The wisdom of Sri Chinmoy, a modern day guru

[Armat]

TWO SECRETS: REINCARNATION AND EVOLUTION

 

To understand the secrets of reincarnation, evolution and

transformation we must first understand the most significant secret

of all: the secret of karma.

Sasun j

There is something very uncomfortable for me about the whole Karma concept. It seems a justification of anything that can be justified. Let me clarify. There are massive numbers of people in India and Asia who are cast into particular social ladder which at times can become cruel like untouchables in India but it is justified by their lower status Karma or their past crimes etc. It seems, it is a convenient way to explain away anything and everything.

I believe in true Buddhism as manifested in Zen tradition, which wipes everything clean including Karma.

[Anileve]

I believe in true Buddhism as manifested in Zen tradition, which wipes everything clean including Karma.

Armat, I am not sure what you mean by the above. Karma is very much persistent in Buddhism, and it’s mainly based on the “intentional actions,” as opposed to Hinduism where karma is composed of involuntary actions and is strictly enforced upon generations which are born into the cast system. I guess, it’s sort of like “Destiny” beyond ones control. So I am confused, how does Buddhism wipe out Karma?

[Sasun]

Yes Armat, I don't understand either.

As far as I understand karma is the right thing. It explains, among other things, why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. It has no other explanation in a fair and non-arbitrary creation.

I have never heard anything about justifying Hindu castes by karma, particularly by Sri Chinmoy. Everyone can blame karma for anything. According to Sri Chinmoy it may happen also that a person has a good karma but is attacked by hostile forces and suffers. So, it is not a strict rule. The most important thing is that karma, being ones fate of ones own making, can change if the person is willing to take right action. Fate depends on us unlike popular belief that we depend on fate.

BTW Anileve, in Hinduism karma is not just the involuntary actions, it is all physical actions, all thoughts and all words that come out from a person.

[Sasun]

Damn, the man makes so much sense it's unbelievable

Hmm... that particular quote was never obvious to me, but it is a very important idea of unity. Like Jesus said "Me and my Father are one". That is what everyone who realizes God experiences.

[Armat]

Armat, I am not sure what you mean by the above. Karma is very much persistent in Buddhism, and it’s mainly based on the “intentional actions,”  as opposed to Hinduism where karma is composed of involuntary actions and is strictly enforced upon generations which are born into the cast system. I guess, it’s sort of  like “Destiny” beyond ones control. So I am confused, how does Buddhism wipe out Karma?

Ani j

 

I was refering to Zen Buddhism which does not believe in any dogma or Karma.The point of Zen tradition is enlightment which happens to be the hardest thing to achieve.

Great book to read (next book session)

Zen in the Art of Archery

by Authors: Daisetz T. Suzuki , Eugen Herrigel

Edited April 24, 2004 by Armat

[Sasun]

I was refering to Zen Buddhism which does not believe in any dogma or Karma.The point of Zen tradition is enlightment which happens to be the hardest thing to achieve.

Isn't it a dogma itself?

[Sasun]

The Difference Between A Stark Atheist And A Staunch God-Believer

 

Once a disciple said to his Master, "How horrible atheists are! God

is so kind, so compassionate, so forgiving. Without God's Presence,

no human being can live on earth. How can atheists be so cruel to

God?"

 

The Master replied, "My son, that is your way of thinking." The

disciple said, "Master, please illumine us. What do you think of an

atheist?"

 

The Master said, "The difference between an atheist and a

God-believer like you is very simple. You are a talker and an

atheist is a doer."

 

The disciples were surprised and shocked by the Master's statement.

Then the Master told the following story:

 

There happened to be a very, very old man who was a street beggar.

One day the old man came to an atheist and asked him for money. The

old beggar said, "Sir, if you help me, God will be so grateful to

you and so proud of you. Then God will bless you and give you more

outer riches."

 

The atheist said, "Shut up, shut up! I do not believe in God and I

have nothing to do with God. If you have anything to do with God,

then go to Him for alms and do not bother me."

 

The beggar replied, "I know that God exists, but at this moment I do

not know where He is. Otherwise, I would have gone to Him and asked

Him for a little food and money to lead a very simple life."

 

The atheist said, "You believe in God, but you do not know where God

is! You have spoken all about God's Goodness, Kindness and

Compassion, but He is not giving you the material things that you

need. I do not believe in God at all, but if I give you money, then

I shall become your God, your real God. The one who is kind to you

and compassionate to you is the real God. The other God is hiding.

God alone knows where He is!" Then the atheist gave the old beggar a

large sum of money.

 

After telling this story, the Master said to his disciples, "You

always brag about your good qualities, but if this street beggar had

come to you, you would have given ten reasons why you could not help

him. You would have said, 'Oh, I do not have enough money. I have to

buy something special on this particular day,' and so forth. For so

many reasons you would have refused to help the poor old man who

needed money and food so desperately.

 

"Although the atheist did not believe in God, he helped the beggar.

