Jai Hind Part 2…..An Adaption of Descent of the Blue

We don’t know exactly when this picture was taken but of course we know where. Most likely it was taken shortly before Sri Chinmoy left Pondicherry to come to America in 1964. In it we see a young man paying homage to his late spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo. With his head bowed and his hands folded he stands in front of the Maha Samadhi in the very heart of the Sri Aurobindo ashram in south India.

chinmoy_at_samadhi

Question: You had a teacher?

Sri Chinmoy: I had a teacher in those days. Sri Aurobindo was my teacher. I was at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for twenty years. But then, when I became fully aware of my inner realities and existence, the Supreme became my Guru. At first, Sri Aurobindo was in the physical body, then he left the body in 1950. But once I got my inner illumination, then I found that the Absolute Supreme is the only Guru — your Guru, my Guru, everybody’s Guru. Only the Lord Supreme is the Guru of the entire world.

Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 34, Agni Press, 2004

kaivalya-good

It is now late August of 2015. Hundreds of students of Sri Chinmoy have come to New York from around the world to honor their late Spiritual master Sri Chinmoy. It is a gathering that has been going on now for decades and continues to inspire all those who come, even those who never had the opportunity to meet their teacher in person.

flower-kaivalya

Yet the spiritual life is filled with many wonders and mysteries that cannot be entirely observed, only felt within and experienced in a way unique to each and every seeker. Kaivalya Torpy once received a phone call in February of 1999 from Sri Chinmoy, asking him to produce a full length version of the play he had written about the life of Sri Aurobindo.

‘Descent of the Blue’ was a play that Sri Chinmoy had painstakingly worked on for nearly 2 years while living in the ashram in Pondicherry. Eventually it was published serially over a period of 4 years between 1958 and 1962.

abhinabha2

When Kaivalya was asked to produce the play in 1999 it had never been performed in its entirety. At the time of his phone conversation with Sri Chinmoy he was asked to take as many hours as necessary to perform the play and also to include as many of his students as was necessary. He was very enthusiastic about seeing the play at last reaching the stage. “I want a nice big play”, he told Kaivalya.

Continue reading “Jai Hind Part 2…..An Adaption of Descent of the Blue”

Our Cycling Champion

He never heard the words spoken in person. Instead they were passed along to him through a phone call from an excited friend. As he listened at his home in England to the brief yet potent phrase, he did not know what to make of the call coming so late in the evening from New York.

The friend told him that Sri Chinmoy had just remarked to a couple of people, “Tejvan is our cycling champion.”

On hearing this, Tejvan was intrigued as to what his teacher had meant by saying that. True he enjoyed competitive cycling but he, at age 31 in the summer of 2007 was at best only an amateur cyclist, though he had won quite a few local races. To become a national champion was an incredibly lofty achievement in the very competitive world of British cycling. One that was still a long way off.

Also, like many other part time athletes he had lots of other responsibilities. Not the least of which, in order to pay the bills, was his job as a tutor of economics in Oxford. In addition he also spent many hours each day on various volunteer Internet projects.

When asked about all the tugs and pulls on his time and his life he says, “the most significant part of my life has been being a student of Sri Chinmoy. The spiritual life and meditating you could say have been the cornerstone of my life.” He became a student of Sri Chinmoy in 1999.

Audio Part 1:

Tejvan Part One

The notion of being a champion was of course appealing. One that was certainly not impossible, but for all appearances it was something that was extremely remote. For just to fulfill all your daily obligations is difficult enough, and yet to excel at them all is something most of us just don’t care to think about, little alone try to succeed at.

He modestly says, “I am fortunate to have a few different hats to wear.”

Yet to even to begin to understand the relationship between a spiritual master and their students is to realize that every word spoken, every glance exchanged, are just fragments of things that exist only on the surface of a very vast, deep and inner relationship. One that transcends all that we physically see or mentally understand.

A spiritual master has only one objective when they take on the responsibility of having students. That is to tirelessly inspire them to succeed, challenge and nurture them to grow spiritually, and set forth goals that will teach them that nothing in their lives is truly impossible to achieve.

This in a nutshell is what Sri Chinmoy had set out for Tejvan when he called him a cycling champion.

