In his writings and talks, Sri Chinmoy offered many different meditation techniques – from simple tips to still the mind – to the use of mantra, music and visualisation.
An example exercise to transcend the mind and invoke the soul
“In order to purify your mind, the best thing to do is to feel every day for a few minutes during your meditation that you have no mind. Say to yourself, “I have no mind, I have no mind. What I have is the heart.” Then after some time feel, “I don’t have a heart. What I have is the soul.” When you say, “I have the soul,” at that time you will be flooded with purity.”
Every Christmas, Sri Chinmoy used to travel with his students to different countries on a Christmas retreat, a tradition his students still honour today. Noivedya Juddery gives an account of his retreat experience in Indonesia. Continue reading “A Christmas meditative retreat”
Last week Kailash Beyer from the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Zürich, Switzerland, travelled to Brazil to offer lectures and meditation classes. He gave four talks in four different cities: Manaus, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Niteroi.
A lecture of Kailash (left, orange shirt) in Sao Paolo.
Kailash’s talks revolved around the transforming power of meditation and the importance of having a spiritual master to guide you on the inner journey of self-discovery. Kailash has been a student of Sri Chinmoy for over 30 years and has travelled the world to share Sri Chinmoy’s spiritual philosophy with seekers of all walks of life.
In Auckland, New Zealand, members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre have been offering free meditation workshops for a variety of local businesses.
You don’t need to go to the mountains to learn how to meditate.
Jogyata Dallas from Auckland writes about this new project:
An interesting and very encouraging development in the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, has been our growing involvement in offering free meditation workshops to large businesses and institutions – hospitals, banks, television studios, insurance companies, manufacturing warehouses, even beauty salons! An offer in our usual ‘Learn Meditation’ flier to provide an instructor who will introduce the ABCs of meditation and stress management ‘at your place of work’, and in any suitable lunchtime or morning session, is attracting a growing response.
In one Auckland medical centre I was asked by the director how they could maintain this new skill and incorporate meditation into the very stressful lives of their employees. I suggested, without much hope that this would happen, that they set aside a dedicated meditation room or ‘peace’ room and meet several times weekly. The suggestion was enthusiastically welcomed and I have since learnt that this program is now very much alive. I gave them some of Sri Chinmoy’s music, his main book on meditation and a clutch of my favorite incense – new friendships forged!
At an international beauty clinic where we gave a one hour lunchtime workshop, the fifteen women were so pleased with their feeling of an uncharacteristic inner peace that they presented me with a large box of beauty products! – hair restoratives (the only item of real interest!), expensive skin tonics, a slew of shampoos and revitalizers. My popularity among the women members of our Centre shot up overnight when I distributed these the following day.
Last week I was invited to introduce meditation to a group of lawyers on the 35th floor of a corporate tower. We all enjoyed ourselves, we were all inspired! Human beings have their fundamental spirituality in common, even where our choice of lifestyle or profession takes us into such divergent worlds of experience.
I like to remind people how special they are to even have an interest or curiosity in meditation – a very significant time in our evolution, as though the soul is stirring after a long time of forgetfulness.
I do like this outreach program very much – the consequences are immeasurable but profound, the ripples of positive change spreading out into time and space and touching countless, multiplying lives with the perennial message of awakening.
Every Sunday morning the Sri Chinmoy Centre of Seoul in South-Korea offers free meditation classes for the public. The classes are given in a yoga studio and are attended by about 40 people.
Sunday morning meditation class in Seoul
The classes are given by Hemabha, who also initiated the Seoul Sri Chinmoy Centre. Hemabha was born in Korea, but then moved to London where she became a student of Sri Chinmoy. She recently moved back to her home country.
Recently, Jayasalini Abramovskikh from the Moscow Sri Chinmoy Centre, travelled to Brazil for a series of meditation classes focused on the subject of Self-Transcendence. One week earlier Jayasalini had completed the Self-Transcendence 6 Day Race in New York where she ran a total of 600K, averaging 100 kilometres per day.
Jayasalini running the Self-Transcendence 6 Day Race
According to Jayasalini the 6 Day Race is an opportunity to develop faith, willpower and the necessity of competing only with oneself.
Our philosophy
Is progress.
In our self-transcendence
Is our tremendous joy.
– Sri Chinmoy [1]
Jayaslini lectured in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. About 100 spiritual seekers attended her classes.
Jayasalini poses with members from the Sri Chinmoy Centres in Brazil
[1] Sri Chinmoy, Excerpt from Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 13
On 9 April, the New York Sri Chinmoy Centre organised a unique meditation workshop which drew an enthusiastic audience of 500 people.
As well as information and techniques on meditation, the evening also featured soulful musical performances which brought the listener directly into the vastness and peace of meditation. Many of the musicians had arrived from all corners of the world to attend the anniversary celebration’s of Sri Chinmoy’s arrival in the west on April 13, 1964.
In a recent interview, Ashrita Furman, a student of Sri Chinmoy, explains how the practise of meditation helped him in his spiritual journey and setting a wide range of Guinness World Records.
Ashrita setting a record for fastest fireman's carry (1 mile)
When Ashrita was young, he admits he was not good at sport, in fact he mentions he was ‘a bit of nerd’. But, after practising meditation for several years, Sri Chinmoy saw Ashrita had the potential to aim for a big mileage in a 24 hour cycle race. To Ashrita’s surprise he was able to ride 405 miles in 24 hours, with little training – displaying to himself how techniques of meditation and mantra can help us to transcend our previous limitations.
Ashrita setting record for biggest Hula Hoop
View this video at Sri Chinmoy TV for more inspirational words from the man with the most Guinness world records.
Video produced by Parimal Repka, Hungary Sri Chinmoy Centre.
Members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre frequently give free meditation classes in cities around the world, our online meditation guide can give a few insights into the practise of meditation.
….Begin by thinking of meditation as a journey – your own abiding happiness is the goal. If you are ready to begin this journey, then the guidelines in the following pages will greatly help you – and now is the best time to start….
What is Meditation?
Sri Chinmoy writes that meditation is the tool to try and reach a higher state of consciousness – A realm beyond the domain of thought.
” When we meditate, we do not think at all. The aim of meditation is to free ourselves from all thought. Thought is like a dot on a blackboard. Whether it is good or bad, it is there. Only if there is no thought whatsoever can we grow into the highest reality.”
Sri Chinmoy gives several practical ways to keep the mind silent during meditation.
What can we do about thoughts on a practical level? Let us take thoughts as individuals and take the mind as a room that we live in and own. We have to bolt the door to our mind-room from the inside and not allow anybody whatsoever to enter. We will not only keep out our enemies, which are bad thoughts, but also our friends, the good thoughts. We are determined to enjoy only silence, complete silence.
Another technique Sri Chinmoy encourages is to use the power of the heart rather than the mind.
How will you make the mind calm and quiet? The mind has its own power, and right now this power is stronger than your present eagerness and determination to meditate. But if you can get help from your heart, then gradually you will be able to control your mind. The heart, in turn, gets constant assistance from the soul, which is all light and all power.
