Sri Chinmoy
I was privileged to spend four years learning meditation from the great meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy, until his passing away on the 11th of October 2007. Often I get asked what religion is Sri Chinmoy, and I merely reply in Sri Chinmoy’s own words: my only religion is my love of God. He was born into a very spiritual Hindu family, and naturally began his spiritual journey according to the ideals of that age-old tradition. However, as he progressed in his meditation and had high experiences of direct contact with the vastness of the Infinite, he saw that no one religion has a monopoly on the Truth. The meditation path he teaches is therefore universal in nature, and has attracted seekers of Truth of all religions and none. In addition, he has worked tirelessly for oneness between faiths, a fact which was recognised by his being asked to hold the opening meditation at the World Parliament of Religions in both 1997 and 2004.
After the death of his parents at the age of 12, the young Chinmoy traveled with his whole family from Bengal to South India, to study spirituality in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. In this spiritually-nourishing environment, the young Chinmoy made very fast progress in meditation and was soon meditating daily for eight hours and sometimes more. A collection of his experiences which he related informally to his students can be found in a book titled Awakening. With this increase in meditative prowess, other endowments also came; he began composing poetry in both English and Bengali, and setting these poems to music. Many of these songs really capture the joy and newness of experiencing spiritual awakening for the first time. Chinmoy’s other main love was athletics: the Ashram regarded sports as an integral part of spiritual discipline, and he excelled at sprinting events in particular.
In 1964 he received a call from deep within to go to the West and be of service to the growing number of seekers of Eastern wisdom there. This was, of course, a time when many people in the West were just beginning to wake up to Eastern culture. My teacher was quickly recognised as a bona fide teacher in the line of great Indian teachers that have revitalized Indian spirituality for thousands of years, and in 1970 he was requested to hold meditations for the staff and delegates of the United Nations.
Sri Chinmoy's philosophy is that the fastest spiritual progress can be achieved not by shutting oneself away from the world in order to meditate, but by accepting the world, loving the world and working for its gradual transformation into a world where everyone can live in harmony and oneness. ‘The joy of a self-giving life can never be measured or be expounded‘, as one of the meditative aphorisms he has written goes, and over the years Sri Chinmoy sought to offer what he has through concerts, dialogues with world leaders, and grassroots initiatives. Many of these initiatives were novel and striking departures from the traditional approaches to harmony. The World Harmony Run, for example is an Olympic-style torch run in which a relay team of runners travel across almost 100 countries linking communities in support of harmony, whereas the Oneness-Heart Tears and Smiles is a humanitarian organisation with the explicit credo of transcending the superiority-inferiority division that can exist between donor and recipient in many aid situations.
At root, Sri Chinmoy held that the key to world happiness is for each and every citizen of the world to go deep within and become better people.He himself has brought his meditative capacity into almost every area of human endeavour imaginable - art, poetry, music and athletics - achieving an output that challenges belief in its quantity and scope. In his 43 years in the West, he has wrote over 1500 books, 19000 songs, and painted hundreds of thousands of artworks. In each of these fields, his aim was to inspire people to in turn look within and also try to expand their capacities in different fields. The philosophy of self-transcencdence, where one competes not with others but with one’s own previous capacities, has inspired many of his students (including me!) to feats they most likely never though possible before they began meditating. For example, one of his students, Ashrita Furman holds over 50 Guinness World records - more than anyone on the planet. The world’s longest road race, the 3100 Mile Self Transcendence race is organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and has as the majority of its runners students of Sri Chinmoy.
To the world he may be known as a poet or a interfaith leader or an athlete, but to me he is first and foremost my guru, or my meditation teacher. All great meditation teachers teach not with words but with silence, for the very simple reason that silence is the very thing they are trying to teach: that the inner world of silence, vastness and peace is just as real as the outer world of noise and bustle, and maybe more so. As you have probably have already read elsewhere in the site, I had been meditating for over a year before I became a student of Sri Chinmoy. I found however, that Sri Chinmoy’s inner guidance has helped me time and again get past obstacles in my meditation and also in my daily life, and this is something that has only gotten stronger ever since he left his mortal frame. In addition, the years I spent in my teacher’s presence was an education in itself, as one experiences first-hand the love and concern for all that an enlightened master can radiate.