This year marked the 20th anniversary of the completion of Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration Plants, the second of Sri Chinmoy’s three epic poetry series. Sri Chinmoy wrote the first poem on July 10, 1983 - just one week after completing the first series, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames - and completed the last poem in the series 15 years later. The series was published in 270 volumes containing 100 poems each.

Sri Chinmoy announced his vision of 27,000 poems even before he had completed his Flower-Flames series, during a trip with his students to Japan in December 1982. The first volume was published in time for Sri Chinmoy’s birthday in August 1983, and he gave the book out as a gift to all of his students attending his birthday celebrations, asking them to try to to feel the poems inside their hearts. Sri Chinmoy finished the final poem on 24 January 1998 while on his annual Christmas vacation with his students - at the time they were in Cancun, Mexico. To mark this achievement, he invited his students who were present to form groups to chant the mantra Supreme 27,000 times.

Sri Chinmoy would always find ways to make his students part and parcel of whatever he was doing. and to claim his achievements as their own. At the time, many of his students around the world came up with fun and spontaneous celebrations to mark their teacher’s achievement. For example, in Canada, his students created a huge red and white Canadian flag made from 27,000 snowballs on a prominent hill near the Parliament Buildings. A Reuters cameraman happened to walk by and took a photo of the flag which ended up appearing in newspapers across Canada the next day. In New Zealand, Sri Chinmoy suggested to his students there that they shake 27,000 people’s hands, giving each of these people a card of poems and a sweet. In the words of Jogyata Dallas, one of the organisers: “This unique challenge quite consumed us for some time. We visited school assemblies, announcing a handshaking-record attempt to honour our Guru’s achievement; stood at escalators in shopping malls with a microphone to introduce ourselves, and armed with a hand-held manual counter to accurately record numbers; visited universities and busy streets; toured towns, distributed 27,000 sweets and gave away 27,000 large cards – each carrying an explanation and a sample sprinkling of 27 poems, like this one:”

If you want to remain always happy,
Always perfect and always fulfilled,
Then always keep inside your heart
A pocketful of sweet dreams.

“Everything about this unusual commemoration charmed people a lot, and left 27,000 spirit-awakening, heart-warming mementos with their 27 inspirational poems scattered throughout this peace-hungry world.”

This year, Sri Chinmoy ’s students held various commemorations to mark the 20th anniversary of the poems’ completion in 1998. At the time, many of his students were very involved in proofreading and printing the books, and they vividly recalled what powerful meditative and transformative experiences they had working with such vast numbers of poems.

Dublin's now-established annual ‘Festival of Meditation’ took place this June, with eight days of events in three different venues attended by approximately 325 people. The festival included talks, workshops and a public concert of meditation music with two international groups. The concert featured guided meditations and mantras so that the public could join in.

The concert groups

Both of the groups have played meditation concerts in many countries, and are very popular with audiences.

Mangala's Group - an international female singing group led by Mangala from the Dublin Centre

Ashru Dhara - male instrumental group from the Netherlands, Germany, France and Ireland.

The festival also included a weekend workshop on sports and meditation given by guest speaker, Abhinabha Tangerman from Amsterdam. Abhinabha has a 2:27 marathon personal best, and has recently entered the world of Guinness record-breaking, setting records in unique disciplines such as one-handed clapping and keeping balloons in the air. 

The week finished up with an Evening of Music & Mantras which incorporated excerpts from Sri Chinmoy’s book ‘The Source of Music’

As the event was considerably over-subscribed, a follow-up week of introductory classes were organised which are currently on-going.

