Video by Utpal Marshall
On March 3rd 1979, Sri Chinmoy completed his first marathon in Chico California in a time of 4:31:34. Each year since then, his students in New York and around the world have honoured him by running the 26-mile distance.
Video by Utpal Marshall
On March 3rd 1979, Sri Chinmoy completed his first marathon in Chico California in a time of 4:31:34. Each year since then, his students in New York and around the world have honoured him by running the 26-mile distance.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a lecture, entitled ‘Transcendental Height and Aspiration-Light’, at the University of Dublin, in Dublin, Ireland.
Sri Chinmoy holds a 14-hour outdoor meditation at the Connecticut Centre in Norwalk, CT, USA, for his disciples who had been with him for at least four years.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a lecture, entitled ‘Fear and Courage’, at the University of Geneva, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sri Chinmoy is named Chaplain to the 1980 Winter Olympics, to be held at Lake Placid, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy meets with Olympic running legend Emil Zatopek and his wife Dana at Zurich Airport and then later that day he introduced him to the crowd at the Westathletic-Cup, a multinational track-and-field event held near Zurich, Switzerland.
Sri Chinmoy performs a standing calf raise with a weight of 1,000 lbs., in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy meets and meditates with singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie, son of the legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie, at Annam Brahma restaurant in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy begins writing Sail My Heartbeat Sail poetry series in Jamaica, NY, USA.
The Solomon Islands is declared a Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossom-Nation.
Sri Chinmoy receives the Heart of Mexico Award.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert and a piano performance at the Oslo Spectrum in Oslo, Norway.
Sri Chinmoy plays 51 of his own melodies on the sitar at his first full sitar concert, at Public School 86 in Jamaica, NY, USA. The recording is later released on CD as ‘Impossibility Surrenders’.
Sri Chinmoy presents the U Thant Peace Award to Mahasamrat Bill Pearl, 5-time Mr. Universe and ‘World’s Best-Built Man of the Century’, in San Diego, CA, USA. Sri Chinmoy also lifts the bodybuilding champion and his wife Bhavatarini Judy Pearl and presents them with a signed original Soul-Bird drawing.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert (afternoon) at San Diego Copley Symphony Hall in San Diego, CA, USA.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert (evening) at San Diego Copley Symphony Hall in San Diego, CA, USA.
A 14-HOUR FATHER’S DAY MEDITATION
Jamaica, N.Y. – Sri Chinmoy and about a hundred of his disciples celebrated Father's Day last month with a 14-hour meditation.
For the final seven hours, the Master gave darshan, blessing each one of his disciples individually.
The disciples filed one by one into a small room where Sri Chinmoy waited, closing the door behind them.
Earlier, he had asked each of them to write on a piece of paper seven spiritual accomplishments or achievements. As each disciple entered the room, the Guru read the list in silence, and then blessed the seeker.
Some of the blessings lasted for a couple of minutes, and often the disciples would come out of the chamber deeply moved, sometimes in tears.
The meditation was originally meant to last only 13 hours, but the extra hour was needed to complete the darshan.
The day was broken up into two four-hour sessions, one three-hour session, and a final two-hour session which stretched into three hours. Between the sessions were rest breaks.
The disciples were asked to eat very little, or fast, in order to meditate better. But at two sessions the Master handed out prasad, or blessed food. Once it was an orange and a nectarine, and once it was an ice cream sandwich and an apple.
The evening ended with a 13-course meal.
Only those who had been disciples for at least four years were invited to participate in the meditation, and some came all the way from Canada and Florida for the single-day session.
The previous day Sri Chinmoy held a seven-hour meditation for his other disciples who had been with him for less than four years.
Published in Anahata Nada, Vol. II, No. 6, July 1, 1975
Norwalk Meditation for Sri Chinmoy
A special Father’s Day Meditation was held Saturday, June 14 in the garden of the Norwalk Sri Chinmoy Centre, 80 Perry avenue. The program consisted of *seven hours of silent meditation led by Sri Chinmoy, director of the United Nations Meditation Group. Present were 200 people, mostly members of the Norwalk Sri Chinmoy Centre. Also attending were members of Sri Chinmoy Centres of Chicago, San Francisco, Miami and Canada who came specifically for this event.
The meditation began at 6 A.M. and ended at 5 P.M. with several intervening breaks. After the meditation a 13-course vegetarian meal topped the festivities.
