Sri Chinmoy visits Vivekananda Rock on Wellesley Island, Thousand Island Park, NY, USA, to honour the 70th anniversary of the passing (4 July 1902) of his revered spiritual predecessor in America, Swami Vivekananda. Sri Chinmoy meditates at the very spot where Swami Vivekananda had once meditated and entered into Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Sri Chinmoy delivers a lecture, entitled ‘Spiritual Strength’, at Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany.
Sri Chinmoy holds his first 13-hour public meditation, offered in honour of America’s Bicentennial, for the Soul of America, at the 72nd Street Bandshell in Central Park, New York, NY, USA. The meditation begins at midnight on July 4th and ends late in the afternoon. It is the first overnight event the Police Department had ever permitted in Central Park.
Sri Chinmoy gives two spiritual talks, part of 100 lectures in 20 days.
Sri Chinmoy opens the July 4th celebration in lower Manhattan with a short meditation and his students perform several of his songs about America.
Sri Chinmoy offers a private concert in honour of the Bengali cultural community worldwide, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, NY, USA. He also lifts 18 Bangladeshi nationals, as part of his ‘Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart’ programme.
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Artworks
Photos by Pulak Viscardi
Sri Chinmoy observes a display produced by his students for the Fourth of July at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York. It features a garlanded painting of Thomas Jefferson and, on the scoreboard, the inspiring words he penned for the Declaration of Independence in 1776. (Thomas Jefferson went on to become the Third President of the USA.)
The opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Read more...
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Media
A Joyous Meeting
Indian spiritual master Sri Chinmoy and Pope John Paul II had a private meeting at the Vatican recently and the result was a very Joyous Guru.
“He showed me much affection and love,” reports Sri Chinmoy. The holy father noted the Indian meditation teacher’s hopes for peace through the United Nations, and then said: “Special blessings to you. Special greetings to your members. We shall continue together.”
The late Pope Paul also had deeply appreciated Sri Chinmoy’s efforts for world peace when the two met privately on three occasions.
Caption:
Sri Chinmoy with The Pope: love and affection exchanged.
Published in News India, Page 4, July 4, 1980
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Music
Photo by Sarama Minoli
Sri Chinmoy plays the esraj during his 13-hour meditation in honour of America’s Bicentennial, held at New York’s Central Park.
Photo by Maral Siegel
Sri Chinmoy opens the July 4th celebration in lower Manhattan with a short meditation and his students perform several of his songs about America.
The Fourth of July
Remarks by Sri Chinmoy
on July 3rd, at Aspiration-Ground Jamaica, New York
Tomorrow is a very significant day for the American soul, American heart, American consciousness and American life. Let us all try to be in a very, very high consciousness the entire day.
Those who sing very, very well “America the Beautiful” will sing the song tomorrow. That is my most favourite American song. That song is very, very significant.
Sri Chinmoy offers a private concert in honour of the Bengali cultural community worldwide, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica New York.
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Photos
Fourth of July Meditation
for the Soul of America
Photo by Sarama Minoli
To celebrate America’s 200th birthday, Sri Chinmoy holds a 13-hour public meditation for the Soul of America at the 72nd Street Bandshell in New York City’s Central Park. The meditation begins at midnight on July 4th and ends late in the afternoon. It is the first overnight event the Police Department had ever permitted in Central Park.
Photo: Maral Siegel
Sri Chinmoy opens the July 4th celebration in lower Manhattan with a short meditation and his students perform several of his songs about America.
Photo by Maral Siegel
Sri Chinmoy wearing his own ‘O My America’ T-shirt at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
O My America
May America the Beautiful forever shine bright-brighter-brightest in the Heart of God the Creator and God the creation.
— Sri Chinmoy
Pictured on the T-shirt (left to right) are, Sri Chinmoy and three of the Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin.
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Sports
Photo by Pulak Viscardi
Sri Chinmoy sinks 863 baskets out of 1,300 basketball throws, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
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Tributes
Photo by Sarama Minoli
Sri Chinmoy makes a special visit to Vivekananda Rock on Wellesley Island, at Thousand Island Park in upper New York State to honour the 70th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s passing (4 July 1902).