Continue reading “Our Cycling Champion”

Venu: The Flute of Lord Krishna

It is not an easy thing to fully describe and share meaningfully even one experience in our lives little alone try and express the totality of a lifetime. A little more than a year ago, Venu, who had been a disciple of Sri Chinmoy for 40 years passed away. His exemplary life of devotion and dedication to his Spiritual Master was unique and were it not for the exhaustive logbooks that he meticulously kept none of us could possibly understand just how remarkable his life really was.

For all those whose own lives intersected with the dynamic and powerful orbit of Venu’s, we knew at least something about how relentless and all consuming his training regime was. You could not help but be aware of this because he seemed to be perpetually training and preparing for one event or another. Particularly the swim run in San Diego, which was like a yearly sacred pilgrimage for him. It was only when his journey on the earth plane had made its final lap, that those of us who loved and knew him well tried to take some fuller account of this life. A life which always seemed to brim with enthusiasm, optimism, and tireless dedication to the inner life.

Somehow the task of cataloging his life by going through his log books fell upon Astika, who had lived with Venu for almost 40 years. Over the course of a year he tried to take stock of the information collected there. Which chronicled not only in fine detail the trajectory of his physical accomplishments but in a very special way illumined his inner life as well. Astika sifted through all the meticulous details kept there and also the personal notes and photos kept within them. This then are portions of his loving recollections of his brother friend Venu, as written in his recently published book…….Utpal

I was in the San Francisco Sri Chinmoy Centre with Venu for almost four decades, lived in the same house with him for years, ran races with him, worked side-by- side with him, talked running and cycling with him right to the end. I shared his enthusiasms for many things and took issue with him over some other things. He was my friend, a very good friend, but it wasn’t until the day I opened the pages of one of his training logbooks that I really met him face to face and heart to heart. Until that day, I had no idea at all of who he really was, nor did I possess any proper sense of the heart that beat so devotedly within his breast.

To meet Venu through the day-to-day entries of in his training diaries, is to meet ones own self face to face. It is to see and feel the rise and fall of an ocean vast energy, the same life energy that animates each and every one of us. It is to be swept along in the streaming drama of that energy. To bear witness to Venu’s struggles, to see how he managed his successes and failures, is to gain a valuable perspective on our own.

For this reason, we have made his logbooks available to everyone. The entire collection is, or soon will be, posted at the Sri Chinmoy website. I recommend them to everyone, regardless of your gender, personal interests or spiritual orientation. To open the pages of Venu’s training diaries is to take a stroll down to the seashore of this vast ocean of energy and feel the ebb and flow of it as it moved through the veins of one very good man. You won’t need to be an athlete to benefit.

For those who knew Venu even casually, this will come as no surprise; he carefully observed and evaluated everything he did. He was a meticulous record keeper, particularly when it came to his workouts. He was a true believer in original self- knowledge; it was the only kind of knowledge he really trusted. As a consequence, he scrutinized his body’s response to exercise and diet as well as a number of other experiences very closely. Many people do this; to one degree or another, we all do it.

What separated Venu from most is that he acted upon his observations in a most disciplined manner, changing his daily routines, his diet and exercises accordingly. But beyond athletics, he changed his thoughts and opinions as well, according to an ever widening range of observations. He was a student of the hard science of yoga almost as much as he was a devotee of the yoga of love. And yet, the notations in his logbooks are almost cryptic in their brevity. He does not analyze or offer an opinion on anything, not even his own workout routine. Partly, this is because his logbooks were always meant to be a private notebook to himself. They didn’t exist to explain or narrate anything to others. The brevity of his entries was also because Venu believed that opinions were… well, just opinions. His view was that our understanding even of ourselves, much less the world, was very a subjective and individualized thing. “Reality” for him was in the numbers and the personal experience that came from generating those numbers.

Continue reading “Venu: The Flute of Lord Krishna”

Progress Is Not A Prisoner Of Time: The 47 Mile Race 2014

You tell the world:
Progress, progress, progress!
Progress within, progress without.
That progress is not and cannot be
A prisoner of time.

Sri Chinmoy, Gorbachev: The Master-Key Of The Universal Heart, Agni Press, 1990

Sometimes there are moments that are so sweet and precious that we never want to let go of them. But time, as it always does, and of course as it must do, eventually snatches at the edges of our memories. The past cannot hold on to us for long. At best we can only extract from our trans-formative experiences that which can enrich and prepare us for the next challenge. In so doing we lighten our burdens and leave behind hopefully, at least some of our imperfections and doubt.

