Video by Utpal Marshall
On March 3rd 1979, Sri Chinmoy completed his first marathon in Chico California in a time of 4:31:34. Each year since then, his students in New York and around the world have honoured him by running the 26-mile distance.
Video by Utpal Marshall
On March 3rd 1979, Sri Chinmoy completed his first marathon in Chico California in a time of 4:31:34. Each year since then, his students in New York and around the world have honoured him by running the 26-mile distance.
Sri Chinmoy is interviewed at a morning press conference, held at his hotel in Adelaide, SA, Australia. There, he sings ‘O My Australia’ and plays the esraj. Later that evening, excerpts go to air on Channel 7 News — the first time his esraj playing had been broadcast on television anywhere in the world.
Sri Chinmoy meets with Bishop Phillip Kennedy, the Catholic Bishop of Adelaide in Adelaide, SA, Australia. Also present at the meeting is Sister Patricia Fox as well as the leader of Sri Chinmoy’s Adelaide Centre, Sipra Lloyd.
Sri Chinmoy is received at Government House in Adelaide, SA, Australia, where he is the luncheon guest of the Governor of South Australia, Sir Mark Oliphant.
Sri Chinmoy visits Adelaide’s ABC TV studios in the afternoon to tape an interview for ‘This Day Tonight’ with compere Geoff Michells for the evening programme.
Sri Chinmoy delivers an evening lecture, entitled, ‘Possession and Satisfaction’, in the Napier Lecture Theatre at the University of Adelaide, SA, Australia. The lecture hall is full to capacity.
Sri Chinmoy creates four large acrylic Jharna-Kala paintings and seven ballpoint-pen ink sketches at the Adelaide Centre.
Sri Chinmoy is interviewed by Bob de Jong of Veronica TV, Holland.
Sri Chinmoy offers an organ recital at St. Bavo Kerk in Haarlem, the Netherlands. The organ Sri Chinmoy plays is one that Mozart had once played when he was around 16 years of age.
Sri Chinmoy offers an organ performance at Grote Kerk in Den Haag, the Netherlands.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert playing various instruments, and a piano performance at the Congress Building in Den Haag, the Netherlands.
Sri Chinmoy recounts a dream, ‘The Divine Runner Inspires the Human Runner’.
Sri Chinmoy composes the Peace Run song, which has since been sung in over 155 nations and territories around the world as part of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run global torch relay.
Sri Chinmoy runs a solo 100 metres in a time of 13.91 seconds at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, breaking his previous 100-metre record in the West of 14.13 seconds, set on 18 January 1992, in Tenerife, Canary Island, Spain.
Sri Chinmoy receives the Heart of Armenia Award.
Sri Chinmoy holds the Peace Torch — symbol of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run — with Olympian Sudhahota Carl Lewis and his mother Ambalika Evelyn Lewis.
Description
Medium: Acrylic paint
Material: Card
Dimensions: 75 cm x 50 cm
Provenance
Date: March 12, 1976
Origin: Sri Chinmoy Centre,
Fullarton, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Collection: Sri Chinmoy Centre (Adelaide)
During his visit to Adelaide in South Australia, Sri Chinmoy created eleven Jharna-Kala paintings — four large acrylics and seven pen sketches.
by Bob de Jong of Veronica TV, Holland
Question: Sri Chinmoy, why are you doing this weightlifting?
Sri Chinmoy: I am doing it to inspire my brothers and sisters. This world belongs to one Person, God the Creator, and we are His children, God the creation. Now I am in Holland. I have come to see my brothers and sisters here in Holland. I feel that if I can be of inspiration to them, I will be very, very happy. From weightlifting, I get inner joy, inner strength and inner peace, peace of mind. If you have peace of mind, then you do not quarrel with others, you do not fight with others, you do not declare wars. So that is why I do weightlifting.
Question: Have you done any sports before in your life?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes. I have been a sportsman all my life. When I was young, I was an athlete. According to Indian standards, I was a very good athlete. I was also a decathlon champion. I was good in sprinting, jumping, throwing and so forth. But that is all past history.
Question: There are a lot of traditional weightlifting techniques, but now you are using none of these techniques. So how can you do it?