After a relentless two-year lecture tour of America following on from his historic address to the Parliament of the World’s Religions, Swami Vivekananda spent seven weeks at a cottage retreat on the island in the summer of 1895, and on the morning of the last day of his visit, 7 August, he walked with his disciples about half a mile from the cottage to meditate in the forest, and there he entered into Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Seventy years later, Sri Chinmoy did the same — leading a small group of his disciples to the exact spot (pictured below) where Swami Vivekananda had meditated. There, Sri Chinmoy himself enters into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. The actual location, not known to the public, is obscured by dense undergrowth.
Photo by Sarama Minoli
Thousand Island Park
When I went to Thousand Island Park, I sat at a place where they said that Swami Vivekananda had sat. I was not getting any vibration from that place. I entered into my highest. Then I saw another place nearby, and there I sat. I said, “This is the place.” It is not more than one hundred or two hundred metres away. There I got Swami Vivekananda's full vibration. Then I went to see the small house where he stayed.
*Sri Chinmoy’s comments at his home in Jamaica, New York, on 22 July 2006.
An interesting event took place when Swami Vivekananda was staying in a cottage at Thousand Island Park. It was a dark and rainy night. Two ladies from Detroit had travelled hundreds of miles to find him there.
Having met him, one of them humbly spoke out, "We have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on earth and ask him to teach us."
Swami Vivekananda, deeply moved and overwhelmed with humility, replied, "If only I possessed the power of Christ to set you free now!"
When Swami Vivekananda returned home from his trip abroad, he travelled by steamer from Naples to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he was given an overwhelming reception. He then made his way to his native land and finally reached Madras. Everywhere he went, he was hailed by multitudes.
From Madras, Swami Vivekananda decided to travel by steamer to Calcutta, the city of his birth. As the steamer sailed up the river Hooghly, Swami Vivekananda repeatedly drank water from the river to purify himself after his long absence.
When Swami Vivekananda arrived in Calcutta after his triumph in America, there was a big meeting. In front of thousands of people, his brother disciple, Swami Brahmananda, touched his feet and garlanded him.
Vivekananda said to him, "What are you doing, what are you doing?" Brahmananda replied in Bengali, "You are my elder brother, so you are like my father. That is why I am bowing to you."
Then Vivekananda touched Brahmananda's feet and said, "The son of the Guru is like the Guru himself."
So both of them were bowing to each other in front of thousands of people.
When Sri Ramakrishna examined the young Naren's palm, he said, "O God, you are not going to live for a long time. You will not have a long life."
Then, when Swami Vivekananda reached the age of thirty-nine, he said, "I will not cross the barrier of forty. I do not want to live. My time has come."
He kept his promise. He passed away at the age of thirty-nine years and five months. He had worked extremely hard while he was on earth. He suffered a lot. So when his time came, he wanted to leave. His great destiny was to die before forty. Can you imagine? And we do not even start our life before forty!
When Swami Vivekananda left the body, on 4 July 1902, nobody, nobody cried as bitterly as Swami Brahmananda. Brahmananda said, "Now I have lost everything. In you, I found my brother, father, everything. Now I have lost all. How could you go and leave me alone? Today you have made me helpless, helpless."
Then he literally jumped on Vivekananda's dead body, crying and crying like a little child.
Every morning, starting at five o'clock or so, Sister Nivedita used to only repeat Swami Vivekananda's name. When he died, she did not want to live. As they were cremating his body, she was about thirty metres away. She was not near the pyre at all. She was sitting on the ground, crying bitterly. Suddenly, a burning charcoal flew up and landed in her lap. How it came there, nobody knows, but it flew to her and fell on her lap.
On the day Swami Vivekananda passed away, everyone was swimming in the sea of tears. His physical mother, Bhubaneshwari Devi, cried a little. Then she said something truly immortal:
"I am ready to give birth again and again to a hero like my son. He came into the world to raise the consciousness of the world. He has died at such a tender age, but I do not mind because my son has played his role. I know that he was not for me alone. He was for the whole world. He has helped the world so much."
Sri Chinmoy meets with New York City Councilman Morton Povman at the Sri Chinmoy Tennis Classic for men 50 years or older, held at the Starrett City Tennis Academy in Brooklyn.
Photo by Adarini Inkei
Sri Chinmoy lifts 18 Bangladeshi nationals, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
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Writings
Spiritual Strength
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Horsaal 1, University of Frankfurt, West Germany
Dear sisters and brothers, I wish to offer my deepest joy and gratitude to Germany. Here in Germany, mind-power has reached its zenith. Right from my childhood, Germany has always been for me a country of determination and strength. Determination and strength we need in every sphere of life. In the spiritual life, too, at every moment we need abundant strength, for we have to fight bravely against fear, doubt, worry, jealousy and imperfection. Only a brave aspirant can conquer all his inner enemies.
