Interview on WHOA Radio Station

in San Juan, Puerto Rico
by Mr. Jim Knight and Mr. George Riddell
from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Introduction

Jim Knight: Ladies and Gentlemen: Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, the Spiritual Director of the Aum Centres of Puerto Rico and New York, has come to Puerto Rico for the fifth time. A man with profound insight, with abundant spiritual wisdom, with a glowing heart to serve the Supreme and humanity, Sri Chinmoy was born thirty-six years ago in Bengal, India. He spent his childhood and youth in a spiritual institution in South India where he practised the spiritual discipline and prepared himself for his divine mission. He was prompted by the Divine within him to come to the West and share his spiritual realisation with the sincere seekers of the Supreme.

So in 1964 he came to the United States. He has lectured on Indian philosophy and Yoga to many groups both large and small: schools, churches, synagogues and other interested groups. In 1965 he began the publication of his spiritual writings in a small monthly journal, entitled AUM, which dealt with the Indian spiritual discipline and the higher Light and Wisdom of Yoga.

In July, 1965 he came to Puerto Rico on a lecture tour and it was here that the first Aum Centre was established. The following year the Aum Centre of New York City was established. Since then Sri Chinmoy has been helping the disciples of both Centres, besides helping groups in different cities such as Washington, D. C., Miami, Florida and Jamaica, West Indies. He comes to visit his Centre in Puerto Rico every few months and we have the pleasure of having him here this morning. He will be glad to answer any questions and we are going to do that in just a few moments. First of all, let’s give you the address. The Aum Centre here in San Juan is located at Miramar Avenue, Stop 11, Santurce..

Now this morning we have Sri Chinmoy here in the studio. He will give us an example of a prayer chant in Sanskrit to start the program.

[Sri Chinmoy sings a Shloka from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad]

Ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to Sri Chinmoy Ghose chanting a prayer, which, to those of us in the western world, was quite foreign. We are going to get into that and find out what that was about and we have very many questions to ask Sri Chinmoy this morning.

With us in our studio we have Miss Dorothy Eisaman, Mr. and Mrs. Jose L. Casanova, Miss Carmen Suro, Mr. Ramon Torres Pena, Mr. Ed Belville and acting with me this morning in the process of asking the questions, is Mr. George Riddell.

Mr. George Riddell: One of the first questions that comes to us: there is evidently a very sacred note in that chant and I was wondering if you might interpret it for us in English, to know what it was about?

Sri Chinmoy: Thank you. This chant is one of the most famous chants in India. From time immemorial, this chant has been sung, chanted by the seekers of Truth. The seers, the sages of the Upanishads sang this chant. The significance, the meaning of this prayer is:

Lead me from the untruth to the Truth,
Lead me from darkness to Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.

The firmament of India still resounds with this soul-stirring chant of the Vedic and the Upanishadic seers of India.

Mr. George Riddell: Typical themes like that seem to run through all religious hymns and chants and now that you mention ‘Vedic’, I wonder if Yoga itself is a part of another religion of India or is it a religion in itself?

Sri Chinmoy: Yoga is no religion. Yoga transcends all varieties of religion. It is something infinitely deeper than the so-called ‘religions’. Yoga is the Living Breath that makes us feel that God is within us, of us and for us. Yoga is the direct communion with God. It is our union with God that Yoga teaches us. And at the same time, it is the language of our inner and spiritual life. Right now, I am speaking in English in order to convey my feelings, thoughts and ideas. Similarly, if I want to speak to God, commune with God, then the language that is required is called Yoga.

Mr. George Riddell: Do you meditate or do you pray? In Yoga, how do you communicate with God?

Sri Chinmoy: In Yoga we pray, we concentrate and we meditate. When we pray, we get an inner feeling, that is to say, with our hearts we feel that we are crying for something. When we concentrate, we focus all our intense attention on something, it may be an object or it may be a person. And when we meditate, we enter into the deeper regions, deeper planes of consciousness.

By prayer, we enter into the Kingdom of God, by concentration we can also enter into the Kingdom of God and also, of course, by meditation. These three ways, prayer, concentration and meditation, are the most effective ways to commune with God.

Mr. George Riddell: Some of the other members here may have some questions that they wish to ask and I think we should start with the ladies first.. Miss Carmen Suro may have a question.

