Category: Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy 1931-2007: thousands gather in tribute to a humble soul

Thousands of Sri Chinmoy’s students, friends, admirers and well-wishers from all around the globe are gathering in Sri Chinmoy’s home district of Jamaica Hills, New York to remember this soul whose life was one long outpouring of service to humanity. Sri Chinmoy’s body has been made available available for viewing by his students and wellwishers 24 hours a day, and a growing stream of visitors have begun to fly in from all corners of the globe.

There is a tremendous sense of peace and stillness emanating from the place where the casket is currently lying, with incense wafting through the air and recordings of Sri Chinmoy’s soul-stirring singing being played in the background. Despite their sadness at his passing, Sri Chinmoy’s students have not forgotten that his main mission was to train them to be of service to humanity, and many of his New-York based students have gone to great lengths to make sure all the visiting students are looked after at very short notice.

In these difficult times, the large international family that is Sri Chinmoy’s students have been a great source of mutual support and strength to each other. In mourning the passing of Sri Chinmoy’s mortal body, we will never forget that the love, inspiration and inner peace he showed to all is a gift that will last for eternity.

Sri Chinmoy 1931-2007: a life lived in service

Sri Chinmoy

NEW YORK, NEW YORK–(Marketwire – Oct. 12, 2007) – Internationally renowned peace leader and spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy passed away yesterday morning in his home in Queens, New York. The cause of death was a heart attack.

Respected and loved worldwide, Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy for world peace was manifested through a wide array of activities, ranging from literature to art to sports to music. The universal nature of his philosophy embraced and encouraged people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities to work together for peace.

Hailed as a modern day renaissance man, Sri Chinmoy wrote over 1600 books of prose and poetry, composed over 20,000 pieces of music, played over 800 Peace Concerts in venues like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and was an avid runner, tennis player and champion weightlifter.

President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote,

“Your enormous and significant activities are helping people to live better lives in peace, friendship and love. Whatever you dedicate yourself to – art, poetry, drawing – all this is connected with peace, peace amongst people and peace amongst nations.”

Sri Chinmoy was born on August 27, 1931 in a small village in east India. Orphaned at the age of 11, Sri Chinmoy traveled with his six brothers and sisters to a spiritual community in south India, where he spent the next 20 years in intense prayer and meditation. Heeding an inner call, he traveled to the United States in 1964 and made New York City his home.

In the 43 years since his arrival in the West, Sri Chinmoy became a model of the potential of humankind. Opening centers throughout the world for peace and harmony he tirelessly traveled the globe to share his inspiration and goodwill.

Of his contributions to peace, President Nelson Mandela wrote,

“It is a very rare gift indeed for humankind to be blessed with such a selfless individual who has dedicated his entire life to the service of world peace. Your work has inspired spiritual growth, resilience and well-being, especially in view of the present and unprecedented onslaughts against humankind. Yours is a voice of reason we all must heed.”

A champion of interfaith harmony, Sri Chinmoy was beloved by religious leaders of all denominations. From Mother Teresa to Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II to the Dalai Lama, Sri Chinmoy was celebrated as a true servant of God.

“I am so pleased with all the good work you are doing for world peace and for people in so many countries,” wrote Mother Teresa. “May we continue to work together and share together, all for the glory of God and for the good of man.”

Sri Chinmoy was an ardent supporter of the United Nations. Since 1970 he had served as the leader of the Peace Meditation at the United Nations, an association of delegates and staff he founded under the aegis of the third UN Secretary-General U Thant.

“The outer message of the United Nations is peace. The inner message of the United Nations is love. The inmost message of the United Nations is oneness,” said Sri Chinmoy.

Javier Perez de Cuellar, the fifth UN Secretary-General said,

“Sri Chinmoy, you are the heart of the United Nations. In all the years I was Secretary-General and even before, you were always with us. Your message was always with us, and we were being inspired by you.”

