The Year of Endless Surprises

Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration plants was published in 270 volumes between 1983 and 1998

In early 1998 Guru completed what was then his most prodigious poetic work—the 270 volumes of his monumental Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants—and so concluded an epic venture spanning more than fourteen years. It was another of those relentlessly sustained and patient undertakings which together coursed like a braided river through Guru’s life, those multiple strands of inspiration, of paintings and soul-birds, literature and music and wonderfully original things.

One evening we were with Guru shortly after the last poem in this series had been written. We asked Guru for suggestions for how his New Zealand disciples could celebrate the culmination of this vast poetic work.

Guru rose and went through a doorway into an adjoining room for two or three minutes, then came back with a series of ideas that quite astonished us. It was as though he had also stepped through an unseen portal into another world where the future, the unimagined, the possible, lay awaiting its manifestation—and gathered from there a few trinkets to bring back. The first of these? That we shake 27,000 people’s hands, giving each of these people a card of poems and a sweet!

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

All I needed was the Supreme, and I would always win

For three years, starting in 1977, some 200 New York area students of Sri Chinmoy trained as a group for the Pepsi 24-Hour Bicycle Marathon in Central Park, as he encouraged us to challenge our limitations and thus discover our deeper capacities.

Starting a month before the race, which was held on Memorial Day Weekend, Sri Chinmoy would lead us on daily training rides in Flushing Meadow Park. The Pepsi Bike Marathon drew thousands of amateur participants, but also a core group of professional riders who competed seriously for the prizes. None of our team members had experience in racing, though a few of us did cycle regularly and take road trips. The first year we entered as a team was a bit of an experiment, though I think we won a prize or two for the size of our team and for our uniforms. But the second year, 1978, we trained more seriously, and I felt that Sri Chinmoy was determined to show us the limits of what was possible.

A week before the race, Sri Chinmoy chose who would be on the two small teams that would compete for the team prizes. I felt honoured that I was the only woman on the first-string team of ten, but I was quite alarmed when Sri Chinmoy solemnly called us up in front of the whole group and told us he envisioned each of us doing 300 miles in 24 hours!

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

Don't expect

One day I was having a really difficult time. It had something to do with some other disciples. When I was driving Guru somewhere, I told him about the problem. Guru just pointed to my dashboard, which had his New Year's Message taped on it:

Don't expect, don't expect.
Just give, give and give
If you want to really survive.

Sri Chinmoy 1

That was Guru's answer to my problems that day.

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

I did my job

A bad fall, a broken ankle, a cast on my leg, a sudden sharp pain in my chest . . . events cascading with increasing speed left me unable to breathe, as each time I tried to take a breath my chest muscles snapped back from the pain.

I was staying with my parents in my family’s home while recuperating from my fall. Now here it was, 5:30 a.m., and I was in agony from the pain in my chest. I knew enough from nursing school to suspect the worst: a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in my lungs. Unable to take more than the shallowest of breaths, I could not call for help. So I had to use my cell phone to wake my father in the next room.

The look on his face when he entered my room confirmed my worst fears⎯a blood clot had formed in the leg under the cast and had now entered my lungs. My father the surgeon quickly called 911, then in his best professor-of-medicine style, explained that I was at immediate risk of a stroke (if the clot traveled to my brain) or a heart attack (if it went to my heart). Thanks, Dad!

While Dad went to greet the ambulance, I called Ashrita in New York, who fortunately answered despite the early hour. I later learned that he had immediately called our restaurant Annam Brahma, as the workers there would have had the quickest access to Guru at that time.

I ended up spending a week in the hospital on life-saving drugs⎯but I know it was really Guru who saved my life. A few hours later I would have been on the train back to Boston, and if the clot had showed up then, I would have been unable to call for help, explain my predicament, or ask Amtrak to arrange for an ambulance at the next station. Plus, the stops between Delaware and Boston can be almost an hour apart⎯I might not have survived until I got to a hospital.

A few weeks later, arriving in New York for August Celebrations, I ran into Dipali, who looked like she was seeing a ghost, she was so startled to see me alive. She told me the “inside story”: Guru had told the restaurant staff at Annam Brahma that my soul was leaving the body and he had to bring it back.

“I did my job,” Guru told them.

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

Europe Peace Run 2024 Launched With Pope Francis

The European Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run began 6 March 2024, after the Peace Torch was symbolically lit by Pope Francis in the Vatican.

pope francis

The Peace Run was initiated by Sri Chinmoy in 1987 with the goal of spreading the message of peace, love and friendship through a dynamic activity of running.

