The birthday celebration of Governor Rafael Hernandez-Colon¹

Governor Colon: I am very happy to see you back in Puerto Rico again and to see the aspirants, your disciples. It is always a pleasant encounter and it is also very rewarding to be with you. I am very happy that you and the members of your group found the occasion to honour us with your visit tonight.

Sri Chinmoy: It is most kind of you to say so. With your soul’s permission, today we wish to observe your birthday. I understand that your birthday falls on the 24th of October, so in our absolutely modest way we would like to celebrate your birthday a few days in advance.

Governor Colon: Thank you very much, thank you. I am very grateful for it.

Sri Chinmoy: In honour of your birthday, I shall meditate with my students and pray to the Absolute Supreme to grant you infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. You are the supremely chosen instrument of our Father, so we shall pray to Him.

Governor Colon: Thank you.

[Sri Chinmoy presented Governor Colon with one of his original paintings.]

Governor Colon, while receiving the painting: We shall put it in our home in memory of you and your friends. I wish to express my gratitude to Sri Chinmoy and to all of you who have come tonight and who have honoured us on the occasion of my birthday. You have brought us many gifts and, above all, you have brought us the gift of spirituality, a gift to be treasured, a gift which deepens our inner life. Both Lila and myself are very joyous and most happy on the occasion of my birthday to receive these gifts from the Almighty through you. To you we offer our eternal gratitude. As a token of appreciation from the people of whom you sing in your song [“O My Puerto Rico"], which was so beautifully executed here by your disciples, I wish to give you a flag of Puerto Rico.

Sri Chinmoy: Dear spiritual brother, this has been my fourth visit. Each time I come to you, I come to pray to the Almighty to shower His choicest Blessings upon your devoted head and divinely surrendered heart.

Here we are observing your birthday. Each soul comes into the world to do something for God, to spread God’s Light. But each soul does not embody the same amount of potentiality, capacity and divinity. There are some souls which are most extraordinary; and you are one of those. Without the least possible hesitation, on the strength of my own inner experience and realisation I wish to tell you that you are a supremely chosen instrument of the Supreme for the Supreme. In you I always see a divine lion roaring for the expression-manifestation of God’s ultimate Truth, His boundless Light and His infinite Peace.

In terms of the earthly calendar, you are only thirty-nine years old. But in terms of the divine calendar, which is birthless and deathless, you are the supremely chosen instrument of the Heavenly Father. You were born in Puerto Rico. Yes, the Puerto Ricans can claim you as a Puerto Rican. But the lovers of Truth, the God-lovers, the seekers of the eternal Truth, will claim you as their very own, because in your heart they feel a cosmopolitan heart. In you, not only do your brothers and sisters of Puerto Rico feel perfectly safe, but we who are your brothers and sisters from all over the world feel a real haven of love, concern and perfection which you are for all mankind. In you we see a solid, strong, abiding choice of God.

When one becomes a perfect instrument of God, God blesses that person with a strong physical and a strong vital. This is the vital that expands, not the vital that strikes. You have an indomitable physical and vital which expand God’s Love and God’s Light. And the mind that you have is a clear mind, a mind bathed in clarity. You see the whole island in the twinkling of an eye. Present, past and future are at the express command of your vision of light and truth. You have an all-loving power which cares not for politics. You are the heart of self-giving God-love and all-illumining oneness-light. An illumined physical, vital, mind and heart: these are the things that we need in order to please God, fulfil God and manifest God on earth. And all these qualities that a perfect instrument of God needs, you have in abundant measure.

You are not only illumining this island, your enchanting island of Puerto Rico, but you are also illumining all truth-lovers, God-lovers and divine soldiers who are trying to manifest God here on earth. In you I see a pioneer-champion of Truth- Light for God’s expression, revelation and manifestation. The spiritual heart in me offers to your heart eternal gratitude, constant concern and supremely divine Light. You are the chosen pilot of Puerto Rico and you are also the true divine brother and lover of aspiring mankind.

Governor Colon: Thank you, Sri Chinmoy, for your expression about my humble person. In all my imperfections I can only say that to be beside you and to be able to feel and contemplate your spirituality and your holiness is a great source of inspiration, of light and of guidance. I only wish that you could guide me and help me to grow in spirituality so that I may, as you say, be of service to my people and mankind everywhere. I appreciate very deeply your words about my humble person.

Sri Chinmoy: All my love, all my gratitude to you. We are eternal friends, eternal sons of the Almighty. We shall fulfil each other in the Heart of the Almighty.

[Governor Colon cuts one of his birthday cakes as his wife and Sri Chinmoy look on.]

[Governor Colon presents Sri Chinmoy with the flag of Puerto Rico.]