Sri Chinmoy’s love of sports spanned a lifetime and resulted in a number of landmark programs for peace and self-transcendence. In 1987, Sri Chinmoy founded the World Harmony Run, the world’s largest relay for peace involving tens of thousands of participants in over 70 nations.

Sri Chinmoy also founded the Sri Chinmoy Marathon team which is a leading promoter of ultra distance races, sponsoring events ranging from marathons to the world’s longest footrace, a 3100 mile run.

“The physical and the spiritual must go together,” taught Sri Chinmoy. “They cannot be separated.”

In this light, Sri Chinmoy astounded sports heroes and luminaries through a weightlifting career which he began in 1986, at the age of 55. Weight being anything but insurmountable, Sri Chinmoy credited his inner peace for the ability to lift thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of pounds. From cars to animals to small planes, Sri Chinmoy lifted almost every object imaginable in various styles of strongman lifts.

“I have learned from Sri Chinmoy that the size of the arm does not make the man; the size of the heart makes the man,” said five-time Mr. Universe and Best Built Man of the 20th Century, Bill Pearl. “Nobody on earth has done what Sri Chinmoy has done.”

A musician since his youth, Sri Chinmoy made dozens of recordings, composed over 20,000 songs, and offered more than 800 Peace Concerts – all free of charge.

“Sri Chinmoy has a tremendous, a fantastic creative urge!” exclaimed Indian maestro Ravi Shankar.

A humanitarian, Sri Chinmoy’s service organization, the Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles collected and distributed millions of dollars of medical supplies throughout Asia and Africa. Dedicated to easing pain and alleviating suffering, Sri Chinmoy once wrote, “My Lord, do give me the capacity to wipe every tear from every heart.”

Sri Chinmoy practised a life of spiritual discipline and never married. Over 7,000 people continue to follow his philosophy through the over 100 Sri Chinmoy Centres worldwide.

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Tributes to Sri Chinmoy – please feel free to contribute

View: Selected Tributes to Sri Chinmoy from our readers (a small selection from an ever growing number)

We are very grateful for the many kind words which have been flowing in from all corners of the world, and which illustrate how many lives Sri Chinmoy has touched, inspired and illumined in his 76 years on earth. Those of you wishing to leave a tribute please feel free to add it via the comment form below.

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To Russia with Love – a flying visit from Sri Chinmoy

Recently, Sri Chinmoy was in the beautiful city of St Petersburg, and as ever he managed to fit a whirlwind of activities into one short trip. Among the highlights of the trip was a concert of meditative music he gave for the general public, in which he invited his friend Purushottama Boris Grebenshikov, the Russian music legend to play a couple of songs. Purushottama combines music inspired by cultures all around the globe with exquisitely poetical lyrics reflecting on life and its true meaning, and was recently seen in New York playing a concert at the United Nations to honour the work and ideals of the global body.

Sri Chinmoy also gave a concert in a children’s hospital that specialized in treating leukemia. The Oneness-Heart Tears and Smiles humanitarian organisation founded by Sri Chinmoy in 1990 has been a leading supplier of leukemia equipment and medicines to Russia, and has been credited with being a factor in the marked improvement of the way leukemia is treated in that country. Incidentally, the first mission of the Oneness Heart Tears and Smiles was to respond with aid to the Russian winter food crisis of 1990; it has now gone on to deliver valuable humanitarian aid in over 24 countries. You can read more about the organisation’s work in Russia here…

It was also a chance for Sri Chinmoy to meet and meditate with his students from the former Soviet Union. More than a third of Sri Chinmoy’s students come from these countries, and Sri Chinmoy has long admired the one-pointed aspiration and determination of spiritual seekers and of the Russian soul in general, a view fondly reflected in the name he was inspired to give this group of countries – the Oneness Dream-Boat Shore. “Russia is like a flower, a beautiful flower full of fragrance.”, reflects Sri Chinmoy. “For a number of years, the flower was unable to offer its beauty and fragrance because of man’s mind-made rules. Some Russians made rules which came from the mind, not from the heart….Now the heart-power has again come forward, and the mind-power, which is full of doubt and other negative forces, has surrendered. Russia the flower, Russia the soul, is coming to the fore. Now that Russia is fully awakened spiritually, the entire world will derive tremendous blessings and be able to make very, very fast progress.”

