Muhammad Ali: I’ve got to see you again. Where can I contact you? Who can I call?
Sri Chinmoy: We have a Centre here.
Muhammad Ali: Do you have one in New York?
Sri Chinmoy: I live in New York.
Muhammad Ali: You live in New York?
Sri Chinmoy: New York is my headquarters, and I have quite a few Centres there. I go to the United Nations every Tuesday and Friday.
Muhammad Ali: Then we will see you all the time.
Herbert Muhammad: I notice your garment, the garment you have on. Does this represent the sunlight or does it have any other significance — the orange colour?
Sri Chinmoy: This is my religious garment. Orange represents the manifestation of God’s Light. Each colour has a significance. Red signifies God’s Power. Blue signifies God’s Infinity. Green is God’s Dynamism. Each colour has a spiritual significance. So this colour, golden-orange, is the manifestation of God’s Light. Sometimes I use orange, sometimes blue, sometimes green when I hold meditations at our Centres and at the United Nations. When we hold meditations there, we pray like this: [Sri Chinmoy folds his hands.] When we pray, we speak to God, Allah, and ask Him to give us His blessings. And when we meditate, Allah speaks to us and we try to listen to Him; we try to execute His Will.
Muhammad Ali: I want to ask you a question. I am just learning because I am an ignorant boy. In this fashion I have always seen the Christians pray. [Muhammad Ali folds his hands.] And the Muslims, who are Eastern people, pray in this fashion. [Muhammad Ali cups his hands.] What is the difference?
Sri Chinmoy: It is very significant. About the Christians I don’t know. I am an Indian, and according to my Indian tradition when we pray with folded hands, at that time our consciousness goes upward. When you pray with your hands cupped, at that time God comes down and you are trying to receive Him.
Muhammad Ali: I see. When we do like this, at that time Allah comes down and we receive. This position is to receive.
Sri Chinmoy: We receive Allah’s blessings, Allah’s infinite blessings, like this. But when we fold our hands, at that time we pray to go up and reach God’s highest Height.
Herbert Muhammad: That’s true with Muslims, too. That’s like what my father taught us. He called us the baby nation because we are a baby in knowledge of the divine Light and we had been deprived of the divine Light. So he taught us first to pray like this so we could receive. This is the act of receiving. And we needed God’s Light more than anything else, because we have not only been enslaved physically, but also the white people have enslaved us mentally. All our aspirations and desires were to be like our slave-managers, which was wrong. So this is the way my father taught us to try and receive Light from God. This is the first way he taught us to pray. Now we go through the regular rituals that the Muslims do — all the way up, you know, the regular way.
Sri Chinmoy: This is how you receive and this is how we go up to get His Light. I must not take any more of your time. I know how precious your time is.
Herbert Muhammad: It’s all right.From:Sri Chinmoy,Muhammad Ali and Sri Chinmoy, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ma