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 gives a talk, entitled ‘The Guru and the Hostile Forces’ to his disciples at a Centre meeting in his apartment in Manhattan, New York, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a lecture, entitled ‘Duty Supreme’, at Boston University in Boston, MA, USA.
Sri Chinmoy delivers the final in a series of four lectures, entitled ‘Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita’, in Vanderbilt Hall at New York University in New York, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy is asked a significant question about how to concentrate on the Guru. His answer covers divine love, divine concern, and divine joy or delight.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a midday lecture, entitled Spirituality and Satisfaction’, at the University of Toronto in Toronto, ON, Canada.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a 7:30 p.m. lecture, entitled ‘Beauty’, at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Sri Chinmoy meets with Ambassador Nicolas Katapodis of Greece at a special function at the United Nations in New York, sponsored by Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations, in celebration of Greece’s Independence Day.
Sri Chinmoy offers his first Peace Concert — ‘Peace: God's Beauty in His Oneness-Home’ — to an audience of over 8,000 for 3 hours at the Sporthalle in Cologne, Germany. Watch the full-length video of the concert... Listen to the CD recording of the concert...
Sri Chinmoy visits the Olympic Stadium in West Berlin, Germany, where Jesse Owens won four gold medals. In a deeply symbolic gesture in honour of his athletic hero, Sri Chinmoy meditates in the reviewing stand from which Hitler had watched the Games in 1936.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert at Kongresszentrum CCH in Hamburg, Germany.
At the request of race director Umberto Silvestri, Sri Chinmoy offers the opening meditation at the Rome City Marathon in Italy. The race has 16,000 participants, including 340 of Sri Chinmoy’s students.
Sri Chinmoy meets with Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, in Rome, Italy.
Sri Chinmoy lifts 14 people at Public School 86 in Jamaica, NY, USA.
COLOGNE, Germany – An overflow crowd of 8,500 came to Cologne’s giant Sports Hall March 24 to hear the first in a series of peace concerts Sri Chinmoy is offering around the world this year. Some were unable to enter for lack of space.
Coming from all over Germany as well as neighbouring countries, the audience listened in near pindrop silence as the Master played and sang a selection of his own compositions.
The concert was entitled “Peace: God’s Beauty in His Oneness-Home.”
At the end of the three-hour event, the Master told the audience: “Beloved Germany, breathlessly I am bowing to your soul. Soulfully I am loving your heart. Devotedly I am admiring your life. To me, stupendous is your soul, generous is your heart and precious is your life.”
He said that since Germany has offered to the world the universal music, “music is, therefore, your universal birthright. An unconditional oneness-heart is also your birthright.”
For Sri Chinmoy, the Cologne concert was the beginning of a long journey, with 19 more peace concerts to come. It was also a fitting tribute to an even longer journey that began 20 years ago when he first came to the West.
Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 10-11, December 1983-March 1984
Sri Chinmoy offers his first Peace Concert to an audience of over 8,000 at the Sporthalle in Cologne, Germany. Watch the full-length video of the concert... Listen to the CD recording of the concert...
Address to the audience at the conclusion of the concert:
“Beloved Germany, breathlessly I am bowing to your soul. Soulfully, I am loving your heart. Devotedly, I am admiring your life. To me, stupendous is your soul. Generous is your heart and precious is your life.... My beloved Germany, to you my aspiration-heart and my dedication-life bow and bow and bow.” — Sri Chinmoy
Listen to Sri Chinmoy’s Peace Concert address
by Sri Chinmoy
This is a cock-and-bull story. When I was a child in Chittagong, my family usually had two servants — one young and one old.
After tonight’s concert, one boy came up to meditate with me after the concert. While we were meditating together, his soul said, “Madalia, you cannot recognise me?”
Not only did he use the nickname from my childhood, Madal, but he said it with an endearing term. I said, “Who can call me by my Chittagong name with this kind of endearing term? In my house, even my sisters and brothers didn’t call me that, and here this young German boy is addressing me this way!”