So he became the real God at that time. This is the difference

between a stark atheist and a staunch God-believer, like you."

[Sasun]

The real reality is a simple simplicity, and not a complexity. Complexity has

never been related to reality.

[Sasun]

What is spirituality? It is the common language of man and God.

[Sasun]

How can we have peace?

Not by talking about peace,

But by walking

Along the road of peace.

[Sasun]

He who loves never grows old;

God is a shining example.

[Sasun]

Running 3,100 Miles, and Following Their Leader Every Step of the Way

By COREY KILGANNON

 

Published: July 1, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/nyregion/01race.html

 

Followers of Sri Chinmoy honor him and seek spiritual transcendence in various ways. A dozen followers are doing it this month by running around a city block in Jamaica, Queens, for seven weeks straight, 18 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to midnight.

 

The eighth annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3,100-Mile Run - which its organizers call the world's longest certified foot race - began on June 13 and is scheduled to finish on Aug. 3.

 

The runners jog around the Thomas A. Edison Vocational Technical High School, a distance of roughly a half-mile. So participants must log an average of 60.7 miles daily over 51 days to finish 3,100 miles. That's 5,649 laps, or well beyond the distance from New York to Los Angeles.

 

Mr. Chinmoy visits the race course each morning to bless the runners and check their daily mileage totals.

 

The participants go through sneakers so quickly that there is one race volunteer assigned to resoling shoes. To avoid excessive weight loss, runners eat while running, consuming sticks of butter or heavy cream or avocados.

 

The race course is lined with fences, pay phones, fire hydrants and construction crews. Volunteers staff refreshment tables. Laps are logged with a clipboard for each runner.

 

Suprabha Beckjord, 48, of Washington, D.C., the only woman running, is the only person to have completed the race in each of the past seven years. Running and sipping from a cup of water with lemon, salt and maple syrup, she said she began running ultra-marathons to honor Mr. Chinmoy.

 

The race is "a firsthand expression of God's compassion and grace," said Ms. Beckjord, who owns a gift shop called Transcendence-Perfection-Bliss of the Beyond.

 

Arpan DeAngelo, 52, of Queens, who has run in more than 100 standard 26-mile marathons, says he passes the time by chanting Mr. Chinmoy's mantras, verses from the Bible and the Vedas.

 

"I don't call it a race, I call it a pilgrimage," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to transform our lives. The race is such a monster that it teaches you a deep spiritual principle, which is to live in the moment. You can't look at your mileage or who is front or behind you."

 

Suffering from shin splints, Mr. DeAngelo was tended by Meghabhuti Roth, 51, a Minneapolis doctor on hand. Dr. Roth massaged Mr. DeAngelo's legs while chanting mantras about healing with God's light.

 

"I've seen runners here get 104-degree fevers and then heal themselves," Dr. Roth said. "The race really becomes a meditation because the mind just shuts off. Part of the spiritual journey is just hanging in there."

[Sasun]

They're Not Heavy; They're His People

By COREY KILGANNON

 

Published: July 1, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/nyregion/01chinmoy.html

 

On 164th Street in Jamaica, Queens, there is a vegetarian restaurant called Annam Brahma with a series of photographs on its rear wall showing a bald man in his 70's doing one-arm dumbbell lifts, going incrementally, over 18 months, from 40 pounds up to what is claimed to be 7,063 pounds.

 

It sounds like a bar bet, but it is Sri Chinmoy: powerlifter for world peace. Mr. Chinmoy is a spiritual guru and founder of a worldwide empire of meditation centers based in Jamaica.

 

Besides staggering stacks of iron weights, Mr. Chinmoy's lift résumé also includes heavy objects - airplanes, schoolhouses, pickup trucks.

 

But mostly he lifts people, more than 7,000 of them since 1988, when he started his "Lifting Up The World With a One-Ness Heart" campaign. He selects contributors to world peace, public figures and regular folk alike, and then honors them by shoulder-pressing them above his head on a custom-made lifting stand at an inconspicuous compound built around a clay tennis court across from the restaurant.

 

He has lifted Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Ali and Jesse Jackson. There was Eddie Murphy, Susan Sarandon, Roberta Flack, Yoko Ono, and of course Sting and Richard Gere. Mr. Chinmoy lifted 20 Nobel laureates and a team of sumo wrestlers. He lifted Sid Caesar and a (reformed) headhunter from Borneo.

 

Mr. Chinmoy, 72, believes that athletics - specifically, achievements of extreme physical endurance - can help people attain spiritual enlightenment.

 

In an interview last week, minutes after lifting the actor Jeff Goldblum, Mr. Chinmoy said his lifts are meant to increase awareness for his humanitarian aid campaign, to inspire others to transcend expectations and limitations, and to realize that "impossibility is a dictionary word."

 

"If you depend on God's grace there is no such thing as impossible," he said, sitting in his glassed-in chamber just beyond the tennis court baseline.