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Ashrita Furman was in St.Petersburg with Sri Chinmoy, and also found time to break another Guinness record, and plenty more incidents besides: read more on Ashrita’s blog…

A celebration of all the talents

A diverse festival of of cultural, athletic, musical and spiritual events concluded in Queens, New York just last week. The two-week celebration took place to commemorate 76 years in the life of Sri Chinmoy, who over the past forty years has gained international acclaim for his contributions to philosophy, world harmony and interfaith relations. The wide array of events was intended to serve as a living demonstration that every kind of human talent – including art, music, theatre, athletics, and poetry – has a role to play in bring about a better world.

The two-week festival was graced by the presence of the musician Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov, a household name in his native Russia, and whose band, Aquarium, were involved in many of the landmark steps towards full artistic freedom as Russia emerged from Communist rule. On August 29th, Boris played a solo concert in the United Nations to enthusiastic acclaim (see separate blog entry for more details); a few days earlier, the same building had also played host to an all-female ensemble from the Sri Chinmoy Centre who have performed concerts of meditative music to audiences all around the world for the past 25 years. Many other musical performances took place over the two weeks; one particularly notable performance on August 18th featured an 80-strong orchestra led by Swiss musician Panchajanya Burri, performing a multi-part arrangement of the legendary Bangladeshi composer Kazi Nazrul Islam’s immortal song He Partha Sarathi. A classical music evening took place on August 28th, where performers from all over the world performed classical and folk arrangements from their own countries.

An unmistakeable highlight of the event was the unveiling of the largest pencil ever created, a 76 foot long monster weighing in at an enormous 18,000 pounds, built by an international volunteer team led by Ashrita Furman (see separate blog entry for more details). During the two-week period, Ashrita also set four other Guinness records, including an amazing three in the space of just one day – performing 36 deep knee bends on a Swiss balancing ball without falling off, catching a water balloon thrown from a distance of 64 feet without bursting it, and running a mile in just over nine minutes whilst simultaneously bouncing three balls on the ground! A few days later he also achieved a long-cherished goal of breaking the record for balancing the most glasses on his chin. This record was a particularly gratifying one for Ashrita, as he had been trying unsuccesfully to break it for years.

A selection of Sri Chinmoy’s paintings created between 2004 and 2007 were also displayed as part of an ongoing ‘Art in the Garden’ exhibition series. Sri Chinmoy calls his paintings ‘Jharna-Kala‘, which means ‘fountain art’ in his native Bengali: the name describes the manner in which he composes the paintings in a spontaneous flow coming from the heart. For these particular paintings, Sri Chinmoy first wrote down a quality or ideal such as ‘Compassion’ or ‘Tolerance’, and then spontaneously created acrylic drawings based on his heart’s feeling about that quality. No less than ten of the paintings in the exhibition featured the name ‘World Harmony’ – Sri Chinmoy has been at the forefront of many initiatives to further the cause of world harmony, the most well-known being the World Harmony Run, a global Olympic-style torch relay run which passes through over 70 countries around the world bringing people together in a spirit of friendship and understanding.

Other events that took place included a stirring talk on the ideals of Thomas Jefferson, and a virtuoso theatrical production by American director Natabara Rollinson. The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, the sporting organisation founded by Sri Chinmoy in 1977, also held a marathon on August 25th which attracted almost 1,000 people; Sri Chinmoy has long been a believer in sport as a powerful instrument for bringing people together and creating a better world.

