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Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose (27 August 1931 – 11 October 2007) was an Indian philosopher and teacher (guru) who emigrated to the U.S. in 1964. A prolific author, composer, artist and athlete, he was perhaps best known for holding public events on the theme of inner peace and world harmony (such as concerts, meditations, and races). His teachings emphasize love for God, daily meditation on the heart, service to the world, and religious tolerance rooted in the modern Vedantic view that all faiths are essentially divine.

Early Years In India (1931-1964)
He was the youngest of seven children, born in Shakpura village in the Chittagong District of East Bengal (now Bangladesh). His parents were Shashi Kumar Ghosh, a railway inspector turned banker, and Yogamaya Ghosh, an Indian homemaker of devout temperament. He lost his father to illness in 1943, and his mother a few months later. Orphaned, in 1944 the 12-year-old Chinmoy joined his brothers and sisters at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, South India, where elder brothers Hriday and Chitta had already established a presence. There he spent the next twenty years in spiritual practice, including meditation, study in Bengali and English literature, and work in the ashram's cottage industries.

In his teens and twenties he was a sprinter and decathlete. In 1955 he became secretary to Nolini Kanta Gupta - the third in charge at the ashram - translating many of the latter's articles from Bengali to English. He also published articles of his own about India's spiritual leaders, and continued filling notebooks with poems, songs, and reflections on ashram life.

In The West (1964-2007)
In 1964 he accepted the invitation of American sponsors, and emigrated to New York City with the intention of teaching. He began work as an assistant to the Indian Consulate in their passport and visa section, under LL Mehrotra. In 1965 he was invited to perform three songs at the Guggenheim Museum, sponsored by the Asia Society. Later that year he began publishing the monthly AUM magazine. In 1966, he opened the first of what later became over 100 centers around the world which teach meditation and spiritual philosophy, and advocate a modest brahmacharya lifestyle.

Between 1968 and 1970, he gave talks at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Brandeis, Dartmouth, and The New School for Social Research. He also toured Japan and the Far East. In April 1970, he began conducting "Peace Meditations at the United Nations," an NGO holding non-denominational services open to UN delegates and staff. In late 1970 he made his first European tour, including talks at Oxford and Cambridge. By 1971 he had begun delivering monthly lectures at the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium, with the support of then Secretary-General U Thant.

According to Prof. A. Walter Dorn writing in Interreligious Insight, Chinmoy's interest in the UN stemmed from a belief that it is the "heart-home of the world body" and a vehicle for "universal oneness." Chinmoy's mentors Aurobindo and Nolini believed that spiritual evolution is a global process which requires better dialogue between nations. They warmly embraced President Wilson's vision of a League of Nations which later became the United Nations after World War II. While it has become popular to criticize the UN for its failures, Chinmoy remained a staunch supporter of the ideals of the UN.

He continued to travel, lecture, found new meditation centers, and throw himself into a multitude of activities. In April 1975, he gave a series of seven talks at Harvard Divinity School dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy. In July 1975, he offered the opening meditation at the National Day of Prayer ceremony at the UN, and at a similar ceremony in April 1976.

Artistic Pursuits
Art, music, and poetry play an important role in his "path of the heart." An oft-quoted stanza from his 1972 poetry collection, My Flute, describes the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi:

No mind, no form, I only exist;

Now ceased all will and thought;

The final end of Nature's dance,

I am it whom I have sought.

Another poem describes the soul as "a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite," while yet another laments:

The blue bird is flying in the blue sky.

Alas, here below I am dying in utter

frustration.

Avian imagery also abounds in Chinmoy's artwork. In 1991 he began drawing great masses of birds, which in his oeuvre symbolize the freedom of the soul. The University of Washington's Online Daily reports that by 1997 he had drawn seven million, including "a magnificent avian landscape containing 15,372 birds of all shapes and sizes." His "soul-birds" have been exhibited worldwide, along with his colorful acrylics on abstract themes - called Jharna-Kala ("fountain-art") - which he began painting in 1974. The format of his artworks ranges from small pen and ink drawings to huge murals. He also drew on objects such as clocks, ceramic plates, seashells, and children's toys. The clean lines and formal simplicity of his drawn objects may be contrasted with his acrylics, which show the modern painter's love of thick textures, visible brushstrokes, and color as a purely expressive element.