For those who want to dedicate themselves to living on a spiritual path there is no stopping, there is only progress and moving forward. The beyond does not tire, the dream reality of tomorrow continually beckons to us, the summit of perfection will always be our ultimate destination.

In 1980 the 47 mile race was still very new and very challenging. For the students of Sri Chinmoy there was always a powerful incentive to run the race just as there continues to be one now. At the stroke of midnight on August 27th it was Sri Chinmoy’s birthday. There was no better offering to your spiritual teacher than to run the very race that he created. One in which for 2 years straight, both in 1979, and again in 1980 he ran the 47 himself.

In that race in 1980 he ran 1 hour and 15 minutes faster than he had the previous year. His time was 11:27:24 and because of his physical ailments he would never run the race again.

What also happened on that remarkable night was that Virendra ran a time of 5:09:30. As someone who came in 5th that year and was just a little more than an hour behind I have a very real sense of just how remarkable Virendra’s achievement really was.

Two years ago when asked about that night Virendra said,

“It is an offering from my side and it is grace from Guru’s side. I couldn’t have done it without it. I remember once about 2 hours in where I had my focus really solid. I was kind of in autopilot, and I was running and running. I didn’t have a single idea how many miles I had run or what the pace was. I remember looking down at my legs and saying, wowwww, who is making these run? They are just going by themselves. I remember telling the counters, I don’t want to hear any splits. I don’t want to hear my marathon time. I don’t want to hear anything. Just wake me up with one lap to go. I had no emotional attachment to that race whatsoever. It was a job that had to be done and that is it.”

“I am so happy to have that kind of treasure to put at Guru’s feet. I really felt at that moment how big it was. We were chasing 6 hours and then out of the blue comes this 5 hours. I remembered thinking, Guru is going to like this.”(laughter)

Now it is 34 years later and no one has even gotten close in those many years, that is except Vajin. Who 2 years ago at age 32 made a very serious attempt to surpass Virendra’s achievement. “The funny thing was that I was hoping to break the record, than I don’t have to do it any more. (laughs)

“But that’s not how Guru works. He doesn’t want things to come easily. He wants you to work for things.”

At the time he also said, ““I am definitely going to try it again. ” He was just 1 minute and 26 seconds off the record.

“It is so satisfying because you put so much into it. It means so much having Guru run this race and Guru run with this flag. This race has a special consciousness. There is no other race that can compare to this. It is a race purely for the soul and for the spirit, and for our Guru. For me it is such a significant race to do. I mean to come here and share it with my brothers and sisters from all over the world.”

Progress: A short film of Sri Chinmoy running the 47 mile race in 1979 and 1980

There is no end to our inner progress, no end to our inner progress. Progress, progress, progress! My Guru, your Guru, everybody’s Guru is the Supreme. I tell you in all sincerity, the Supreme Himself is progressing. Now, can we believe it? We cannot believe it. Our mind will not believe it. How can the Absolute Highest be progressing? Infinity we cannot measure, Eternity we cannot measure, Immortality we cannot measure. But when God, out of His infinite Bounty, opens up our third eye, we can see that God Himself is progressing. Not only on earth and in Heaven, but in His own highest Reality, I tell you, God is progressing, progressing.

.
You can say that God is absolute. That is true, absolutely true. But in His absolute Reality also, progress can be made. When God used His Vision to create the universe, His Vision was always Self-Transcendence, Self-Transcendence.

.
Therefore, the terms that we use—Infinity, Eternity and Immortality—He far, far exceeds. God’s Infinity we cannot believe; our mind will never believe it. The mind can only believe so much. The heart, on the strength of its identification, can go very far. But if we are in the soul-consciousness, we see that the Absolute Supreme Himself is expanding, diving deeper and climbing higher.

Continue reading “Progress Is Not A Prisoner Of Time: The 47 Mile Race 2014”

World’s Largest Flower Garland…The Amazing Things You Can Do When You Are In Your Heart

“We are trying to break the record for the world’s largest flower garland. So we have 185,000 stems of carnations freshly arrived from Colombia.” …. Pavaka

The sun has just started to brighten up the large playing field in Queens. Many hours earlier around 5 am Pavaka, had gone and picked up the huge mountain of boxes from a warehouse. Now that the boxes, filled with cool carnation flowers are stacked by the gate. The real job of breaking the Guinness record has just begun.