This year the international team of Peace Runners had the privilege of starting their epic journey with the blessings of the current Pope Francis.

The Peace Run Team will spend the next several months running through several European countries before finishing in Hungary 18 October.

“If we can invoke Peace and then offer it to somebody else, we will see how Peace expands from one to two persons, and gradually to the world at large.”

– Sri Chinmoy

 

Sri Chinmoy shared the peace Torch with Pope John Paul II on 31 May 1995, at the Vatican, sharing the message “I salute the runners of the Peace Run who are carrying a torch to the destination of peace through the streets of the world.”

You can follow this years Peace Run, by visiting PeaceRun.org

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

The inner significance of the New Year

Happy New Year! Sri Chinmoy loved newness, encouraging us to keep our spiritual life fresh and spontaneous. “Every day, when morning dawns, we should feel that we have something new to accomplish,” he said. Thus, Sri Chinmoy saw the New Year as a golden opportunity to renew our inspiration for the spiritual life, and to make new promises to our souls – similar to making New Year’s resolutions.

For over 40 years, Sri Chinmoy gave annual messages for New Year’s encouraging seekers to strive for world harmony, and becoming the best a person can ever be. In the early days, Sri Chinmoy offered these messages during his public New Year’s Meditations, taking place early December at sacred venues such as Riverside Church by Columbia University. Later on, Sri Chinmoy’s travels during Christmas and over New Year’s took him to numerous countries where he befriended heads of states and locals alike, incorporating New Year’s Messages into his free Peace Concerts.

First New Year Message, 1966

Sri Chinmoy offered his first New Year’s Message on January 1, 1966. It was a soulful prayer to become aware of our divine heritage. It reminded us of God’s blessings — sweetness, joy, light and peace — sparkling divinely in us, while honouring our New Year’s spiritual resolutions. 

New Year’s Message for the Year 1966

May humanity climb up one rung in the ladder of divine growth, and realise in its soul the Sweetness, Joy, Light and Peace of the Supreme.

Out of the pure fulness of the heart, may the lips of Truth speak and the hands of Truth act in the year 1966.

The New Year — what can it teach us? It can teach us the secret of spiritual self-reliance. It can teach us how we ourselves can be our Masters and Saviours.

From the New Year we can learn that God is God only when God is OUR God and not MY God. From the New Year we can learn that Truth is Truth only when Truth is OUR Truth and not MY Truth.

At every moment it is we who can make ourselves a blessing to ourselves and to the world at large.

May the universal embrace of the New Year flower into a permanent smile of Victory on the Face of the Supreme.

Sri Chinmoy 1

When the New Year Dawns

Sri Chinmoy frequently reminded us that the New Year offers a new opportunity to make spiritual progress, in blessing us with hope, light and firm determination to keep transcending (or improving upon) our present capacities. In his book The Outer Runner and The Inner Runner (1984), Sri Chinmoy’s essay on “When the New Year Dawns” likens a spiritual seeker to a runner:

On the eve of the New Year, a new consciousness dawns on earth. God once again inspires each human being, each creature, with new hope, new light, new peace and new joy. God says, "The New Year dawns and a new consciousness dawns within you. Run toward the destined Goal." We listen to God, to the dictates of our Inner Pilot, and we run toward the ultimate Reality. The New Year energises us, encourages us and inspires us to run toward that ultimate Goal.

When the New Year dawns, we have to make ourselves conscious of the fact that we have to transcend ourselves this year. We have to go beyond our present capacity, beyond our present achievement. When we have that kind of firm determination, God showers His choicest Blessings upon us.

God always wants us to move ahead; He does not want us to look back. We know that while a runner is running fast, if he looks back, he will stumble. Similarly, if we are constantly looking behind at the year that we are leaving aside, we will think of our sorrow, misery, frustration, failure and so forth. But if we look forward, we will see hope dawning deep within us. Every day in this New Year is equally important.

Sri Chinmoy 2

May your New Year’s resolutions stay fresh and illumining every day, fulfilling your life goals!