Then the soul said that he had been our servant in Chittagong and he gave his former name. Then vividly I could see and remember him. I had heard that he had died, and now I see that he has taken a new incarnation in Germany. I was looking into his eyes and his soul recognised me.
There was another lady who came to see me after the concert. When I was in the Ashram, I was close to her brothers and her sister. But she was only four or five years old at that time, and during my 20 years at the Ashram I never had any occasion to speak to her.
Her sister had been the Ashram athletics champion. She had even learned how to box. She used to study with me. One of her brothers had been a wrestler. Once he injured his neck while wrestling and for three weeks was in the hospital. Her youngest brother once climbed up a tall coconut tree when he was three or four years old. Then he got frightened and couldn’t climb down. He was crying and screaming because he was afraid.
The lady’s name is Purnima. She started talking to me in Bengali. Then she introduced her husband to me. But she had forgotten the Bengali word for husband, so she said it in Hindi and added, “I have forgotten the word.”
Then I was able to tell her the word in Bengali.
In the comments book for the Hamburg concert, someone wrote a comment in Bengali. His name is Himangshu Shekar Vadra. He called me ‘Chinmoy-da’ and said he was overwhelmed and deeply moved by the concert.
He and I knew each other so well. My brothers and sisters also knew him. We were brought up together; right from childhood we knew one another.
His brother used to run with me; he was our third best runner.
Published in The World-Experience-Tree-Climber, part 4
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at a Centre meeting with his disciples
While I was standing in front of you today during the meditation and I was about to bless you in the inner world, there was a tremendous attack. A very strong hostile force was going to attack my dearest X. While I was looking at him I noticed this. Immediately I took that force into myself for a few seconds and then I threw it into the Universal Consciousness.
I tell you people, unless one is fully realised, one should not accept any disciple or play the part of a Guru. The force was following X, but immediately I took it because he is so dedicated, so devoted, so close. I took it here and then I threw it into the Universal Consciousness. That power I have. And where is the Universal Consciousness? It is in my possession. But if somebody else had tried to deal with that force, he would immediately have fainted or done something extremely frightening. Please forgive me, I am only telling you people that to deal with disciples without being fully realised is to make the greatest mistake. Also, it is a great injustice to the disciples.
Very often, when I stand in front of some of the disciples, consciously or unconsciously they hurl arrows at me. If you entered into the inner world, you would see that my whole body is bleeding profusely. Actually, I swim in a sea of blood. I do it, but immediately I have the power to throw all these arrows into the Universal Consciousness. If I did not have the power, by this time I would have been in the other world. All the spiritual Masters must have this power if they have accepted disciples in the true sense. If they have not accepted any spiritual disciples, if they have only accepted human beings as members of their organisation, then they can have thousands and millions of followers and there is no responsibility on their part.
Many times, before a disciple is about to be attacked, the force comes and strikes me as hard as possible. Why? Because my identification, my oneness with the disciple is so thick. It is just like when somebody wants to strike the child in front of the mother, because the child has done something wrong. Immediately the mother comes and says, "I know that my child has done something wrong, but don't beat my child. He is mine. Beat me instead." In my case also, I do the same for my spiritual children. But this is only true of those who have accepted me fully and unreservedly. Otherwise, in spite of my best intentions, the Supreme will not allow me to do anything for you.
Published in Perseverance and Aspiration
The final in a series of four lectures by Sti Chinmoy
at Vanderbilt Hall, New York University, New York
Out of His infinite Bounty, boundless Love and deepest, soulful Concern, Sri Krishna has unveiled the secret supreme — that He is in everything and He embodies everything. Arjuna’s stark delusion has been removed and dispersed. He now enjoys his soul’s translucent peace.
Sri Krishna speaks out of the abundance of His Love. Arjuna listens to Him with his heart’s loftiest devotion, and believes in Him unreservedly and soulfully. Arjuna’s singular belief cries for its transformation; his aspiration cries for an experience. His mind understands the Truth. But his heart pines to vision the Truth and to live the Truth. Hence, he needs this experience, unavoidable and inevitable. In chapter 11 of the Gita, Sri Krishna graciously and immediately grants it, the experience unparalleled.
