Picture

The Trance-Heights that unveil the Unknowable

— photo by Sarama

Questions asked by Dulal, President of the New York Sri Chinmoy Centre

Question: Can true meditation ever become an escape from Reality?

Sri Chinmoy: No, true meditation can never be an escape from reality, for true meditation is the real acceptance of life-reality. And it is only in the manifestation of the divine consciousness totally and integrally in the life-reality that God-Satisfaction can and will take place on earth.

Question: Can enthusiasm and ignorance go together?

Sri Chinmoy: Enthusiasm and ignorance can go together, but they need not necessarily go together. Very often, when a person gets inspiration, it is not founded upon something which is higher or deeper; it is an ignorant force. In this case enthusiasm and ignorance go together. When enthusiasm comes directly from a deep inner source as a result of inner awakening, or when it comes from a divine guide, then ignorance cannot disturb enthusiasm. When one gets advice from an illumined authority, his entire being becomes surcharged with dynamic light. At that time enthusiasm is a revelation of an inner awakening which is trying to come to the fore for manifestation.

Question: Why is it so difficult to listen?

Sri Chinmoy: Sometimes we do not want to listen, because our ego comes to the fore. Listening implies the superiority of somebody else, and it is very difficult for us to accept our humble position as listener. But if we can take the other person as our very own, if we can feel that the other person is our own reality in a more illumined and fulfilling form, then we will have no problem listening. If we don’t feel like listening to someone else, or if we don’t want to give credit to somebody else, or if we are incapable of admiring the truth just because someone else saw it before us, we can try at least to listen to our soul. If we dive deep within, we can hear the dictates of the soul.

Question: How can I fully receive Guru's divine force?

Sri Chinmoy: You can very easily receive this divine force if you can constantly feel that this force is not going to hurt or torture you. It tries to operate in and through the disciple to transform his outer nature. If you can remember that the more the divine force enters into your aspiring vessel, the more assurance you will get from your Master and the more spiritual progress you will make, then you will be a more receptive instrument.

Question: What is the relationship between character and spirituality?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirituality encompasses everything; therefore, it includes human character, too. To have a good character is to have honesty, simplicity, spontaneity, absence of anger, pride and so forth. When an ordinary human being possesses all these qualities, we call him a man of good character. But although spirituality is inside these qualities and these qualities are also inside spirituality, real spirituality is something infinitely higher and deeper, for it deals with life-transforming and God-becoming aspiration. A man of good character need not care for the highest absolute Truth — he may remain quite satisfied with his moral achievements — but a spiritual man goes far beyond the domain of morality with his heart’s inner burning cry in order to reach the highest Truth and bring it down to illumine himself and the earth-consciousness.

Question: Can human nature experience divine love?

Sri Chinmoy: Human nature can experience divine love. But human nature will not be able to give due value to divine love unless the human nature is divinised and purified to a considerable extent and the divine love exercises an extra amount of compassion.

Question: What is the significance of gratitude?

Sri Chinmoy: Gratitude is a living reality. A seeker has to know that his most powerful capacity is gratitude. What God has is infinite Compassion and what we have is gratitude. God’s gift to man is infinite Compassion and our gift to God is an iota of gratitude to be placed at His Feet. Gratitude-power can never be surpassed. It is the only satisfaction we can offer God. This is not because God needs our gratitude but because He needs ample opportunity to enter into us in a more effective way, and gratitude increases our heart’s receptivity.

Question: Are the "I am" and the "Inner Being" one and the same?

Sri Chinmoy: On the lower plane "I am" represents the ego-consciousness. This can never be the same as the inner being. The real “I am” is infinitely superior to the ego-consciousness. It is the silent Brahman, the highest Reality-Consciousness. Now, there are many inner beings, but the best inner being is the one which is like a child. The inner being is the receiver of the message of the Absolute Supreme, who is the real “I am” consciousness, but the inner being is far inferior to the “I” in the “I am” consciousness. We all have quite a few inner beings. Like a manager in a factory, their capacity is very limited. They are not the highest authority, but they are the agents, the representatives, of the highest authority, who is the real “I am” consciousness.