Question: Yes, I would like to ask the Master what is the difference between Experience and Realisation in the spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: The difference between Experience and Realisation in the spiritual life is this: a realised person can say, “I and my Father are one; I and God are one”; whereas an aspirant having many spiritual experiences, or even one, can say and feel that he is slowly but inevitably growing into the realisation of God.

Experience shows and tells us what we will eventually become, the possessor of God-Consciousness. But in realisation, we come to know what we truly are: absolute oneness with God forever and through Eternity. This is the difference between Experience and Realisation.

Mr. Jim Knight: One question has interested me. Everybody in all religions tries to relate himself to God and I wonder, Sri Chinmoy, if you could give us a short explanation of what Yoga says of God. What is God and what is the relationship between God and man?

Sri Chinmoy: God and man … this is the eternal question and the eternal answer. God is the living Breath and that living Breath is in man. Man has a goal and the name of that goal is God. In God is man’s satisfaction, achievement and fulfilment. Through man is God’s Satisfaction, Achievement and Fulfilment. Man needs God to realise his true Self. God needs man to manifest Himself on earth.

Mr. Jim Knight: Are you saying that God and man are one and the same?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. God and man are one and the same. God is man yet to be fulfilled in His Infinity and man is God but he has yet to realise it.

I have to grow and God has to flow. I grow as a human being into His highest Consciousness and God flows into me and through me with His Infinite Compassion.

Mr. George Riddell: Now, according to Yoga, when your physical being ceases to exist or when you do what we call ‘die’, what happens to your spiritual self?

Sri Chinmoy: When we die, our physical body, the physical sheath enters into the physical world and is disintegrated by burial or cremation. The vital sheath enters into the vital world. The mind enters into the mental world. Then slowly the soul goes back to its own region. There, usually, it stays for a few years… it depends on the individual soul… according to its necessity and according to its preparation. Now after taking rest for some time, the soul feels that the time is ripe for it to enter into the world once again to fulfil its divine mission. God-realisation takes a good many incarnations.

Before the soul enters into creation, it tries to observe the environment, the situation and the family from above; which family it is going to accept. Then the soul goes to the Supreme for approval. Sometimes it gets this approval; sometimes the soul comes into creation merely with the knowledge of the Supreme. Again it starts its journey, it tries to unveil the inner Divinity and at the same time, it tries to manifest the Divine in the field of creation. So this is how the process of reincarnation continues.

We believe in reincarnation. We know that we have millions of desires to be fulfilled. At the age of four I had many desires; at the ages of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, these desires are not yet fulfilled. Neither we nor God will be satisfied unless we are fulfilled. First we get our fulfilment in satisfying our desires in the ordinary human life. Then we have our fulfilment in achieving our higher aspiration. Right now, we want money, name, fame and all this. Later we try to achieve Light, Peace and Bliss with our spiritual aspiration. In one incarnation, in one short span of life, we cannot do all that. We need many incarnations. That is why, according to our Indian philosophy, reincarnation is a positive fact and a positive truth.

Mr. George Riddell: Speaking of reincarnation, this brings to mind the idea of the wheel of Karma. Now on the wheel of Karma, a person or a soul is reincarnated in human form. Or can he be reincarnated in other forms?

Sri Chinmoy: Let me say as a preface to my answer that the soul is in this table, the soul is in the chair, the soul is in the plant, the soul is in everything. The soul, of course, is in human beings. It is all a matter of the degree of manifestation. The Christ had a soul, I have a soul, we all have a soul. In the case of the Christ, He had the Supreme’s all-pervading Consciousness. In the ordinary person’s case, his degree of manifestation is not anywhere near that. Similarly, the soul that is in this table, this chair, is nowhere near our soul in degree of manifestation.

But, in answer to your question, once the soul has come into human incarnation, once it has accepted human life, it does not, as a rule, accept animal life. Once upon a time, we were all in the animal kingdom, but as a general rule, the soul does not enter into animal incarnation from the human state. But very rarely it happens that people are still in the animal consciousness although they have a human body. They are in the animal kingdom with their passions and lust, lowest vital desires. In such cases the Supreme allows the particular human being, the human soul, to enter into a particular animal to enjoy itself, to work out and throw away all these lowest vital movements. There the soul remains, say for six or eight months or a year. But it does not mean that the soul has to remain perpetually in the animal kingdom. No. And only in very rare cases does the soul go into the animal world. We have got a human body and from here we grow — from man we grow into the superman.