Several members of the Norwalk group also attended a similar meditation at the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Queens, N.Y. held the next day, which lasted for 14 hours.
Sri Chinmoy conducts regular meditations at the Norwalk centre every Saturday at 1 P.M.
Editor's note:*14 hours in total
Originally published in The Norwalk Hour, Wednesday, 18 June 1975
Reprinted in AUM – Vol. 2, No. 6, 27 June 1975
JAMAICA, NY — Singer Arlo Guthrie came to Annam Brahma restaurant on June 14 to meet and meditate with Sri Chinmoy.
“I am a great, sincere, genuine admirer of your father,” the Master told him. “He was a supremely genuine seeker and also an unparalleled self-giver through his heart-illumining and life-fulfilling songs.”
During the course of the meeting, the disciple singers sang Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” and Sri Chinmoy’s adaptation, “This Heart is Your Heart,” using words their teacher had put to Guthrie’s music.
Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 20, April–July 1991
Sri Chinmoy's Peace Concert
Video by kedarvideo
Sri Chinmoy's piano performance
Video by kedarvideo
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert and a piano performance at the Oslo Spectrum in Oslo, Norway.
Sri Chinmoy meets with Olympic running legend Emil Zatopek and his wife Dana at the Westathletic-Cup, a multinational track-and-field event held near Zurich, Switzerland.
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Examination Hall Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Dearest brothers and sisters, I have special love and admiration for your country, Ireland. I have been cherishing and treasuring love for this country since I was twelve, when I read a book written about the spiritual Master, Swami Vivekananda. In his biography I read something most striking. A young woman from your country was so deeply inspired by the Swami's spiritual light that she went to India and offered her entire existence to Swami Vivekananda, her spiritual Master. Her name was Miss Margaret Noble, but her Master offered her a new name, a spiritual name, her soul's name: Nivedita. Nivedita means self-offering, total self-offering. She offered her whole existence to India. India's spiritual children will forever remain indebted to her love and sacrifice. India's freedom-boat will forever be indebted to her significant efforts to free Mother India from ignorance. Nivedita embodied dedicated self-offering.
When I was twenty-three years old, for the first time I read her book about her Master, Swami Vivekananda. The great spiritual Master, Sri Aurobindo, once remarked that this book of Nivedita's was written with the breath of her heart. From this book I learned how a disciple can become inseparably one with the Master on the strength of implicit love, devotion and surrender to the Master's will.
There are two types of people on earth: spiritual people and unspiritual people. Spiritual people are often accused by those who are not spiritual of being abnormal. They supposedly want to live in the clouds and eat the moonlight. They have no sense of reality. They are just fooling themselves. This is the accusation that is often thrown at them. Spiritual people, in return, say that they are absolutely normal, whereas the unaspiring people are abnormal.
An unaspiring person accuses a spiritual person of not paying attention to the outer life. But a real spiritual person is bound to pay full attention to the outer life. If he is not sincerely spiritual in the truest sense, then in the name of spirituality he will ignore and revile the outer world. But the outer world is the manifestation of God. If someone wants to realise the highest Truth, how can he ignore God's outer manifestation? A really spiritual person will not ignore the outer world. On the contrary, he will accept the world. He will accept the challenge of the world. Then he will conquer the ignorance of the world and he will offer his Wisdom-Light to the world at large.
Unaspiring people often say that a spiritual person is afraid of the world. He is a coward. He does not brave the world, but runs away and hides like a thief, while the ordinary, unaspiring person shoulders the responsibilities of the entire world. But I wish to say that if a genuine spiritual person does not involve himself in the activities of the world, it is because he is preparing himself to shoulder the responsibilities of the world. He knows very well that it is God alone who can give him infinite Light, infinite Bliss, infinite Peace and infinite Power to change the face of the world. Just by mixing with the multitudes, he will not be able to help the world. But by serving the Inner Pilot, by fulfilling the Inner Pilot, he can one day be of real service to mankind.
Among the spiritual people there are some who are accused of too much spirituality, and there are some who are accused of too little. The latter are like students who go to school for a while, but do not want to complete their studies. They want to stop at grammar school or high school. These seekers are satisfied with an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss. They don't feel that they need infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. But at times frustration looms large in their lives, and they expect infinite Peace, Light and Bliss overnight. God feels that it is absurd on His part to give them infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. They are still children. We do not give a child thousands of dollars. We give him just a penny. That is more than enough for him. Even if this child begs his father to give him a thousand dollars, the father knows that he will not be able to appreciate it or utilise so large a sum properly or wisely.
