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 hosts a programme honouring Pope Paul VI’s 80th birthday at the United Nations in New York, which is attended by Monsignor Giovanni Cheli, Permanent Observer of the Office of the Holy See to the U.N.
Sri Chinmoy answers spiritual questions in New York, USA.
Sri Chinmoy runs a personal best for 10 miles in 1:23:47 (8:23 pace) at the Sri Chinmoy Race in Greenwich, CT, USA.
Sri Chinmoy offers the opening meditation at the V World Masters Games and runs the 100-metre event in 14.48 seconds at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the Games, he chooses to participate for Puerto Rico.
Sri Chinmoy lifts an elephant for the first time, using a modified calf-raise machine at Chinmoy Avenue in Greenwich, CT, USA.
Sri Chinmoy offers an afternoon Peace Concert (123) and an evening Peace Concert (124) at Urawa City Centre in Tokyo, Japan.
Sri Chinmoy meets with David Dinkins, Mayor of New York City, at Flushing Meadows Park in Flushing, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy offers a memorial Peace Concert (522) for Mother Teresa (26 August 1910-5 September 1997) in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the United Nations in New York. Read Sri Chinmoy’s tribute from 5 September 1997.
New Zealand is declared a Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossom-Nation.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert (595), which he dedicates to Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva, at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Canada. At the concert, Sri Chinmoy recites 34 poems on the theme ‘Here and Now’, later published in a book of the same name. The audience of 19,000 is Sri Chinmoy’s largest-ever concert.
Sri Chinmoy lifts 24 people in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy lifts Ricky Martin, Latin pop singer (afternoon); lifts Kiro Gligorov, first President of Macedonia (early evening), at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy teaches his new song ‘My Birthday’ to the ‘Enthusiasm-Awakeners’ singing group, at the Self-Transcendence 3100-Mile Race course in front of Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School, in Jamaica, New York, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy is a spiritual leader who promotes sports and physical fitness, combined with contemplative practices. Sri Chinmoy is with us for the celebration of the Fifth World Masters Games in Athletics: today will be the opening session of the competition at Sixto Escobar Parke and tomorrow will be the official opening by the mayor of San Juan, Hernan Padilla, at the Bithorn. “I have always taken part in sports because I consider them a basis for all human activities, said Sri Chinmoy during a talk we had with him at the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Isla Verde.
“We have again been invited to Puerto Rico and on this occasion, we will be offering a meditation, tomorrow, at the official opening ceremony of the Masters at the Hiram Bithorn Park. With us will be a group of members from the United Nations who will sing a song we have composed honouring the Fifth Masters Games, and which was accepted as the official song of the Fifth Games.”
At first glance, you can see humility and simplicity reflected in the words of this spiritual master who has been at other times in Puerto Rico, where he has hundreds of followers.
Among the other ceremonies conducted by Sri Chinmoy are ones at the half marathon in San Blas in 1981; the Track and Field Masters Championship celebrated in San Juan In 1980; the Pan-American Games in 1979; the New York City Marathon in 1978; and the ceremony at the United Nations for Olympic and world-class runners In 1977, just to mention some of them.
Next Monday, Sri Chinmoy will conduct a concert for the athletes participating in the Masters, which is one of many to which they have been invited.
“We consider that the benefits derived from athletic activity include better health, a release of tension, a sense of dynamic enthusiasm towards life and the experience of self-transcendence that happens when we are able to improve a personal record or surpass a limitation,” explains with extraordinary depth, this great contemporary man.
We would need many sheets of paper to write about Sri Chinmoy, but in this opportunity, we have to concentrate on the Masters and we can tell you that in this Master’s own words he said: “I participate to enjoy, that is my only goal.” So we will see him in the 100, 200, 400 metres, javelin and the 5K, in the 50 to 54 category. Sri Chinmoy is now 52 years old.
“I always ask my students to run a few miles every day and I set the example by doing it myself.”