“O Arjuna, behold in My Body the entire universe.” Arjuna’s physical eyes naturally fail to vision it. The Lord grants him the eye of supernal vision, the eye that sees the unseen — the Yogic eye.
The body that the Lord speaks of is a spiritual body. Hence, to see the spiritual body, Arjuna must needs be endowed with a spiritual eye. The body signifies form. The formless abides in this form. The Vision Transcendental and the Reality Absolute play in unison in and through the Cosmic Form. The body of flesh and blood undergoes innumerable vicissitudes, but not the body of unlimited, divine form and deathless substance. This divine body is the embodiment and revelation of Truth’s Divinity, Infinity, Eternity and Immortality.
Sañjaya says to Dhritarashtra, “O Rajan, Krishna, the supreme Master of Yoga, the Almighty Lord, reveals to Arjuna His Form divine, supreme. Arjuna now sees Krishna as the Supreme Godhead, Parameshwara.”
Arjuna sees the many in the One Supreme possessing myriad mouths, numberless eyes, limitless marvels, wielding divine weapons, wearing divine garments and jewels, bearing celestial garlands of supernal fragrance. The effulgence of a thousand suns bursting forth all at once in the skies will hardly equal the supreme splendour of the Lord. Arjuna beholds Infinity in multiplicity in the divine person of Sri Krishna. Overwhelmed, ecstasy flooding his inmost being, with his hands folded, his head bowed, he exclaims, “O Lord, in Thee, in Thy Body, I behold all gods and all grades of beings, with distinctive marks. I see even Brahma seated resplendent on His lotus-throne and seers and sages all around, and symbolical serpents — all divine.”
When we go up with all our heart’s snow-white flaming aspiration, we enter into the Cosmic Consciousness of the Seers. This path is an upward path. It is the path of embodiment and realisation. There is another path known as the path of revelation and manifestation. This path is the downward path. Here our consciousness flows down through the cosmic energy, the symbolic serpents, circling and spiralling.
Verses 15 to 31 eloquently and psychically describe what Arjuna saw in Sri Krishna with his newly acquired Yogic sight.
The fight is yet to start. The mighty warriors are ready and eager to fight. To his greatest surprise, Arjuna sees the utter extinction of the lives of the warriors in Sri Krishna. Before the birth of the fight, he sees the death of the warriors. Destroyed they are. As he sees the fires of Sri Krishna’s flaming and all-devouring mouth, his very life-breath quivers. The disciple cries out, “Thy Compassion, my Lord Supreme, I implore. I know Thee not. Who art Thou?”
“Time am I. Time, the mighty destroyer, am I. Doomed they are. Whether you fight or not, they are already dead. Even without you, your foes will escape no death. Arise, O Arjuna, arise! Victory’s glory and renown you win. Conquer your enemies. Enjoy the vast kingdom, enjoy. By Me is ordained their lives’ surrendered hush. You be the outer cause. Just be My instrument, nothing more.”
“Nimitta matram bhava — Be thou a mere instrument.”
There can be no greater pride, no better achievement, than to be God’s own instrument, for to be an instrument of God is to be infallibly accepted as His very own. In and through the instrument-disciple, the Master-Guru sees and fulfils God’s divine Purpose.
Sri Krishna is the all-devouring Time. This vision, according to our outer eyes and understanding, is terrible. But, according to our inner vision and inner comprehension, it is natural and inevitable. Sri Aurobindo says,
"Time represents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument, But always it is really the instrument of the soul. Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument."
Krishnaprem, the great seeker, says,
"It is impossible to state in words this wondrous insight. All things remain the same yet all are changed. Time flashes bodily into Eternity; the streaming Flux itself is the Eternal, which, though It moves unceasingly, moves not at all."
The Upanishadic lore echoes and re-echoes in our aspiring hearts: “That moves and yet That moves not. That is far distant and yet That is close and near…”
Time houses Truth. Sri Krishna tells the Truth, the Truth Eternal, about Himself. Here we can recollect the significant words of Virginia Woolf: “If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.” Conversely, if you know the spiritual truth about yourself, you must needs know the truth about others. Sri Krishna showed the divine Truth that was Himself.