In presenting Chinmoy with an award from Manhattan's School of Visual Arts in June 1976, the late Brian Gormley described his work as "art cleansed of all the ambitions and desires that we too often see in the art world." According to Chinmoy, "All art, without fail, is an expression of the Supreme's Beauty. Art is beauty and beauty is art. Art, beauty and joy are like three brothers."

His early writings were published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and after 1964, by his Western students. He gained wider recognition in 1970–71 with Yoga and the Spiritual Life (Tower Publications), Meditations: Food for the Soul (Harper & Row), and Songs of the Soul (Herder & Herder). In the spring of 1971, The Philosophical Society of England published his 1969 Harvard lecture "The Vedanta Philosophy." In July 1972, the Princeton Seminary Bulletin published his lecture "The Upanishads: India's Soul-Offering" delivered there the previous October. Since then his poems, essays, stories and aphorisms have been published widely.

He penned commentaries on the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita - and a book of plays on the life of the Buddha which were produced off-Broadway in New York in 1995, and at London's Union Theatre in 2005. His longest play, The Descent of the Blue, recounts important incidents in the life of Sri Aurobindo. It was first published serially in Mother India: A Monthly Review of Culture.

Sri Chinmoy was a prolific composer of short songs in Bengali and English, which he also performed on the flute, esraj, cello, and synthesizer, as well as improvising sonorous compositions on piano and pipe organ. In 1984 he began a series of free concerts for world harmony, performing in such venues as London's Royal Albert Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall, Tokyo's Nippon Budokan, and the Sydney Opera House. These concerts, given from a "meditative consciousness," became his most numerous and popular offerings.

His music is simple, spontaneous, and appeals to a childlike spirit. He typically alternates plaintive singing with peaceful melodies played on the Western flute or Indian esraj, plus lively (and sometimes quite avant-garde) performances on an ever-changing assortment of ethnic flutes, percussion, and stringed instruments, often culminating in a piano improvisation.

Like fellow Bengali and polymath Rabindranath Tagore, he freely adapts the melody to the words, even if this results in irregular barlines or mixed metre. An example of the latter is the short song "Dekhi Jena," which combines 4/4 and 3/8 time.

Heinrich Schweizer, best known for his Historical Symphony, has incorporated Chinmoy's melodies into his classical works. Other student arrangements can sound like anything from Gregorian chant to jazz fusion.

His emphasis on poetry and song may best be viewed against the backdrop of historical Bengal, where the Vaishnava movement used devotional recitation and singing to melt away distinctions of caste, overcome dry ritualism, and create a spirit of divine love in which humanitarian concerns could also flourish. Whether history shall take him as another Vaishnava poet remains to be seen; but this poem addressing the "Beloved" - and expressing the Sufi spirit which partly informs Vaishnava works - is an (obvious) example of the genre:

Shudhu Sundar

You are nothing but beauty, eternal beauty,

Wherever I turn my eyes.

Do You always drink the nectar of Your self-form

Residing in my eyes?

The waves of tune and sweet and melodious songs

That create heart-elevating resonance,

O Beloved, do You hear them

By using my ears?

Athletic and Humanitarian Programs
In 1977 he founded the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, which holds running, swimming, and cycling events worldwide, from fun runs to ultramarathons. Its precursor was the 1976 Liberty Torch Run, a relay in which 33 runners marked America's bicentennial by covering 8,800 miles in 7 weeks, mapped out over 50 states. The run began and ended in New York City, and was met on its final leg by then Mayor Abraham Beame, who proclaimed 16 August 1976 "Liberty Torch Day."

This concept was expanded in 1987 to become the international Peace Run (later renamed World Harmony Run), generally held every two years. Like all Chinmoy's peace initiatives, it involves no protest or political action; only an effort to raise world consciousness about the need for peace, based on the slogan "Peace begins with me."