It is not something that Ashrita has not attempted before. Being the man with the most Guinness records period he continually scours the book looking for new challenges. But this record is uniquely special. Tomorrow would have been Sri Chinmoy’s, his spiritual Masters 83rd birthday.

So he, along with the help of Pavaka, and gradually increasing crowd of fellow student disciples are attempting to do something which is not just record breaking but really awe inspiring. It will take a lot of work, it will not be easy, and as the day progresses it gets hotter all the time.

Pavaka says, “we had gotten the record 2 years ago. I think it was 2 and 1/4 miles I think, and that was since broken. So now we are trying to get it back. I believe it was broken in India.”

“The 185,000 flowers is what we calculated would give us a 5 mile long garland. Which would really break the record.” Pavaka explains that the flower tops will be cut off of each stem and then a slim wire is inserted through a section of tightly bunched flowers. This in turn is connected to another section, and so on. This will continue until all the flowers are looped around the perimeter of the field. “So it is not like it is 5 miles of a single strand. There is a wire going through the whole thing. We are going to assemble it in 3 foot segments.”

Pavaka actually works in the flower import business and he tells me he is familiar with the very farm in Colombia where the flowers were grown. He told them that he wanted flowers for a special project. “So they sent us very short carnations, at a very good price. Those flowers flew from Colombia last Monday to Miami. A week ago they were cut.” He says that the short stems meant the flowers were less expensive to ship and also that only the blossoms will be used.

“Carnations are one of the hardiest flowers out there.”

I ask him, as one who works all the time in the flower business what he enjoys about this project. “I am personally doing this as a volunteer. It is quite a unique project and everyone working in the chain of it was quite interested in what we were doing.” There is also, to add to the pressure, a time limit on how long the project can take. Pavaka says they have use of the field only until 1pm. Now just 6 hours away.

He says he will stay no matter how long it takes.

Click to Play Interview:

Pavaka

Continue reading “World’s Largest Flower Garland…The Amazing Things You Can Do When You Are In Your Heart”

Jai Hind…..An Adaptation of ‘The Descent Of The Blue’

What did you think of the show tonight?

“I had very little expectations, because there were so many uncertainties, but it came off very well.” Still wearing his wig of long flowing white hair Kaivalya answers me. Minutes earlier he and his 2 sons, along with a large cast had just taken their bows before a large and very enthusiastic audience.

I caught up with him as he was making a hasty exit from the performance space and heading back to his room in order to change out of his costume. Taking quick strides up the hill he was approached every few meters by excited and happy audience members, who would either call out their congratulations, or reach out to shake his hand. He is clearly moved by all the very real and fervent enjoyment that so many had for his project. Which was the once only performance of a play entitled, Jai Hind (Indian independence victory slogan), based on a play by Sri Chinmoy called, The Descent Of The Blue.

For the moment he still eerily resembles the great Indian spiritual Master Sri Aurobindo. The loud roar of approval from the crowd of several hundred, who had just watched his performance over several enjoyable hours seems to still linger in the warm still air of this New York night. It was an unequivocal triumph, but it was also a performance that resonated with an even deeper meaning. For it was in many ways a promise at last fulfilled. One that had taken its natural rich course of 15 years to finally arrive on the auspicious night of August 25th at the Aspiration Ground in New York.

“In 1999 Sri Chinmoy phoned me up directly, and he said, I want you to do, Descent of the Blue. Take as much time as you like. 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, what do you think?”

“I said, I don’t know Guru. He said use as many people as you like. Spend as much money as you like but do a very big production. So I said fine. It was the fall and Sri Chinmoy wanted it in August. I can’t remember the time sequence but I was calling people all over the world. Particularly people who looked Indian to take part. I was preparing and researching, and reading books and going to the Sri Aurobindo society in London.”

But then an unforeseeable set of circumstances arose that winter and the project was shelved, for what appeared to be an indefinite time period. Gradually slipping away out of reach and almost tumbling into oblivion.

