by Sri Chinmoy
Leader of Peace Meditations at the United Nations since 1970
Friday, 17 April 1998 – 6 p.m.
Dag HammarskjOld Auditorium, United Nations
Welcome to this evening’s Peace Concert for the Millennium by Sri Chinmoy.
During tonight’s concert, Sri Chinmoy will be perfonning his own compositions on a variety of instruments from many different countries. He will also sing in his native language, Bengali, and extemporize on piano or synthesizer. Through his music, Sri Chinmoy says that he tries to offer to others the peace and joy he receives from his meditation. The Society of Authors and Composers of Music of Mexico will honour the artist during the programme, following his recent concert tour in their country.
About Sri Chinmoy
A noted author, musician, artist, meditation teacher and athlete, Sri Chinmoy is above all a devoted student of peace. In his tireless search for pathways to peace, both individual and collective, he has explored many different fields of human endeavour, touching the lives of thousands around the world.
Sri Chinmoy spent more than 20 years of his early life in a spiritual community in India, practising meditation and inner disciplines. In 1964, at the age of 32, he came to the United States to share his inner understanding with others, and to work toward the manifestation of his vision of a world of inner and outer peace.
Today Sri Chinmoy serves as a spiritual guide to students in over 350 meditation centres around the world. He leads an active life, demonstrating vividly that spirituality is not an escape from the world, but a powerful means of self-transformation and world improvement. Since coming to the West, he has offered hundreds of lectures, public meditations and concerts at universities and recital halls around the world, always free of charge. He has written more than 1,200 books, which include poems, plays and essays, and has thousands of paintings and devotional songs to his credit.
A gifted natural athlete and a finn believer in the mental and spiritual benefits of physical fitness, Sri Chinmoy has encouraged his students both to participate in sports and to organize athletic events for the public. The international Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team annually stages hundreds of road races and triathlons, and organizes a global relay run for peace, the Oneness-Home Peace Run. Always one to practise what he preaches, Sri Chinmoy himself regularly exercises, plays tennis and trains at sprinting. His achievements as a weight lifter have earned him considerable renown.
Sri Chinmoy: The Peace Meditation at the United Nations
In the spring of 1970, at the invitation of then United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, Sri Chinmoy began leading twice-weekly Peace Meditations at the United Nations for delegates and staff. Sri Chinmoy: The Peace Meditation at the United Nations, as this meditation group is now called, also sponsors an ongoing series of programmes, lectures and concerts to promote world peace, often in cooperation with UN Member States as well as with organisations supporting the ideals and goals of the world body.
U Thant, himself a lifelong practitioner~ of meditation, appreciated Sri Chinmoy’s efforts to foster the spiritual idealism of the “world body as a complement to its activities in the political, economic and social realms. Succeeding Secretaries-General have also offered their encouragement.
The lunchtime meditation sessions, held on Tuesdays and Fridays at the UN, consist of periods of silent meditation interspersed with meditative music, offering participants an opportunity for inner reflection and re-dedication to the ideals of the United Nations.
From Sri Chinmoy’s writings on peace
“If each individual in each nation can consciously and devotedly feel that he does not belong to a little family called ‘I and mine’ but to a larger family called ‘we and ours’, then the message of love, of brotherhood, of peace, of soulful sharing, can easily be embraced by the entire world.”
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“There shall come a time when this world of ours will be flooded with peace. Who is going to bring about this radical change? It will be you and your sisters and brothers. You and your oneness-heart will spread peace throughout the length and breadth of the world.”
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“The outer message of the United Nations is peace.
The inner message of the United Nations is love.
The inmost message of the United Nations is oneness.”
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“The peace we bring to the fore from the inner world through our prayer and meditation is very powerful, and it lasts. When we have that peace in our inner life, the outer life is bound to be transformed. It is only a matter of time.”
This event is Sponsored by the UNSRC Music Appreciation Club and UNSRC Cine and Video Club.
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