Restaurants, cafés and enterprises

Sri Chinmoy encouraged some of his students to open up enterprises where they could serve the public, such as small gift shops, cafes, restaurants and running stores.

Find an enterprise: Cafés & Restaurants  •  Music stores  •  Running stores  •  Flower Shops  •  Gift Shops

Sri Chinmoy asked his students working in the enterprise to feel as if they are serving God inside each customer; he called them divine enterprises to emphasize this point.

The enterprises are independently owned by Sri Chinmoy's students, but often Sri Chinmoy would offer names to the enterprises to reflect the high spiritual ideals his path strives for.

Cafés and vegetarian restaurants

Music Stores

• The Gandharva Loka music stores sell intriguing and captivating instruments from around the world, with stores in Dublin and Salzburg.
• Other music stores: Sangitamiya - the Nectar-Music, Reykjavik, Iceland (pictured)

---

Running stores

As well as putting on races for the public, Sri Chinmoy's students also offer their expertise and advice to the running community with running stores in the UK and Italy.

• Run and Become, Become and Run UK store with branches in London and Edinburgh
• Srinvantu running store in Milano, Italy

---

Flower shops

• The Garland of Divinity's Love, New York
• Phulero Dola, Ottawa
• Gratitude-Heart-Garden, Chicago

Gift Shops

• The Garden of Light, Ottawa
• Transcendence-Perfection-Bliss of the Beyond, Washington D.C.

---

Selfless service

Sri Chinmoy felt that meditation should not be an escape from the world, but a way to have deep inner peace while remaining in society. He felt that the best way to do this was to perform one's daily tasks with a sense of 'selflessness' - to get joy from giving one's efforts for the betterment of mankind, instead of being attached to the end result.

Even though working in a divine enterprise is a regular paid job, this focus on getting joy from the simple act of service allows Sri Chinmoy's students to treat their work as an extension of their meditation practise.

In our path, selfless service plays a considerable role. Meditation and selfless service are both of paramount importance....Each time we do selfless service we increase our capacity. God is omnipresent. He is the universal Consciousness. When we do selfless service, we feel oneness with the rest of mankind and become one with this universal Consciousness. Each moment we do something selflessly we enlarge our consciousness from the one to the many. First oneness starts with our spiritual brothers and sisters and then it spreads to the rest of the world.

Sri Chinmoy 1

---

The spiritual benefit of a vegetarian Diet

Sri Chinmoy's students follow a vegetarian diet as part of their spiritual discipline; many of the enterprises are cafes or restaurants that serve vegetarian food. Here are some related links on our sites

• Food for the Inner Quest - from the Irish Sri Chinmoy Centre site.
• Conscious Living by Jogyata Dallas from New Zealand

• 1. From: Service-Boat And Love-Boatman, Part 1