On 5th September 1992, Queens Botanical Garden was dedicated to world peace, as part of the Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms programme, which began in 1986.
The Queens Botanical Garden is just three miles from Sri Chinmoy's home in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
Sri Chinmoy meditated and offered the words. "I am bowing to the beauty, fragrance, splendour, purity and divinity of the Queens Botanical Garden."
After a loud plane flew over from nearby LaGuardia airport causing a pause, Sri Chinmoy continued:
"This is the strength of outer noise, but there shall come a time when we shall hear, feel and grow into the power of our inner peace. The power of inner peace is infinitely, infinitely, infinitely stronger and infinitely more fruitful than the strength of outer noise."
The plaque which was mounted on a 5-ton rock reads:
Queens Botanical Garden joins a growing number of international sites dedicated to world peace in the name of Sri Chinmoy, the twentieth century's first global man and a universal ambassador of peace. These "peace blossoms" reflect the magnificence, beauty and power of Nature as does the grandeur of the Matterhorn, Switzerland, the cascading power of Niagara Falls, Canada, and now the profuse color, tranquillity, and quiet beauty of this Botanical Garden. Sri Chinmoy has devoted his life to the pursuit of world harmony and the fulfillment of the human spirit which this garden inspires us to contemplate. May our moments of peace and communion with nature's magic remind us of the universal peace which is our birthright.
"From time immemorial man has been striving to become better than he is, to enter into new worlds of achievement and glory. Yet no matter what man achieves he aspires for something higher. The distant goal that we reach for today becomes but a starting point for tomorrow's even more glorious journey. This urge to go beyond ourselves is the source of all human progress, the reason we compose music, climb mountains, search for truth. It is our assurance that one day we will change the face of reality from bright to brighter, to brightest; from high to higher, to highest. And even then we will not and cannot stop, for there is no end to the progress we can achieve."
"Peace-seed must be sown
In the heart,
Only then will it grow
In the body of human life."
— Sri Chinmoy
By entrance sign.
Related
- Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms at Sri Chinmoy.org
Photographs: Ramaniya, Maral.