Question: Is patience a cure for anxiety?

Sri Chinmoy: No. Patience is ready to wait for the cure, but the real cure is inner peace and light. Inner peace and light cure or lead us through anxiety and other undivine forces that operate in and through us. Patience can be used by divine light when it is illumined. It is something necessary in our spiritual life. But patience deals with the length of time which it takes for any inner achievement, and not with anxiety.

Question: Is the reasoning mind capable of sincerity?

Sri Chinmoy: It is quite possible for the reasoning mind to develop sincerity. The reasoning mind need not be the deceptive or self-deluding mind. The reasoning mind can easily feel the necessity of light when it looks into the heart and sees that the heart is happy because it always receives light from the soul for its illumination, perfection and satisfaction. The reasoning mind can also be inspired to do the same. Everybody wants satisfaction; everything wants satisfaction. There is no other way to have satisfaction than by one’s own constant and conscious submission to the illumining and fulfilling operation of the soul’s light. If the reasoning mind can do this, then it will definitely have sincerity.

Question: Can there be freedom without discipline?

Sri Chinmoy: No, there cannot be any freedom without discipline. Discipline is self-control; self-control is self-perfection. In self-perfection only does the real freedom abide. One thing we have to know in regard to discipline — discipline is not something austere or demanding. Discipline is something self-illumining and God-fulfilling.

Question: What is the specific purpose of my life here on earth?

Sri Chinmoy: The specific purpose of your life here on earth is to offer to the Supreme what you think you are — a sea of ignorance — and to receive from the Supreme what He knows you are — a sea of light and delight.

Question: How can I best manifest the Supreme?

Sri Chinmoy: You can best manifest the Supreme by constantly feeling in the physical plane that you are hopeless and useless without Him, for the Supreme is unfulfilled and incomplete unless and until He has manifested Himself in and through you in the spiritual plane.

Question: What is the key to purity?

Sri Chinmoy: There are many keys to open the door of purity, but there is one key which is the most effective and that key is the absence of thought-waves in the physical mind. When the physical mind is calm and quiet, purity automatically dawns in the entire being of the seeker.

Question: How can I recapture a child's wonderment?

Sri Chinmoy: You can recapture a child’s wonderment by believing in the loftiest realisation of the spiritual Masters: that God is an eternal child swimming in His own Eternity’s sea of Peace, Light and Delight.

Question: What is the highest Truth?

Sri Chinmoy: The highest Truth is that man and God are eternally one and inseparable although man is right now an unrealised God and God is right now an unfulfilled, unmanifested man.

Question: What can one do when the mind is confused?

Sri Chinmoy: When the mind is confused, one must try to inundate the mind with a flood of simplicity. This simplicity one will get only when one feels that his heart, his aspiring heart, is not only of the Supreme but also for the Supreme.

Question: Does God ever smile?

Sri Chinmoy: God does nothing but smile. Not only does He smile while He is acting, but His action itself is the smile of His self-transcending Vision and self-manifesting Reality.

Question: What is divine music?

Sri Chinmoy: Divine music is the music of the aspiring heart, illumining soul, awakening body, expanding vital and dreaming mind.

Question: How can I hear the soundless sound?

Sri Chinmoy: You can hear the soundless sound provided you concentrate on your heart centre and try to feel that your spiritual heart is much larger than the universe itself. Try to feel that the heart is the house, the universe is a room and the soundless sound is an object in the room. If you can soulfully concentrate on the spiritual heart and imagine the things that I am asking you to, then you will hear the soundless sound.

We learn¹

We learn. We learn from sorrow; we learn from joy. We learn from sorrow how to purify our emotional vital. We learn from sorrow how to be watchful, careful and soulful. We learn from sorrow how to widen our hearts and how to heighten our lives.

