Reception at Jharna-Kala Gallery for UN Community – Sep 1977 – SUMMARY

Filed under Art Exhibits

On 26 September 1977 the Meditation Group invited U.N . delegates and staff to a concert and dinner at the colourful Jharna -Kala Gallery, located in the heart of Grand Central Station, where paintings by Sri Chinmoy were on display. Before the concert, Sri Chinmoy presented Colonel Trimble, Chief of U.N. Security, with the newly published: “A Salute to the United Nations Security and Safety Service”, a compilation by the Meditation Group of informative talks and personal interviews with members of the U.N . Security staff (profits to be donated to the Security Benevolent Fund).

Sri Chinmoy also painted a special painting for Deputy Under-Secretary-General Robert Muller and spoke with guests informally after the concert

For more details and Photos of event see: Reception at Jharna-Kala Gallery for UN Community 1977 Sep – DETAILS .

Following are a few comments about the gallery and the evening by some of the guests.

Sri Chinmoy presents “A Salute to the United Nations Security and Safety Service” to Chief of U.N.
Security, Colonel Trimble.

Col . Trimble:

Since the Meditation Group started on this project, I have been fortunate to talk to quite a number of members, and I am delighted with the quality of people that you have, how dedicated and devoted they are to the Meditation Group and to its ends.

And I consider myself privileged to have worked with them.

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Sri Chinmoy:

I am grateful to you for your encouragement. We are trying to be of service to the United Nations. The world is full of problems and the United Na tions is the only answer to all these problems. It is our only hope, and our hope will one day be fulfilled. We feel that the United Nations is the Dream of God, the Supreme, so we are trying to serve the United Nations with our souls’ dedication.

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Excerpt from a letter dated 28 September 1977 :

Dear Sri Chinmoy,

I have learned a great new lesson of life during that evening, when I read the following in a pamphlet available at the exhibit:

“The art of Sri Chinmoy has its genesis in meditation and it expresses his conviction that the highest spiritual truths can and must be concretely and convincingly offered to the world at large through every possible medium.”

What a great lesson, a deep truth this is, so different from the concept of art developed in the West, specialized and not always related to the soul.

The book  A Salute to the United Nations Security and Safety Service, is a great achievement. I am so glad that many cherished memories could thus be preserved and that happiness is given the members of the Force who must be proud to show the book to their families and friends. Endless thanks are due to you and to the devoted young people of the Meditation Group for al their efforts for the Uni ted Nations. Let us hope
that many more will join our ra nks.

With my warmest feelings of gratitude,
Robert Muller

Sri Chinmoy paints for Deputy Under-Secretary-General Dr. Robert Muller at the Jharna-Kala Gallery, New York.

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Mr. Roy Moyer: We have two very beautiful slides of yours, but being very greedy I thought perhaps I could entice you to maybe make something special for us, a series of greeting cards, something appropriate t0 celebrate the Festival of Lights, a series on light.

Sri Chinmoy: I cannot do any thing on my own. I did not paint these and I cannot do it. It is my Inner Pilot that acts through me according to my receptivity. If I can receive His Light, I will do it.


Sri Chimnoy with Mr. Roy Moyer, Chief of Art and Design, UNICEF Greeting Cards.  and June Henneberger Manger of the UN Gift Shop.

Ms. Henneberger had co-founded the very first museum shop in the United States known as the  Brooklyn Museum Gift Shop in the 1960s! From 1964-1965, June created a similar cultural store called the “People to People” pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, she was the manager of the United Nations Gift Center.

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Mr. David Rowe, Political Advisor to the U.S. Mission, with Sri Chinmoy.

Mr. David Rowe (commenting on a particular painting): My favourites are the mauve coloured paintings. In this one the lines and the movement are symbolic of the images that I associate with love: love is circular and this is the interlocking of circles which extends to brotherhood. The painting is the colour of rest and quiet and reflection.

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