While searching for a background of this contemporary world personality known for the diversity of his knowledge and religious practices, I came across a phrase where he said, “concentration, meditation and contemplation are three members of the same family.” Through international running clubs and the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, he and his students sponsor a great variety of public events for runners, including marathons, ultra-marathons and many short races — a total of 300 races a year in the USA, Canada, Japan, Europe and Australia.
The Sri Chinmoy Marathon is the official marathon of the city of San Juan. The Sri Chinmoy Triathlon is the official triathlon of Rhode Island and the Sri Chinmoy Marathon in San Mateo is the official marathon for the state of California’s Road Runners Club of America.
Published in the Sports section of El Nuevo Dia, San Juan, Puerto Rico’s largest circulation newspaper, Friday, 23 September 1983
Sri Chinmoy offers a memorial Peace Concert (522) for Mother Teresa in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the United Nations in New York. Read Sri Chinmoy’s tribute from 5 September 1997.
Sri Chinmoy meditates on stage with 19,000 people – his largest-ever audience – before his Peace Concert (595) at the Molson Centre in Montreal, Canada. The concert is dedicated to Raisa Maximovna Gorbachev.
My birthday, my birthday,
My birthday, my birthday!
God gives my heart, from His Heart
A very special Ray.
Published in Enthusiasm, part 12
During the Self-Transcendence 3100-mile race, the ‘Enthusiasm-Awakeners’ singing group would sing early every morning in front of Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School, in Jamaica, New York, on the runners’ course.
At around 7 a.m. Sri Chinmoy would drive his car every morning around the block 2 or 3 times, and on his last round, he would stop at where they stood and teach a new English song.
Sri Chinmoy surprises everyone upon his return from his trip to St. Petersburg in September when he decides to drive to the usual spot of the 3100-mile course and teaches a new song to the group. Today, the new song is ‘My Birthday’. It is the last song he teaches at the 3100-mile race course.
Now when we observe the birthdays of our sisters and brothers, we first sing Sri Chinmoy’s soulful ‘Happy Birthday to You’, then we sing the new ‘My Birthday’ song, and end with the traditional ‘Happy Birthday’ song.
* Adapted from disciple notes.
Sri Chinmoy lifts an elephant for the first time in Greenwich, Connecticut.
After Sri Chinmoy lifts Ricky Martin, he presents the pop superstar with the ‘Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart’ award at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
Ricky Martin offers his own tribute to Sri Chinmoy:
“I’ve met beautiful people ... incredible leaders ... people that have done a lot for society .... but definitely you are on the top of the list.
“Since I've been ... here, all I've felt is love.”
I am telling you a most significant story. Four or five years ago, at the 47-mile race in honour of my birthday, the pain in my knee was unbearably excruciating. I went to the race only to bless the runners and the helpers. I passed by the counters and then I walked another ten or fifteen metres. I was in such agony. I came to the place where I used to play tennis against the wall.
I was meditating on the Supreme. My knee pain became so severe that I could not take even one step forward. All of a sudden I saw Sri Ramakrishna. He came up and sympathised with me and touched my knee. With his touch, my pain completely disappeared. I was in the seventh Heaven of delight. How could the pain be completely gone? I started walking with such joy, the way I did many years ago.
I told Sri Ramakrishna, “I have had this knee problem for some time.”
He said, “Why do you have to suffer? I am happy only when you do not have pain. Now you have transcended the pain.”
Another two hundred metres I walked with such delight. Savyasachi’s car was waiting for me outside the track. I was about to enter into the car when, alas, the same pain returned. I said, “How little time you were gone from my life!”
For those three or five minutes, I felt my Ashram life once more. My knees became so powerful! I cannot describe the happiness I got.
—Sri Chinmoy
New York
Published in Only Gratitude-Tears
Prayers by Sri Chinmoy
at the Peace Concert in the Molson Centre in Montreal, Canada
HERE and NOW
I need only one thing:
God’s Absolute Will.
HERE and NOW
I must come to realise
That my unconditional God-surrender
Succeeds
When everything else fails.