The organisers hope that the range of events have inspired the people who saw them to pursue their own dreams in life. “I feel inspiration is of paramount importance.“, Sri Chinmoy explains. “If I can inspire someone, and if that person also can inspire me, then we can do many good things for the betterment of this world. If I am inspired, you are inspired and he is inspired, then we shall be able to work together. When we are not inspired, we find fault with other human beings; we quarrel, fight and do many deplorable things. But if we are inspired, then we do many good things for the improvement of this world.”

World’s largest pencil unveiled in New York

World's largest pencil

An international group of volunteers led by multiple Guinness world record holder, Ashrita Furman, have just constructed a 76 foot long pencil in Queens, New York, the longest pencil in the world. The pencil was unveiled to coincide with a commemorative function celebrating 76 years in the life of Sri Chinmoy, the internationally respected artist and humanitarian.

The pencil weighs in at over 18,000 pounds, with a 2 1/2 foot long eraser at its end. The ‘lead’ alone weighs over 4,500 pounds, and is made using a graphite core 10 inches thick, which had to be sharpened at the end using a powerful Sawzall reciprocating electric saw instead of your average pencil sharpener. A whopping fifty gallons of paint were needed to finish off the outside of the pencil. In all, an estimated two million regular pencils could be made out of the materials used in the construction.

Forty volunteers from twenty different countries spent two weeks constructing the pencil, working from 7am to 8pm every day with the occasional night shift as the project neared completion. For the project leader, Ashrita Furman, this record will be added to the 70 Guinness records he already holds. Ashrita, a health food store manager from Queens, has held the Guinness ‘versatility’ record for holding more Guinness world records than anyone else on the planet for the past twenty years. Ashrita first began breaking records way back in 1979, and since then has performed feats such as somersaulting the entire length of Paul Revere’s ride in Massachusetts, underwater pogo sticking in the Amazon, performing almost 10,000 situps in an hour under the Eiffel Tower, and bouncing the fastest mile on a pogo stick in Antarctica! In fact, he led a team to break this very same record back in 1996, building a 20 1/2 foot pencil which weighed 560 pounds, and which currently resides in the Guinness Record Museum in Niagara Falls, Canada. This record was shattered in 2002 by the famous stationery company Faber-Castell, who built a giant 64-foot pencil to adorn their offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ashrita’s motivation in breaking records is to show people what is possible if they truly believe in their own potential. ”We should always push ourselves to do something greater“, he says. “What I love about the Guinness Book is that I can just go through it and choose something that I’ve never done before, train for it, and become the best in the world at that event. In a way, that’s also a challenge for me: to figure out how to train, the best way to train. The underlying principles are the same in my case, because in the end I’m going back to the inner stream, to the principles of discovering your own inner resources.”

Ashrita credits Sri Chinmoy with teaching him this philosophy of always transcending ones outer limits, and the record-breaking pencil is a token of appreciation for the tireless service Sri Chinmoy has performed in the cause of making people aware of what they are truly capable of. “I am not a natural athlete, but Sri Chinmoy has shown me that if one can be in touch with one’s inner spirit, anything is possible.”, reflects Ashrita. For over forty years, Sri Chinmoy has been making prolific contributions in the fields of art, music, poetry and athletics – all to give a glimpse of what we are capable of if we but aside the mind’s hesitations and pursue our dreams. Interestingly enough, a significant portion of Sri Chinmoy’s artistic ouevre is comprised of pencil and marker drawings – many of them form part of his ‘Soul-Birds’ series, in which he depicts the unfettered human soul in the form of a bird. To date, he has drawn over 15 million of these birds ever since he began the series back in 1991. “For me, birds have a very special significance on a spiritual level.”, Sri Chinmoy comments on his drawings. “They fly in the sky, and the sky is all freedom. So when the birds fly in the sky, they remind me of the soul’s infinite freedom. I feel that if people come here to view these birds, their inner hunger to fly in the sky of infinite freedom will be fed.”

