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JAMAICA — In one of the most unusual and remarkable publishing ventures ever attempted, Sri Chinmoy directed the preparation and publication of 51 of his books within a 15-day period last month.

When the Master first called about 40 disciples over to his house the morning of Nov. 1, the material for the books lay piled up in huge cartons. The cartons contained transcriptions from shorthand notes and tape recordings of the Master’s various talks and answers to questions during the past several years.

These thousands of pages of material had to be sorted and compiled into separate, self-contained books.

This required hundreds of hours of analysing, typing, proofing and organising. Where points were unclear, Sri Chinmoy would elaborate. Where ideas were repetitious, deletions would be made.

The disciples occupied virtually every room of the Master's house, from basement to attic, each with his own particular job. Amid the commotion and bustle, Sri Chinmoy calmly directed the whole operation and, as time permitted, dictated a number of additional books.

Many of the disciples took a week’s leave of absence from work. Others continued their regular jobs and came to the Master’s house straight from the office. 

To carry out the task — which in the normal course might have required years to complete — the disciples worked virtually around the clock, usually getting home around 1 a.m. for a couple of hours sleep before returning at 4 a.m.

Twice daily, once before the work began and then just before everybody went home, Sri Chinmoy conducted a short meditation. “If you receive my light,” he told the disciples, “you will not need sleep.”

The Master himself normally sleeps only two hours a night, and often goes days at a time without any sleep at all. He says that through meditation one can conquer sleep, and his disciples that week proved the truth of his philosophy.

As each book was completed, a messenger brought it over to a group of photo.typesetters in Jamaica and nearby Manhattan, also disciples, who prepared the manuscripts for final printing.

After the various proofreading stages, the book then went to one of the three disciple-owned or run printing presses in the area.

The 51 books of poetry, short stories, lectures, essays and questions and answers bring the total number of books Sri Chinmoy has written since coming to the West to more than 200.

The current group of 51 books includes four books of poetry, which complete the 20-volume Golden Boat series: four books of short stories, several books of lectures and essays, and quite a few books of questions and answers.

Eight books consist of answers on meditation. Other subjects include the nature of God, the cosmic silence and sound, the cosmic gods, aspiration, surrender, prayer and mantra, negative qualities and hostile forces, purity, the soul, music and human time and eternal time.

CHICAGO — The Jesse Owens Foundation presented Sri Chinmoy with the Jesse Owens Humanitarian Award at a black-tie dinner Nov.15.

Deeply thanking the Owens family and Foundation, Sri Chinmoy said the immortal athlete “was, is and forever shall remain my life’s champion supreme and my heart’s hero supreme for his deathless jumps, his breathless speed and his ceaseless self-offering.”

Generation after generation, he continued, “his Olympian voice will reverberate in the hearts of aspiring athletes....”