HERE and NOW
I want my gratitude-heart
To prayerfully devour
God’s Compassion-Eye,
God’s Forgiveness-Heart
And His All.
HERE and NOW
I clearly see that
God may play hide-and-seek
With my love and devotion,
But never
With my complete surrender.
HERE and NOW
My sole promise to God
Is to fulfil
God’s each and every Dream
HERE and NOW
My heart must develop
A keen interest in everything
That is of God,
And my life must develop
A keen interest in everything
That is for God.
HERE and NOW
I must increase, and ever increase,
The beauty
Of my God-sincerity-mind
And the fragrance
Of my God-purity-heart.
HERE and NOW
I have come to realise that
Surrender means a hungry heart
For the nectar-dust of God’s Feet.
HERE and NOW
I have discovered
My sleepless and breathless
Love-devotion-surrender:
The only way to cure
All God’s headaches.
HERE and NOW
My supreme discovery:
When my heart is all soulfulness,
God is God's Fulness-Embrace.
HERE and NOW
I must command my mind
To unlearn
All its doubt-suspicion-
Jungle-stories.
HERE and NOW
I say to my Lord Supreme:
I can establish
My sleepless and breathless
God-oneness.
My Lord Supreme says to me:
“You have already done it,
My child.”
HERE and NOW
I have come to learn that
My God-readiness,
God-willingness
And God-eagerness
Are God’s immediate neighbours.
HERE and NOW,
By virtue of my prayer-life
And my meditation-heart,
I shall get the best view
Of my Lord’s Feet.
HERE and NOW
God tells me to remember
Only one thing:
He is never too busy for me
Or for anybody on earth.
HERE and NOW
No, not even an iota
Of God-disobedience
Has any place
In my spiritual life.
HERE and NOW
God tells me that
The heart-gardens
Of the God-seekers
Are His most favourite places
To vacation.
HERE and NOW
I clearly see that God’s
Compassion-Forgiveness-Days
Have Eternity’s Life.
HERE and NOW
I have come to realise that
God-manifestation
Is not a one-mile run,
But Eternity’s ever-increasing miles.
HERE and NOW
If I make my heart
An ever-transcending flame
For God-realisation,
Then God alone will wipe the tears
Of my long, very long,
Unaspiring years.
HERE and NOW
I must become
A sleepless God-adoration-mind,
God-devotion-heart
And God-dedication-life.
HERE and NOW
I have discovered
That my life is in between
My weeping heart
And
God’s forgiving Heart.
HERE and NOW
I have warned the desire-worlds
To stop running
After me.
HERE and NOW
I have made a solemn promise
To myself,
That although it is
An endlessly long voyage
From my puny self
To God’s boundless Self,
I shall, without fail, complete it.
HERE and NOW
I am all determination
To bravely tear asunder
The iron curtain
Of ignorance-night.
HERE and NOW
God tells me that
He loves my aspiration-cries
And devotion-throbs
Infinitely more
Than I can ever imagine.
HERE and NOW
I have taken a solemn oath
That I shall not jump into
The God-disobedience-
Calamity-whirlpool,
Never!
HERE and NOW
I am being cradled
By God’s unconditional Grace
And His omnipotent Will.
HERE and NOW
I want to become
The ever-blossoming beauty
Of a silence-sea-heart.
HERE and NOW
I promise to become
A ceaseless
God-victory
Messenger-boy.
HERE and NOW
God wants me to strike
My life’s transformation-gong
And play
My heart’s nectar-flute.
HERE and NOW
My latest discovery:
When I do not soulfully pray
And do not self-givingly meditate,
I helplessly find myself
In a crowded, noisy
And utterly godless mind-subway.
HERE and NOW
My new discovery:
Sweet is my Lord’s Eye,
Sweeter is my Lord’s Heart,
Sweetest is the dust
Of my Lord’s Feet.
Every day
God blesses me
With His own Motto:
“HERE and NOW.”
Published in Here and Now