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 composes 34 short poems or aphorisms on spiritual words that are given to him by the disciples travelling with him on a bus ride from Montreal to Ottawa in Canada. They are later published in Light-Delight-Journeys.
Sri Chinmoy completes 16,031 Jharna-Kala paintings in 24 hours, at his home in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy offers a prayer session for hostages in Iran at the United Nations in New York.
Sri Chinmoy achieves a personal best for the 22-lb. shot put of 6.32 metres in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy lifts H.E. Mr. Ismael Abraao, Permanent Representative of Angola to the UN, in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy lifts Ravi Shankar, sitar player, and multiple Grammy Award winner; also lifted is his wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, Queens, New York. In the evening, Sri Chinmoy honours Ravi Shankar and his family at a gala event of music and plays performed by members of Sri Chinmoy Centre at Public School 86 in Jamaica, NY, USA
Sri Chinmoy lifts Sarvottama Tatyana Lebedeva, 2004 Olympic Long Jump gold medallist and 2004 Olympic Triple Jump bronze medallist, in Jamaica, NY, USA.
By DONALD SINGLETON
Sprong, sprong, sprong, sprong, sprong . . .
Ashrita Furman, 24, disciple of guru Sri Chinmoy, stationery store manager and former Columbia University economics major, is hitting his pace on his customized pogo stick, 98 jumps to the minute, the rubber tip of the stick barely clearing the ground after each clean little jump.
Sprong, sprong, sprong . . .
Ashrita Furman, who was known to the world as Keith Furman before Sri Chinmoy gave him the disciple name Ashrita, is out to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark for pogo-stick jumping. The record stands at 100,000 continuous jumps in 18 hours. Ashrlta Furman plans to do 24 hours, from noon yesterday until noon today. At 98 jumps to the minute, with five minutes off every hour, that will be 129,360 jumps.
Has an entourage
Sprong, sprong, sprong . . .
Ashrita and his entourage — a jump-counter, a pogo stick maintenance and repair expert and others — are gathered outside the entrance to the Arsenal, the Parks Department headquarters in Central Park. Groups of children on their way to the zoo pass by. “Miss Jones, what’s that man doing?” “He’s jumping on a pogo stick, Susie.” “Oh.”
Sprong, sprong, sprong . . .
Ashrita is jumping to honor the third anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s painting marathon on Nov. 16, 1975, when the guru knocked off 16,031 paintings in a 24-hour period. Ashrita’s father, Bernard Furman, is a lawyer. “He told me to be sure to bring a friend with me in case they try to commit me,” says Ashrita as he jumps.
Sprong, sprong, sprong . . .
“One of the girls in my office just ran up and said, ‘Mr. Davis, somebody’s out there jumping on a pogo stick for 24 hours, and he doesn’t have a permit!’ ” said Park Commissioner Gordon Davis as he watched Ashrita bounce off a few dozen sprongs. “Well, if he’s crazy enough to jump for 24 hours on a pogo stick, I guess I’m crazy enough to let him do it without a permit.”
News Photo by Dan Jacino
Ashrita Furman out for record
Published in DAILY NEWS, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1978
To celebrate Sri Chinmoy’s Jharna-Kala marathon of completing 16,031 paintings in 24 hours, Ashrita Furman jumps on a pogo stick for the same amount of time.
by Sri Chinmoy
A friend of mine at the Ashram has said, “In the West people don’t believe in spiritual power. They think that spiritual power is dead. So here is the proof that it is alive.”
He says that by my weightlifting I am proving that spiritual power is still alive.
Published in My Weightlifting Tears and Smiles, part 2
Sri Chinmoy achieves a personal best for the 22-lb. shot put of 6.32 metres in Jamaica, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy lifts Sarvottama Tatyana Lebedeva, 2004 Olympic long jump gold medallist and 2004 Olympic triple jump bronze medallist, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, Queens, New York. Sri Chinmoy also composes a song in her honour. And, her young daughter too receives a ’Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart’ award.
These spiritual words are given to Sri Chinmoy by the disciples travelling with him on the bus from Montreal to Ottawa. He then composes a short poem or aphorism on the words.
1 Humility
My heart sleeps in humility-grass;
Therefore I am allowed to study
In my Lord’s salvation-perfection class.
2 Softness
Softness is my life-tree.
Soulfulness is my life-flower.
My heart’s only choice:
My Beloved’s Perfection-Hour.
Only when I worship
My Lord Supreme
I am free,
divinely free,
supremely free.
3 Willingness
What I have for God is brittle willingness.