Miss Dorothy Eisaman: Master, am I correct in saying that we who are believers in God must grow in Grace daily?

Sri Chinmoy: You are absolutely correct in saying that the believers of God must grow in God’s Grace daily. A true believer of God feels that his very existence on earth, his inner and outer achievements and fulfilments are entirely due to God’s Grace; also he is truly fortunate to see that his so-called personal efforts too, are an act of God’s Grace. At every moment he feels that without God’s Grace he is nothing and with God’s Grace, he is everything.

Mr. George Riddell: Listen, that last one is definitely in line with much of Christian preaching and I find that what you say is very similar to the pronouncements of the Christian churches. I am not familiar with the Moslem or the Hebrew religion, but it seems to go through all religion and probably through the Hindu religion in India and various other religions throughout the East.

Now, this Grace, I was wondering if, according to Yoga, will this Grace be flowing from God all the time, or would this Grace flow directly to a particular man from God, or does it flow through other mediums between God and man? When a man feels that he is Grace, does he know that he gets it directly from God or does he get it through these other mediums? I think I have made myself clear.

Sri Chinmoy: If the aspirant is of a very high calibre, he can get this Grace directly from God. Otherwise, the beginner needs a helper, a teacher or a guide in order to bring down God’s Grace into him. The Grace is all the time descending, showering, but the beginner is not conscious of this fact that there is a constant shower of God’s Grace. And ordinary human beings are totally ignorant of the fact that there is such a thing as Grace. They think, “As you sow, so you reap.” This is true to some extent, but there is also God’s Grace which can expedite our life’s journey and at the same time negate, nullify our wrong actions. So to come back to the question, it depends on the individual, where he stands. But again, we have to know that God’s Grace is something which we badly need in our day-to-day life, in our outer life as well as in our inner life. God’s Grace is our real meal, the energising, fulfilling meal. The Bible has taught us that man does not live by bread alone and we, the seekers of Truth, add to it that man can live and does live by God’s Grace alone.

Mr. George Riddell: Does anyone else have a question? Mr. Casanova!

Question: It seems that modern man has made quite a mess of the world with constant wars, riots, rebellions, strikes, delinquency, traffic accidents, etc. All ordinary corrective methods seem to be a total failure. Do you think, Master Chinmoy, that this is a natural order of things or is there any way for modern man to live in peace and have universal love and order?

Sri Chinmoy: You are right. We have made a mess of the world. Now, from the spiritual standpoint, this is not the natural order of things. Far from it. The most natural thing in our human existence should be the life of peace, universal love obeying faithfully a universal law and order. Now your question is, “How can man do that?” Man can do that by thinking God’s thoughts and by living God’s Truth. Impossible it might seem today, but tomorrow it will be not only possible, but inevitable. United, let us raise our consciousness into that Golden Tomorrow.

Mr. George Riddell: In Yoga, do you have a Scripture, as we have the Bible?

Sri Chinmoy: We have many scriptures in India. Among these are the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita. Just as your Bible is a collection of writings and not one particular piece of writing, so are our scriptures a collection of religious and spiritual books. The most loved and revered scripture of India is a book that I have mentioned, the Bhagavad-Gita. This book, by the way, is often called the Bible of India.

Mr. George Riddell: The Gita is also used in Islam?

Sri Chinmoy: They have their Koran. The Koran is a sacred book as we have the Gita and you have the Bible.

Mr. Jim Knight: One of the great, perhaps the greatest Indian political leader of all time was the Mahatma Gandhi. How did he relate to Yoga?

Sri Chinmoy: Mahatma Gandhi… what was his position?

Mr. Jim Knight: What was his position in relation to Yoga?

Sri Chinmoy: ‘Mahatma’ means ‘Great Soul’ and so he was. But from the strictly spiritual point of view, Mahatma Gandhi was not a yogi. He was a patriot, political leader, martyr. But he was not a self-realised soul like Ramakrishna, the Buddha and others. You can say he was a religious saint. Self-Realisation he did not have, but he had boundless love for humanity and his interpretation of God is unique. He said, “Truth is God. Denial of God we have known. Denial of Truth we have not known.” For him, religion was nothing but Truth. He lived the life of a saint. God gave him boundless love and compassion. This was Mahatma Gandhi. But when the question of Self-Realisation, self-discovery comes in, he cannot be placed on the same footing as the Christ, Ramakrishna, Buddha and so on.