Why do we enter into the spiritual life? Why do we need God? We need God because God alone can give us abiding and everlasting satisfaction. We cry for material wealth. Eventually, we acquire material wealth, but from material wealth we get practically no satisfaction. Today we have a house, tomorrow we want to have two houses, the next day we want three houses. We may get what we want, but in our acquisition there is no real satisfaction.
When we pray and meditate, we feel that there is something in us, someone in us who is more than eager to satisfy us. That something in us is our inner cry, and that someone in us is our Inner Pilot, God. From the spiritual life, which is the life of pleasing God, we can expect everything. We can and we do get everything if we can truly please God. If we pray to God most soulfully to give us a million dollars, if we can please Him with our sincere aspiration and our soulful prayer, there will come a time when He will make us really rich. Through our prayer, we can fulfil our desires.
But there is another type of prayer which we call aspiration. With aspiration we do not try to get anything. We just try to expand and liberate ourselves and to manifest the Divine on earth.
In the spiritual life, as I said before, willpower and strength are most important. We need strength in the physical, we need strength in the vital, we need strength in the mind, we need strength in the heart. When we have physical strength, when our physical body is full of dynamic energy, we do not fall sick. If we want to meditate early in the morning, the body is ready to help us. If we do not have a healthy, sound body, in spite of our best intention to meditate, the body will revolt and will offer us a stomach upset or a headache or some other ailment that will disturb us.
If we have strength in the vital, then we dare to hope, we dare to accomplish, we dare to conquer all negative forces within us and around us. The strength in the vital we can utilise either to build or to destroy. But we must use this vital strength to build the palace of Light, Peace and Truth, and not to destroy anything.
Two things are constantly trying to destroy our mind: one is fear and the other is doubt. When we have strength in the mind, we do not allow fear or doubt to enter into our mind. Real death comes to us only once in life. But, in a sense, death comes to us almost every day when we allow fear and doubt to enter into our mind. When we welcome or cherish doubt, it is like drinking poison. Doubt negates all our divine possibilities and divine capacities. However, with our prayer and meditation, we strengthen our mind.
If a man does not have strength in the heart, he may have hundreds of friends, but he will feel lonely. He may be very wealthy, but he will feel insecure. But when one prays and meditates, he makes his heart strong and feels there the Presence of the Almighty God. And when one feels the Presence of God in his heart, how can he feel lonely or insecure?
When we have strength in the body, in the vital, in the mind and in the heart, we become fully ready to realise the Highest. God has given the capacity to each and every one of us to discover the real Divinity, the real Reality within us. But we need regular prayer and meditation in order to bring our capacity to the fore and utilise it. If one likes to pray, he can pray. If somebody else likes to meditate, he can meditate. If one wants both to pray and to meditate, he can do so.
It is only through prayer and meditation that we can eventually discover our Dearest, our absolutely Dearest One on earth and in Heaven. And who is this Dearest One? Is He somebody other than ourselves? No! He is our highest and most illumined part. When we pray and meditate, we discover our own highest part. It is our feet discovering our head. It is a leaf discovering its source, the tree. It is the finite discovering its source, the Infinite.
On 4 July, Sri Chinmoy holds a 13-hour meditation in honour of America’s Bicentennial, at New York’s Central Park. A few days later, a question is asked at the New York Centre about the inner events, at that meditation. Following is the question and Sri Chinmoy’s answer.
Question: Can you tell anything about what happened to the soul of America during the Fourth of July public meditation?
Sri Chinmoy: Oh, you want to hear a cock and bull story. All right, I’ll tell you a cock and bull story. When we started meditating at midnight, only a second or two after I started meditating, I saw the worst possible hostile force — so horrible that it could frighten anybody, even the strongest man. It appeared before me because I have taken the side of America wholeheartedly, unreservedly and unconditionally. My full inner and outer support is for America, for America’s soul. I can’t describe that force to you; you have to identify with my inner vision to see it. But it was most frightening. That hostile force wanted to devour America’s achievements, her glory and joy, her pride and her future possibilities.
America’s achievements of the past two hundred years, although they are on the physical plane, the vital plane and the mental plane, were founded on her inner cry. Otherwise, no nation, in two hundred years, could surpass all the nations of the world put together. America’s sincere inner cry and the response from above made those achievements possible. The inner cry is spiritual and the response from above is spiritual, so two spiritual things were combined to shape America’s history.
