Guru Marks 3rd Year AT United Nations
By DAVID BURKE
NEW YORK (AP) — An unusual blending of Indian mysticism and the often agitated world of United Nations politics marks its third anniversary Friday.
For the past three years the Indian spiritual master, Sri Chinmoy, has been conducting weekly interdenominational meditations for U.N. delegates and staff. at the U.N. Church Center here.
The lunch hour sessions strike a note of incongruity amid the heated debates and political manoeuvring that characterize life at the Secretariat building across the street.
“The U.N. members are trying to bring about peace through political means, which is absolutely right according to their understanding and enlightenment. I feel, according to my own realization, that the way I am bringing down peace will be effective,” said Sri Chinmoy after a recent session. “Each of us knows how he can be of service to mankind.”
Elizabeth Addison, a U.N. staff member from South Africa who is secretary of the U.N. meditation group, describes the meditations as “a sea of serenity in the middle of our daily activities.”
Sri Chinmoy came to the United States from his native Bengal, India, in 1964 after spending 20 years in an ashram, or religious community, practicing meditation and spiritual disciplines. Besides holding meditations for U.N. personnel, the 42-year-old yogi is spiritual head of some 40 meditation centers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. He has written more than 20 books on yoga and Eastern mysticism and been invited to lecture at many of the world’s major universities.
Sri Chinmoy teaches a mystical approach to God which emphasizes love, devotion and surrender to the divine will. His philosophy, currently being taught in a course at the University of Connecticut, sees surrender to God not as a submission but as an unfolding.
“It is the unfoldment of our body, mind and heart into the sun of our soul living in us. To surrender to this inner Sun is the greatest triumph in life. The hound of failure can not reach us while we are in that Sun. The Prince of Evil fails to touch us,” he said.
His approach to spirituality, which he has discussed in private meetings with Pope Paul and former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, is compatible with all religions, he said. The different religions are like petals of the same flower, he continues. “Let us make a garland of these divine flowers and offer them at the feet of God.”
Published in THE SAN JUAN STAR — Saturday, April 14, 1973