Sri Chinmoy: In my case, it is a matter of inner inspiration. You will be surprised to learn that there was a time when I disliked weightlifting immensely. In India, I was a sprinter and I thought weightlifting would be detrimental to my running career. Here, in America, I ran for quite a few years and I inspired my students all over the world to run. My right knee became badly injured, perhaps from running, so I gave up running and then I got the inspiration from within to lift weights so that I can keep physically fit. That is how I started.
As you can see, I do not know any weightlifting techniques. I do not have the physique of a bodybuilder or weightlifter. I entirely depend on God's Grace. God's Grace acts in and through me in all that I do. Not only in my sports life, but in my literary career, in my art and in all my activities, I entirely depend on God's Grace, God's Compassion. He is the One who helps me, guides me and protects me. He does it through me and I just try to become a good recipient. I try to offer Him my own receptivity, and He performs everything in and through me according to my receptivity.
Question: You talk about God. In Holland, people will say we are Christians, so we have a Christian God. There are people in other countries who have their own God.
Sri Chinmoy: There is only one God, but we use different terms. In Dutch you use one word. In Bengali, I use the word 'Bhagavan', in English, they say 'God', and in French 'Dieu'. Each language has a word for God, but it is the same Person. An individual may be called Mr. So-and-So, his children call him Father or Daddy, and his friends will call him by his first name, but he remains the same person.
Question: Why do you think it is possible that we have wars between people and they all say they are fighting for their God? How is it that there is only one God and so many opposing sides?
Sri Chinmoy: It is our misconception of God. God is all love. Let us say God is the Father and we are two brothers. If we are quarrelling and fighting, will our Father be happy? No. The Father will be happy only if his two sons are happy and peaceful.
So each religion starts with love of God. Is there any religion that will say it hates God or hates humanity? There is no such religion. It is only our misconception of God. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism — they will all say they love God. But if you really love someone, how can you make that person unhappy? If we say that we love God and we continue to quarrel and fight with one another, is it not absurd? We want to make our beloved God happy. We want to make our Father happy. Who wants to make his Father unhappy and miserable? Nobody wants. But in our actions, unfortunately, we are making God sad and miserable. No religion will advocate war, quarrels, fighting and an unhappy life.
Question: Let us return to the topic of sport. Let us say there are two sportsmen. They may fight each other, even if it is a friendly fight. It could be boxing, it could be wrestling. If both of them pray, would that be good?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes. If they pray, then they will have protection from God and they will show their best capacities, but there will be no animosity involved. Suppose two boxers are fighting. Naturally, each one wants to win. On the one hand, they can bring to the fore their animal propensities, animal qualities, and destroy the opponent. On the other hand, each one can feel that this is an opportunity to transcend their own capacities. They can try to bring their hidden capacities to the fore. According to our philosophy, we are always trying to transcend ourselves, we are always trying to improve. So, while transcending ourselves, if we defeat someone, then it is not a mistake. But if we try to defeat someone by hook or by crook, by adopting foul means, then that will be a most deplorable mistake.
Question: I know quite a lot of sports people and some of them pray. They say, "Please, Father, let me win the world championship today." Sometimes they succeed. Is that prayer good?
Sri Chinmoy: That prayer is good, but it is not the best prayer. The best prayer is to say, "Let Thy Will be done." The Saviour Christ offered the entire world this most significant message, "Let Thy Will be done." I wish to tell you about another great sportsman, one of the greatest, Muhammad Ali. Everybody knows Muhammad Ali. He is a very close friend of mine. About ten years ago, before one of his fights, he meditated with me for about fifteen minutes. He is a Muslim, so he was praying to Allah and I was praying to God, but it is the same Person. We prayed and meditated together. That night he won the fight. My prayer was only "God, let Thy Will be done." Although Muhammad Ali is my close friend, I knew that whatever God wanted to do in and through Ali will be the best thing. When we offer this prayer to God, God does the best for us.
Question: It could also mean that he would have lost. That could have been the best.
