On 30 July 1988, Sri Chinmoy held a special "Lifting Up The World With a Oneness-Heart" programme to honour boxers and boxing officials at Aspiration-Ground in Queens, New York.
The participants included over a dozen boxing guests including Danny Lalonde the WBC Light Heavyweight Championship from 1987 to 1988. It was one of the first Lifting Up The World events, having started just a few weeks earlier on 26th June.
Sri Chinmoy began the programme with a short silent meditation then read out a talk he had written on boxing.
Boxing From The Spiritual Point of View
A Talk by Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy prefaced his talk by stating: “I wish to dedicate today's programme to Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, the immortal Joe Louis.” The great heavyweight champion, Joe Louis, was the first major boxer about whom Sri Chinmoy heard while he was a youth in India.
My Dear Boxer-Brothers,
When I address you as boxers, I feel that my death is imminent. When I address you as brothers, oneness-brothers, I feel that my immortality is within easy reach. When I think of you as giant boxers, I immediately think that your names are synonymous with your thunder-punches. When I think of you as my oneness-brothers, I hear a most soulful, most illumining and most fulfilling song in my life's affection-garden.
My dear and divine brothers, you fight and fight — fight against your rivals. Again, you love and love. Whom do you love? You love your dear brothers; you love your oneness-home-family members. As boxers, you are indomitable and invincible. In the same way, I wish you as brothers to be unsurpassable.
Fight we must; but let us illumine our mind first, and see against whom or what we are supposed to fight: against a human being or against his teeming imperfections? Each human being is essentially divine, but alas, the ignorance-night of the world still lords it over us. We see an ocean of imperfections in the form of doubt, weakness, insecurity, jealousy, pride and many other undivine qualities both within us and around us. Before these ignorance-tigers devour our very existence, we must instead challenge and destroy the very breath of imperfection. It is our bounden duty to transcend limitations, not only in ourselves but also in the world at large.
So, when we fight against someone, if we can feel we are fighting against his ignorance, and not against his physical strength, then we will get boundless joy from our victory, and also we will immensely please our Heavenly Father, God the Creator. We can feel that by battling against someone's ignorance and imperfections we are helping that person to become perfect. I fight against your ignorance, and while doing so I am illumining you. And you are fighting against my ignorance in return, to help me reach the highest. While we are perfecting our mutual ignorance-imperfections, this is not and cannot be a destruction-fight, but a most powerful satisfaction-delight. This divine approach to boxing will undoubtedly be an unprecedented and ever-lasting boon to humanity.
We all want happiness. Happiness I can get not by destroying someone but by destroying the negative forces that are inside him — the weaknesses and limitations that cause unhappiness in him and unhappiness in ourselves as well. Happiness abides only in helping others to perfect their lives. Therefore, while boxing, if a boxer sees teeming ignorance-night inside his opponent and feels that he is trying to destroy those undivine qualities so that his opponent can become a better instrument of truth, light and bliss, then this approach to boxing will bring about a new creation of light and delight. With our indomitable strength we create perfection in others, and they do the same for us. If this is the goal we set and keep in mind while boxing, then this can be a helpful way to bring about a peaceful and fruitful world.
I become an instrument of God, truth and light by challenging your undivine qualities. Likewise, you become an instrument of God by challenging my imperfections and transforming them into perfections. I shall help you to become a perfect citizen of the world, and you will do the same thing to make me a perfect instrument of God. May your thunder-blows send a shudder, not to the human mind or human body, but to the undivine human ignorance-life.
Life and sports are one and cannot be separated in the cosmic play of life. Those who are runners, for example, must feel that in our eternal journey, we are trying to go forward as fast as possible, beyond everything that is limiting us and standing against us. If we can be true runners, inwardly and outwardly, then ignorance and imperfections will fall far, far behind us in the life-race. Similarly, if we use our dynamic fighting spirit all the time in the battlefield of life, then world-ignorance will no longer be able to threaten us. If we develop the capacity to use the divine energy in all aspects of life, then we can become excellent players in the life-game. Fortunate you are, for you have cultivated this dynamic spirit that can inspire others to challenge ignorance. You are telling the world:
Action! Action!