Mr. Ed Belville: Sri Chinmoy, the question in my mind is: why do we need a teacher or guru? Or is it important to have a teacher to follow the spiritual path?

Sri Chinmoy: In this world we cannot do anything without the help of a teacher. The teacher may be necessary for a second or for a year or for many years. If I want to learn music, at the beginning I have to go to a musician. If I want to learn how to dance, I have to go to a dancer. If I want to learn about the sciences, I have to go to a scientist. In order to learn anything in this world, we need a teacher at the beginning. Then how is it that we do not need a teacher to help us in our inner, spiritual life?

A soul enters into a human frame, a human body, and then the human being grows and completes his first year of existence, his second year, third year and so on. What has the mother done during these years? The mother or the parents? They have taught him how to speak, how to eat, how to dress, how to behave. He learns everything from his parents. Without their guidance, he would grow up a human animal, an abnormal being. The parents played their part in the formative years of the child.

Similarly, in the spiritual life the necessity of a teacher is inevitable because the spiritual teacher has to teach the student how to pray, how to meditate, how to concentrate. Then, when the student learns and he goes deep within, he can do all this by himself.

Right now I am here in Puerto Rico. I know that New York exists and that I have to go back to New York. What do I need to get me there? An airplane and a pilot. So in spite of the fact that I know that New York exists, I cannot get there alone. I need help. Similarly, we all know that God exists. You want to reach God, but someone has to help you, carry you. As the plane takes me, carries me to New York, someone has to carry you to the Consciousness of God which is deep within you. Someone has to show the path in order to enable you to enter into your own divinity, which is God. So this is the answer — that at the beginning, we need a teacher.

Mr. Ramon Torres Pena: Master Chinmoy, what do you mean by ‘concentration’?

Sri Chinmoy: Concentration is the open secret of focusing all one’s attention on a particular object or person in order to enter into and have one’s identification with that object or person. The final stage of concentration is to discover and reveal the hidden ultimate truth in the object of concentration. What concentration can do in our day-to-day life is unimaginable. It most easily separates our heart’s Heaven from our mind’s Hell so that we can live in the constant delight and joy of Heaven and not in the perpetual worries, anxieties and tortures of Hell while we are here on earth.

Mr. Jim Knight: I have another question deviating just a little bit from what we have been talking about. Most of us in the western world who are ignorant of Yoga have a tendency to think of a Yogi as someone, let us say, sitting with his legs crossed, or someone standing on his head, someone doing particular exercises or things that seem strange to us. How or why does a Yogi perform these feats? How does it relate to his religion?

Sri Chinmoy: Some people take these exercises to keep the body fit, freed from physical ailments and so forth; while others take them in order to get realisation. But realisation can never be had by merely doing Hatha Yoga exercises. What these exercises actually do is to help the seeker enter into the true spiritual life.

In the beginning a child, when he reads, he reads aloud in order to convince his parents that he is reading. But a grown-up person does not do that. He reads silently. Right now most of us are physically very restless, no better than a monkey. We cannot stay more than a second without getting restless. But there are aspirants who just sit and make their minds calm and quiet and then they enter into the deeper regions of the being. It is these physical exercises and postures, when we do them, which relax our body and give us peace of mind for a short period of time. But these exercises will never give us realisation… never! These are the preliminary stages. We say in our true spiritual system that the beginners in Hatha Yoga are like kindergarten students. And one can easily skip kindergarten. But we have to go from kindergarten to grammar school, high school, college and then to university. Concentration, meditation and contemplation are taught in the higher courses. Otherwise just by taking these physical exercises and making the body strong, the athletes, the boxers, the wrestlers would all have realised God by this time. All the sportsmen would be God-realised souls!

I must emphasize the fact that Hatha Yoga exercises are far superior to the western system of exercises which are often done abruptly, vigorously and, to some extent, violently. The Hatha Yogic exercises are done calmly, quietly, in a meditative mood. They strengthen the nerves and calm the mind, unlike most of the western exercises.

The body is necessary. We must have a sound and solid body so that the soul can act in and through the body in the field of manifestation. But if we expect something more from the body, then we are being foolish.

Mr. George Riddell: Are you a vegetarian?