Our emotional vital is unlit, obscure, impure and unaspiring. There comes a time when sorrow and suffering knock at our door. Then we try to purify, sanctify, illumine and make the vital a perfect instrument of God.

When we are watchful, we do not allow the world around us with its teeming imperfections to enter into our being. When we are careful, we do not allow anything undivine to grow within us. When we are soulful, we are safe both in the outer world and in the inner world precisely because the divine in us takes full care of us. The divine in us protects us, perfects us and immortalises us. When we are soulful, in the inner world we can sing the song of perfection, in the outer world we can dance the dance of satisfaction.

When we widen our hearts, we enter into the universal consciousness. When we widen, we expand ourselves. The finite in us grows into Infinity and the universal Consciousness becomes part and parcel of our aspiring existence. When we heighten our lives, we grow into the transcendental Consciousness. This Consciousness constantly transcends its own height. Transcendental Consciousness is not and cannot be a static consciousness. It is always proceeding, climbing high, higher, highest. It is always transcending its own supernal heights.

We learn from joy. We learn from joy how to love God, how to serve God, how to fulfil God unconditionally in God’s own way. When we are happy, we give everything that we have and that we are. It is in our soulful self-giving that we eventually become perfect prototypes of our Inner Pilot, the Absolute Supreme. From joy we come to discover what we eternally are: God’s Golden Dreams. We are His Dreams; we are His Dream-Boats. Again, it is in and through us that He will manifest His Reality-Shore. Either He will carry us to the Golden Shore of the Beyond or He will carry the Golden Shore to us. From joy we learn how to become God-seeds and God-fruits. When we become God-seeds, Heaven treasures us. When we become God-fruits, earth treasures us.

We learn from Heaven; we learn from earth. From Heaven we learn how to smile divinely and compassionately. From earth we learn how to cry ceaselessly and soulfully. From Heaven we learn that God is all Beauty. From earth we learn that God is all Duty. From Heaven we learn why God is, where God is. From earth we learn who God is, how God is. Why is God? God exists to satisfy Himself divinely and supremely. His divine Satisfaction is far beyond the domain of our mind; the mind will be sadly baffled by it. But the heart, on the strength of its identification with God, can and will realise what God-Satisfaction is. God-Satisfaction is the Nectar-Life in God’s Silence-World, in God’s Sound-World. Where is God? God is where His children are. God is all-where in His creation. God is the Creator; again, He is Creation itself. In silence-life He is the Creator. In Sound-life He is the Creation. He is at once the Creator and the Creation.

Who is God? God is eternally our Beloved Supreme and our Lover Supreme. When we aspire, when we cry from the inmost recesses of our hearts, when we grow into the burning flames that climb high, higher, highest, at that time God becomes our Beloved Supreme. When we consciously, devotedly and unconditionally participate in God’s cosmic Drama, Him to satisfy, Him to fulfil, Him to manifest in His own way, at that time God becomes our Lover Supreme. How is God? God is fine; God is happy. He tells the seeker in us that He is eternally happy because He feels that it is through happiness, it is in His happiness-life that He can create, preserve and immortalise His creation. There is no other way. He cannot be otherwise. Only through joy can He create, preserve and immortalise His creation.

We learn from the real in us. The unreal in us tells us that we were nothing, we are nothing and we will be nothing. We came from ignorance, in ignorance we dwell and at the end of our journey’s close to ignorance we shall return. The real in us tells us that we are everything — not only are we everything to ourselves, but we are everything to the Supreme Pilot. The real in us tells us that we came from delight, in delight we grow and at the end of our journey’s close into delight we shall retire. The real in us goes one step ahead. It tells us that our life has no end, our life-march knows no halt. It tells us that life is an eternal journey. There is no final destination. The real in us tells us something more. It tells us that when we reach any destination, that destination becomes the starting point for tomorrow’s journey. Today we are at the starting point. Tomorrow we reach our destination. The day after tomorrow the destination becomes the starting point for a higher goal, a more fulfilling goal. There is no absolute Goal. The Goal is always transcending its own supernal heights.