The passing of Sri Chinmoy in 2007 could easily have been the absolute end of any hope of the production ever finding its way to the stage. Kaivalya however never completely gave up hope, as it was clearly something direct and significant that his Spiritual teacher had asked of him. But over time his once powerful commitment had been reduced he says to just a small inkling.

But like so many of the great seeds of inspiration that Sri Chinmoy carefully planted and nurtured in the hearts of his students this one was to finally find new life. He says that while visiting Portugal in early 2013 he performed in a short performance where he played the part of Sri Aurobindo. Someone remarked afterwards. That they liked the play but that they had also seen and enjoyed Kaivalya years earlier portraying Sri Aurobindo in another play. His reaction to their compliment, “my heart leapt, You know, you are right.”

It was in 1958 while still living in the Sri Aurobindo ashram that Sri Chinmoy had written the original play, The Descent Of The Blue.” He and his brothers and sisters had first come there in 1944. He was just 12 years of age when he first arrived. From then until he left the ashram in 1964 he grew up and developed in its very powerful spiritual, cultural, and athletic environment.

Sri Chinmoy’s play is a devoted and soulful appreciation of the life, of not just one of the towering figures of India, but also one, who through his divine wisdom, was also a source of inspiration to the world. Sri Chinmoy was able to capture the transformation of a man from Indian revolutionary to one who became an enlightened spiritual teacher to the world. A task in which the young Sri Chinmoy was uniquely placed, living in Pondicherry, to carefully and devotedly write about.

Between 1958 and 1962 the play was originally published in installments in an ashram publication. In 1974 it was published intact some 10 years after Sri Chinmoy had established his own spiritual community in New York. But now as Kaivalya pondered the challenges of at last bringing a lengthy play to a western audience, he came up with the best possible strategy.

“So I handed over the directorship to my son, (Devashishu), who has more energy than I have. Both sons in fact said it is much too long a play for one evening. So why don’t we split it in half. We will do the political bit now and next year in August we will do the super mind bit. I said fine.”

“So Devashishu took over the directorship, and he wrote in bits to explain what was happening politically, he added lots more. So the play was completely rounded off.”

For several days leading up to the big night Devashishu was rehearsing the play in a large back yard a few blocks from the performance space. I spoke with him earlier.

“The project is a performance based on a play by Sri Chinmoy called The Descent Of The Blue. It is the story of Sri Aurobindo a great Indian Spiritual Master, who was Sri Chinmoy’s master.”

Abhinabha plays the young Aurobindo

Continue reading “Jai Hind…..An Adaptation of ‘The Descent Of The Blue’”

World’s Largest Peace Torch

The moon has been growing full for some days now. It is hard for us to resist its pull and attraction when it glows so bright and inviting in the clear Spring night. But on this past Sunday evening there was another lofty brightness illuminating the darkness that caught the attention of several hundred people in a little corner of Queens NY. It is a neighborhood not unaccustomed to the large and the extraordinary. This April 13th however saw the creation and lighting of something that even this, a place where the unexpected often shows up, the World’s largest Peace Torch.

The threads of this particularly story are both very simple and yet also extraordinarily complex and profound. Ashrita Furman is the first name that comes into the mix as the driving force behind this new Guinness record, for he has more of those records than anyone else. (Something like 182) But he himself would say the real inspiration for this unique creation is his late Spiritual Teacher, Sri Chinmoy. Who first came to America 50 years ago, on April 13th 1964.

Ashrita, has always dedicated his achievements to Sri Chinmoy, and so wanted this 50th anniversary to be more than just special, that it also be historic. He, along with a team of helpers wanted to create a Guinness record that would be original, powerful, and at its heart, symbolically represent some of the deep inner values and aspirations that Sri Chinmoy himself tirelessly championed. In particular Sri Chinmoy’s Oneness-Home Peace run, in which a team of runners carry a peace torch. This event has been taking place in more than 140 countries around the world for more than 20 years.

May the flames of peace-torch
Kindle and awaken
Each and every world-citizen.

Sri Chinmoy, A Love-Bathed Heart, Agni Press, 1993

The Guinness record people informed Ashrita, when he first proposed building a giant torch that he could not simply create an original designed torch. Instead it would have to be modeled after a previous Olympic torch and be at least 10 times the size of it. After examining pictures of all possible torches Ashrita selected the 1998 Nagano winter Olympic torch to be the most beautiful. Yet now the dilemma arose. How to find blueprints or even a copy of an almost sacred object that was built 16 years earlier in far off Japan.

