On 23 January 1998, in Cancún, Mexico, Sri Chinmoy completed his poetic series Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants. The very next morning, he received an inner Command to undertake a new project. In these reflections, Sri Chinmoy describes the birth of this vast epic. – Vidagdha
During this trip to Mexico, in spite of my physical illness and so many inner and outer problems, we have accomplished two most significant things. We have completed our Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants1 and two million bird drawings. From the literary and artistic point of view, this trip will be our most significant offering to the Absolute Supreme. To complete Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants is something in our aspiration-life that is greater than the greatest and better than the best.
In the small hours of this morning, my soul was in my Transcendental Consciousness and my heart was in my Universal Consciousness.
My Supreme stood in front of me and said to me, “No retirement, no retirement, no retirement for you, my child.”
I said to my Supreme, “What more do you want from me, what more?”
He said to me, “Seventy-seven thousand.”
Immediately I said to Him, “Is it Your Wish, is it Your Request, is it Your Will or is it Your Absolute Command?”
He said, “It is My Absolute Command.”
Then I said to Him, “I do not think I am going to live on earth that long.”
He said to me, “My child, I command you to start. I command you to start. You know and I know how long you are going to be on earth, but I want you to start. This is My Absolute Command.”
“My Supreme, my Supreme, I shall obey Your Command, I shall.”
My problem now is only to start. By that time, how many new disciples will come and join our boat, and how many will disappear out of our boat? Only the Supreme knows how many will come and how many will go and how many will reach Heaven.
But before I complete it, I will reach Heaven. Then all my disciples can write, the way Shakespeare’s writings were continued by his contemporaries. You are my contemporaries, so all can write, just like Sri Chinmoy, and from Heaven I shall approve of it gladly and proudly!2
Editor's notes:
1 This is Sri Chinmoy’s 27,000th poem in the series:
My Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants,
My Lord Beloved Supreme has given me
To give you the Sun-Smile-Blossoms of His Heart.
My Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants,
You have given humanity a sleepless God-thirst
And a breathless God-hunger.
2 Sri Chinmoy gave the name Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees to this new project. Out of 77,000 poems, he completed a total of 50,000 from 23rd January 1998 to 11th October 2007, the day of his earth-departure.