In the spiritual life, when his aspiration does not immediately satisfy the craving mind of the budding, beginning aspirant, this person very often leaves the spiritual path. He thinks he is wasting his time. He says, "I have tried. I have prayed to God to give me Peace, Light and Bliss, but He has not fulfilled my prayer. I tried so hard, but He has not listened." But his conception of what kind of aspiration he has offered to the Supreme is not the Conception-Light of God. He is a child in the spiritual world. If he meditates fifteen minutes a day, he feels that he has played his role and that it is now God's bounden duty to satisfy him, to fulfil his desires. But when one becomes a sincere seeker, one feels that it is God's duty to bless him with Peace, Light and Bliss only in God's own time.
At our sweet will, we cannot demand Peace, Light and Bliss from above. Who wins the spiritual race? He who has patience. He who has inner courage. He who has the mounting inner cry, which we call aspiration. Each individual has only two things. When he is not in the inner life or in the life of the spirit, when he is in the body, in the vital and in the mind, at that time he has desire. But when he accepts the inner life, when he lives in the heart and the soul, he has aspiration. Desire has to possess one thing today, two things tomorrow and three things the day after tomorrow. Desire is like that. But aspiration does not go from one to two to three. Aspiration just tries to immerse us in the Sea of Peace, Light and Bliss. It does not try to possess the drops of this sea one by one.
From the ordinary point of view, desire is the most important. From the spiritual point of view, aspiration is the most important. If we desire something strongly, naturally we will get it sooner or later. In the world of desire, if we try very hard to get something or to achieve something, in the course of time we will succeed. And in the world of aspiration, if we desperately cry for Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure, we are also destined to achieve our goal in the course of time.
Now what do we need along with our aspiration? We need inner confidence. Right now hesitation looms large in our life. We want to do something, but hesitation does not allow us to do it. Doubt constantly plagues our mind. Hesitation kills our inspiration. It is impossible for us to achieve our purpose. But when we have aspiration, we automatically develop confidence in our life, inner confidence.
Now what is confidence? Confidence is the harbinger of success. With confidence we can accomplish everything sooner or later. Success is a very complicated thing. It is very difficult to achieve. When we think of success, we think of something pleasing and comforting to us. But this is success on the physical plane. On the spiritual plane, success is something that energises us and liberates us from the body-consciousness.
When we achieve success in the ordinary life, we feel that it is not sufficient. Today we achieve success in a particular sphere. Immediately we are subjected to more desires. We achieved success, but success does not satisfy us; success does not please us. We cry for success, but when this success dawns we want to achieve something else.
In the spiritual life, success is a different matter. Success is an inner progress. Progress is success in the process of evolution. We have evolved from the mineral life through the plant life to the animal life, and from the animal life to the human life. Now we are longing for the divine life. We are always in the process of evolution, and success is nothing other than our progress. When we make progress, what do we actually do? We manifest our inner Divinity, our inner Reality, our inner Immortality. When we manifest our Divinity and Reality, we feel that this Divinity and Reality, and God, are one and the same. The manifestation of our inner Divinity is the manifestation of God Himself, and what we call our manifestation is actually God's own manifestation.
When we go deep within, we see that God Himself has chosen us as His instruments in order to manifest Himself in and through us. But when He manifests Himself in and through us we have to play our part, because the Creator and the creation always go together. The player and the instrument always go together. If there is no instrument, the player is useless; and, again, if there is no player, the instrument cannot do anything. Both are equally important in this case. When God manifests Himself in and through us, He gives us equal credit. When manifestation takes place, man and God smile together. The divine man and the Lord Supreme smile together. That is the sign of perfect manifestation.
We talk about aspiration. We talk about concentration, meditation and contemplation. Now why do we need them? We need them because we want to go back to our Eternal Home. Earth is our temporary home. Here we stay for fifty, sixty or seventy years. But we have an Eternal Home where we live forever, and that Eternal Home is deep inside our heart.
Right now we have four homes: Earth, Heaven, Death and God. Earth is our home. But from Earth what do we get? Frustration, only frustration. We work for the world. The world does not care. We work for our near and dear ones. They show no sign of gratitude. They do not fully acknowledge the fact that we are trying to help and serve them. So what happens then is that we look up. The song of aspiration dawns in our life. We want to see our Heavenly home, but we have no idea where Heaven is. We feel that Heaven is in the sky. Spiritual Masters, however, say that Heaven is deep inside our pure heart. We are not in a position to enter into the inmost depths of our heart, so Heaven right now is sheer imagination for us.