A few minutes later I saw another hostile force which was not as powerful as the first one, and later I saw three or four. They all wanted to devour America’s glory. They wanted to see America bow down; they wanted to humiliate America. And this they want to do not only through America’s outer life, but also through America’s internal life. They wanted to create some serious internal disagreements so that some states would fight with other states. Some severe internal conflict like the Civil War would again have taken place to destroy America’s achievements, America’s joy, America’s glory and America’s pride.
Fortunately, the Supreme and I are on the side of America, so there is no hope for these hostile forces. But I wish to say that the greater America becomes, the more she will be challenged by the outer world and the inner world. The hostile forces don’t want anybody or any nation to remain at peace or to increase peace. The greater one becomes, the stronger the opposition. The more we try to reveal divinity, the more we suffer from humanity or from wrong forces. When one is on the verge of achieving something inwardly great, he gets tremendous opposition from the inner world. I did realise God without tremendous inner opposition, but now the Supreme wants to reveal and manifest Himself in and through me, and I am getting opposition at every second not only from those who are unaspiring and from undivine forces in the earth atmosphere, but also from those to whom I am trying to give everything that I have and everything that I am.
The Supreme wants me to give at least an iota of Light, Peace and Bliss to the world, and every day my power is increasing, but the opposition is also increasing like anything. Ten years ago, when we started our mission, we had very few disciples — ten or fifteen disciples. Manifestation did not start at that time, and we had little inner opposition. At that time I used to hold the highest meditations, absolutely the highest. Since then I have not descended from my spiritual height, but no matter how sincerely, how powerfully I meditate, no matter how high I go, the receptivity is next to nothing. If I meditate for five minutes, in five minutes I bring down an absolute sea of Peace, Light and Bliss. But when I see how much has been received, it is only twenty drops or thirty drops or fifty drops. This lack of receptivity is nothing but opposition. You may say, “I am not receiving, but how am I opposing?” But the very fact that you don’t want to make yourself receptive to what I have to give you is opposition. What more opposition do I need? When I am bringing down something and giving it to you, if you say you don’t need it, then you are opposing my purpose, the purpose of the Supreme, who wants to operate in and through me.
America’s achievement is extraordinary. What America has done in two hundred years, no other nation has been able to do, nor will other nations be able to do it. They don’t have the necessary inner cry. Because of America’s inner cry, America got the Compassion-Smile from above. But once you receive something, you have the capacity to receive more. America can receive much more. In two hundred years America has done so much on the physical plane, vital plane and mental plane. The next hundred years can easily be years of spiritual achievement. In a hundred years, if America accepts the spiritual life and gives all value to the spiritual life, if America makes outer achievements of secondary value and gives spirituality utmost importance, again America’s inner cry and the Compassion of the Supreme can make America run the fastest. During the next hundred years America can achieve what no other nation can achieve. It is entirely possible. The only question is whether Americans will do it or not. God alone knows.
Sri Chinmoy answers questions
from his disciples after a special meditation for American Independence Day
Question: For a disciple, is it better to know your love or to feel your love?
Sri Chinmoy: To know my love is only book knowledge. From a book you will know how I love humanity. To feel my love is infinitely more important than to know my love. Again, from feeling you can know. If your heart makes you feel how much I love you, then from there you will try to convince your mind, “Guru does love me, although he smiled at somebody else and not me.” The feeling you have that I love you has to be brought from your heart into your hesitant or doubting mind. Once your mind is convinced of my love, automatically you will know it. So the best thing is to feel it, and then from the feeling to know my love.
Ordinary human beings who are not aspiring can only know from books that God loves them. Then, from that knowledge someday they can enter into the heart to feel God’s Love in their entire life. But once you accept the spiritual life, the story is different. Right from the beginning you have to feel God’s Love in your heart. No matter how many books you have read or you are going to read, you will never get the feeling of God’s Love or your Master’s love from books. If the heart does not support the feeling, then it does not last.
To come back to your question, it is infinitely, infinitely more important to feel my love than to know it. While knowing, you may get confused or doubtful. But while feeling, you are bound to make tremendous progress and eventually convince your mind that I love you. How can you feel my love? By virtue of your own prayers and meditations. And once you feel my love, for days and months you will be in another world. If you know my love from reading my writings or from hearing about it from others, that will not give you real satisfaction and it will not last. The knowledge of my love will not last. The feeling of my love is the only thing that lasts permanently or for a long, long time.