Press reports suggest that the run serves not just an athletic purpose, but an ambassadorial one, with stops in dozens of cities and towns, meetings with officials and community groups, and school programs where children write essays on the meaning of peace. When interviewed in April 2006 by the Victoria News (BC), principal John Fawcett of Quadra Elementary School said that the World Harmony curriculum "aligns beautifully with our school goals." On inspection, this curriculum emphasizes good communication skills, non-violent conflict resolution, and learning about people from different cultures as a way to foster respect and tolerance.

According to Southeastern Pennsylvania's Bucks County Courier Times, the run eschews corporate sponsorship, relies on member contributions, and sells T-shirts to raise money for food. North Carolina's Salisbury Post reports that the relay torch has been held by notables from Pope John Paul II to Sting. For 2005–06, the run's U.S. spokesman was Olympic champion Carl Lewis, who volunteers his time.

Many of Chinmoy's followers run daily for health and fitness. A few, like Suprabha Beckjord, are respected ultramarathoners. Solo English Channel swimmers include (women) Vasanti Niemz, Vedika Bolliger, and Ahelee Sue Osborn, and (men) Mate Szekely, Karteek Clark, Adhiratha Keef, and Tejaswi Van Der Walt.

In 1978, he received a distinguished service award from Runner's World magazine "for dedicated service to humanity through the promotion of running." His team has worked closely with the New York Road Runners club, and sponsored ultra-distance events where legends Yiannis Kouros and Al Howie have set new world records.

Chinmoy continued to enter races from his youth until his sixties. American Fitness magazine reports that he "completed more than 200 road races, including 21 marathons and five ultra-marathons." In 1983 (at age 52), he ran the 400-metre dash in 72.66 seconds at the World Masters Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At age 49, he ran the 47-mile Sri Chinmoy Ultramarathon in 11:27:24 in Queens, New York. He claimed:

Age is no barrier. I find that the mind makes us feel we are very old. The moment I use my heart, I am 20 years old again. When we experience deep meditation, we see that spiritual energy is the source of physical, vital and mental energy.

In his closing years, a knee injury hampered his ability to run. But in 1985 he took up weightlifting, and continued to stage events designed to make the public believe in the power of the heart. These were unofficial lifts in which he raised great pumpkins, elephants, or groups of people on a platform, using a modified calf raise machine for leverage.

The Rotorua Daily Post reports that while visiting New Zealand in late 2002, he lifted 1,000 lambs (in small groups, spread out over six sessions). This was part of his "Lifting Up The World With A Oneness-Heart" program, which usually honors human beings who have contributed to society's betterment in the fields of sports, literature, science, governance, or personal endeavor. "I lift them up to show my appreciation for their achievements," Chinmoy said.

On 2 November 1998, after an exhibition in Teterboro, New Jersey in which he lifted six light aircraft in sequence, he was asked by the Bergen Record, "Why do you do this?" He replied:

I am trying, according to my humble capacity, to be of dedicated service to the world. I have been going to the United Nations to offer meditations since 1970. In addition, I have composed many songs and poems, plus I have done thousands and thousands of paintings. All this I am doing to inspire others. ... Inspiration is a divine element inside our life. When we are inspired, we try to climb up the Himalayas. When we are inspired, we try to swim the English Channel. When we are inspired, we go from one country to another country to inspire people and to be inspired by them. I feel that when we inspire humanity, we automatically become good citizens of the world. This is my philosophy. My weightlifting feats I have done solely to inspire humanity.

He didn't claim to use any occult or paranormal powers in his lifting, but rather to draw strength from an integral life in which body and spirit worked together. American Fitness wrote in 1991: "He doesn't do it for the record books, which we often wrongly judge as the true worth of a person's accomplishments, but for the purpose it ultimately serves.

In that same year he established "Oneness-Heart Tears and Smiles," a humanitarian aid organization which sends medical supplies, food and clothing to impoverished regions of Eastern Europe, India, Indonesia, Africa, and Micronesia. It includes a "kids-to-kids" program in which donor schools send educational supplies to sister schools in other countries. "Drawings of Hope" is a special project for children in Banda Aceh who were orphaned by the tsunami of December, 2004.

Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms, a program begun in 1989, involves no heavy lifting - just global networking between "students of peace" who establish sister sites in and around major cities, landmarks, and beauty spots. Cynics might question how merely naming such sites Peace-Blossoms would have any effect at all. His followers claim that if the hope for peace was something fragile, holding ceremonies at these sites makes it real and tangible, and helps like-minded people around the globe feel connected, even if their own communities are ravaged by war. An April 1995 article in Hinduism Today reports that the late King Birendra of Nepal dedicated an unscaled Himalayan peak as "Sri Chinmoy Peace Mountain."

If one believes Chinmoy and his followers, these different activities - poetry, music, painting, athletics, and humanitarian concerns - are not a form of eclecticism, but stem from a central core.

Teachings
He calls his path the "path of the heart" or the path of "love, devotion, and surrender" to God, whom he calls "the Supreme." One of his songs (originally in Bengali) proclaims of God:

You are beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful,

Beauty unparalleled in the garden of Eden.

Day and night may Thy Image abide

In the very depth of my heart.

His conception of the Supreme includes both form and the formless, and both Father and Mother aspects. He writes of the latter:

It is for a man like me who has no capacity

That the Eyes of the Mother are eternally awake.

All you wish to know about me, ask Her.

Without Her Affection and Love,

I do not exist.

He does not view the Supreme as a fixed or static entity, but rather uses the term "ever-transcending Beyond":

The ultimate goal of aspiration is to go to the Beyond, the ever-transcending Beyond. And the ever-transcending Beyond is nothing other than God.

The ever-transcending heart knows that there is no end to our progress and achievement. Today's goal is tomorrow's starting point. Again, tomorrow's goal will be the starting point for the day after tomorrow, since God Himself is endlessly progressing and eternally transcending His own infinite Heights.

He also describes God as inner Truth, and as one's most illumined part. This is consistent with the Hindu doctrine of Tat Tvam Asi (Skt. "That Thou Art") found in the Chandogya Upanishad.

His teachings are essentially monotheistic. In his "Invocation," a song sung daily by his disciples, he writes of the Supreme: "Thou art one Truth, one Life, one Face." He acknowledges and appreciates the Indian gods and goddesses - as well as the angels described in Judeo-Christian literature - but his main focus is on the unitary Supreme. He says:

I believe in one God, one Source. Love of God is like a tree - the life-tree - and it has many branches. Each of the branches has its own identity and its own name, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and so forth. But they are still branches of the same tree.

His teachings are non-exclusivist, and value the contributions made by spiritual figures from Mother Teresa to Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. In December 2001, Revd Barbara Moss gave an interfaith sermon at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge in which she quoted these two poems by Sri Chinmoy:

1.

I see an empty church.

Where is the Christ?

Where has he gone?

I see an empty temple.

Where is Sri Krishna?

Where has he gone?

I see an empty heart.

Where is God?

Where has He gone?

2.

I saw the face

Of the suffering Christ.

I cried and cried.

I felt the heart

Of the forgiving Christ.

I smiled and smiled.

I clasped the soul

Of the illumining Christ.

I danced and danced.

According to Moss:

Sri Chinmoy illuminates the paradox of our age: the abandonment of formal religion, witnessed by empty churches and death-of-God theology, while at the same time there is an intense spiritual thirst. His response in this poem, however, is not to deny the revelation of God in Jesus, but to take inspiration through meditation on Jesus.

The Columbia Encyclopedia describes him as a "mystic and poet," and states: "He stresses the development of the spiritual heart as a human faculty higher than mind and emphasizes the necessity for manifesting God in one's daily life rather than withdrawing from the world."

He calls this the "sunlit path," and describes the role of the guru as that of a friend or helper. Hinduism Today reports that he has a few thousand followers worldwide.