Sri Chinmoy: I am a strict vegetarian. Sorry, I take eggs, so I cannot say that I am a strict vegetarian. But I take no meat or fish. I stopped eating meat and fish when I was twelve years old, the age that I entered seriously into the spiritual life.

Mr. George Riddell: Are you married?

Sri Chinmoy: No, I am not married.

Mr. George Riddell: Do you practise celibacy?

Sri Chinmoy: Of course. Without celibacy, there can be no true spiritual life, not to speak of God-realisation.

Mr. George Riddell: We have one question from our radio audience. Someone has called in with a question. Her question is: “What do you think of the communication between the living and the dead? Do you think there is a communication?”

Sri Chinmoy: There is a way to communicate with the dead. As a matter of fact, there are various ways. If one has occult powers or spiritual powers, one can easily communicate with anybody living or departed. What we call ‘death’ is not the extinction of consciousness. It is only a transition. Today I am here; tomorrow I will be in New York. Similarly, now I am here on this earth; after some years, I will be somewhere else in one of the other worlds. On the strength of our Self-Realisation, we can enter into the soul of a person who is either here or elsewhere; either in heaven or in hell.

On earth we can make either a short-distance call or a long-distance call to any part of the world. The telephone is the medium. Similarly, our conscious oneness with God or, we can say, our Self-Realisation, enables us to commune with anybody, whether here on earth or there in heaven.

Mr. George Riddell: In your answer you have mentioned something that has disturbed my mind. You said something about “heaven and hell.” How does Yoga relate to heaven and hell?

Sri Chinmoy: Heaven and hell are two planes of consciousness. With our human mind we feel that heaven is elsewhere and that it is full of joy; whereas hell, we feel, is full of torture. This is not the case. Heaven and hell are two planes of consciousness into which we daily enter. When we do good things, we are in joy, we are in heaven. When we do wrong things, we are in hell. Each moment we are experiencing heaven and hell. Heaven is right here, deep inside us. It is up to us whether to live in our inner heaven or in our outer hell.

Mrs Sarah Casanova: Some persons are disturbed by the problems surrounding them. They think they can find escape in suicide. Do you think this is a door that we can open at our sweet will to escape from responsibility and suffering?

Sri Chinmoy: I have been hearing for the past few years, from many people, this very idea of committing suicide. Suicide is by no means an escape. There is no escape, there can be no escape. We can escape from this room but we’ll be caught in another room. We think that we can escape from this world by killing ourselves. Unfortunately, this is not the only world. There are other worlds as well. In this world I will take my life, but in another world I will have to continue my existence. Nay, I will be caught. God’s Consciousness is all-pervading and He will be able to catch me, the thief.

To come back to your question, suicide can never be an escape. Why do people commit suicide? They commit suicide because they feel that they are miserable, frustrated; others do not understand them. They feel that by committing suicide, they will be freed from countless responsibilities, inner turmoil and pain. Or they feel that they will be mercilessly punished for their wrong actions and prefer to take their life first. So they need an escape. Now who escapes? Not a divine hero. A hero fights; a thief escapes. A coward escapes. But not he who is on the right path. If I am on the right path, I will not try to escape. He who wants to commit suicide is a coward. He does not face the world. First of all you have to face the world, live in the world in order to establish your divine qualities on earth. We have to accept. If we do not accept the world, what are we going to face? When we face the world, if there is anything wrong with the world, we can rectify it. So those who are committing suicide are committing the worst possible mistake. To be sure, there is no escape for them either in this world or in any other world. They are not only killing themselves, but are also killing the fruitful possibilities of their future incarnations.

Mr. George Riddell: There are many people in the United States who claim that with the use of certain drugs they are able to get closer to God. Of course the Chinese have been using opium for centuries and centuries. How do you feel about using stimulants, drugs, etc., to stimulate the mind in order to get closer to God?

Sri Chinmoy: Let me start out by saying that there are two ways of approaching the Truth. One way is that by meditation, prayer and concentration, we know the real Truth, we feel the real Ecstasy, we see the real Light, we experience Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. These last three go together and we can come into that state only through meditation and oneness with God. But those who are taking drugs are putting the cart before the horse. They are deceiving themselves into thinking that they already know the Truth. At the same time, they are not aware of the fact that by taking drugs, they are damaging their inner, spiritual faculties which are of paramount importance in order to enter into God’s kingdom. Let me make it clear to you.

