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The Republic News

Cebu City, Philippines

Yoga Master Speaks

“Oh, Philippines! India offered you the fulfilling message of the heart’s universal oneness. Spain offered you the glowing message of the Christian faith. America offered you the convincing message of the loftiest democracy. Your soul is now offering the all-convincing, all-glowing and all-fulfilling message of self-acceptance, self-illumination and self-manifestation founded on the most fertile soil of your inner faith. Unmistakably are you walking along the path of your inner faith supremely triumphant will be at the end of your journey’s close.”

Thus says Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose of Bengal, India, yoga master, about the Philippines after his fourth day of sojourn in the Philippines. C. K. Ghose, a spiritual leader and teacher of the movement called A UM, was in Cebu City in connection with his Far Eastern tour for a series of lectures on yoga. Unable to arrange engagements in Manila, he proceeded to Cebu to speak at the University of San Carlos and Southwestern University. Prior to his visit to the Philippines, he went to Japan for the same purpose but was able to give only two lectures due to the widespread student strikes in the different colleges and universities in Japan. His next stop is Silliman University, Dumaguete City.

“People are not using Love properly,” he declared. “They are using Love to possess and be possessed. Real love is something that expands and liberates and gives us the feeling of true oneness of the entire world.

“We need a new world, and for that we need a new consciousness. When we give to God what we have and what we are, we immediately grow into a new and divine consciousness."

In his two lectures and in an interview, he clarified many misconceptions about the yoga movement.

In the Yoga movement, three attitudes are emphasized in relation to God — Love, Devotion and Surrender. Yoga is not a religion, he says, it is a spiritual movement. On the contrary, it accepts all religions; it even transcends all of them. In fact, he has disciples coming from different religions and denominations. For the movement the field is the entire world.

Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, as a lecturer, has lectured at Harvard (on “The Vedanta Philosophy”), Princeton, Yale, and other leading American universities. On his way to Japan he spoke at Berkeley.

Published in The Republic News, Cebu City, Philippines, November 12, 1969 

The Record

Bergen, New Jersey

Sri Chinmoy is interviewed after he lifts a Piper Arrow III plane plus eight men (total weight: 4,748 lbs.) at the Sparta Aviation School, Teterboro, New Jersey.

Interviewer: Why do you do this?

Sri Chinmoy: I am trying, according to my humble capacity, to be of dedicated service to the world. I have been going to the United Nations to offer meditations since 1970. In addition, I have composed many songs and poems, plus I have done thousands and thousands of paintings. All this I am doing to inspire others. Similarly, others also do many, many things to inspire me. If I am inspiring people and people are inspiring me, then we become good human beings. When we are inspired, we try to do many, many good things for mankind. When we are not inspired, we do many, many bad things. Inspiration is a divine element inside our life. When we are inspired, we try to climb up the Himalayas. When we are inspired, we try to swim the English Channel. When we are inspired, we go from one country to another country to inspire people and to be inspired by them. I feel that when we inspire humanity, we automatically become good citizens of the world. This is my philosophy. My weightlifting feats I have done solely to inspire humanity.

What humanity wants is joy, and inside joy is peace. If we are happy, we will not go and strike others; we will only go and shake hands with them or embrace them. But if we are miserable, we may go and strike others to get rid of our misery. People who are happy will never do bad things. Only unhappy people are fighting, dropping bombs and killing one another. If I am happy, will I go and find fault with my neighbours? Is there any human being who is happy who has done bad things? Only unhappy people do bad things. Here, with my weightlifting, I am inspired and you are inspired. We are only thinking of making each other happy. And when we are happy, we get peace.

Interviewer: What is the 'oneness-heart' that you talk about?

Sri Chinmoy: What 'oneness-heart' means is that your good qualities you are giving me and my good qualities I am giving you. Your divine qualities you are offering to me gladly and my divine qualities I am offering to you gladly. When you have oneness and good feelings, you give me what is best in you and I give you what is best in me. We exchange our good qualities. That is called a 'oneness-heart'.

Published in A Mystic Journey in the Weightlifting World, part 1

Interview with National German Radio

‘Hessischer Rundfunk’ in Frankfurt, Germany

Excerpts from the interview:

Interviewer: Could you introduce yourself?

Sri Chinmoy: I am a student of peace. I pray to God and meditate on God for world peace.

Interviewer: How did you become a student of peace?

Sri Chinmoy: By praying and meditating. Everybody on earth can do whatever he or she wants to do. In my case, I prayed to God for peace, so He has given me ample opportunity to offer my service to mankind.

Interviewer: How can one learn meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: Either one goes to a teacher or one prays to God and cries like a child for God to teach him how to pray and meditate. The first person who began to pray and meditate, thousands of years ago, definitely received this teaching from within. In the outer world we find that there are many people who have not gone to school who are quite learned. Our Rabindranath Tagore, India’s greatest poet, and the great dramatist and philosopher George Bernard Shaw did not go to school, but they were both men of knowledge and wisdom. Again, there are many, many people who went to universities in order to learn and become endowed with knowledge. In the same way, to learn meditation, either one has to go to a teacher to learn or one has to learn it by himself.

Interviewer: You are not only meditating. You are also doing sports, writing songs and poems and painting. Where do you find the time to do all this?

Sri Chinmoy: When I use my mind, it is impossible even to imagine doing all these things. But when I use my heart, I feel that everything is possible because I know I am a mere instrument of God's Compassion and, according to my receptivity, God does everything in and through me. It entirely depends on my own receptivity. God's Grace is like the sun. If I keep all the doors and windows open, naturally the sunlight will enter into the room in abundant measure, whereas if I leave only one tiny window open, then very little light will be able to enter. In exactly the same way, if we can open our heart-door completely, then God's Grace enters into us.

Interviewer: Could you sum up your philosophy?

Sri Chinmoy: My philosophy is very simple: love and serve. We love God the Creator and serve God the creation. God is at once the Creator and the creation. When I pray and meditate, I love God the Creator, and when I serve mankind, at that time I am serving God the creation.

Interviewer: How do your concerts bring peace to the world?

Sri Chinmoy: Everybody has a way to give what he has. Suppose you have love and you want to offer this love to mankind, or you have joy and you want to offer your joy to mankind. Then you need to find a special way to give what you have and what you are. In my case, I feel that when I play soulful music and when I sing my spiritual songs, I can offer whatever peace I have to humanity. So this is my way of offering. There are many others who are also offering peace to mankind. Their ways are different, but they are equally effective.

Interviewer: You conduct meditations twice a week at the United Nations in New York. Do you think you can change the world in this way? Do you want to change the world?

Sri Chinmoy: I have not come into this world to change it. I have come only to love the world in such a way that you and I and everyone else can work together. I pray to God to give me the capacity to be of service to Him. One individual can never, never change the world, but collectively everybody has to work together. Jointly, with a oneness-heart, we hope to bring about world peace.

Interviewer: Do you get stage fright when you give a concert?

Sri Chinmoy: Not in the least! I have established my oneness with the people in the audience. When you play in front of the members of your family, you do not become frightened. They are your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your cousins, so why should you be afraid? Even if you play wrong notes, they are not going to say anything. So I have established that kind of oneness with the hearts of my listeners. I do not claim to be a great musician who has to play everything perfectly. I only call myself a student of peace. As a student of peace, I feel this is the most effective way, in my case, to offer peace. I say to my listeners, "I love you and I wish to offer you peace. This is the way that I can do this. If you feel like seeing what I do, and if you feel you can derive some benefit from it, then please come."

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 30