Ashirvad just happened to be giving meditation classes in Tokyo when the original idea happened to be formed. Setting up an appointment with the torch creator, he took a 3 hour train trip to Nagano to speak to people there to see if it would be somehow possible to get technical information on the original torch.

“A gentleman from the company received us and he was very happy to see us.” The man was Akio Haruhara who actually designed and created the torch. In order to give him some idea of what Ashrita was planning he showed him a video of some of Ashrita’s other records. “He was extremely inspired by the video.”

Mr. Haruhara then showed them the real torch. “It was really beautiful.” They were also allowed to take measurements. He then asked if they needed anything else. They asked of course for more precise diagrams of the torch and mr. Harahura apologized. He said that Olympic rules forbade that he do that. Then after taking a long look at Ashirvad he said, “Just take the torch. So he gave us a real torch.” Upon returning to New York he mentioned to Ashrita only that he had been quite successful in his search. Not revealing the full extent of his success until he delightfully handed Ashrita the actual torch last December.

“He was like a kid who receives the nicest toy at Christmas. The one he was hoping for. He wasn’t expecting to get the torch. It was a big surprise.”

When Ashirvad was originally with him, he told Mr. Haruhara, “of course if you come (when it is constructed) you will be welcomed. They don’t speak much English so I didn’t feel that he would do it. But his wife was very excited about the idea. She said, yes, you need to go to New York.” Time passes and it was only a few weeks ago that Mr. Haruhara and his wife confirmed that they would come. “It is really nice.”

“There is something about this project, and I have seen many records. That the level of commitment that was put into it that I don’t think I have seen before. Everyone is so focused on making this torch the best way we could. Every little detail was given a lot of attention. From the materials used to the finish, colors, every little thing is an exact copy of that torch. It is just amazing.”

Interview

Ashirvad

Continue reading “World’s Largest Peace Torch”

It Is All Within Us Playing

His instrument rests gently on his knee. His right hand confidently plucks the taut steel strings. The fingers of his left hand dance rhythmically up and down the fret board releasing a cascade of beautiful notes.

There seems to be nothing separating the musician from the instrument he is playing upon. They are one. His eyes closed he plays a song that seems to come not just from months and years of practice. But instead originates from a far deeper source. Of course Vijay can look back and see a long musical family tradition. He is after all the 6th generation to grow up where playing and hearing classical Indian music was as natural as drinking water.

Yet as I sit near his feet, on a hot afternoon in Thailand, his audience of one. I cannot see that great lineage that stretches out behind him. All I can only hear is what is pouring out from his heart right now. What is undeniably clear, even to my own untrained ears, is that I am listening to a master musician. One who is sitting upon the ground in front of me while simultaneously reaching out to the celestial realms beyond. This, the very essence of who Vijay Shankar Mishra is.

Vijay Interview

I have listened to and admired Vijay’s music for years. As a musician, when he plays you instantly realize what a master he is over his instrument and as well as a singer. As a friend he is something else. His humility, warmth, and charm do not instantly reveal all and what there is about this 58 year old man from Delhi, who now finds himself living in Nepal with his wife and 2 children and also working for a travel and tour company. Both his daughter Shivani and his son Abhishek have continued in their own way the great musical family tradition. So one afternoon in February I asked him to tell me more about his life and his music, and how all the bits and pieces fit together to make up his most interesting world.

On Being a Musician

“It is a tradition. It is pretty natural, you are in a family where the music is happening all the time. Every weekend we used to go to classical music in different places. Music was a part of our life. At home my father used to play at all hours. Learning started right from the beginning.” In fact he was also exposed regularly to a wide group of other talented musical artists as well. “I was never aware of the fact that it was going to be my destiny. It was just going along. It happened. It came so naturally it was in my family it was easy. It becomes destiny itself.”

