August 25

 

GURU OPENS WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

 

NEW YORK — Sri Chinmoy opened the World Music Festival, a concert dedicated to global harmony, with a short meditation and musical performance.

The Aug. 25 concert, held at Madison Square Garden’s Paramount Theater, brought together some of the greatest musicians of East and West — including American vocalist Patti Austin, Latin American ballad singer Danny Rivera and Indian violinist L. Subramaniam.

The festival was sponsored by the Indian cultural association Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (USA).

Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 25,  August-Mid-December 1995

 

August 23

 

TEN-DAY BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL

 

NEW YORK — About 500 disciples from around the world are expected to converge in New York this month for a ten-day festival celebrating Sri Chinmoy's 43rd birthday.

Spiritual plays, concerts, picnics, athletic functions, and a circus will be combined with meditation as the festival seeks to interweave outer as well as inner experiences.

The general public will be invited to participate at an open meditation to be held at 7:30 p.m. August 23rd at New York's Hunter College. The out-of-town disciples who have been followers of Sri Chinmoy for at least a year will be guests at the homes of New York area disciples.

This is expected to take up all available space, and dormitory rooms at a local college has been booked for the newer disciples. The “Sports Day” will be patterned after the track and field events that Sri Chinmoy used to participate in during his 20-year stay in a south Indian ashram.

A decathlon champion in his youth. Sri Chinmoy still practices athletics and each morning, for the past few months, has been joining his disciples on a local track field to prepare for the event.

The festival will culminate with an all-day birthday meditation August 27th.

Published in Anahata Nada, JULY 27, 1974 VOL. I, NO. 8

 

August 22

 

WEDNESDAY NIGHT MEDITATIONS IN MANHATTAN

 

NEW YORK — Sri Chinmoy has begun a series of Wednesday night meditations at All Angel’s Church, 81st St. and West End Avenue.

The meditations begin at 7:30 p.m. and are open to the public. Admission is free. Meetings scheduled for the last two weeks of August will not be held as they coincide with the annual ten-day festival honouring Sri Chinmoy’s birthday.

A large public meditation will be held at All Angel’s Church on Friday, Aug. 22, at 7:30 p.m. At this time, seekers in the New York metropolitan area will have an opportunity to join Sri Chinmoy’s disciples in receiving the Master's silent birthday offering.

Published in Anahata Nada, August 1, 1975, Vol. II, No. 7

 

August 21

 

OLYMPIC-STYLE “SPORTS DAY”

 

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — Sri Chinmoy stood in the centre of the field, clad in gold shorts and a gold sleeveless shirt, as his athlete-disciples, wearing the colours of their own particular Centres, circled around him on the quarter-mile track.

Trumpets and drums set the tempo, blaring out a Bengali marching song, as the 1974 Olympic-style “Sports Day” officially opened on ;August 21st in New Paltz, N.Y.

Sports Day is the annual track and field competition in which disciples from around the world compete against one another. Sri Chinmoy, who had been a decathlon champion 15 years ago in the Indian ashram where he grew up, always joins in the competition.

“Our aim is not to become the world’s best athlete,” Sri Chinmoy says. “Our aim is to keep the body fit, to develop dynamism and to give the vital innocent joy.”

The value of competitive sports, he continues, is that it helps one bring forward his own best capacity. “If we can learn to participate in competitive sports devotedly,” he adds, “then we will get real joy and make real spiritual progress. But if we compete egoistically, then we are bound to suffer both inwardly and outwardly.”

The Sports Day events are open only to the best athletes in the Sri Chinmoy Centres. But a few days later, a “Games Day” was held in Greenwich, Conn. for all disciples wanting to participate. Sports included soccer, baseball, tennis, archery and croquet.

Caption:

Sri Chinmoy during “Sports Day”

Anahata Nada, August 1974, VOL. 1, NO. 9