We learn from man; we learn from God. Man has only one message to offer us: “The future is all darkness. The future is ruthlessly frightening. There is no certainty, there is no reality in the heart of the future. Stick to the past, we live in the past, we know about the past. No matter how deplorable the past was, the past is the only reality. Don’t look ahead. If you look ahead, you are bound to notice the dance of destruction. Stick to the past.” God has a different message, and this message we must try to learn from God. God tells us: “There is no such thing as future, children, My sweet children. There is only here, there is only now, there is only here and now. Try to grow in the immediacy of today. Try to live in My Vision-Boat and My Reality-Shore. Like Me, try to remain always in the eternal Now. Grow in Me. Glow in Me. Flow in Me. The eternal Now is the only Reality. He who aspires discovers the Reality of the eternal Now.”

Sri Chinmoy and Pir Vilayat Khan²

Sri Chinmoy: I am fortunate and blessed to be here with the supreme Authority on Sufism. He is not only the supreme Authority but also the supreme embodiment of love and truth in the Sufi tradition. He has a heart and I have a heart. The Supreme, out of His infinite Bounty, has granted us two aspiring hearts, and both of us are safe in each other’s hearts, are happy in each other’s hearts, are illumining and fulfilling in each other’s hearts.

I have come here to share with you soulful meditation and also I have come here to be in the company of a supremely holy man, Pir Vilayat Khan. I am extremely grateful to all the seekers of truth and light who have given me the opportunity to be of dedicated service here for an hour or so. Nothing gives me greater joy and fulfilment than to become a server of truth and light in the hearts of aspiring mankind. With your kind permission I will hold meditation.

Pir Vilayat Khan and his students offer a prayer.

Sri Chinmoy and his students offer a prayer.

Pir Vilayat Khan: Sri Chinmoy, it is my privilege to say how open our hearts are to receive you in this temporary abode, where you bless us by your presence. You said so many nice things about me. I wish to say that your presence here is a blessing to our gathering. You are a true representative of the spirituality of our home, India.

Ever since I met you for the first time, the link between us has always grown in strength, although we have seen each other only three or four times. But I want to say how greatly I value the meaning of that bond, because it is the one of true dedication to the service of God.

[Sri Chinmoy meditated with the assembly.]

Sri Chinmoy: I wish to offer a soulful song of mine to our sweet and beloved spiritual brother, Pir Vilayat Khan. I wish to dedicate this song to you.

Pir Vilayat Khan: I feel very deeply moved.

Sri Chinmoy:

[Sri Chinmoy’s disciples sang Ekbar Shudhu Bhalo, whose translation Sri Chinmoy had just recited. Musical notation for this song appears at the end of this issue. Sri Chinmoy then welcomed questions from the seekers.]

Pir Vilayat Khan: Does the path of liberation lead to service or does the path of service lead to liberation?

Sri Chinmoy: When we are in the ordinary life, the unaspiring life, the path of service leads us to liberation. Through gradual progress, from the desire-life we enter into the aspiration-life. From service we gradually enter into spiritual freedom, which is liberation. Once we are liberated, once we are freed from the meshes of ignorance, we serve mankind in God’s own way. Before we attain to liberation we serve God according to our capacity and according to our necessity. Once we have been liberated by His infinite Bounty, we serve Him again, but this time we serve Him in His own way. And it is He who manifests Himself in and through our service with His infinite capacity.