If you throw me into a sea and plunge me, immerse me forcibly in the water, not allowing me to come to the surface, then what shall I see? All blank, all white. And that is what actually happens to those who have taken to drugs. They get an experience… all white! But when I pray, when I concentrate, when I meditate, I enter into the Living Consciousness of God. This is the positive and natural way of entering into God. God is Natural and I am His son, you are His son; we have to follow the natural process. But by taking to drugs and using these artificial means, people are unconsciously, if not deliberately, negating the real Truth.

I have two or three students who used to take drugs. They have had first-hand ‘experiences’. They tell me now that when they were taking drugs, it was nothing but self-delusion and self-annihilation. Now what they experience is self-acceptance and self-fulfilment. So this is the difference that they have now discovered. Needless to say, that I am proud of their present spiritual achievements.

To come back to your question: no man can come closer to God by taking drugs or stimulants. He can come closer to God only by loving God and meditating on God.

Mr. George Riddell: We are just about coming to the end of our time now. We have time for one more question.

Mr. Ed Belville: I would like to ask one more question before we sign off. May a Westerner become a real Yogi?

Sri Chinmoy: Your name is Mr. Ed Belville. We are greatly honoured to be here at this Radio Station WHOA where you have brought us, Mr. Belville, and made all the arrangements. At this hour you are asking me this particular question. I wish you to remember this question some day, either in this incarnation or in your immediate future incarnations.

You are a westerner; you are an aspirant, a sincere aspirant. You are bound to realise God, you are bound to become a Yogi in one of your forthcoming incarnations. Then you will see whether a westerner can become a Yogi or not. A Yogi is he who is in union with God’s Consciousness. Yoga is not the sole monopoly of India and a Yogi is not the sole product of India. I am God’s son, you are God’s son. We have the equal right, the equal privilege to go to our Father, to enter into our Father’s Consciousness. Many western spiritual masters have entered into God’s Consciousness and received what the Indian Yogis have received. You too, can do it. For God-Realisation, geographical boundaries do not exist. God’s Consciousness pervades the length and breadth of the world and beyond. So, being a westerner, a human being, you are caught by God’s all-pervading Embrace. You cannot escape; you also have to have Self-Realisation. Then only will ignorance leave you.

Westerner, Easterner, Northerner or Southerner, all must needs have this union with God; all can and all must become a Yogi. It is a matter of time, either today or tomorrow. God will not allow anyone to remain unrealised or unfulfilled.

Mr. George Riddell: Well, that is all the time we have now. We thank you very much, Sri Chinmoy Ghose, for the privilege of having you here and for accepting our invitation to come here and explain yoga to us.

Published in AUM — Vol. 3, No. 9,10, Apr. — May 27, 1968
and AUM — Vol. 3, No.11,12, June — July 27, 1968

 

 

PRAYERFUL CONCERT GIVEN FOR INDONESIAN KING

 

SOLO, Indonesia — Sri Chinmoy offered a concert of prayerful music for the King of Surakarta during a visit to the King’s Palace Dec. 10.

The spiritual teacher lifted King Pakoeboewono XII with both his right and left hand.

“You have ruled your country for 60 long years with your love, concern, compassion, wisdom and self-giving,” the spiritual leader said.

The 81-year-old monarch, known by the honorific name ‘Sinoehoen’, said that he had first seen and met Sri Chinmoy “in the spiritual world 25 years ago and many times since then. God brought us together. Sri Chinmoy guided me and told me many important things that came true.”

The King also hosted a banquet for Sri Chinmoy and about 300 of his students, who had accompanied him to the Palace.

Indonesia’s kings are responsible for maintaining their country’s spiritual and cultural heritage and serve as advisors to the country’s political leaders.

Sinoehoen is Indonesia’s oldest and most respected king. His kingdom includes the city of Solo and the surrounding region on the island of Java. 

HOLY MAN BECOMES A ROYAL PRINCE

 

Deeply moved by his meeting with the spiritual teacher whom he had been seeing in visions for many years, Sinoehoen bestowed upon Sri Chinmoy the title of ‘Prince of the Royal Family’.

“Sri Chinmoy has the key to open up the heart of the whole world,” the King declared.

Caption:

Sri Chinmoy discusses prayer and meditation with the King of Surakarta, known as Sinoehoen, during one of their meetings. 

Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 35, Mid-November 2003 – March 2004