Sri Chinmoy
Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, better known as Sri Chinmoy, was an Indian spiritual leader who taught meditation in the United States after moving to New York City in 1964. Chinmoy established his first meditation center in Queens, New York, and eventually had seven thousand students in 60 countries. He was an author, artist, poet, and musician; he also held public events such as concerts and meditations on the theme of inner peace. Chinmoy advocated a spiritual path to God through prayer and meditation. He advocated athleticism including distance running, swimming, and weightlifting. He organized marathons and other races, and was an active runner and, following a knee injury, weightlifter. Some ex-members have accused Chinmoy of running a cult.
Biography
Early years in India
Chinmoy was the youngest of seven children, born in Shakpura, Boalkjhali Upazila, in the Chittagong District of East Bengal, British India. He lost his father to illness in 1943, and his mother a few months later. Chinmoy began his practice of meditation at the age of 11. In 1944, the 12-year-old Chinmoy joined his brothers and sisters at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, where his elder brothers Hriday and Chitta had already established a presence. It was Chitta that gave Chinmoy his name which means "full of divine consciousness".In the ashram he spent the next 20 years in spiritual practice, including meditation, study in Bengali and English literature, athletics, and work in the ashram's cottage industries. Chinmoy claimed that for about eight years, he was the personal secretary to the General Secretary of the ashram, Nolini Kanta Gupta. Chinmoy translated his writings from Bengali into English.
Move to the United States
According to Sri Chinmoy, in 1964 he was prompted to move to the United States in response to a "message from within" to be of service to people in the West searching for spiritual fulfillment. With the help of Sam Spanier, Eric Hughes, and other American sponsors connected with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, he emigrated to New York City.He applied for a job as junior clerk at the Indian consulate, despite his lack of formal education. He received support and encouragement from his colleagues and bosses and was invited to give talks on Hinduism. He started to give talks at universities and later, at the United Nations.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sri Chinmoy continued giving lectures and talks at universities around the U.S. on spiritual topics. In 1974, he gave lectures in 50 states at 50 universities, and these lectures were published as a six-part book series entitled 50 Freedom-Boats to One Golden Shore. In the 1970s and 1980s he traveled around Europe, Asia, and Australia lecturing at universities, resulting in the publication of The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind. Chinmoy has also published books, essays, spiritual poetry, plays, and commentaries on the Vedas.
In 1966 Chinmoy opened a Sri Chinmoy Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Up until the late 1970s the main Sri Chinmoy study centers were in New York, Florida and the West Indies. Over the next few decades Sri Chinmoy Centers were opened and established in multiple cities in the US, Europe, Australasia, South Africa and South America totaling 350 centers worldwide. In 1973, the New York Times wrote that Sri Chinmoy was "revered in India as one of the few holy men to have reached Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the absolute highest level of consciousness".
During the 1970s Chinmoy began playing and composing on the flute and esraj. In 1984, he started giving free 'Peace Concerts' around the world. The largest concert was in Montreal, for 19,000 people.
While in America in the 1970s, Sri Chinmoy attracted followers such as musicians Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Narada Michael Walden, Roberta Flack, Clarence Clemons, Premik Russell Tubbs and Boris Grebenshchikov. Sri Chinmoy offered the musicians a disciplined spiritual path that forbade the use of recreational drugs including alcohol and encouraged music and poetry as expressions of thankfulness to the Divine.
Santana and McLaughlin stayed with Sri Chinmoy for a number of years before leaving. In 1973 they released an album based on Sri Chinmoy's teachings, titled Love Devotion Surrender. McLaughlin was a Sri Chinmoy follower from 1970 to 1975. In 1971 he formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, named for the spiritual name Sri Chinmoy had given him. McLaughlin introduced Santana to the guru, and Santana and his wife Deborah were subsequently Chinmoy followers from 1972 to 1981. Santana said, "Without a guru I serve only my own vanity, but with him I can be of service to you and everybody. I am the strings, but he is the musician. Guru has graduated from the Harvards of consciousness and sits at the feet of God." Under the spiritual name Devadip – meaning "Lamp of God", "Eye of God", and "Light of God" – that Chinmoy gave him, Santana released three albums: Illuminations, Oneness, and The Swing of Delight. In 2000, he told Rolling Stone that things soured between him and Chinmoy in the 1980s. Santana emphasized that he took much that was good from his years with the guru, even though when he left, Sri Chinmoy "was vindictive for a while. He told all my friends not to call me ever again, because I was to drown in the dark sea of ignorance for leaving him." In 2017 Santana told Rolling Stone, "I'm really grateful for those 10 years I spent with that spiritual master."
Spiritual teacher Frederick Lenz became a follower around 1972, but in 1981 he broke with Sri Chinmoy and became a guru on his own. Spiritual author Lex Hixon was a member of the Sri Chinmoy Centre in the 1970s.