Our third home we reach at the end of our earthly journey, and that home is Death. When we enter into this home, we take rest from the battlefield of life. But our vast, eternal Home is God. When we think of God the Home, what happens to us? Consciously or unconsciously, we expect Love, Peace, Bliss, Infinity, Eternity, Immortality. These are the things God the Home is bound to grant us. Whatever we see in God the Home, whatever we expect from God the Home, we will get. If we need Peace, He will flood our being with infinite Peace. If we expect Light, He will surcharge our inner being with divine Light. Anything that we need or expect devotedly, soulfully and unconditionally, God is bound to give us. Why? Because He is all Love.
It is God who has taught us the secret of expectation. It is He who has taken the form of expectation in us, and it is He who meets with our expectation from above. When we expect aspiration from God, He becomes aspiration. It is through aspiration that He enters into His own perfection. Spiritual seekers know that God is the eternal Player. He is playing constantly with His aspiration and His realisation. His highest Transcendental Height and His purest Aspiration-Light go eternally together. His Life-Boat plies between the shores of Aspiration-Light and Transcendental Height.
Published in My Rose Petals, part 2
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the University of Geneva; Geneva, Switzerland
We are afraid of God. God’s infinite Vastness frightens us. God’s Transcendental Height frightens us. God’s immeasurable Depth frightens us.
God is both Truth and Light. God the Truth tries to lead us to the perfect Truth. But, unfortunately, we feel that God the Truth is always examining us. We feel that since we are a mountain of falsehood, since we are making mistakes at every moment, God the Truth will punish us. But God is all Compassion. He does not punish us. On the contrary, He tries to illumine our mistakes and make us perfect. In the process of evolution, He tells us that falsehood is nothing but lesser Truth. We have to transcend falsehood and then enter into Truth. And for that, we need a constant inner cry, which we call aspiration.
Just as we are afraid of God the Truth, so also are we afraid of God the Light. We feel that God the Light will expose us, since we have done many undivine things. If someone commits a theft, he wants to hide. He is afraid of light. He feels that if he is in light, he will be exposed. But God the Light is totally different. Here the Light does not expose us; it illumines us. The Light tells us that darkness also has a little light, that night, too, has a little bit of light. God, being all Light, is all-pervading. Therefore, He is bound to be in darkness as well as in Light. Of course, when He is in darkness, He will have only a very small amount of Light, whereas, in an aspiring human being, He will manifest boundless Light. Again, even if there is just a little light, this light will grow into boundless Light. It is like the seed that grows into a banyan tree.
Fear and courage. Fear has capacity in a negative way. It rejects oneness. It wants to remain always individual and separate. Fear is like the tiny drop that does not want to merge into the vast ocean. It wants to maintain its individuality and personality. The finite is afraid of the Infinite and, at the same time, it does not want to confess its fear. But the vast ocean knows that its individuality and personality are composed of countless drops of water. The Infinite knows that it has become Infinite precisely because it houses the finite in infinite measure.
On the physical plane, there are two types of fear: fear of the imaginary and fear of the real. Imaginary fear is far worse than real fear because we are afraid of something that we can only imagine. We are afraid of death because we feel that death will take away all our earth’s wants, all our earth’s love, all our earth’s oneness. Here we achieve, here we accomplish; but we have no idea what is going to happen to us in the other world. We have no idea if we shall go to Heaven or to hell. Here on earth at least we know that we have our dear ones and relatives to look after us. But we do not know whether we shall meet with our dear ones in the other world or whether there will be anyone to look after us. In fact, we do not even know if there is another world. Therefore, the very thought, the very idea, the very conception of death frightens us.
Like imaginary fear, we can have imaginary courage. The worst possible imaginary courage is the courage of an atheist. He is infinitely more insignificant than an atom and yet he challenges and denies God’s Existence. God is Infinite. God is Eternal. God is Immortal. Yet the atheist challenges God’s Existence; he denies God’s Existence or speaks ill of God.
There are some human beings who do not pray and do not meditate, yet they feel that they have boundless peace to offer to the world at large. This is their imaginary courage. Or there are some human beings who feel that they can have the world drop down at their feet at the twinkling of an eye. Like Julius Caesar, they feel that they will be able to say, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” This is all imaginary courage, for they are still afraid of something or other. They are afraid of a tiny, imaginary thought. A tiny thought will enter into them. Then for quite a few years this wicked thought can command them most mercilessly. Yet these human beings say that the whole world can be placed at their feet if they want it.