Lifestyle
He asks his students to adopt a vegetarian diet, abstain from recreational drugs and alcohol, and lead a pure, celibate life. At weekly meetings, the men wear white clothing, while the women wear Indian saris. Although strongly influenced by Hinduism, his path caters to an international community of seekers from diverse backgrounds. He claims:

Yoga does not interfere with any religion. Anybody can practise Yoga. I have disciples who are Catholics, Protestants, Jews and so forth. One can practise Yoga irrespective of religion. ... The real aspirant who has launched into spirituality and Yoga will find no difficulty in remaining in his own religion. I tell my disciples not to give up their own religion.

A May 2006 article in the Ottawa Citizen confirms:

Raised in the Anglican Church, the British-born physicist and electrical engineer [Karnayati Morison] was always interested in spirituality and, except for a break when she was a university student, she's always been a practising Christian. She still considers herself a Christian - members of Sri Chinmoy's group are allowed to follow their own religion - and there are crosses and images of Jesus as well as pictures of Sri Chinmoy in her house, which she shares with her sons Zac, 19, and Patrick, 28.

According to Dr. Kusumita Pedersen, who chairs the Dept. of Religious Studies at St. Francis College, "Members of the centers come from all walks of life, and include single people of all ages, married couples, and families with children." So how do they meditate? Pedersen says:

Sri Chinmoy has written extensively on meditation, but does not recommend a particular "technique" to all. He rather advises each seeker to evolve his or her own best methods from inner experience, using certain basic principles: the need to focus on the heart with a quiet and silent mind; the enormous spiritual power of gratitude, and the paramount necessity of "aspiration," that "cry" for self-transcendence, imaged as a flame mounting up towards God.

His worldwide centers are usually clean, freshly painted blue and white, with modest decorations such as paintings by the guru, a shrine with his picture, and fresh flowers. They are not ashrams in the sense of communal living arrangements. Devotees live in their own apartments or houses and work in conventional occupations. Some have opened "divine enterprises" such as the Garland Of Divinity's Love (a florist's), Guru Health Foods, numerous cafes and restaurants, and the "Run and Become" line of running shops.

A popular custom among his followers is to hold "joy days" - group outings which may include sightseeing, luncheoning, singing, and playing sports. Sumangali Morhall of the Wales Sri Chinmoy Centre describes one such outing here.

Historical Context
Within the larger history of yoga, his "path of the heart" most closely resembles bhakti yoga, the yoga of love and devotion to God. It also includes elements of karma yoga, the yoga of selfless action, with a lesser emphasis on jnana yoga, the yoga of mental knowledge and discernment. As a late twentieth and early twenty-first century yogi, Sri Chinmoy was also an inheritor of modern Vedanta and integral yoga. His writings praise Swami Vivekananda (a progenitor of modern Vedanta ) for helping to remove poverty and suffering, and creating a marriage of ideas between East and West.

Sri Aurobindo, with his integral yoga, offered the view that from the highest Absolute, consciousness descends through various rungs until it finally becomes matter. This view was also accepted by Sri Chinmoy. Like Aurobindo, Chinmoy describes the different aspects of the human being as body, vital, mind, heart, and soul. The goal of his yoga is to transform and integrate these different aspects, so that a person fully realizes his or her divine potential. He claims that when the body is permeated by the light of the soul, when the strivings of the vital are pure and selfless, when the mind is flooded with peace, and the heart identifies with something vast and universal, then it is natural for a human being to do the extraordinary. (Sri Aurobindo, for example, penned the epic poem Savitri - one of the longest poems in the English language.)

Both Aurobindo and Chinmoy believed in a dual process of involution and evolution, described here by Chinmoy:

When the soul descends, it is the soul's involution. When the soul ascends, it is the soul's evolution. The soul enters into the lowest abyss of inconscience. The soul evolves again into Satchidananda - Existence, Consciousness, Bliss - the triple Consciousness.