So the path of service leads us to liberation and the path of liberation leads us again to service. But after liberation the service is totally different. At that time we serve the Supreme unconditionally in His own way. Before liberation we serve in order to enter into liberation; our service is conditional. It is our feeling that we are giving God ninety-nine percent and He is giving us only one percent. But when we realise God, we feel that God has given us ninety-nine percent and we have given Him only one percent. And when we go deep within, we come to realise that He has given us one hundred percent. We realise that He has given us the whole, for there are many who have not cried for God, who are not awakened at all. Awakening has taken place inside us because of the infinite Grace of the Supreme operating in and through us. In the beginning, while we are trying to liberate ourselves from ignorance-net, we feel that we are working extremely hard. God, perhaps, has turned a deaf ear to our inner cry. But gradually, gradually we come to realise that the reality is totally different. It is God Himself who has awakened us. It is He who is liberating Himself in and through us. Who is God, after all? God is the descending Smile. And who is man, after all? Man is the ascending cry. They need each other badly.

[other questions followed]

Sri Chinmoy and Pir Vilayat Khan present each other with copies of their books.

The farewell

— photos by Pranavananda

Pir Vilayat Khan: Sri Chinmoy, our thanks go to you for having granted us the blessing of your presence here. It has meant very much to all of us, being here in your presence. We shall always treasure this visit. And we wish you every blessing and every success and every joy on the mission that you are carrying out in the service of the Masters, saints and prophets.

Sri Chinmoy: Once more I wish to offer from the depth of my heart my soulful and ever-increasing gratitude to the supreme Sufi Master, Pir Vilayat Khan, and also to his dear and beloved disciples and students, for having granted me the opportunity to be of dedicated and devoted service. There may be many roads, but there is only one Goal. At God’s choice Hour we shall reach the selfsame Goal. Now we are not consciously aware of our inseparable oneness, but when we reach our destination, we realise that we have eternally been in one boat, the Boat of the Supreme, going to one Goal.

As I said before, we are perfectly safe, your Master and I, in our hearts’ oneness, in our hearts’ love for Truth, in our hearts’ love for God’s Vision and Reality. Both of us have established a most significant inner inseparable oneness. We complement each other and fulfil each other in the Heart of the Supreme Pilot.

To you all who are his spiritual children I wish to say that my heart is inseparably one with you, for I am inseparably one with your source, with your Master.

Faith is God’s mighty power in man.
Devotion is man’s mighty power in God.
Faith carries man into the Heart of God.
Devotion carries God into the heart of man.

The New York Times, Friday, July 25, 1975

Representatives of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i and Muslim groups at prayer ceremony at the Church Center of the U.N.

Sri Chinmoy is standing at far left. Channel 11 T.V. news covered the event on their midnight broadcast that night.

National Prayer Day Service

6 FAITHS PRESENT AT CHURCH CENTER

Leaders Mark National Day of Prayer at the U. N.

By George Dugan

Leaders of six of the world’s major religious bodies marked this country’s National Day of Prayer yesterday at a ceremony attended by 100 people in the chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations, at First Avenue and 44th Street.

The Rev. Dr. Dan M. Potter, executive director of the Council of Churches of the City of New York, called it the “most representative gathering of religious leaders ever held in the city.”

Sri Chinmoy, a Hindu and director of the United Nations Meditation Group, presided at the hour-long ceremony. He opened the meeting with silent prayer, standing behind a plain white marble altar.

Then, in brief comments, the leaders representing Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i and Muslim groups — called upon Americans to renew their “dedication to the eternal” in prayer and asked God to lead all the nations in “paths of righteousness.”

The speakers, in addition to Dr. Potter, included the following: Rabbi Samuel Geffen of the New York Board of Rabbis, Lozang Jamspal of the Buddhist Monastery of America. The Rev. Robert Kennedy of the Brooklyn Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Stephen Kyriacou of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. Catherine Mboye of the Baha’i International Community, Muddassir Ali Shamsee of the Muslim Prayer Group. Sheik Shahabu-d-din of the Sufi Order. The Rev. Grant Anderson of the Queens Federation of Churches. The Rev. Kenneth Folkes, president of the Council of Churches of the City of New York.

Dr. Potter said there was much for which “we can thank I God, but, we see so many shortcomings, so many failures, so many examples of injustice, inequality, discrimination, brutality, pain, suffering and interminable degrading violence to human dignity.”