We can also cheerfully walk with Marcus Aurelius: “I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the Truth.”
To doubt the spiritual Master before one’s own illumination dawns is not uncommon in the spiritual history of the world. Even some of the dearest disciples of great spiritual Masters have done so. But for the seeker to leave the Master precisely because doubt haunts him is an act of sheer stupidity. Stick, stick unto the last. The blighted doubts will disappear into thin air. The splendour of Infinity and Eternity will blossom in the bosom of Time. Your mounting aspiration will accomplish this task.
Arjuna’s throbbing heart voices forth, “Thou art the primeval Soul.” He cries for Sri Krishna’s forgiveness. Owing to his past ignorance, he had not realised Sri Krishna in His divine nature. His past was full of wrong deeds, what with ignorance and what with carelessness. He begs with a throbbing heart for forgiveness for his acts of omission and commission rendered unto Sri Krishna.
“Bear with me as father with his son, as friend with his friend, as lover with the beloved.” Sri Krishna no doubt forgives Arjuna. He assumes his normal, natural and familiar form.
Arjuna comes to realise that it is only the Grace divine that has endowed him with the Yogic eye to see the Unseen, the Glory supreme of the Lord, the present, past and future.
He also learns from the Lord that “neither the study of the Vedas, nor sacrifice, nor alms, neither austerity nor study can win this cosmic vision.” Even the Cosmic Gods yearn for a glimpse of this Universal Form which He has just shown to Arjuna out of His boundless Compassion.
Faith, devotion, surrender. Lo! Sri Krishna is won. No other way Him to realise, Him to possess.
Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 2
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Dear seekers of divine truth and divine beauty, I wish to give a talk on beauty, from the spiritual point of view.
Beauty is the inner voice of silence. Beauty is the duty of the loving heart. Beauty is the perfection of the aspiring life. Beauty is the message of the illumining soul. Beauty is the Reality-embrace of God.
Beauty is inspiration. Beauty is aspiration. Beauty is realisation. Inspiration runs, runs to the farthest Beyond. Aspiration flies, flies to the highest Beyond. Realisation consciously becomes what it has eternally been in the inner world, in the world of silence. The mind needs illumined inspiration. The heart needs inseparable union which is founded upon aspiration. The soul needs the integration of life and the realised perfection of the entire being. Sincerity is our evolving beauty. Purity is our illumining beauty. Humility is our fulfilling beauty.
Beauty is freedom. We can gain real freedom only by establishing a free access to our inner reality, by consciously and constantly listening to our soul's inner dictates, by being conscious of our highest and most illumined part, which is God.
Beauty is peace. A life of beauty is a life of peace. Peace is not merely the absence of quarrelling and fighting; peace is the manifestation of our inseparable oneness with all. This oneness is not the oneness of the finite with the finite, but the oneness of the finite with the Infinite. When the finite identifies itself with the Infinite, the Beauty of the Infinite transforms the very breath of the finite, and earth's beauty and Heaven's Beauty are joined. Earth's beauty is a soulful cry; Heaven's Beauty is a soulful smile. When earth's cry and Heaven's Smile meet together, beauty's perfection dawns.
Beauty is in unity's multiplicity and multiplicity's unity. When we look at a beautiful flower in its entirety, the flower offers us the beauty of oneness, of multiplicity's unity. When we look at the same flower petal by petal, we see unity's multiplicity offering us its beauty supernal.
When we observe a beautiful flower, we feel that our life should he as beautiful as a flower, because there is someone whom we have to garland with our life's gratitude-beauty. That person is our eternal Beloved, our Lord Supreme. When we look at a burning incense stick, we feel immediately the beauty of purity. The fragrance of the incense purifies our inner existence and transports our aspiring consciousness to a higher plane. When we observe a candle flame, immediately we notice inside us another flame which has been burning from time immemorial, and this inner flame is God's eternal Beauty.
