Oneness-Dream is an all male acapella singing group who perform the songs of Sri Chinmoy; recently they visited the West coast of California to perform several concerts.
Several concerts took place in former Spanish missions which were established during the early years of California in the Eighteenth Century. Many missions have been since abandoned, but a peace still endures in these former places of worship. Continue reading “Oneness-Dream in California”
Members of the Auckland Sri Chinmoy Centre have embraced a global initiative to promote happiness through offering books, posters and meditation workshops on the theme of happiness.
With the topic of happiness much in the news – and increasingly relevant in a world where, by 2020, depression is being identified as the probable second leading cause of disability worldwide – it is reassuring to see a number of global efforts to address this issue.
A new blog at Writespirit offers a collection of inspiration spiritual quotes and poetry from a range of poets, luminaries and Spiritual Teachers. The blog is a celebration of the diversity of paths that can lead to the same goal. – Write Spirit Blog
If you have inner peace, nobody can force you to be a slave to the outer reality.
The World Festival of the Heart is an event to be held in Melbourne, November 2012; it will seek to explore how we can use ‘heart-power’ to improve the well-being of the world.
Sri Chinmoy has a very famous and much quoted aphorism:
“When the power of love replaces the love of power, man will have a new name: God.†[1]
In an explanation of this, Sri Chinmoy elaborated by saying that here ‘God’ means universality.
He said that when we use the power of love, individuality immediately disappears and is replaced by universality or a positive feeling of oneness; however when we use the love of power, we feel separate and superior, feelings that very often lead to destruction.
Using this deeply insightful and meaningful ideal to build upon, the World Festival of the Heart, an event to be staged in Melbourne, Australia in November this year, was born. The Festival is a gathering of luminaries across the fields of spirituality, science and the arts, to celebrate their wisdom and life achievements, and to collectively explore how we can use “heart-power†to improve the fundamental wellbeing of all life on our planet.
Our world is standing on the brink of a new era and all around us we are witnessing a thrilling convergence of these three amazing fields of endeavour. Festival organisers are planning a three-day program that will explore this “convergence†and the possibilities it holds to change our lives in unimaginable ways.
Festival organisers are creating a program full of activities: workshops, music, dialogue, devotions, performance, concerts, an expo and a grand forum. The program is designed for anyone who has a passion for life, for the world and our future. Themes for Festival participants to explore will include:
Further information and contact details for the Festival can be found at www.festivaloftheheart.org.
Footnotes
[1] Sri Chinmoy, 1970, Meditations: Food For The Soul
If you can create harmony
In your own life,
This harmony will enter
Into the vast world.
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy says of death:
“What is death? Death is the immortal pilgrim’s short rest along the road of Eternity. Death is a necessary experience for human beings at the present state of their evolving consciousness.”
Excerpt from My Rose Petals, Part 3 by Sri Chinmoy.
Death is the journey into the unknown. Death means the end of our physical body; to some people this feels like the end of life. However, the Seer Poets have suggested that we are not the body but spirit. If we can have an identity with our inner self then we will lose our fear of death. Death becomes instead merely a process of transition from one stage of life to the next.
On the day I die, when I’m being
carried toward the grave, don’t weep.Don’t say, “He’s gone! He’s gone!”
Death has nothing to do with going away.The sun sets and the moon sets,
but they’re not gone. Death
is a coming together.
– Rumi (1)
To overcome a feeling of death we need to cultivate a sense of spiritual identity. If we live only in the mind and intellect we will always be sceptical about the spiritual life. The intellect has its purpose and benefits, but the mind also has its limitations. To discover our real self we need to transcend the mind and dive deep into our spiritual heart, where our soul abides. If we can learn to meditate and quieten the mind we will become aware of a powerful inner reality. This embodies a consciousness more illumining and real than our ordinary mental awareness. We may not be able to prove this to others; it is something we can only experience for ourselves. Through meditation if we can feel a real and abiding peace then we will feel the soul is a living reality and not a mental hallucination. The lofty inspirations of the Seer poets will resonate with our inner realisations.
“Death is but changing of our robes to wait
In wedding garments at the Eternal’s gate.
– Sri Aurobindo (2)
In the west the concept of reincarnation does not have widespread belief. However in Buddhist and Hindu traditions reincarnation is an integral part of their philosophy. The idea of reincarnation is that the human soul needs to experience many different experiences before it is able to achieve liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Reincarnation enables the human soul to gain experiences, through which it can make spiritual progress.
Nothing on earth is permanent. The only certainties in life are that all creatures must die and pass away. Death is as natural as birth; why should we fear that which is perfectly natural and inevitable? That which gives us life also takes away life. But here death only means the extinction of the body. The soul merely passes from one body to another. For the soul life is immortal, death has no meaning. This is the message of the Upanishads, as Sri Chinmoy says
“Before death, life is a seeker.
After death, the same life becomes a dreamer.
Before death, life struggles and strives for Perfection.
After death, the same life rests
and enjoys the divine Bliss with the soul.” (3)
References
(1) Rumi ode 911 translated by Coleman Barks
(2) Excerpt from: The Fear Of Life And Death by Sri Aurobindo
(3) Excerpt from The Upanishads: The Crown Of India’s Soul by Sri Chinmoy.
See articles on The Vedas and Upanishads
Article by: Tejvan Pettinger, Oxford, Sri Chinmoy Centre