What God has for me is Immortality’s oneness.
4 Grace
I am God’s Shelter-Grace
Blossoming into His all-illumining Face.
5 Peace
At last I now have peace of mind:
My fault-finding eyes nowhere I find.
6 Oneness
My oneness with God’s Delight
Is my perfection-light.
7 Consciousness
My consciousness-bird started flying
Long before the birth of time:
Therefore in me
God is creating
Triumphantly and proudly
His Perfection-clime.
8 Gratitude-oneness
With my Lord my gratitude-oneness is growing
Steadily and unerringly;
Therefore my heart-bird
Is dancing merrily.
9 Height
Every day I transcend my height.
O my poor earth, do you know why?
O my proud Heaven, do you know why?
I do it because
God Himself
Has made me His choice kite of light.
10 Chinmoy
Chinmoy, Chinmoy, Chinmoy, Chinmoy.
Am I God-Eternity’s self-amorous boy?
11 Joy
Sleepless is my occult Eye;
Therefore God-Joy have I.
12 Mercy
Lord Supreme, my ignorance and I
Are at Your mercy.
“Son, you are partially wrong.
Your ignorance is at My mercy,
But not you.
You are My Eternity’s lap
To give your ignorance-foe
A smart slap.”
13 Self-limits
I have transcended my self-limits:
Fear, doubt and jealousy;
Therefore I drink deep
God’s ceaseless Ecstasy.
14 Forgiveness
I cry to my sweet Beloved Supreme for
His constant Forgiveness.
God cries for my Eternity’s brave
Oneness-might.
15 Capacity
I love God for God’s sake.
This is my greatest capacity.
God loves me unconditionally.
This is His Eternity’s Beauty.
16 Lustre
When
I am earth-face
I am farther than the farthest from the Supreme.When
I am Heaven-lustre
I am nearer than the nearest to the Supreme.
Something more:
I am His Eternity’s blue Satisfaction
And
His Infinity’s gold Perfection.
17 Surrender
To God I have surrendered my stupidity.
To man I have surrendered my self-created
responsibility.
18 Speed
Speed I need, I always need
To feed my Lord Supreme, to feed.
19 Purity
Because I am all purity,
My heart is God’s necessity.
20 Sincerity
Because my life is blue-gold sincerity,
God has made me His world-transforming
perfection-dance.
Because my life belongs to God
and God alone,
Ignorance-night my soul has conquered
With my Lord’s all-conquering lance.
21 Divine warrior
I have become a real God-lover;
Therefore He is shaping me into His
divine warrior.
22 Dedication
My dedication
Is God-satisfaction.
God-satisfaction
Is my immediate salvation.
23 Love-victory
Eternity’s love-victory
In my heart of gratitude-seed.
My Beloved Supreme is my divinity’s
Supreme need, my only need.
24 Divine manifestation
What I call divine manifestation,
My Lord Supreme calls
my indispensable perfection.
25 Thankfulness
My peerless treasure: cheerfulness.
God’s matchless treasure: Thankfulness.
26 Selfless
My selfless service-love
Has made me a blue God-dove.
27 Intuition
Out of His infinite Bounty,
My Lord Supreme has made me
His own cosmic intuition-soul.
In me is His transcendental Height
With me is His universal Life.
28 Subtle grandeur
I forgive my outer world.
My forgiveness is my subtle grandeur.
I love my inner world.
My love is my all-conquering treasure.
29 Calm
When I am calm,
God opens His Eternity’s Door,
God gives me His Infinity’s Love
And shows me His Immortality’s Shore.
30 Determination
I know, I know my life’s perfection
Is the flower-fragrance
Of my supreme Lord’s
Compassion-Vision.
31 Eagerness
Eagerness I had to see the Face of God.
Eagerness I have to feel the Heart of God.
Eagerness I shall have to be the
Dream-Reality of God.
32 Bondage
No more shall I live in a bondage-cave.
In Infinity’s sky
With God I shall fly,
Eternally selfless, brave.
33 Discipline
At long last I have disciplined
my ignorance-life;
Therefore my Lord Supreme
Is making me
His earth-transforming fife.
At long last I have seen
my reality’s soul;
Therefore my Lord Supreme
is triumphantly playing in me
His cosmic self-transcendence Role.
34 Rebirth
My heart longs to unravel
The mystery of rebirth;
Therefore my Lord Supreme
Tells me to do two things:
He tells me to cry with earth’s
excruciating pangs
And smile with Heaven’s
Life-immortalising Ecstasy.
Published in Light-Delight-Journeys