Vijay Interview 2

“Our family instrument was the sitar. My father was a sitarist and my brother is also a professor of sitar in the Delhi institute. It is quite obvious then that the sitar would be my first instrument.” But eventually he found himself being drawn to the Sarod and his father agreed to it. “So one day when I was very young he came to me with a Sarod.” He points to the instrument in his arms now. “This was a gift from my father. It is my father’s love gift. He said okay here it is, it is all yours. So then I started practicing and I hope I become one with this.” Laughs

He tells me his father was his teacher and though the fingering is different from the sitar he instilled in him the very core and essence of Indian music, the raga. “It was pretty natural, I had been seeing my father play, I went to the conservatory and my brother was playing. It was traditional kind of thing happening.”

He describes that even in performing you are not aware of the audience. “You see them as a part of you and you become one with that. I have never been scared of people because they are a part of me. I watched my father play comfortably and my brother playing so comfortably on stage with thousands of people around so I inherited that thing.”

He remembers that his first performance being a very natural experience. He was around 19 and how then, just as he does now, he simply closed his eyes and got into it.

He tells me that he never set a goal for himself as a musician. “For music we cannot set a goal. Especially in terms of classical music. It is a transcending factor. Every time you play you are transcending. It is always a new thing for me. A new test, a new exam. Every time I play it is never ending process.” He also continues to teach classical music in Katmandu.

He describes his move from Delhi to Nepal as an interesting process. It all began at about the same time that Sri Chinmoy was visiting Katmandu for the first time in December of 1994, though he didn’t actually meet him at that time. “It was a kind of destiny.” They actually never met until 5 years later in 1999. “I was fascinated.” He says that it is only now as he looks back that he can see the grand picture unfolding of his life. He certainly had no plans originally to move there. “When you come from Delhi, Nepal is so much smaller.” Yet it didn’t take very long before it became obvious to him that his spiritual life as well as everything else now needed to be transplanted to another city and in a different country. “This is how things work. It is basically destiny.”

He said that his entrance into a spiritual life and having a teacher was a new thing. “I didn’t know much about it. I wasn’t looking for a Guru, but once I saw Sri Chinmoy, I felt this big energy. It was like a magnet. It attracted me. So then I tried to learn step by step. It is like a baby learning to walk. It was the same way that happened with me. I didn’t even know the A B C’s about spirituality. I had heard about it and read about it, but this was different. Spirituality is a complete yoga. It has to be learned. It has to be felt. It has to be inherited from the master. It is not easy.” He describes that for him his spiritual life could not have even begun without his encounter and then his relationship to Sri Chinmoy.

Vijay interview 3

“It is a journey. It is pacing me and helping me in my music as well. To make the music more divine, more Godly, more beyond words. I play for him. That is how the music goes on.”

Vijay performs on Sarod:

Performance Sarod

“It does not mean that I play, or your heart doesn’t play. It is all within us playing. The listener is also playing. It is a give and take. Who is giving and who is taking? Nobody knows. Only the Supreme knows. There is an amazing exchange. It is beautiful.”

” Music is initially a self motivated art. The more I please myself the more I please you, and the more deeply I go. The more deep I go and also the more deeply the listener goes. Music is a universal language of
God.”

“It can transport you to a higher consciousness, in silence. Silence itself is a soundless sound, and that transports us very easily. Then we reach a state of silence. We are from the sound world and we go through to the silence world. For that we need a vehicle. It is music that we use as that vehicle. As transportation to the silence sound of God.”

It was at a concert in 99 that he met his Guru for the first time. “I really liked his presence. He was beaming with energy. He played so many instruments and that really affected me. He had so many dimensions. I had never seen anyone like that. That really attracted me. So I became close to him and I really liked him.”

At the time he said that both he and his family became disciples that very evening. “There was something happening within me. He meditated on us, it was very moving. A very special moment for me. To become part of his spiritual family.”

Vijay Interview 4

“Guru’s music is a written and composed for the Divine. The consciousness in Guru’s songs and music is very high. That transports you to the very highest very easily.” He is amazed that Sri Chinmoy composed so much music, more than 23,000 songs. “Even if you sing just a few songs a day it gives you such upliftment in terms of consciousness.”

He remembers how he played for Sri Chinmoy in New York for the first time. He told me, “very well done. Very good Vijay, you have played so well, and he gave me a medal.”

“Oneness love is his message. The whole world is one in peace. The divine love amongst us is a message. Even if he is not in the physical, I don’t feel like he is not there. You may not see him but he is always there to guide us.”

