Sri Chinmoy is awarded the Order of Balboa, Panama’s highest decoration, by Foreign Minister Jorge E. Illueca of Panama, at the United Nations in New York.
Sri Chinmoy honours the world’s no. 1 surfer Kelly Slater by lifting him at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, Queens, New York.Read the article in ‘Tracks’ magazine...
– Sri Chinmoy |
Sri Chinmoy offers this prayer at 8:26 a.m. before doing clean and press from the ground up to 45 lbs. with both arms simultaneously. (26 reps). The prayer was later published in My Morning Soul-Body Prayers, part 8.
Sri Chinmoy takes a break during a lifting programme at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
by Sri Chinmoy
Jharna-Kala Gallery
Grand Central Station, New York City
The Creation started from Consciousness. God was alone. But after some time, like us, God felt lonely. He needed some friends. So He created two friends so that He could play with them, have fun with them and amuse Himself with them. His two friends were Aspiration and Vision. But God was not fully satisfied with Aspiration and Vision. He wanted two more friends so that He could always be happy. Aspiration and Vision were undoubtedly excellent friends, but they were not enough for Him. He needed two more friends. So He created two more friends: Speed and Strength.
Speed said to the Lord Supreme, “I would like to please You by covering the length and breadth of Your Creation sooner than at once. And while covering Your Creation, I will spread Your Light all-where.”
Strength said to the Lord Supreme, “I would like to please You by manifesting You wherever I see You and wherever I feel You.”
God said to Strength: “Is there any place where you do not see Me?”
Strength said to God, “I do not see You when I use myself to please earth without first getting the approval of Heaven.”
God said to Strength: “You are absolutely right. You will be able to please Me only when your actions are approved by the higher authorities. The higher authorities are My Compassion-Light and My Concern-Sympathy.”
Now God’s principal friends are Aspiration, Vision, Speed and Strength. Each individual is an infinitesimal prototype of God’s four most intimate friends.
Today our parade offered not only to New Yorkers but to the world-atmosphere and world-vibration the divine Presence of God’s four birthless and deathless friends: Aspiration, Vision, Strength and Speed. If you have one friend out of these four friends, if you can make friends soulfully and devotedly with even one of these four friends of God, then eventually you will be able to make friends with the other three. Some of you have developed considerable friendship with God’s Aspiration and God’s Vision; others have made friends with God’s Speed in the spiritual life. Still others have made friends with God’s Strength. But I would like each of you to establish an everlasting friendship with each of these four friends of God. Then only will you become one more friend of God, whom God will constantly and eternally treasure and cherish. You have the capacity. You have the capacity. You have the capacity. God has already given you the capacity to claim Him as your own Eternity’s only Friend. Try; you will succeed. You will succeed; therefore, you have every reason to try.
Question: What do you mean by Vision?
Answer: Vision is the capacity to know the unknown and also to know the unknowable. Now you may say, “How can you know the unknowable” One can easily know the unknowable, for the unknowable and the knowable are only the obverse and reverse of the same coin. The unknowable is always in the mind, in the separativity-consciousness. If your consciousness is divided and separated from my consciousness, then we will always remain not only unknown but also unknowable to each other. If there is very little separativity between your consciousness and mine, then we say that my consciousness is unknown. But if there is a wide gulf between your consciousness and the consciousness of someone or something else, then we say that that person or thing is unknowable.
Vision has the capacity to unify or see everything at a glance. So the unknown and the unknowable do not apply to Vision. Vision is the capacity that knows not only the unknown but also the unknowable. It also is the capacity that knows the past, present and future. Right now we need the past in order to know the present, and we need the present in order to know the future. We need the seed to know the tree and we need the tree to know the fruit. Again, we need the fruit to know the seed, since the seed comes from the fruit. In this way the cycle goes on and on. We see life stage by stage. This is the seed form, this is the tree form, and this is the fruit form. Unless we see them separately at their different stages, we don’t understand them; we don’t believe them.
But Vision sees the reality at all three stages at once. It sees the seed, the tree and the fruit simultaneously. When we use Vision, we do not understand or even believe our capacity. With our normal capacity we cannot see three things at a time. Even if we see three fingers at a time, one of the fingers like a magnet is drawing more of our attention. But when we use Vision, we can see all the fingers equally well.
So Vision is the capacity to know the unknown and the unknowable, to know the many in the one and the one in the many.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Art
Sri Chinmoy walks alongside the birthday parade put on by his students in his honour. The parade marches up Madison Avenue, New York, from 23rd Street to 72nd Street. The floats are designed on the theme of sport, among them is an enormous bicycle by the New York Centre. Afterwards, everyone goes to the Jharna-Kala Gallery in Grand Central Station for a special meditation. In the evening Jala Ramane is performed in Stamford.
After participating in the parade up Madison Avenue in Manhattan, which was held in his honour, Sri Chinmoy and his students repair to the Jharna-Kala Gallery at Grand Central Station, where he meditates with them and gives a talk on ‘Aspiration, Vision, Speed and Strength’.
There is only one spiritual Mother. She is God in His feminine aspect. She has three names: God the Compassion, God the Concern and God the Perfection.
Sri Chinmoy chose this meditation for August 18 in his book of daily aphorisms for the year, Meditations: Food for the Soul. Published in the Spring of 1970 in New York by the AUM Centre, this was Sri Chinmoy’s first book to be published in the West.
If you are poor in your acceptance of God's Light, then try at least to be rich in your rejection of the world's ignorance.
Published in Arise! Awake! Thoughts of a yogi
Before you perform, God resolves.
After you resolve, God performs.
Published in Flame-Goal Daily Meditations
by Sri Chinmoy
I was running in the afternoon at a seven and a half or eight-minute pace. An old man with a pronounced moustache was watching me. He said, "Don't run so fast! You will get tired."
On one street, three or four boys and two or three girls are real monkeys. Each time they see me running, they stand up. They don't cheer me; they boo: "Boo, Guru!" That kind of thing they do! They are bad people, bad people. I pray to God, when I come back, that I don't see them, and God listens to my prayer. When I come back, I don't see them.
When I was running a few months ago, three or four girls who were standing near the street started barking. Human beings started barking at me! Very bad! There are so many nice people in this area, but God's creation is so vast. Always He has to have a mixture of good and bad. Four or five girls and boys are so unkind to me. Each time they see me they have to make fun of me. Again, most of the others are very nice.
This morning I was running on the left side of the street. On the right side a car passed me. It was in the other lane, but just because I heard it coming, I stopped. A stout black man was driving. He gave me a smile and said, "You are right. Always you should stop and watch."
I have been asking the boys to find me a two-mile course to run — flat, without sidewalks and side streets and no more than ten minutes away by car. Nobody has been successful; perhaps nobody ever will be successful. Vinaya last week told me he had found a place. I believed him, and he took me there. God! It was a useless road! He wasted my time, but I forgave him.
Then, three days ago, he said he had found Heaven on earth. Those were his words. I said, "To find Heaven on earth is really something!" So I went to see his Heaven. It was Heaven, according to Vinaya — our old course at my seven-mile mark. His course was full of small pebbles and stones, and it was not even clean. It was very bad, very bad! The other day Lorne took me to a place that he said was extremely beautiful. He said that Kanan was the witness, that Kanan had taken him there. So I went to see the place. O God! It was almost like a highway, with a tiny path for cyclists on the side. Thousands of cars were going by very fast. So how could I run? That was Lorne's place. Like that, many people tempt me to go and see their discoveries, but their discoveries always frustrate me.
Published in Run and Become, Become and Run, part 4
Sri Chinmoy at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
Sri Chinmoy playing the flute at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
