We did the whole deal. Then the lady said she needed till April 31st. She needed another month to prepare for moving.
So, I told Guru what happened. I said, “It doesn't look like the house will be ready for April Celebrations because the lady wants to stay there until the end of April.”
Then Guru said, “Buy another house.”
I said, “But Guru, I already put down—whatever it was—20 thousand dollars. We have a mortgage and did the closing, signed the papers. If we back out of it, there are problems. I told him all these outer problems.
Guru said, “Well, tell Chidananda to buy that house and you get another house.”
So, then I called up Chidananda and said, “Chidananda, Guru wants you to buy this house that I bought because he wants me to get another house for April Celebrations.”
So, in any case, here it is, it was already well into March. It took me a long time to get the mortgage for the house and make the deal and then have the closing. There's usually a big delay in the closing. They have to check it out. They have to do all these different inspections. And now I had about two weeks to get another house before April Celebrations. It seemed impossible. It took me a couple of weeks to find that first house.
The funny thing is, I did manage to find another house, and it was practically across the street from where I was living, but they didn't have a “For Sale” sign there. I'm not sure how I figured out that the house was for sale. But somehow, it must have come to my notice. Maybe someone mentioned it or something.
I started speaking to the person who owned the house. It turned out his mother had recently passed away and he was selling the house. He was a lawyer, so he had the ability to find me a mortgage, to set the closing, and to do everything that needed to be done within about a week, which is unheard of. It's almost impossible to do.
Well, of course, before buying the house I brought Guru there to show it to him so he could approve it. He looked at it and he was satisfied with the house. Then basically it was ready for Celebrations, and I think we put about 30 disciples in there during that Celebrations.
Soon after Celebrations had ended, people moved in. Guru came and visited the house. He visited all the rooms and gave advice to various people, like not to have their clothes out in the open. They should put a curtain in front of where their clothes are if they don't have a closet. Various other little bits of practical advice Guru gave to people in the rooms. He sat and meditated for quite a while on the house. He also said that, you know, he had to approve of any people who were living in the house, and he made it clear that it was his house and not my house.
God tells me that
He likes to remain
Permanently
The Landlord of my heart-house.
Sri Chinmoy