Blog entries on the world largest pencil:

3 Guinness world records in one day

A New York health food store manager and student of Sri Chinmoy, Ashrita Furman, holds over 60 Guiness World records, and seems to be increasing his tally more rapidly as he gets older. Last Sunday, he attempted the remarkable feat of breaking three records in one day. First, Ashrita attempted to break his own previous mark of 30 deep knee bends performed on a Swiss balancing ball in one minute. This is a very demanding record, requiring both balance and stamina, but Ashrita managed to get his record-breaking day off to a good start with a total of 36.

Then off to the local baseball park to break the second record – the longest distance a water balloon can be thrown or caught without breaking it. Ashrita stood at one end of the park, trying to catch the balloons thrown by his friend and frequent record collaborator Bipin Larkin. After a couple of attempts which resulted in burst balloons (and a dripping wet Ashrita!), they managed to set a new mark of 65 and a half feet, eleven feet longer than the previous mark.

Now for the final record of the day – the fastest mile whilst simultaneously bouncing three balls on the ground. Unlike the previous two records, there was no existing mark to transcend, as the category had only just been approved by Guinness for inclusion in their book. Nonetheless Ashrita was determined to inaugurate the record with a bang, and he set a new mark of just over nine minutes – a tough act for anyone to follow.

Airplanes, Cars, Motorcycles and 40-ft. high Catamaran: all lifted by 75-year old Sri Chinmoy

This weekend, fitness pioneer Sri Chinmoy was continuing his remarkable inspirational weightlifting program at the Naval Aviation Museum in New Jersey. During a non-stop lifting marathon, Sri Chinmoy lifted airplanes, cars, motorcycles and boats, battling age (he is now 75 years old) and injuries to his knee and shoulder. He used three kinds of lifts in the course of the afternoon: a one-arm overhead lift from a seated position, a seated calf raise and a standing calf raise (as shown in photo).

This extraordinary test of strength underscores Sri Chinmoy’s avid belief in the joy of self-transcendence and the unlimited potential of the human spirit. With his weightlifting he hopes to be an example to inspire others to fulfil all their hopes and dreams in their own field of endeavour, regardless of age. With these superhuman heavy lifts he tries to challenge himself, not others.

Some of the remarkable lifts included:

  • Airplanes: An ‘Ultralight’ weighing 424 lbs, lifted with only one arm from a seated position and a Stearman Bi-plane and pilot weighing an enormous 2,952 lbs, lifted with a standing calf raise (see photo).
  • Micro Cars: a BMW ISETTA Microcar weighing 1,011 lbs, lifted in an overhead two leg calf raise and also a 1,290 lb FIAT 500.
  • Boats: a Hobi 16 Catamaran weighing 424 lbs lifted overhead with one arm only from a seated position and a Day Sailor Sailboat with sailor weighing 660 lbs lifted overhead with a one leg sanding calf raise. Carl Behrens, who was in his sailboat when Chimoy lifted it, said: “Well you know, I don’t know so much about the message, but it’s pretty impressive that a guy that age could perform such a feat.”

  • Motorcycles: A 384 pound Suzuki 400 lifted in a right arm overhead lift. Then using a seated calf raise with platform, Sri Chinmoy lifted a 583 lb Triumph Bonneville 27 times and one additional lift with the rider totalling 731 lbs.

Overall, Sri Chinmoy lifted a total weight of 32,453 lbs, over 16 tons in one day.

Sri Chinmoy is the founder of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, an international marathon team that organizes 500 athletic events each year and the inspiring force behind the World Harmony Run, a global friendship relay covering 80 nations.

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Sri Chinmoy receives Mongolian National Award – and Performs Lifting Feats!

Earlier this week, Sri Chinmoy was in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, to receive an award from the country’s president, Nambaryn Enkhbayar. The award cited ‘his contributions to world peace’ and his ‘contributions to the people of Mongolia’. Sri Chinmoy also attended an exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the State Academic Theatre of Drama, where he received an award from the Mongolian Union of Artists.