“We cannot celebrate this Bicentennial,” he added, “without feeling the compelling need to sit in sackcloth and ashes, in penance for our failure to God as well as our disappointment to fellow citizens.”

Following the commentaries, excerpts were read from President Ford’s statement proclaiming yesterday as a National Day of Prayer, the late President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and the writings of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Sacred Fire, a 30-member choral group, sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “America the Beautiful."

Questions and answers on patriotism

//asked by disciples on a trip to Boston, 9 June 1975//

Question: Is patriotism in a dictatorship as meaningful as patriotism in a freedom-loving country?

Sri Chinmoy: There is a great difference between patriotism in a dictatorship and in a freedom-loving country. Even though a dictator may have patriotic feelings for his country, there is always a sense of conscious ego inside him. He wants his country to follow him. He feels that he deserves the love of his countrymen more than anybody else does. He feels that he is the supreme authority on the country and the country’s welfare. The dictator does not love his country as such. He loves his own capacity to rule the country. In a country under a dictator, patriotism will be a forced love of country, commanded by a higher authority. One person’s love of his country in an authoritative manner will be executed in the minds and lives of many. The many have no choice of their own. They cannot express their love of country individually.

In order to give to the country one’s own inner and outer feelings unreservedly, one must always try to live in a country not controlled by a dictator. A freedom-loving country wants to liberate itself from human sovereignty. The country loves freedom because it feels that in a life of freedom it can achieve more light, more joy, more satisfaction. A sincerely freedom-loving country will not try to get freedom by hook or by crook, but by soul’s strength and inner cry so that it can offer its capacity, its achievement, to the comity of the world. The patriotism of a freedom-loving country is for the country’s sake, for the country’s benefit, not for the aggrandisement of someone’s ego in a clever or unconscious way. In a freedom-loving country patriotism is a conscious prayer, a conscious concentrative force to spread freedom so that the country can achieve and distribute love-light to each countryman and to the world at large.

Question: What can patriotism achieve for a country?

Sri Chinmoy: Patriotism can achieve for a country the message of oneness, the message of satisfaction, the message of human perfection and God-manifestation. The country is the mother. In order for the mother to be pleased and fulfilled, she has to be given the full opportunity to feed her children unreservedly. The mother gets this opportunity when the children want from her what she has: her love, her concern, her blessing, her compassion, her sympathy, her feeling of oneness. A patriot can offer his need to the mother country. When he tells his country what he needs, the country gets the opportunity to offer it to the individual.

Again, when a patriot becomes a real lover of his country, then his love enters into the country. First he cries for love from his country and then he gives it his own love. When he feels he has no love, he cries for the mother to give him love. When the mother gives love to him, he feels that he has abundant love and he offers it back to his country. When love of country and love from country are simultaneous, the message of oneness, the message of satisfaction, the message of human perfection and God-manifestation can dawn in a country.

Question: What is the best way to develop or cultivate a patriotic feeling towards one's country?

Sri Chinmoy: The country has to be taken as a mother. When we think of our mother, what do we think of? Her affection, her love, her sympathy, her sacrifice. The moment we think of her sacrifice, the moment we think of any good quality of hers, our heart becomes flooded with gratitude. When we have even an iota of gratitude for the one who has loved us and will love us always, we increase our capacity to please that person, to fulfil that person. By being aware of what our country has done for us or has given us or will give us, we develop and cultivate the capacity to love our country.

Question: How can the feeling of patriotism help one's spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: The real spiritual life is the life of acceptance. In order to be patriotic one has to accept one’s own country as one’s very own. I love my body, I love my vital, I love my mind, I love my heart, I love my soul, and I love my God. I have to feel that what I love is ultimately my love for my own existence, my own transcendence, my own perfection. I love God for my self-transcendence. I love a human being for my own expansion. I love a country for my own expansion, and my own perfection.