Fear of the known, fear of the unknown and fear of the unknowable. We have done many things undivine; therefore, we are afraid of the consequences. We know that as we sow, so we shall reap. The law of karma nobody can deny. If we have done something wrong, then we have to pay the penalty. Here what we fear is quite known. But there is also the unknown fear. If we do something wrong today, then we feel that in the near future we are going to suffer for it. We have no idea if the punishment will be severe or not. But we do know that we will be punished. The very thought of the punishment tortures us. Although the real punishment we shall get later on, right now the unknown fear, the fear of the unknown, tortures us.
Fear of the unknowable is fear of what is going to happen in our life or after our death — fear, for example, that there may be a catastrophe and this world of ours will not last. This unknowable can be positive or negative. Infinite Light is an unknowable Reality and it can frighten us. Infinite night, darkness, is also an unknowable reality that can frighten us. The infinite Light is a positive force; the infinite night is a negative force,
We speak of the Universal Consciousness; we speak of the Transcendental Consciousness. We achieve both the Universal Consciousness and the Transcendental Consciousness on the strength of our inner courage. Inner courage is nothing but constant self-giving. Here we are all seekers. Before we became seekers, we stayed with our desire-friends, but now our friend is aspiration. God granted courage to our body before we were spiritual, before we aspired. He thought that with this courage we would be fully alert. He gave courage to our vital. He thought that with this courage our vital would be dynamic. He gave courage to our mind. He felt that with this courage our mind would be completely clear. He gave courage to our heart. He thought that with this courage our heart would be totally pure. Then we became seekers. Now God has given our heart the power of oneness. He has given our mind the power of wideness. He has given our vital the power of compassion. He has given our body the power of sacrifice.
Then He tells us, “Children, do not be afraid of the known, do not be afraid of the unknown, do not be afraid of the unknowable. Have courage in the known. And then, after a while, you will have courage in the unknown. And have courage that even the unknowable will one day become not only knowable but completely known.
“Your parents, your grandparents, your ancestors, prayed to Me. Therefore, they received Light from Me. Their light has entered into you and you have become spiritual. And now, if you pray and meditate, you will also get Light from Me. Your light will far surpass that of your parents, grandparents and ancestors. There is no competition, but in the process of evolution I am manifesting Myself in and through human beings more and more. There shall come a time when I, the Unknowable, will appear before you with My infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, and these will all become known to you. At that time, you shall have courage within, courage without. When you dive deep within with your inner courage, you play with God the Creator. And when you bring your outer courage to the fore, you play with God the Creation. This is how you participate in My Cosmic Game.”
Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 1
Sri Chinmoy commences this series of rhyming poems on Sunday, 14 June 1998 in New York. The first volume is completed in three days.
Sail my heartbeat sail, sail
To clasp our Lord's Nectar-Mail.
How can I not love
The beauty of a flower!
How can I not rise
At my sweet Lord's choice Hour!
To devour the Dust-Gold-Feet
Of my Lord Supreme
Every morn my heart becomes
A rainbow-dream.
To be a chosen child
Of my Lord Supreme,
My crying-smiling heart's
Perfection-dream.
Once more I shall become
My heart's God-climbing fire.
My eyes shall see nowhere
The face and body of mire.
Sleeplessly I keep my mind
Free from impurity-ties.
Breathlessly I keep my heart
Empty of insecurity-cries
Oh, what I have and what I am,
Am I ready to lose?
If so, my Lord Supreme tells me:
Him I have the right to choose.
Mine is a birthless
And deathless dream:
To breathe the Heart
Of my Lord Supreme.
9. Mind-tears versus heart-smiles
My newness-mind-tears
Keep me glowing.
My fulness-heart-smiles
Keep me sailing.
The fragrance
Of my God-gratitude-heart
Has smashed
My mind's ego-pride-dart.
I see no more my earth-bound mind's
Despair-gloom-cave.
Ecstasy's endless road my life
Is ready to pave.
A ruthless
Negativity-mind
In every
Corner of my heart I find.
From the Silence Unknowable
To the Sound knowable I came
To play and sing and dance
With a tiny, fragile frame,
And build a rainbow-bridge
Between Heaven and earth
For my sweet Supreme to travel
And flood all-where His Birth.
Published in Sail My Heartbeat Sail, part 1