Sri Chinmoy advocated "self-transcendence" by expanding one's consciousness to conquer the mind's perceived limitations, and this was applied to athletics. Olympic gold-medalist runner Carl Lewis was advised by Sri Chinmoy. He learned to meditate from Sri Chinmoy, and practices the techniques regularly. A devoted Christian, Lewis stated that his involvement with Sri Chinmoy was a step forward to spiritual fulfillment which strengthened his Christian beliefs. In 2011 Lewis appeared in the short documentary Challenging Impossibility, which features the feats of strength demonstrated by Chinmoy.
According to the team's website, members of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team have swum the English Channel over 40 times. Other Chinmoy-sponsored athletic events include ultra-distance running, including the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race; mountain climbing; and long-distance cycling. In 2010 Ashrita Furman, who holds over 150 Guinness World Records, stated that "the meditation he learned from Sri Chinmoy helps him to perform beyond his expectations."
In 1987 Sri Chinmoy inaugurated the Sri Chinmoy Oneness Home Peace Run, a relay style run for peace through many countries of the world where runners carry a flaming torch representing harmony. Sri Chinmoy described his concept as a "grassroots effort for peace". The 'Oneness Home' theme of the Peace Run, is that people are all peace-longing citizens on one single planet.
In 1991 Sri Chinmoy initiated the 'Oneness Heart Tears and Smiles' humanitarian service which sends food and medicine to those in need. The organisation, which as of 2007 served 136 countries, began with members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre distributing humanitarian aid to needy children and adults worldwide. It works with NGOs or governments, and provides health, medical, and educational supplies to recipient nations. It is served by health professionals and private volunteers on five continents, in programs which provide disaster relief, regional development, and health and medical supplies. The 'Kids to kids' program sponsored by the Oneness Heart Tears and Smiles encourages school children to prepare packs of school supplies and toys for disadvantaged children in other communities.
Chinmoy travelled and dedicated his many activities and the events he founded to peace. He met with world figures, and was described as an ambassador of peace. Chinmoy met Mother Teresa on five separate occasions. On their second meeting in Rome, Italy during October 1994, Sri Chinmoy presented her with an award. During the ceremony, Mother Teresa said to Sri Chinmoy: "I am so pleased with all the good work you are doing for world peace and for people in so many countries. May we continue to work together and to share together all for the glory of God and for the good of man." Chinmoy met with Diana, Princess of Wales, at Kensington Palace on 21 May 1997.
He did not charge fees for his spiritual guidance or music performances. He was respectful towards all religions and religious figures of the world. He attracted an estimated 7,000 students in his lifetime. His path was a contemporary spiritual system of yoga, practised under the guidance of a guru, or spiritual teacher. Chinmoy advocated brahmacharya – celibacy – for both married and unmarried devotees, and focusing on experiencing inner spiritual joy rather than pleasure. According to a 1987 article in Hinduism Today, Chinmoy as a yoga spiritual master was an unmarried celibate. Unlike in some other older traditions, Chinmoy taught that a complete withdrawal from the world was not necessary for spiritual progress, but rather "a gradual and total Illumination of life".
Death
Until his death in late 2007, Chinmoy was the spiritual leader to thousands of devoted followers worldwide. Chinmoy died from a heart attack while at his home in Jamaica, Queens, New York on 11 October 2007. Mikhail Gorbachev wrote that his death was a loss for the whole world and that he will remain a man who dedicated his whole life to peace.Controversy
The Chinmoy group was accused of being a cult by some, including some ex-members. The 1994 book The Joy of Sects stated that "some of his followers left, however, amid accusations that Chinmoy was making sexual advances towards the wives of his disciples", and in 2005 and 2014 San Diego CityBeat and Salon.com each posted a profile of a different female former disciple who alleged inappropriate sexual conduct. In February 2016 PIX 11 News in New York did two segments on Chinmoy, in which one former follower alleged sexual impropriety, while others praised Chinmoy and the Sri Chinmoy Center's spokesperson stated in a written response that "Our founder and teacher, Sri Chinmoy, led a life of the utmost purity and integrity". Sri Chinmoy was never sued or charged with any crime, and his lawyer denied the 2004 allegations at the time.Some journalists and former followers have criticized what they view as Sri Chinmoy's obsessive or aggressive self-promotion.
In 2009, Jayanti Tamm published an account of life as a Chinmoy disciple, Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult. Tamm, who was born into Chinmoy's organisation, claimed that Chinmoy predicted she would become his perfect disciple. She was banished from the group when she was 25. The book describes her life in the guru's inner circle and her efforts to break free from his influence. According to the book, Chinmoy banned sex, and most disciples were directed to remain single. The book also states that the guru disparaged secular education, and his prohibitions included the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, and meat; dancing; dating; socializing with outsiders; and owning pets, although he kept a collection of exotic pets in his Queens basement. Tamm notes however that the 7,000 other followers around the world, and others who encountered Chinmoy, are likely to have had different experiences and perceptions.