Question: How can spiritual people with leadership qualities come to the fore in American politics?
Sri Chinmoy: First we have to ask if spiritual people with leadership qualities really want to enter into politics, where there is no mother, no father and everybody is an orphan. In a dark forest you do not find beautiful flowers. Spiritual people with leadership qualities should enter into politics only if they have inner light in abundant, if not boundless, measure and if they are confident of this inner light and feel that they will not be corrupted. So it all depends on the inner development of the spiritual people who have the capacity to become leaders of their countries.
Before they enter into politics, spiritual people have to be fully convinced inwardly that they will be able to transform the minds of other politicians. Right now, this is practically impossible since most politicians are unbearably cynical. They do not care for the spiritual life. Spirituality is something very foreign to them. Not only outwardly but also inwardly they belittle spirituality. At every moment they say they are most sincere, whereas their opponents are only telling lies. What is worse, they do not even trust themselves. If I do not trust you, no harm. But when I do not trust myself, I cannot go even one step forward.
Before spiritual people enter into politics, they have to be absolutely sure that they have enough light. They cannot just do their best and place the results at the Feet of God. This is for people who are primarily involved in the inner life. But spiritual people who want to help mankind have to know their capacity; they have to know how much light they have. Otherwise, the darkness of the world is such that they will only cause problems, leaving the ordinary masses more confused than they were to start with.
Right now, spiritual people have to pray and meditate more and acquire more light. Then the time will come for them to enter into the political arena to transform politics into a divinely inspired experience that will allow society to make progress in a very tangible way.
Question: What do African-American and African people need most in order to overcome the obstacles that they're facing today? And in terms of bringing African-American disciples to the path and keeping them, what do we African-Americans need more of?
Sri Chinmoy: As an African-American, you have to generate more love inside your own heart for other African-Americans who have not yet accepted the spiritual life. Previously, I used to say, "Think of other African-Americans as your little brothers. It is your bounden duty to bring them to the spiritual life, for that is the only life that will help them. No human being can ever find satisfaction unless and until he finds it in a spiritual way. Everything else will fail — in your case today, in his case tomorrow, in somebody else's case the day after tomorrow."
But now I am seeing that it is not enough to think of them as your little brothers, just a little inferior to you. No, now I am saying that you have to feel that they are part and parcel of your own body, only you have a little more light than they do. It is like this. You have two limbs. One limb is illumined and one is not illumined. In one part of your body you have illumination and in another part of your body you do not have it. Because of their proximity, the illumined part of your body can easily bring light to the unillumined part. So if you take it this way, definitely you will get better results.
If you see other African-Americans as separate individuals with a different consciousness, then it becomes far more difficult, for then you feel that they are so far away from you. If you feel that they are somewhere else — five thousand miles or even five metres away, then it becomes a very difficult task. But if you feel that they are right here inside your body, a part of your living existence, then it becomes much easier. Every day you are using parts of your own existence. With your eyes you are seeing; with your nose you are breathing. You have to feel that your brother and sister African-Americans are like that: part and parcel of your being that you are using every day in your multifarious activities. That is the only way you will be able to inspire them.
Question: Is Thomas Jefferson appreciated in the proper way today?
Sri Chinmoy: Thomas Jefferson never was and perhaps never will be appreciated in the way God wanted him to be appreciated because gratitude was not, is not and never will be born in this world. No other President, no other American, has done or perhaps will ever do so much for the progress of the American consciousness as Thomas Jefferson has done. Countries other than America that have developed inner vision will appreciate Jefferson much more than America.
People who bring new light into the world never, never get the appreciation, admiration, adoration and love that they deserve — never! I am speaking not only of Jefferson but also of Krishna, Buddha and the Christ. Did the world appreciate them, admire them and love them — not to the extent that they needed, since they did not need anybody's appreciation or admiration, but to the extent that they deserved? No, and this will never happen, because the kind of gratitude that is worthy of their light and their vision has not been born and never will be born on earth.
Jefferson’s vision elevated the consciousness of the world in the twinkling of an eye. The light that he wanted to show his country and the light that he wanted his country to bring forward was so badly misunderstood! He never got the appreciation that he so rightly deserved and he will never get it, because humanity does not have that kind of gratitude.