A couple of days later, Sri Chinmoy travelled to the windblown steppes outside Ulan Bataar to fulfil a long-cherished dream of his – to lift some of the famous himor, or wind horses, of Mongolia as part of his inspirational weightlifting programme. On a special calf-raise machine, Sri Chinmoy lifted 17 of these beautiful animals, sometimes two or three at a time, in a series of six lifts. The photo below shows Sri Chinmoy lifting one horse plus its young rider; the height off the ground is indicated by the dial to the left of the apparatus.

Sri Chinmoy was also inspired to compose a song to mark the occasion:

“Mongolian white horse, Mongolian white horse, Mongolian, You give me the joy and pride of a real Olympian.”

Mr. Hamid Sardar, tour guide and animal lover who searched the Mongolian steppes to find the white horses for Sri Chinmoy to lift, saw tremendous symbolic significance in this lift. “For Mongolians, the horse is the symbol of humanity’s inner strength and spirit; by lifting these horses, Sri Chinmoy is lifting the ‘windhorse’ or the inner Spirit of all Mongolia.“, he stated.

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View more about Sri Chinmoy’s award on the Mongolian Presidential website…

April Celebrations

Every April and August, Sri Chinmoy invites his students from all over the world to visit him in New York. During that time he generally meets with his students twice a day. During these meditation functions Sri Chinmoy meditates with his students, but there are also singing and instrumental performances, soulful poetry and prayer recitals, inspiring stories, illumining theatre productions and more. Here are just a few of the things that happened this time around:

  • Sri Chinmoy had three significant weightlifting sessions as part of his initiative to inspire his fellow world-citizens to realise their own true potential. In addition to the lifts of hot air balloons and rose fountain described in a previous blog entry, he also lifted overhead some special guests as part of the ‘Lifting up the World with a Oneness-Heart’ program, which honours men and women of inspiration by lifting them up in both body and spirit.
  • Sri Chinmoy also frequently performed on a beautiful new synthesizer, which was crafted for him by his Swiss student Panchajanya Burri. Sri Chinmoy composed a song about Panchajanya in appreciation of all his hard work.
  • The focal point of these celebrations was April 13th, which marked the 43rd aniversary of his arrival in the West. Sri Chinmoy expressed his gratitude to the soul of the United States of America for being his host for 43 years. The day consisted on many performances by Sri Chinmoy’s favourite singers and musical groups, inspiring speeches by famous friends and well-wishers who had come to congratulate him, and some fond memories and reminisces by Sri Chinmoy himself.
  • There were some truly remarkable play performances in the duration of the two weeks. The first remarkable play was about Thomas Jefferson, and his struggle on behalf of freedom of religious conscience. The play describes Jefferson’s authorship of the Statute of Religious Freedom for the state of Virginia, and its eventual passing into law some years later when Jefferson had moved on to become US ambassador to France. This law was to become the inspiration for the First Amendment in to the Unites States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion for all. Another extremely accomplished play, directed by Natabara Rollinson, was the second in a three-part series depicting the childhood of Lord Krishna, the great Indian spiritual figure. The first part was performed in Bulgaria for Sri Chinmoy and his visiting students in January this year, and the third part will be performed in August. This chapter detailed Krishna’s gradual transformation from a playful young cowherd into a young prince who realises he must defeat his wicked uncle Kamsa to ease the suffering of his people. These plays are of a remarkably professional standard considering the limited amount of time the international crew have for rehearsal and stage construction.
  • This April saw the inauguaration of a new athletics event, the Self-Transcendence Invitational Marathon. Unfortunately the marathon took place at the tail end of some of the worst April weather on record, but many of Sri Chinmoy’s students produced very inspiring performances to break their personal best times.

Function with Sri Chinmoy

Morris Klein shares some thoughts and observations from a meditation function with Sri Chinmoy in New York.

“Sri Chinmoy commented that he felt that we can expand our heart by first feeling like we belong to our parents, and our village, then our town, province, country and then the world. He said that “When we use our love there is no distance.“