Bill McCreary: What is the procedure for your lifting?

Sri Chinmoy: If you could kindly be on the stand, we shall sing a song called “Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart.” Then I shall lift you with one hand. You have inspired millions and millions of people over the years, so I would like to honour you. I feel we all belong to a oneness-family. Since you are my brother, I feel that it is an obligation on my part to express my loving joy and gratitude to you for inspiring the world.

Bill McCreary: The first thing is, I have to be weighed in. Oh, oh, I have shoes and a heavy wallet!

Sri Chinmoy: Also, the apparatus weighs 13 pounds.

Bill McCreary: So now it is 223 pounds? 223 — that’s my old address on the Lower East Side! Are you ready? What is this for again? Oneness of heart?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, oneness of heart. You have inspired countless, countless people over the years and today I am trying to honour you with my heart’s loving joy and gratitude. I feel that this is one way I can express my inner love and gratitude to you for what you have done for countless people. I am lifting you with my oneness-heart. In the oneness-heart there is peace, abiding peace. If we can bring to the fore our oneness-heart, we shall not quarrel, we shall not fight, there will be no third world war. You and I and all of us are trying to create this peaceful family with our oneness-heart.

[Sri Chinmoy lifts Bill McCreary.]

Bill McCreary: That was quite a lift!

Sri Chinmoy: Would you like to be lifted with the other hand?

Bill McCreary: No, one lift is fine, thank you. Can I come down? So that was a lift for peace?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, oneness-peace and world-harmony. With your aspiration and inspiration, you lift me up. With my aspiration and inspiration, I lift you up. Together we lift up the consciousness of humanity.

Bill McCreary: I really appreciate it.

Sri Chinmoy: I am so happy and honoured that I was able to lift you. This is my dedicated service to your own most exemplary service to mankind.

Bill McCreary: Thank you. Now I would like to talk about some of the things you do. You hold meditations at the U.N. You have been doing that for the last seventeen years. And now you are also doing it for the Congress down in Washington. Would you say that so far your efforts have been effective or ineffective? After such a long period of time, have you started to see some change?

Sri Chinmoy: I am a believer, I am a God-lover. And I feel that prayer — not only my prayer, but the joint prayer of humanity — is helping mankind considerably. We are progressing. But this progress is not so visible in the outer life. In the inner life, the progress is definitely tangible.

Bill McCreary: So you see a link between the outer world and the inner world?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, there is a great link. The inner life and the outer life must go together. If I pray early in the morning, then I will have good thoughts towards others, I will have love for them. If everyone does the same, then there will be no quarrel, no fight. Everything has to come from within. From within, it comes without. If we have peace of mind, a moment of joy deep inside us, then this joy we express outwardly. Whatever we have within, we manifest in our outer life. If we have anxiety, worry, insecurity and other undivine qualities, then this is what we will manifest outwardly. But if we pray and meditate early in the morning, inwardly we become good citizens of the world. Then in our outer activities we will try to express our inner good feelings. This is how we can establish a oneness-family.

Bill McCreary: Has this philosophy been accepted by other people? Some critics would say, “He is Indian and they have ways of doing these phenomenal things.” So are you saying that a person should become a meditator and then he will be able to lift weights and such?

Sri Chinmoy: I am not telling people to meditate in order to lift up weights, far from it! Only I am asking people, I am begging people, to pray and meditate so that we can all have peace of mind. If we have peace of mind, then we will develop inner strength. And if we have inner strength, then we shall not quarrel, we shall not fight. So my prayer-life is not meant for weightlifting. My prayer-life is to become inseparably one with the rest of the world.

Inner strength helps us at every moment to become good human beings. I pray and meditate in order to become a good person and not to become a bodybuilder or a weightlifter. If someone can become a good person from his prayer-life, then he can inspire somebody else to become a good person and that person, in turn, will inspire somebody else. Our philosophy is self-transcendence. If we have just a small fraction of peace, then we have to try to develop more peace, abundant peace, boundless peace. This is our way of thinking and our way of becoming.

Bill McCreary: You have lifted many people.

Sri Chinmoy: Today, with you, I completed 549. My goal is 700 and, in a few weeks, I do hope to complete 700. Recently I lifted some great Olympians — Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, Roger Kingdom and others. They are immortals in athletics. I was there at the Olympics. How much joy these athletes gave us all! I wanted to do something to add to their joy and this is the only way I could do it. They have given joy to countless people and I feel that if I can offer a little bit of my dedication through their joy, then I am blessed.

Bill McCreary: Thank you so much, Sri Chinmoy.