Sri Chinmoy: Absolutely. In this case, God wanted him to win. That was the best from the spiritual point of view. But if God wanted to give him the experience of failure, then he would have gained a very significant inner experience in another way. Sometimes God gives us the experience of failure when He wants us to establish our inseparable oneness with our competitors. At that time, if our prayer to God — "Let Thy Will be done" — is sincere, then we are equally happy because we love God. The Person whom we love most knows what is best for us. So we pray to God to do His Will, not our will. Otherwise, at every moment we would pray to God, "Make me the winner, make me the best." From the highest spiritual point of view, that is a mistake. We should pray to God for His Will to be executed in and through us. That is the best prayer.
Question: I have been a professional sportsman and in my life several times I have had the feeling that I could do more than what I was actually doing. Does that sound familiar to you?
Sri Chinmoy: It has happened many, many times in my case also that I could not offer my best capacity. Many times I felt that I could have done far, far better in running, but I did not do it, could not do it. Even then, I was not unhappy because at the very beginning I had offered my soulful prayer to God, "Let Thy Will be done." My mind will say that perhaps I was forced to hold something back, but my heart will say no. I prayed to God for His Will to be performed in and through me. Whatever timing I did in the race, that was the timing God wanted me to show to the world at large. So I was perfectly happy.
Question: If sports people would like to meditate, how should they do it?
Sri Chinmoy: Every morning, when they get up, before they enter into the hustle and bustle of life, they can pray to God to give them a peaceful day, a happy day. They can utter the words, "O Lord God, today do grant me a peaceful day." That is one way, the way of prayer.
The other approach is through meditation. You can try to make the mind absolutely calm and quiet. Focus your concentration right on your heart. Try to feel that only in your heart you exist and there is nothing else. Here you are envisioning your own inner existence, your own divinity. Do not have even an iota of thought. The mind must be calm, quiet and absolutely silent.
With prayer, we use words to approach God. We say, "My Lord Supreme, do make me a choice instrument of Yours so that I can please You and fulfil You in Your own Way." When we are in deep meditation, on the other hand, we feel that God is doing the things that are necessary to be performed in and through us. He will act in and through us. We just try to be a perfect instrument of His.
While I am praying, I feel that God is high in Heaven. My prayer is going up to Him. While I am meditating, the elevator is coming down. God the compassionate One is descending into my heart and He will do the needful. This is how we feel God.
Question: Is it true that by praying and meditating anybody can become a better athlete?
Sri Chinmoy: It is definitely true. It is like having another friend on your side in a tug-of-war. If the other person does not pray or meditate, then he will be all alone, whereas you will have your prayer-friend and meditation-friend on your side.
So many world-class athletes pray and meditate. Just last week, the great Olympian Carl Lewis came and meditated with me for about an hour or so. He has been my friend for several years. During the last Olympics in Los Angeles, he came and meditated with me at the hotel room because he felt the need. He knows that his prayer-life has helped him considerably. He has prayed and meditated with me many, many times.
When you pray and meditate, you increase your inner strength, inner capacities. If your capacity is increased from your prayer-life and your meditation-life, then you should do it. It is like having two extra friends to inspire you. We all want to have friends. Friends can be of great help to us in our hour of need. During sports, we desperately need friends to come to our rescue. So here, prayer and meditation are two excellent friends to help us.
Question: Do you lift these heavy weights with the help of prayer and meditation?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes. I give 100 per cent credit to my prayer-life and meditation-life. In my case, it is not 99½ per cent or 99¾ per cent, but 100 per cent. Even today, when I lifted my bodyweight with my left arm and then my right arm, I know that if my inner Guide did not protect me, I would have dropped it or I could not have lifted it at all. For everything I do, I depend on His Grace, His Compassion, His Protection.
If God grants us His Compassion, out of His infinite Bounty, then is there anything we cannot do? I am a drop, but the moment I enter into the ocean, I become the ocean. Similarly, my finite will, finite capacity, is next to nothing, but the moment I identify myself with God's infinite Will, I am able to accomplish so much. Otherwise, how could I think of lifting such heavy weights at this age? I would be the first person to doubt it. But again, I know I have not done it, I have not done it. Who has done it? God, my Inner Pilot. He is infinite, eternal and immortal. For Him to do this kind of thing is so easy. So for everything, I give Him 100 per cent credit. I know what I can do. I can do nothing. I have written thousands of poems, composed thousands of songs and created thousands of paintings. I know that it is His unconditional Grace at every moment that has enabled me to do these things. I do not deserve it. I know there are many people who are infinitely more talented than I am, but out of His infinite Compassion, He has chosen me.