Sri Chinmoy asked his students from different Centre to meet together frequently for meditation, spiritual activities and fun that he called Joy-Days. Very often, these happen over a p

On one such recent weekend in Co Wicklow, Ireland, students of Sri Chinmoy from Ireland and England came together. As part of the weekend, different members engaged in a spontaneous creativity project given the simple question 'If I were a book, what would my title be?'. Ambarish from the Dublin Centre collected all of these questions and made some charming videos, which you can see below:

Whatever we do in life — whether we are praying, talking to our friends or participating in sports — we are trying to receive joy at every moment. But joy we can have only when we have a peaceful life. We are all longing for joy, and joy abides only in peace. At every moment we are given the opportunity to feel peace in the depths of our heart on the strength of our prayer-life and our meditation-life.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Sri Chinmoy, Aspiration-body, illumination-soul, part 2, Agni Press, 1993

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly designated 20 March as the International Day of Happiness, and Sri Chinmoy Centres around the world have been marking this day with workshops, poetry readings and cultural events every year since. Dublin and New York were just two of the Sri Chinmoy Centres that organised events to celebrate this day.

Dublin

Workshop and poetry reading

This years' programme was an hour and a half long, interspersing meditation exercises and songs with poems on the theme of happiness. The audience was welcomed by Mangala Keenan from the Dublin Centre, who introduced the event with some background history of International Happiness Day, noting that the first year's events organised at the United Nations incorporated readings from the book Jewels of Happiness by Sri Chinmoy. Mangala spoke about Sri Chinmoy’s service to the United Nations for over 35 years and how, as his students, we continue to offer such events to the public.

Some of the poetry readings were by members of the Dublin Centre, including Cathy Torres (right), who read Sri Chinmoy's poetry along with her own composition Happiness in Silver, Gold and Diamond, which by the end had the entire audience smiling.

New York

Panorama Cafe, in Queens, an enterprise owned by Sri Chinmoy's students, hosts regular poetry readings, music performances and other cultural events - including one to celebrate this year's Day of Happiness.

Sri Chinmoy wrote many poems and gave several talks about the importance of cultivating happiness.

Sri Chinmoy’s book The Jewels of Happiness was released on 20 March 2013 to honour the International Day of Happiness and includes writings on how we can cultivate real happiness in our daily life. It was later released in audiobook form, read out by such luminaries as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Roberta Flack and Carl Lewis.

You can listen to a selection of recitations from the book at Radio Sri Chinmoy.

“If you are happy, it will help you to a great extent. If you are unhappy, you won’t make any progress at all. On the contrary, you will be marching backwards. Real outer happiness is not self-deception. It does not come from wasting time and indulging in pleasure-life. Real outer happiness is something totally different. It comes from inner joy and inner satisfaction.”

Sri Chinmoy 1

Sri Chinmoy suggested an integral approach to happiness. Both prayer and meditation are important, but he also encouraged a dynamic approach to life - he felt happiness could be cultivated through sport and serving the world.

Related pages

• A Quest for happiness by Abhinabha
• Jewels of Happiness website
• Poems on Happiness at Sri Chinmoy Poetry

• 1. Sri Chinmoy, The giver and the receiver, Agni Press, 1987

 Perfect Health is a new book which compiles the writings of Sri Chinmoy on the subject of health.

Perfect Health looks at the important subject of health from a spiritual perspective. In particular, Sri Chinmoy mentions how our state of mind can have an influence on our body and mental health. This book includes a question and answer section, where Sri Chinmoy advises on practical steps that readers can take to improve their overall health and well-being

Topics include

• How to deal with stress and depression.
• The link between health and karma.
• How to maintain healthy weight.
• How to get the best night’s sleep.

Link between health and meditation.

This book will be relevant to anyone who is interested in a spiritual perspective on life and good health. It gives an insight into how we can cultivate our life energy, peace of mind and live more in harmony with our body, environment. Sri Chinmoy's book will inspire us to gain more satisfaction from looking after and appreciating our health. 

“It is one thing to have good health and another thing to deliberately maintain good health. Unless you are consciously keeping good health, at any moment you may be attacked by some forces. It is like having a large amount of money without knowing about it. If you are not conscious of it, you may easily lose it.”1

Related

• Seeking Perfect Health at Blue Beyond Books

• 1. Sri Chinmoy, The outer running and the inner running, Agni Press, 1984