Entries from October 2008 ↓

Athletics inspiration…

Tatyana Lebedeva, winner of the triple jump in the Athens Olympics and two time silver medalist in Beijing, first met Sri Chinmoy in 2004. Recently, upon returning from the Beijing Olympics she gave a very nice interview with the International Athletics Federation where she talks about how Sri Chinmoy has encouraged her. “His philosophy of constant Self-Transcendence left a deep trace in my life, and I always try to improve myself, no matter how tired I may feel.” she reflected in the interview. “It is impossible to live only in sport. I need to learn a lot, so that when I finish my sports career, I would have a chance to bring real benefits to the sport of athletics. This is my internal task and I formulated it thanks to the philosophy of Sri Chinmoy.” Tatyana has no intention of ending her athletics career just yet, and already has her sights fixed on Olympic gold in London in 2012. Read interview here…

Karteek swims channel for 9th time
Karteek Clarke from the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Edinburgh cmpleted the gruelling swim from Dover to Calais, making it his 9th time! Quite a few of Sri Chinmoy’s students have swum the channel, and in fact the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team (the sporting organisation founded by Sri Chinmoy as a service to the sporting community) holds the record for the team with the most Channel crossings.

Gandharva Loka Orchestra
In April 2008 and again in August 2008, two beautiful concerts were performed in tribute to Sri Chinmoy and his music. These concerts, called ‘Songs of the Soul’ featured well known musicians such as Philip Glass, Roberta Flack, Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov and Kristin Hoffman. One highlight of both concerts was the Gandharva Loka Orchestra, a 75 member instrumental and choral ensemble of Sri Chinmoy’s students, performing dazzling orchestral arrangements of Sri Chinmoy’s songs which brought the audience to their feet. The orchestra are now scheduled for a European tour in November, taking in the cities of Berlin, Prague, Munich, Milan, Zurich and Heidelberg and a North American and Canadian tour next spring.

On October 6, 2008. The World Harmony Run, a rely run which seeks to cultivate harmony by passing a burning torch among people of different cultures, finished its European journey  in Prague.

9-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis and deputy Mayor of Prague Markéta Reedová ran together with the World Harmony Run team for the final kilometers. They carried the World Harmony torch over the Charles Bridge and to Old Town Square.

“The World Harmony Run, founded in 1987 by Sri Chinmoy, who was the most peaceful person I knew, has inspired millions in Europe and all over the planet to take a step for harmony and a better world,” Carl Lewis said at a reception of the team at the House of Parliament, Senate and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

The delegation of runners headed by Carl Lewis, the World Harmony Run spokesperson, started this morning from Prague Castle at 10 AM to run to the House of Parliament, where they were received by members of Parliament headed by Anna Čurdová. In the Senate, the torch was received by the deputy chairman Jiří Liška. He symbolically ran with Lewis and the team in the Valdstejnska Garden. After another reception, this time at the Ministry of Education, the torch was accepted by the deputy minister Jan Kocourek who then headed with the runners to Mostecka Tower. There he passed the torch to the Prague deputy Mayor Markéta Reedová.
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This Joy Weekend was in a place called Sommieres - a medieval town, complete with castle, next to the Vidourle river. While walking around it’s narrow alley-ways it was not too difficult to imagine life many hundreds of years ago. Is all of France this beautiful or are our French brothers and sisters just good at finding wonderful locations? Even the weather was perfect…

After our huge meal (I lost count of how many courses there were) we had our function. Manjula had just returned from the Harmony Run, so we saw a slideshow of some pictures she had taken. Then we played all kinds of games until it got quite late.

In the morning we had our usual early meditation followed by 2-mile race (this time thankfully it was not up and down a huge hill!)

The afternoon function featured numerous French singing groups including Ashcharjya’s group and the newly-formed Bhashini’s group, and an amusing play featuring Bhashini speaking in French and Natashira and Helene? speaking in English. This was all topped-off by an amazing performance of magic from Oindrajalik who had doves appearing from all kinds of places and many other tricks that astonished us all.

Many thanks and gratitude to the French disciples for organising this Joy Weekend which was inspiring, aspiring, amusing, stomach-filling, dynamic and yet relaxing and well organised. It is amazing how much you can receive from one weekend.

By: Suswara Payne