Vijay Sings:

Singing

“My dream is to be always a seeker and always a divine lover of each and every human being through my music. I love the transcending goal. I am a seeker of music, I am a student of Sri Chinmoy and I always want to be a student and learn and transcend. That is my goal.”

Final Performance

WHAT MUSIC TELLS ME

The sound-music tells me
God is Power.
The silence-music tells me
God is Bliss.
The God-music tells me
God is Experience.

Sri Chinmoy, The Wings Of Light, Part 15, Agni Press, 1974

Sharing Happiness

It is a quality that we all cherish and ironically it is perhaps one we yearn and strive for most when it is absent or tenuous in our lives. Yet when our lives are bountiful with happiness, we simply take it for granted, believing perhaps that this is a the most natural state of being that all humanity was meant to exist at all times in this way.

From time to time Governments have actively sought to enshrine the concept of happiness as a fundamental part of life. Recognizing that the society we all live within should be able to exist whereby all people can attain and have access to happiness. Though most certainly most of us have our own unique concept of happiness, there certainly exists some fundamental truths about happiness. That on a pure and in a fundamental way happiness is never exclusive to the rights of others. Rather when one person seeks out true happiness we also enable and make it possible for others to have access and find happiness more easily. That when one person benefits than so do we all.

This quality has been deemed so important and so necessary and fundamental to life, that on June 28, 2012, The United Nations General Assembly declared March 20th of each year as the International Day of Happiness. Bhikshuni Weisbrot, a staff member of the United Nations Development Programme, and is President of the UNSRC Society of Writers, was inspired to create a unique exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art this past March. It was a display that was up for several weeks dedicated solely to Happiness. On the 17th of March a diverse panel of speakers were invited to come and speak about this most significant subject. She was helped by many others in creating this truly wonderful exhibit which she called, ‘Happiness: A Visual Poem.’

At one point Bhikshuni mentions that it was 50 years ago that she was first at this spot, when the World’s Fair was held here in Flushing Meadow. I ask her how it feels to be back in this same location after such a long time. Experiencing perhaps in a more direct way what the World’s Fair had set out to do back then. “It’s funny, but I think it has always been my theme. I think it has just come to fruition now.” She recounts a conversation she once had with her mom in which she told her Mom, “I just want to be happy.”

Continue reading “Sharing Happiness”

A Precious Gift

Can I Help You?

While I was running 47 miles, one person came up to me and said, “You do such nice things for people. Sir, can I be of any help to you?”

I said, “Thank you, I do not need any help right now.”

-27 August 1982

Sri Chinmoy, Run And Become, Become And Run, Part 11, Agni Press, 1983

This little story was first printed 30 years ago in a collection of running stories. While Sri Chinmoy was still actively running he wrote dozens of stories about many of the experiences that would take place while he practiced his distance running. Today there are hardly any recorded comments that he made about his own participation in the 47 mile race.

Yet we know, that not just for him, but for all of us who have participated in this most unique and challenging distance, that running those long hilly 47 miles was a golden opportunity. That here on this dusty track and broken road one could experience and find something within that no other race could offer or compare.

How is it even possible to describe the sweet secrets that are to be experienced when you commit and offer all that you have, to the dark tranquil beauty of running throughout the night on August 27th, Sri Chinmoy’s birthday.

For all those who have done so and now continue on this brave grand path, running the 47 mile race is the most precious of gifts. One that is offered from within the subtle silent realm of the runner’s own heart. Based not on time or place but simply on the gratitude the runner has for their Spiritual teacher, who even now continues to shape and guide us on our marvelous and mystifying divine journeys. An offering that cannot be packed or wrapped or explained beyond the simple understanding, that gratitude knows no measure and cannot be explained fully by either thoughts or words. But if perceived simply as a selfless offering of oneself, then only can it be grasped and appreciated instantly and fully.

This act of running, this gift of body and heart is not without some pain, some of the discomfort of asking more of ourselves than we are used to giving. But the greatest moments are those with a joy you can only experience when you discover that your gift of offering 47 miles to your teacher is in fact instantly returned to you. Returned in only the way that Spiritual Masters are able to do for those who have taken their guidance and strength as we forge ahead into the twinkling realm of our own self transcendence.

Continue reading “A Precious Gift”