 

Mr. Chinmoy used to use long-distance running to demonstrate this effect. But after a knee injury, he turned to weight lifting.

 

At first, he struggled with 20-pound dumbbells, but quickly increased his strength thanks to "God's grace" and a tough daily fitness regimen that includes very short, very heavy lifts. He said he shoulder-presses two 500-pound dumbbells several times with each arm and does seated calf extensions with 1,600 pounds and standing ones with 2,300 pounds. He uses custom-made exercise machines for his specialized lift styles.

 

Some experts have called the lifts frauds and obvious physical impossibilities for anyone, much less a man in his 70's standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing about 170 pounds. Mr. Chinmoy's lifts are videotaped and photographed by his followers, and he insists he does not care about the pound-count enough to lie.

 

"I'm not a weight lifter," he said. "I'm a seeker. Weight lifting is so insignificant in my life."

 

He says he sleeps about 90 minutes a day and begins his morning meditation session at 2:30. He says he has done more than 14 million "peace bird" drawings, has written 1,400 books, 80,000 poems and 18,000 songs, and done 200,000 paintings. And he says he has given more than 700 concerts, including one in which he played more than 100 instruments.

 

Chinmoy Kumar Ghose was born a Hindu in 1931 in what is now Bangladesh. He lost his parents as a child and entered an ashram, a religious community, at age 12.

 

He was an avid athlete whose childhood idol was the track star Jesse Owens. After immigrating to New York in 1964, he worked as a clerk at the Indian Consulate and then opened his meditation center in Queens with a philosophy of celibacy, vegetarianism and meditation. In the 70's he was a guru to such music stars as Carlos Santana, Ms. Flack and Clarence Clemons.

 

Now, he says he has about 7,000 disciples worldwide. Of the 200 living in the neighborhood, about 50 work at the United Nations.

 

He lives in a two-story home on 149th Street in Queens, drives a sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle, and holds regular meditation sessions at a local elementary school. And in the area around Normal Road near Parsons Boulevard, Mr. Chinmoy runs a spiritual boot camp.

 

His followers pursue inner peace through a regimen of meditation, a strict vegetarian diet, selfless service and ultra-endurance activities like extreme weight lifting, distance running and swimming.

 

Many local followers rent rooms in local houses owned by other members, and work in member-owned stores nearby that are painted bright blue and have elaborate names such as the Smile of the Beyond coffee shop and the Garland of Divinity's Love florist.

 

Many prove their devotion by swimming the English Channel or running marathons. One follower, Ashrita Furman, has broken 82 Guinness world records to honor Mr. Chinmoy.

 

Mr. Chinmoy gives his followers Bengali names and often refers to them as boys and girls. He recommends that his followers abstain from sex, marriage, alcohol, tobacco and other worldly interferences.

 

Some disgruntled former members have called the group a brainwashing cult.

 

Members have been taken back by their parents. In 1979 a follower practicing a stunt for the group's annual circus was found dead in his bathtub, his head stuck in a bucket of water.

 

Mr. Chinmoy's followers say all the disgruntled followers had problems before even joining the group. Last week, as Mr. Chinmoy prepared to lift Jeff Goldblum at the tennis court, which his disciples call Aspiration Ground, the verdant, sun-dappled grove of lush gardens, abundant flowers and burbling ponds and fountains seemed a universe apart from New York City. Women in saris settled onto the stadium-style benches overlooking the court. Many of the men were dressed all in white, and the largest worked the lifting apparatus. Mr. Chinmoy, dressed in blue robes and white clogs, moved slowly to the lifting rack. The scene felt like "Apocalypse Now," with Mr. Chinmoy, shaven head and meditative expression, resembling Marlon Brando's character. After playing several different instruments and meditating for a bit, he sat to lift.

 

"Lifting up the world," sang a chorus of disciples, "with a oneness heart." With that, Mr. Chinmoy rolled up his sleeves, winced and lifted Mr. Goldblum with his left arm. Mr. Goldblum brought the actress Illeana Douglas along and Mr. Chinmoy lifted her too. This reporter was also lifted. Each time, applause echoed across the tennis court. Later, Mr. Chinmoy deflected praise.

 

"It's all God's grace," he said. "If I say that I have done it, that will be the worst possible lie in my life."

[Sasun]

A REAL GURU

 

Who is a real Guru?

A real Guru is he

Who does not call you stupid,

Undivine and useless.

 

A real Guru is he who says:

"You have knowledge,

But you need more knowledge.

Try, you certainly can!"

 

A real Guru is he who says:

"You are divine,

But you can be more divine.

Try, you certainly can!"

 

A real Guru is he who says:

"You are useful,

Infinitely more useful

Than you ever can imagine.

But you can be more useful.

Try, you certainly can!"

 

A real Guru is he who says:

"You are God's chosen instrument.

You are useful,

You are fruitful,

You are indispensable

To the divine Vision of God."

 

http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/sri-chinm...t/part10/2.html