In the bodybuilding and weightlifting world, look at the biceps and triceps of the champions. How huge they are! But when it comes to lifting, perhaps they are not invoking the highest Power, supreme Power.
Question: If there is a sports competition, can you see by the aura around people who will win?
Sri Chinmoy: Definitely I can see, and then, if it is the Will of God, on very rare occasions, I can tell the person. I will give you an example. One day before the 200-metre final at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Carl Lewis came to meditate with me in my hotel room. Afterwards, I asked him if he would like to know the results of the race the following day. I told him that he would stand first, second would be Kirk Baptiste and third would be Thomas Jefferson. It was God who showed me the results and God who wanted me to tell him. The next day, the race took place and the result was exactly what I had told him. If God had not shown me the result, I would not have been unhappy at all. My goal was only to pray most soulfully with Carl Lewis. Whomever God chose to be the winner, it was up to God's Will. But God wanted me to see the result and God wanted me to tell Carl Lewis.
Question: My last question is, would you kindly address the young Dutch public who watch my programme? I would like to give you some time to talk to the young people. What would you like to give them as a message?
Sri Chinmoy: My message is very simple. This is Holland. Holland is famous for flowers — tulips. If they can remain as beautiful and as pure as the flowers of Holland, then they will be able to accomplish much from life.
This is the land of flowers and flowers symbolise purity. There are many places on earth where it is not so easy to find flowers. Here, it is so easy. Just look around! The flowers that you are seeing with your outer eyes, if each child can feel the same beautiful flower — a tulip or any flower — inside their heart, it will help them tremendously.
The moment we lose purity, we lose practically everything. Each child is a dream of God. God Himself is dreaming His highest Dream in and through each child. If he sees that the child has a pure heart, then God can manifest Himself in and through that pure heart easily. So my advice to the children of Holland is to maintain their pure hearts as long as they can. Once they lose purity, everything is confusion. If the mind is full of confusion, then how are you going to accomplish anything? Always God wants a purity-heart. If we can have that purity in our heart every day, we can accomplish something very special, very meaningful and very fruitful.
So this is my soulful message to the children of Holland, the land of flowers: to maintain their purity-heart throughout their lives.
Published in Conversations with Sri Chinmoy
by Sri Chinmoy
on 19 March 1988
After my television interview, a man from the Dutch radio station also wanted to interview me.
We were sitting face to face, and he was asking me many spiritual questions. At one point he stood up and came over to me and said, “There are some people who are very, very close to God, and I can see you are one of those.”
Published in The World-Experience-Tree-Climber, part 6
Video by kedarvideo
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert with a piano performance at the Congress Building in Den Haag, the Netherlands.
Published in Chandelier, part 3
The Peace Run song has been sung in over 155 nations and territories around the world as part of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run global torch relay.
Listen to the Peace Run song
Recorded in New York.
by Sri Chinmoy
In the morning, I had a dream about my running. There were two runners: the human runner and the divine runner, my human runner and my divine runner. I was at once the human runner and the divine runner. These two runners had a race, a 100-metre dash.
When the race started, the human runner took the lead. For the first twenty metres, the divine runner was behind the human runner. Then the divine runner, while running, put his right palm on the human runner and said, “Bless you.” The divine runner went so fast! By the time the human runner had gone another ten metres, the divine runner had finished the race. Then the divine runner came back and blessed the human runner.
The human runner said, “I am so grateful to you, the divine runner, for allowing me to run with you.”
The divine runner said, “I am so proud of you for taking the lead! And, at the same time, I am grateful to you because you inspired me. I was behind you. It was your own human aspiration that brought me, the divine runner, forward to show my capacity. Otherwise, if you had not run, if you had not wanted to run, if you had not inspired me to run, I would not have run. I do not have to run on the physical plane. But you wanted me to run on the physical plane, so I ran. I am very proud of you because you went ahead of me for twenty metres, and I am grateful to you that you inspired me to run on the physical plane. Otherwise, being a divine runner, I would not have run. I do not have to run on the physical plane.”