We look at the blazing sun, and immediately the divine warrior in us is surcharged with power divine. This power energises us to fight against ignorance. This power constantly makes us feel that we are the chosen warriors of the Supreme, chosen to fight against teeming ignorance-bondage, chosen to establish divinity's perfection here on earth. We look at the moon, and its beauty immediately inspires us to become divine lovers of God. It is only with our devoted love and unconditional surrender to the supreme Beloved that we can grow into His very image.
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." This immortal utterance of Keats can easily be cherished and treasured in the hearts of all sincere seekers. Beauty is a divine expression of the true Reality. Reality and divine beauty are inseparable, like the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. Beauty expressed is divinity manifested in our life of aspiration and realisation.
It is said that physical beauty is skin-deep. But from the spiritual point of view I wish to say that the Divine Father often expresses Himself through beauty in the gross physical, the subtle physical and the vital as well as in the mind, heart and soul. But when we observe beauty in the physical, beauty in the vital, beauty in the mind or beauty in the heart, we have to use our soul's eye — that is to say, our soul's light. If we use our soul's light, we see beauty even in outer ugliness, even in darkness, imperfection and bondage.
A spiritual seeker uses his heart and his soul to see the world within and the world without. He does not use his outer eyes. He has seen time and again that the vision of his outer eyes is limited precisely because this vision is guided by the subtle or unconscious operation of the unlit, unillumined mind. It is simply impossible for the outer eyes to identify themselves with the quintessence of beauty. But if we use the heart, immediately we become part and parcel of the substance and essence of what we are seeing.
Beauty and the duty of the heart must go together. The duty of the heart is to become one with the reality of the outer world and with the reality of the inner world. Those who do not aspire try consciously or unconsciously to separate the outer beauty from the inner beauty. But a sincere seeker has discovered the truth that the outer beauty has a source of its own, and that source is the soul. The soul expresses itself outwardly through beauty. When we embody our divine duty, automatically we express and reveal pure beauty all around us. Duty is our dream-boat. We have been sailing this dream-boat through Eternity. Beauty is the Reality-shore, the shore of Immortality, which we are destined to reach. If we consciously, devotedly and unconditionally please the Inner Pilot, then He accelerates our journey, He leads us, He carries us in His Boat toward the Golden Shore of the Beyond.
A genuine seeker has discovered the secret of secrets: from the inner beauty we have to enter into the outer beauty. The inner beauty will have to go from the soul to the heart, from the heart to the mind, from the mind to the vital and from the vital to the physical. If we know what the source is and where the source is, and if we commence our journey from the source, our journey is safe. We reach the shore, and we are convinced of the reality of our attainment.
An unaspiring human being thinks that his ignorant pleasure-life is the only source of his satisfaction. But for sincere seekers, for true lovers of God, Delight is the source. Beauty is Light and Light is Delight. This Delight is the harmony, peace and satisfaction of the Absolute. We can treasure this divine wealth only when we appreciate, admire and adore the inner beauty. When the inner beauty comes to the fore, the world of darkness will immediately be transformed into the world of luminosity.
When we pray, we offer the beauty of our heart's intensity to the Supreme. When we meditate, we offer the beauty of our inner silence to the Supreme. When we love the outer world, knowing that the outer world is the manifestation and expression of the Supreme, then we offer the beauty of our universal oneness to the Supreme.
When a sincere seeker prays and meditates, he radiates beauty. This beauty comes directly from his inner existence, his soul. All human beings, without exception, are the manifested Beauty of the Supreme; but spiritual aspirants are trying to be the perfectly and consciously manifested Beauty of the Supreme.
In ugliness there is beauty, in imperfection there is beauty, in everything that exists in God's universe there is beauty. Again, beauty has its degrees, and when we become conscious seekers, we aim at the highest beauty, at the perfect perfection of beauty. This beauty looms large in us only when we become conscious and constant divine soldiers of self-giving. When possessiveness leaves us and selflessness takes its place, the beauty of the transcendental Height enters into our life of aspiration. Today what we call self-giving, tomorrow that very thing we call God-becoming, which is beauty unparalleled. Self-giving is the flowering of our love divine. God-becoming is the ultimate blossoming of our dedicated, devoted and unconditional surrender to the Inner Pilot.
Published in My Maple Tree.