Sri Chinmoy honours Mr. Lakhan L. Mehrotra, Consul General of India in San Francisco, California, during his concert at San Francisco State University. (Mr. Mehrotra had been Sri Chinmoy’s superior at the Indian Consulate in New York City when they worked there from 1964-1967.)
After singers perform a special song composed by Sri Chinmoy for Mr. Mehrotra, the Consul General offers the following spontaneous speech:
Message from Mr. L. L. Mehrotra
Reverend Sri Chinmoy, his devoted disciples and my brothers and sisters of America, I feel very humble at this moment. Whereas all my life and career it has been my ambition to mingle with the dust, Sri Chinmoy is trying to seek a place for me in the skies.
I would therefore be one of the most ungrateful persons on the earth if I did not interrupt this programme, if only to express my gratitude. My heart is very heavy with that sentiment. I have known Sri Chinmoy as Chinmoy Ghose now for several years, and “Ghose” means resonance. Sri Chinmoy the resonant will always reverberate in our hearts with his eternal message. He brings to you a spiritual tradition which sprang up and flourished in the mountain-vastness of the Himalayas several thousands of years ago and which has been carried across the seven seas by Everest-streams and rivers. Sri Chinmoy is part and parcel of that eternal Stream. Sri Chinmoy belongs to that stream of thought and sentiment which has shown us the Light for ages.
He recited a verse from the Upanishads a little while ago: Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, “Lead me from darkness to Light”; Mrtyor ma amrtam gamaya, “Lead me from death to Immortality.” May I say that while we mortals pray for that Immortality, Sri Chinmoy is part of that Immortality.
I consider those blessed who sit in his presence and who seek his presence, and I know that even after I and you and everyone is gone, his voice and his message will be with us, for that is the Message Supreme to which I bow.
Thank you very much.
Published in The Vision-Sky of California
Salutation to Japan
by Sri Chinmoy in Kyoto, Japan
Japan is the land of beauty. This beauty is not something that man has created. It is something that God Himself is, and that God Himself has. What God Himself is, and what God Himself has, in one form is beauty. This beauty is revealing itself through the body, vital, mind, heart and soul of Japan.
When we think of Japan, when we pray for Japan, when we meditate on Japan, we see a very, very special quality of our Lord Supreme. This unique quality is His self-expression and revelation of His own Infinity in and through His finite, little self. God is infinite. He is vaster than the vastest. Far beyond our imagination is His vastness. But again, He can reveal Himself through the finite, smaller than the smallest. This unique quality and capacity of His can be found only in Japan. It is not nature's beauty in Japan — though that has its own value — but it is the inner beauty, inner softness, sweetness, tenderness, purity and humility of Japan that have pleased God the Creator most powerfully.Inner beauty is your birthright. This inner beauty God, our Beloved Supreme, cherishes. He is fond of your inner beauty and proud of your outer beauty. Your inner beauty is your heart's sleepless cry for God. Your outer beauty is your willingness and eagerness to serve God the creation.
In the East, the sun rises in Japan. The inner sun will also rise here sooner than the soonest to illumine the East, to illumine the West and to illumine the whole world.
Published in Japan: Soul-Beauty’s Heart-Garden