There were many divine judges. Now, the judges were confused and puzzled. The judges said, “If we accept this timing, then there will be no hope for human runners on earth. If we accept the divine runner’s timing, others will say he is like those runners who take help from drugs.”
In my case, the divine runner in me is receiving divine things from within, not undivine help from outside. But if earth’s receptivity or earth’s standard is so far behind, then who will accept the divine runner’s achievements on the physical plane? The divine runner has to achieve significant things on the spiritual plane because he is the divine runner. Again, if the divine runner does not inspire the human runner, if he does not work on the physical plane, then human beings will not make progress. Divinity has to walk side by side with humanity. Otherwise, if there is any race between divinity and humanity, divinity will always win. If divinity cares for humanity, then divinity has to come down and walk side by side with humanity, to raise its standard.
To come back to the story, the judges were saying that they would take ten days in order to make their final decision as to whether the divine runner’s timing would be accepted as legitimate. They were all divine judges. Divine judges have so much compassion for the evolution of earth. If evolution is too fast on earth, if it takes place too fast on the physical plane because of the speed of the divine runner, it may confuse the human runner. He may give up if the judges accept the timing of the divine runner.
If somebody does something miraculous, we may think, “What is the use of trying?” If I have to play tennis with a champion like Ivan Lendl, then before I even start, I will give up. But if Lendl is kind, he will say, “No, let us play. I want to make your standard better.”
If somebody is infinitely better than me in anything, and if he does not come down to my level, then what good is it? Take the case of a professor. He has to come down to the level of the student to teach him. If he remains on his own level, with his lofty wisdom, the student will not receive anything. When a teacher teaches a little child the ABCs, he knows that he himself has read thousands of books, but he comes down to the ignorance-level or, you can say, the very limited capacity of the child who has to learn the ABCs. At the same time, the teacher maintains the knowledge and wisdom that he has gained from reading so many books. If he does not come down to the level of the ABCs for the little child, then how will the little child learn the alphabet and eventually read books for himself?
The divine judges were very pleased with the divine runner. The human runner also was pleased that he had inspired the divine runner to participate in a race on the physical plane, the earthly plane.
What does it mean? If you tell this dream to a dream analyst, he will give a nice explanation. But the question is, this kind of sweet dream if you have, will it manifest itself, or will it remain a dream? If such dreams are manifested, then the evolution of this world, the progress of this world, will be unimaginable.
Published in Live in the Eternal Now
An evening lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Napier Lecture Theatre
at the University of Adelaide.
Dear seekers, dear Australian brothers and sisters, I have been here in Australia for the last twelve days. Tomorrow I shall be leaving Australia for India, where I shall be for two weeks. Then I shall go back to America. During these twelve days I have been blessed unreservedly by the soul of Australia. I have also been blessed by the Australians. Their affection, love, concern, sympathy and feeling of oneness have touched the very depths of my heart.
Geography taught me that Australia is vast, a very vast continent. On my arrival I most sincerely felt that Australia is not only vast, but also one; not only one, but also illumining; not only illumining, but also fulfilling. Vastness, kindness, magnanimity, a sense of responsibility: all these things I have felt right from the beginning in the soul of Australia.
Tomorrow when I leave Australia, I shall leave behind my soulful gratitude, my ever-growing gratitude, for here I have been given ample opportunity to be of devoted service to the sincere and genuine seekers. Nothing gives me more joy, delight and sense of satisfaction than to be of service to sincere seekers.
My students have just sung a song that was composed by me. It is my salutation to the soul of Australia: that is to say, my salutation to the real in you, the divine in you. Now I wish to give a short talk on possession and satisfaction.
Possession and satisfaction are like the North Pole and the South Pole. The sense of possession enters into our earthly existence right from our birth. A child wants to possess his parents. When he grows up, he wants to possess his village. Then he wants to possess his province, his country, the world. Right from the beginning he wants to possess his parents and the other members of his family, but he finds no satisfaction in this. When he grows up, he finds no satisfaction in trying to possess the length and breadth of the world.