I must act in the body,
With the body.
Why?
Because I need
Body-transformation
And life-perfection.
As a boxer, you are great, greater and greatest. We all know Muhammad Ali's birthless and deathless message to mankind: “I am the greatest!” Let each individual offer the same message, “I am the greatest,” not by destroying others but by loving others more, infinitely more. My divine boxer-brothers, you are not life-destroyers, but life-transformers with the help of God's universal Oneness-Light.
Again, my boxer-brothers, you are not only great but you are also good. You embody this truth:
Physical strength I need,
Vital energy I need,
Mental poise I need,
Psychic choice I need
In my Godward thought and deed.
The determination, dedication and inner and outer strength that you have brought to the fore inspire many others to do the same. Your very presence reminds us that each human being must be a divine warrior, ready to fight against ignorance and imperfections, not only in himself but in the world at large. Your volcano-blows tell the world that humanity can and must challenge ignorance-life.
My dear boxer-brothers, you are among the athletic elite of America — a country herself elite among nations. The dynamic spirit that inspired America to fight for the unparalleled treasure of freedom for the New World is still alive in you. While singing 'America the Beautiful', what do we actually sing? We sing our own unparalleled inner beauty. Similarly, if we can see our own beauty inside our opponents while fighting, then the dream that we cherish of showing our supremacy to the world can be transformed into the reality of permanent perfection-joy here on earth.
Yours in the Compassion-flooded Heart of the Absolute Boxer Supreme,
Sri Chinmoy
Lifts
Lifts during the function included:
1. One-Arm Lift (left) - Ms. Rose Trentman Total weight lifted: 128 pounds.
2. One-Arm Lift (right) - Mr. Anthony Perez - Total weight lifted: 132 pounds
3. One-Arm Lift (left) Mr. Freddie Liberatore Total weight lifted: 139 pounds.
4. One-Arm Lift (right) Mr. Michael Weinman Total weight lifted: 157 pounds Right arm lift
5. One-Arm Lift (left) Mr. David Lawrence. Total weight lifted: 161 pounds
6. One-Arm Lift (right) Mr. Billy Graham. Total weight lifted: 180 pounds
8. One-Arm Lift (right) Mr. Scoop Gallello. Total weight lifted: 203 pounds
7. One-Arm Lift (left) Mr.Donny Lalonde. Total weight lifted: 194 pounds
9. One-Arm Lift (left) Mr. Vinnie Shomo. Total weight lifted: 220 pounds
10. One-Arm Lift (right) Mr. Bruce Silverglade Total weight lifted: 225 pounds Right arm lift
11. One-Arm Lift (left) Mr. Marty Gallagher. Total weight lifted: 219 pounds
12. One-Arm Lift (right) Ms. Karen DeMilia. Total weight lifted: 167 pounds
Total weight lifted in one-arm lifts: 2,125 pounds
Sri Chinmoy Boxing Hall of Fame
Muhammad Ali - 3-time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion (1964, 1974, 1978) 1960 Olympic Gold Medallist (USA)
- Meetings: 25 January 1976, 29 September 1977
- Lift: 12 June 2003 (6,000th lift)
Sugar Ray Leonard - 1976 Olympic Gold Medallist (USA), world champion at five weights
- Lift: 9 September 1990
Jose Torres - World Light Heavyweight Champion, 1956 Olympic silver medallist (USA)
- Lift: 18 September 1988
- 13 November 2004 (shoulder shrug) p. 35 our book
Donny Lalonde - WBC Light-Heavyweight Champion (1987)
- Lift: 30 July 1988
- 17 November 1999 (knee lift)
Saoul Mamby - World Welterweight Champion (1980-82)
- Lift: 1 September 1988