Related

  • All of Sri Chinmoy's New Year messages from 1967 to 2007 were published in two volumes here and here.
  • Sources: The photographs are taken from the Sri Chinmoy Centre gallery3, and the aphorisms from Sri Chinmoy's poems and writings 4. The last picture is one of Sri Chinmoy's spontaneous Jharna Kala artworks – one of over 140,000 paintings created by Sri Chinmoy over a span of 33 years. 5 
  • 1. Source: My Consulate years by Sri Chinmoy, 1996
  • 2. Source: The Outer Runner and The Inner Runner by Sri Chinmoy (1984)
  • 3. The first three photographs were taken by Sarama Minoli, Kedar Misani and Bijoy Imhof
  • 4. Poems in image 1 and image 3 taken from Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 39 (2004); poems in image 2 and image 4 from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, parts 172 and part 169 (1992)
  • 5. This particular painting was created in 1976, and is part of a collection donated to the Zürich Sri Chinmoy Centre.
Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

Inspiration and Records at the 3100 Mile Race

In the 27th edition of the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence Race, Tswi Wen-Ya attained a new women's world record for the 3100 Mile Race, in a time of 45 days +12:28:44. The diminutive runner from Taiwan, overcame tiredness, heavy rain and numerous physical challenges to set this remarkable new record which involved running an average of 68 miles for 45 days straight. After a short victory celebration, she continued to set a new world record for 5,000km in a time of 45 days +14:56:42.

The race saw fourteen runners take to the start line, and each runner had their own unique experience of self-transcendence. The first place finisher was Andrea Marcato from Italy. it was his fourth consecutive 1st place in the 3100 Mile Race and comes after an amazing year which included two ten day races and other ultra-distance events. His time of 43 days+13:33:23 was not a personal record, but he joins the Finnish men's world record holder Ashprihanal Aalto for being the only runner with four consecutive first places.

The race was inspired by Sri Chinmoy who saw distance running as a unique challenge to bring to the fore all the inner and outer resources of the competitor. Sri Chinmoy taught the real goal was not the outer accomplishment, but the inner progress which can come from transcending our previous capacities, and remaining cheerful whatever happens during the race.

“We compete not for the sake of defeating others, but in order to bring forward our own capacity. Our best capacity comes forward only when there are other people around us. They inspire us to bring forward our utmost capacity, and we inspire them to bring forward their utmost capacity”

– Sri Chinmoy

The race inspired many people who both took part, but also who came to help or cheer on the runners. This video gives an insight into the thoughts, feelings and experiences of the runners

Video

3100 Mile Race Feature on US National Public Radio

Related

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

3100 Mile Race - 2023

The 27th annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence Race 3100 Mile Race began on 30 August and will run for 52 days until it finishes on 20 October. This year fourteen runners took to the start line to take part in the ultimate test of ultra-distance running.

The race was founded by Sri Chinmoy, a keen runner himself, who felt there was a strong connection between both physical and spiritual self-transcendence. As the runners testify, this is a race which brings to the fore all their inner reserves and determination; it can be life-transforming experience for both the runners and helpers.

The race is promoted by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and a support team of volunteers from around the world.

To get an insight into the race, some of the runners were interviewed whilst running around the course.

Video

Video

Video

More videos can be seen at

SCMT at Vimeo

To follow the race with daily updates, please see

3100 Mile Race website

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

Seven Minutes of World Peace

On 21 September, the International Day of Peace, members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre from all around the world took part in Seven Minutes of World Peace. This initiative was first inaugurated in 1984 by Sri Chinmoy, in his capacity as leader of The Peace Meditation at the United Nations.

Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy meditates at the inaugural Seven Minutes of World peace.

Since its inception, individuals and groups from around the world have joined to offer their heartfelt wishes for a better world. It is a soulful prelude to the United Nations Peace Bell Ceremony, which marks the global International Day of Peace.

Sri Chinmoy wished to be remembered as a student of peace, feeling that the cultivation and sharing of inner peace was the most valuable thing we can do.

“This world of ours has everything save and except one thing: peace. And this peace has to start from within. If I have peace of mind, then only can I be of help to you. If you have peace of mind, then only can you be of help to me.”

Sri Chinmoy

Around the world, students of Sri Chinmoy continue to observe this important day of peace with these seven minutes of silence, which participants can use to pray and meditate for peace in the world.

Further reading

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

Peace Run at Mount Everest

The Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run recently made a special visit to the foothills of Mount Everest, to take part in the 70th anniversary celebrations of the first ascent of the famous mountain. The team of international runners met local people to share the simple message of the Peace Run, that "Peace begins with me." The peace runners also took part in a unique marathon - "Everest Marathon" billed as the world's highest mountain, with participants having to complete the 26.2 miles at an altitude of 5,356m.

Cross-posted from stories.srichinmoycentre.org

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