The Peace Run visits Oxford

Recently the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run came to Oxford. I helped as a local co-ordinator to arrange a few meetings. I also cycled with the runners around Oxford.

Peace Run
Peace Run at Lady Margaret Hall.

One of the great things about the Peace Run is that you have to expect the unexpected. Even the best-laid plans need to be flexible. When you are on the run, you soon realise you are very much living in the moment.

I cycled up to Kidlington to meet the runners and guide them to their first school in North Oxford. However, they were running late after their first school visit in Stratford-upon-Avon was a great success. To save time, I volunteered to buy lunch in Kidlington. I order three giant pizzas for ten vegetarians and then ran around the Kidlington shops looking for vegan, gluten-free lunch for another two. I don’t know much about the village of Kidlington, but it didn’t seem to have too many gluten-free vegans – I thought this kind of diet was all the rage these days?

Anyway, as I waited for the pizza to be cooked, I scurried from shop to shop, but all I could see is cheese and egg sandwiches. Then, as I’m wrestling with the conundrum of trying to panic-buy a couple of vegan lunches, I start getting rung from hungry people in different vans, asking where lunch was going to be. I’m standing in Costa Coffee shop, trying to find something vegan, at the same time as explaining to my friend Balavan, lunch is probably in Kidlington, but I’m not sure. But it hasn’t really been bought yet, so maybe I could ring him back in a few minutes. But, then within a few minutes, another phone call and there is another change of plan – no time for lunch in Kidlington, everyone just drove to the school in Cutteslowe – it was getting late and just 30 minutes to our first appointment. Divine chaos!

Unfortunately, whilst the runners were four miles away, I was still in Kidlington with three giant pizzas, a packet of crisps (the best I could do for the vegans) and a few egg sandwiches. So I stuff the pizzas inside my fortuitously large bike bag and cycle furiously down a main road to Cutteslowe in north Oxford. Dripping with sweat, I pick out the squashed pizzas to a grateful army of runners. I proffer apologies for the state of lunch, the lateness, the lack of organisation, but everyone takes it in their stride – as if this is a perfectly normal occurrence on the Peace Run. If you’ve been running all morning, it seems you’re not too picky about your pizza being a bit squashed.

The battered pizza, a few Costa egg sandwiches and a pack of crisps is greeted with an unexpected outbreak of sincere and enthusiastic gratitude – I felt slightly embarrassed people were so happy with our lunch offerings – as if I had taken all the runners to the Randolph Hotel for a perfectly manicured English tea and scones. It seems runners on the Peace Run are well trained to roll with the flow and from even the simplest things gain great joy.

Peace Run
Peace Run in Oxford

After that slightly intense lunch experience, I was somewhat hot and bothered, but as soon I met the runners and they seemed happy with a bit of pizza, my organiser anxieties dissipate, and you just let the Peace Run unfurl its magic. It feels like you have stepped into an indefinable bubble and the whole day and next morning I had an underlying joy, where it was perfectly OK not to worry or plan too much, but see what comes.

The first primary school seemed to really enjoy meeting the runners, and then we were off into town. We stopped at Regent College, an English language school for adults. Despite the fact they were businessmen and teachers, they had a childlike joy in meeting the run and holding the torch. It was great to see serious teachers run up and down the large lawn, to the enthusiastic cheers of watching students. It was a reminder the Peace Run can break down our inhibitions and remind us of a spontaneity that is usually hidden under many layers of outer problems. Not that I joined in the running up and down the lawn – you can have too much joy for one day. I slinked into a comfortable to chair to relax after the morning’s cycle sprint from Kidlington.

After Regent College, I took the runners on a tour of Oxford. I have lived in Oxford for 18 years, but showing visitors around reminds you of how beautiful the town is. The beauty of the architectural tour is also heightened because of the fact Sri Chinmoy visited Oxford nine times, so there are many places where you can point out where Sri Chinmoy gave a lecture, gave a concert or some other meeting. As we meandered through the winding, quiet streets of Oxford, you would turn a corner, and there would be another reminder of a former visit by Sri Chinmoy.

First up was Lady Margaret Hall part of Oxford University. I asked the porter if I could take a few runners into the gardens, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. Lady Margaret Hall was the Oxford college where I studied for four years and in my final year became a disciple of Sri Chinmoy.

Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. 2003

As fate would have it, in 2003, Sri Chinmoy visited Lady Margaret Hall in a “Lifting up the World with a Oneness-Heart Award”, where he lifted 20 distinguished university professors. Guru was very happy with this visit and the title of his book “The mind becomes the heart” is symbolic of how the pinnacle of academia accepted the heart of Sri Chinmoy.

Anyway, on this particular day, the college gardens were unusually calm and still (the students weren’t back for a start!). I pointed out the spot where Sri Chinmoy meditated many years ago, and for those brief minutes, it felt like his presence was still very much with us. I hadn’t planned this visit at all, it just seemed to happen and felt one of those perfect moments where the planets align.

As the runners departed for their next location in London, I felt a little sad to be moving back to a more mundane reality. On the Run, so much happens in 24 hours. Thank you to those Peace Runners who give up their time to travel across the world and take part in this great event.

Related

More photos of Oxford visit at Peace Run.org

Cross-posted from tejvan.srichinmoycentre.org

What Sri Chinmoy's Canadian students have done this year....

Sri Chinmoy sometimes described his spiritual path as having two wings. The first wing is aspiration - drawing closer to God through meditation, prayer and other spiritual disciplines. The other wing Sri Chinmoy called manifestation - connecting with the Universal Consciousness through sharing peace, joy and love with the world.

Purnakama Rajna, a grade school teacher and student of Sri Chinmoy from Winnipeg, reports on some of the many projects Sri Chinmoy's Canadian students worked on this year:

Despite the vastness of our beautiful country, and often long distances between our Sri Chinmoy Centres, Canada’s oneness-heart has come together to engage in many different types of manifestation recently.


Find out more:   Running for Peace   •    Athletic events    •   Celebrating UN Peace Day    •    Concerts of meditation music     •    Meditation classes


 

Cross-posted from tejvan.srichinmoycentre.org

When I met Sri Chinmoy for the first time

In this short video, Baridhi recounts the first time he met Sri Chinmoy at a concert by the Danube River. The most striking thing Baridhi remembers is the feeling and consciousness of the room during Sri Chinmoy's sitar performance.

Sport and Meditation

The inner dimension of sport...

A spiritual Master and at the same time an avid sportsman, Sri Chinmoy was a pioneer in demonstrating the power of meditation in the sporting world. In 1977, he founded the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, which has put on some of the most boundary-pushing races the running world has ever seen, including the current longest certified road race - the 3100 Mile Self-Transcendence Race.

This book brings together many of Sri Chinmoy's most powerful teachings from 30 years of service to the running community. It is aimed at both elite athletes searching for that extra edge, and ordinary people looking to get more satisfaction from their workouts. Sri Chinmoy answers questions both from a deep inner perspective and yet also rooted in the world of practical experience - what are the goals we should be aiming for, how we can strive for and yet be detached from disappointment at the same time, how we can keep our enthusiasm day after day and year after year, and how we can make our sporting activities a source of deep and lasting satisfaction.

In addition, legendary athletes such as 9-time Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis, Olympic long jump and triple jump champion Tatyana Lebedeva, marathon record-holders Tegla Laroupe and Paul Tergat, and 5-time Mr. Universe Bill Pearl contribute their own inner secrets and spiritual perspective on training and competition.

Celebrating Sri Chinmoy's 27,000 Aspiration-Plants poem series

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.

The first 100 volumes in the series

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.

Volumes 101-200

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.”

Volumes 201-270

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.

Cross-posted from tejvan.srichinmoycentre.org

Inspiration-Letters: Experiences with Sri Chinmoy

Inspiration-Letters is a periodical collection of writings by members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre, each on a different topic. For the most recent edition, the topic was Experiences with Guru, featuring writings from Canada, Brazil, New Zealand and the USA. 'Guru' - a Sanskrit word for a spiritual Master - is the name by which Sri Chinmoy's students usually refer to their teacher, and each of these essays offers a glimpse through the student's eyes of what having a spiritual teacher of Sri Chinmoy's calibre is like.

Sri Chinmoy offers prasad after a public meditation. Prasad is an Indian tradition where a spiritual master offers food that has been specially blessed.

Essays in this edition

From the many incidents detailed in these seven essays, two themes stand out - how spiritual Masters such as Sri Chinmoy can infuse the smallest interactions and everyday occurences with spiritual power and meaning, and also how much he valued dedicated service and self-giving as a means of spiritual progress.