Then he decides he wants to change the process. He decides to please his parents, his village, his province, his country, the world at large, on the strength of mutual giving. He will give to them something of his own and he expects something else in return from them. But he finds no abiding satisfaction in this mutual give-and-take, and what he wants is abiding satisfaction. Finally he realises that abiding satisfaction can be received and achieved only if he gives himself unconditionally to his parents, to his village, to his province, to his country, to the world at large. In unconditional self-giving, satisfaction looms large.
Possession is our desire-life. Our desire at every moment wants to possess something more. Each time we possess something more, we become a greater beggar. Although we accumulate, we end up with no real possessions; in the inner world we have become a great beggar. When we walk along the road of renunciation, each time we renounce something we get tremendous joy. But renunciation cannot give us real satisfaction, abiding satisfaction. If we renounce everything — body, vital, mind, heart and soul — how are we going to realise the highest Truth? If we renounce society, if we renounce everyday life, if we renounce our near and dear ones in the name of spirituality, then we cannot achieve pure, lasting, immortal satisfaction. The real answer lies in the transformation of our nature, the perfection of our human limitations, shortcomings, imperfections, bondage and death. Abiding satisfaction comes into existence only when we can transform our sense of possessiveness into self-giving.
The life of possession constantly makes us think at every moment of success, success in life. In order to arrive at the door of success, many times we adopt foul means. Even if we do not adopt foul means, we are always in the world of competition. By competing with others, even by defeating others, the joy and satisfaction that we get cannot last. When we feel that we have become something on the strength of our success, our sincerity tells us that there is someone better than we, someone superior to us. Somebody becomes a great poet, a great sportsman, a great singer; he is bloated with pride. But when he looks around, in the twinkling of an eye he sees that there is somebody who writes far better than he does, somebody who plays sports or sings far better than he. In every walk of life he sees somebody better than himself. So success finally becomes frustration, and frustration is bound to be followed by destruction.
In material possession we find a sense of want, not need. There are many, many things, countless things we do not need, but when we walk along the road of possession, we want these things. Everything we want. But there comes a time when we feel we need something to satisfy our soul's inner cry for God, our inner cry to manifest the divine reality within us. At that time we realise that there is another road we can walk along, and that is the road of progress. On this road at every moment we walk forward. Here we are not competing with others; we are competing with ourselves, with the ignorance we have inside us. Ignorance is another part of our own existence. We are divided into two parts: Ignorance-night and wisdom-light. We and ignorance are running side by side; we have been doing this since time immemorial. But now we are awakened and we are trying to run fast, faster, fastest to reach our destination. When consciously we become one with wisdom-light, we run fast, faster, fastest to our destined goal, which is our ever-transcending Reality, the ever-illumining and fulfilling Beyond. Once we reach our destination, ignorance is defeated. This is the meaning of competition with ourselves.
The seeker gets satisfaction not by exercising his own will but by surrendering his earth-bound will to his Heaven-free will. The seeker is he who has received the message of surrender to a higher force, a more illumining force within himself. By praying and meditating and aspiring, he realises he can grow into his own highest reality. His is not the surrender of the slave to his master. His surrender is founded upon inner wisdom. He realises that he is composed of both the highest reality and the lowest reality. He is not surrendering to another person, to somebody else; rather, his own unlit, unconscious part is surrendering to his most conscious, illumined existence. The finite in him is surrendering to the Infinite in him in order to grow into the transcendental Reality. And in this surrender he finds abiding satisfaction.
The same seeker also discovers something else that gives him ceaseless satisfaction, and this is his gratitude. Each time the seeker offers his soulful gratitude to his Inner Pilot, the Absolute Reality within him, he gets abiding satisfaction. This gratitude-flower he places at the Feet of the Inner Pilot. At that time, God-Satisfaction embraces his heart and God the Satisfaction embraces his entire being.
Published in My Heart's Salutation to Australia, part 2
* The lecture hall is full to capacity.
Remarks by Sri Chinmoy
after watching a dramatic and painful segment of the epic Indian video series on the Mahabharata at his home in Jamaica, New York
Everything is predestined — what can you do?
Vidura I admire from the beginning to the end. He did not fight, but he is the real hero.
When you read the Mahabharata, you perhaps do not suffer as much. When you read, you may only see the ink on the paper. But when you watch the performance, you suffer tremendously.
Published in Only One Power