Love is oneness. Love is the completion of perfection. If I love my country, I have to know that the country also has a soul, the country has a body, the country has a reality. If I love the reality in anything, that means I am loving the source. The source is spirituality; the source is divinity. If I become one, inseparably one with something, that means I have established a higher, a deeper, a more meaningful reality within me. It is like this: if I really love the creation, then I have to love the Creator; if I really love the Creator, then I will definitely love the creation. God is the Creator and the country is the creation. We cannot separate the two. Even if the creation has millions of defects, just because we love the Creator, we love the creation.

The Creator is also bound to love his creation, and vice versa. If we identify ourselves with the Creator, we will definitely feel love for the creation. If we identify ourselves with the creation, then it is our bounden duty to love the Creator. A child may be born blind and deaf, but the mother feels he is the most beautiful child on earth. Why? Because the child is the mother’s own creation. The world will say that he is blind, he is deaf or he is ugly, but according to the mother he is most beautiful, he is most perfect. The mother’s sense of perfection or beauty does not depend on others’ judgement or others’ way of seeing the reality. The mother will see according to her own understanding, according to her own awakening, according to her own standard. She will love her child no matter what. In the case of a country, if we take God as the Creator and become identified with the Creator, then naturally what the Creator has created — our country — we will love. And if we love the country — the little child who is deaf and blind — then we will be able to go to the Source, God.

Either we appreciate the source and then learn to appreciate the creation of the source, or we appreciate the creation and then learn to appreciate the source. Our country is the creation and God is the Source. Either from the seed we go to the fruit or from the fruit we go to the seed. In this way if we develop love for our country, then spontaneously we shall develop love for our Source, the Supreme Creator.

Jharna Kala News

City of Bristol

BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT 06010 Office of the Mayor

July 14, 1975

The Honorable Sri Chinmoy Sri Chinmoy Centre 85-45 149th Street Jamaica Hills, Queens, N.Y. 11435

Dear Sri Chinmoy:

Thank you for your letter of June 6 and kind words regarding the chrysanthemum cutting named in your honour. If ever I am in Hew York, I would most assuredly try to attend and view the Art Exhibit.

I regret I was unable to meet with your protege, Alan Singer, and personally accept your invitation to the opening, but I was scheduled at the time to be at the Mayor's Conference in Boston.

I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and kind words and the thoughtfulness of Mr. Singer. Our very best wishes to you in this new and worthwhile venture.

Cordially, Frank J. Longo, Sr. Mayor

cc. Mr. Alan Singer c/o Sri Chinmoy Centre

A few lines from Biren Palit

Biren Palit, Madal’s spiritual brother-mentor

To dear Madal,

A few lines on his paintings;

The Artist of Heaven through the artist-soul of this mortal world has been pouring the Immortal Fountain in colours.

Where music is mute of words and cadence speaks — in these paintings lines are invisible, colour is full of speech.

Wishing well affectionately, Birenda

Prayers from the Jharna-Kala Gallery

On Monday, 7 July, at 7:30 p.m. the new Jharna-Kala Gallery opened in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. On display in the gallery are approximately 7,000 of Sri Chinmoy’s paintings and drawings. Preparing the gallery for its grand opening was a mammoth job, on which perhaps a hundred disciples worked over a period of about three weeks. One evening shortly before the opening date, while work was still in progress, Sri Chinmoy gathered together all those who were in the gallery for a brief meditation. After the meditation he had the disciples come forward in small groups to offer their short and spontaneous prayers to the Supreme. Following is a selection from the eighty prayers offered.

1.

Tell me only once
That You are mine
And I am Yours.
Your smile of love-nectar
Is the companion.
Of my life
And the light of my death.
In Heaven and on earth,
Tell me only once
That my heart is Your Beloved Supreme.

Ekbar shudhu bhalo Tumi je amar ami je tomar Ekbar shudhu bhalo Taba prema shudha hashi Jibaner sathi maraner bhati Ekbar shudhu bhalo Tumi je amar ami je tomar Ekbar shudhu bhalo Swarge martye bhalo Antara mama taba priyatama