  • The Universal Guru by Mahiruha Klein, USA
    Mahiruha recalls arranging a ceremony for Sri Chinmoy with the professors of the university where he was studying. more »
  • Being with Guru by Purnakama Rajna, Canada
    "...I was never a disciple who had any kind of outer relationship with Guru. He never called me out of a prasad line to speak to me or ask me a question, and that’s the way it was for many of us. There were just too many of us for that to be a reality, but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t feel his inner blessings...in the blink of an eye Guru could send you a silent blessing that would leave you in bliss, almost unaware of the outer world..." more »
  • One summer afternoon by Jogyata Dallas, New Zealand more »
    "...We were running up and down the ladder of consciousness, from mind to soul to mind to soul, being shown that inner peace, stillness, soulfulness are quickly accessible through practice and intent, that meditation can be found and practised anywhere..." more »
  • Angels and Elevators, and China Memories by Sharani Robins, USA
    "...While the Christmas Trip with Guru included many highlights, what I remember most is an experience that might be classified as a morality tale...." more »
  • A few stories with Guru Sri Chinmoy by Suchana Cao, Argentina
    Three short and cute stories from visits to see Sri Chinmoy in New York and from our yearly Christmas trip. more »
  • One touch by Patanga Cordeiro, Brazil
    Patanga describes an experience showing how even the touch of a spiritual Master can bestow an experience that still remains with him to this day. more »
  • Three (well-documented) recollections by Dhiraja McBryde, New Zealand
    "Fungible is the human memory – fungible and frangible and fragile. There are fungi in there – dry rot, and mildew and a few lurid mushrooms. We think that we remember, we think the old synapses are recording it all like dutiful stenographers, like scribes in the Akashic records department – but we are mistaken...." more »

Related items

Cross-posted from tejvan.srichinmoycentre.org

North American Peace Run 2018

The international runners from the North American leg of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run is currently travelling around the United States, as it visits a multitude of towns and local communities which form a cross-section of American society.

The Peace Run was founded by Sri Chinmoy in 1987 to offer practical opportunities for those wishing to create a more harmonious world. The motto of the Peace Run is Peace begins with me - and one person at a time, the Run hopes to kindle the ideals of goodwill and peace inside the hearts of everyone they meet.

minnehaha-falls

“World peace can blossom throughout the length and breadth of the world only when the world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers and world-peace-servers desperately, sleeplessly and breathlessly long for the full manifestation of peace here on earth.”

Sri Chinmoy 1

Since starting in New York earlier this year, the Run has visited several US states, Mexico and Canada. The runners currently heading east through Illinois on their journey back to New York. The Run has been well received by countless individuals, schools and local community centres, who have joined the runners as they pass through their location.

The run has also featured on many local news networks, such as this live TV footage from KUSI in San Diego

Video highlights

Video
A few highlights from the Florida leg of the run

 

Photos from the run

San Diego
Beside the 'Dreamer of World Peace' statue of Sri Chinmoy in San Diego
The Peace Run van on the road.
A full moon.
murray-namchang-khempo-rinpoche
The Peace Run welcomed by Buddhist monk Namchang Khempo Rinpoche.

 

Related

Cross-posted from tejvan.srichinmoycentre.org

Getting joy from your spiritual life

Nandita Pollisar has been a student of Sri Chinmoy since the early 1970s. In this video, Nandita talks about the importance of getting joy from the spiritual life, and how the simple act of speaking with friends helps can help get away from the negative thoughts of the mind.With her husband, Nayak, Nandita has helped to run the Seattle Sri Chinmoy Centre since 1974.

Meditation functions with Sri Chinmoy

Kokila Chamberlain talks meditating with Sri Chinmoy in New York, and of what it is like to be in the presence of a genuine spiritual Master. She describes a ‘typical’ meditation function and the spontaneous nature of Sri Chinmoy’s approach. Kokila also explains what drew her to Sri Chinmoy’s Path.

'Everyone is feeling nothing but love'

Suren serves as one of the assistants at Aspiration Ground, the meditation garden in New York where we meditated with Sri Chinmoy, and still gather there today. In this video, he recalls the powerful atmosphere during meditations and singing performances.

Pages