While Chinmoy's teachings reflect the philosophical subtlety of Vedanta and integral yoga, the overarching spirit is one of Vaishnavism. His Vaishnavism - having passed through the prism of Vedanta and integral yoga - is not primarily directed towards incarnations of Vishnu, but rather to a universal God who is infinitely lovable. He writes:

God is our Father, God is our Mother, God is our Brother and God is our Sister. God is everything to us and everyone to us. There is only one God. My God and your God are both the same God. I am not God. God is Someone who is inside my heart, inside your heart, inside everybody's heart. And I am not the Guru. God is the only Guru, for it is He who illumines us, liberates us and makes us perfect instruments of His.

And also:

We love God, not because He is great, nor because He is Omniscient and Omnipotent and Omnipresent, nor because He is everything; but rather we love God precisely because He is all Love, and Love is the mightiest power.

In his early writings from India, Chinmoy describes Tagore's poetry as the perfect synthesis of Vedanta and Vaishnavism:

Vedanta's head is always held high. Vaishnavism's head is always bent low. So they are as opposite as sky and earth. But these two heads never knock at each other in Rabindranath. He has housed them peacefully and synthesised them perfectly. The devout Vaishnava through him sings:

O Thou, make my head bow down at the dust of Thy Feet.

The Vedantin with absolute monism through him declares:

As far as my ken can go

Thou and I have the self-same nature.

Consistent with this model, Chinmoy's teachings blend Vaishnavism and Vedanta, using devotion to the personal God as a means to realize the formless Absolute. In his view, "The personal God and impersonal God are both the same God." (See also Vivekananda, "Who Is Ishvara?")

Many of Chinmoy's followers view him as an Avatar, a term variously defined in Hindu philosophy. In the context of his teachings, an Avatar is someone who has become a "conscious instrument of God." He clarifies:

When I say that I am an instrument, I really mean it. I am not God; far from it. God is your Father as much as He is mine. God is not anybody's monopoly. But I am a conscious instrument of His, while unfortunately you are not. But tomorrow you can be a conscious instrument if you follow the inner path of spiritual discipline.

He views the Christ and the Buddha as Avatars; other Avatars (from within the Hindu tradition) include Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Sri Chaitanya, Sri Ramakrishna, and Sri Aurobindo.

These claims are being explained in the context of comparative religion. It goes without saying that different faiths - and even different Hindu denominations - will have different views, and that some skeptics question all such claims. In Chinmoy's case, there is a backdrop of religious pluralism rooted in his belief that "love of God is the essence of all religions," and that yoga is like a "school" where people of different faiths can study together. He resolves the apparent conflict between religions thusly:

Religions may fight on the way to the goal, but at the end of the journey they become most intimate friends, and then they feel that they were all the time together on the same journey, only following different paths. True, sincere followers of any religion, either Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or Judaism, will never find fault in the truths of other religions. They know that the ultimate Truth exists in each religion. But in the field of practice or manifestation, human thoughts, human ideas, human vibrations can alter the truth. This is at the root of conflict between religions. The moment we go deep within, however, we see that there is no religion, only Truth. India's greatest political leader, Mahatma Gandhi, said, "Where is religion? To me religion is just Truth." The word "religion" can cause conflict and fighting. But when we use the word "Truth," the conflicting parties remain silent.

Recognition and Recent Activities
He garnered several awards for his work, including the Hindu Renaissance Award presented by Hinduism Today; the Gandhi Universal Harmony Award presented by Bhavan USA (the Institute of Indian Culture) - received jointly with Coretta Scott King; and a humanitarian award from the Jesse Owens Foundation, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

He remained active in the interfaith community. In 1993, he was invited to Chicago to open the Parliament of the World's Religions' first plenary session with a silent meditation, as he also did in Barcelona in 2004. 1993 being the centenary of Vivekananda's appearance at the 1893 Parliament, Chinmoy dedicated 39 concerts throughout the spring and summer to Vivekananda's 39 years on earth, including New York concerts at St. Peter's Church, Christ and St. Stephen's Church, and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

News India reports that in 1995, he commemorated the 50th anniversary of the UN with a concert in which he performed on 50 instruments. Held in the General Assembly Hall lobby, it was "co-sponsored by the representatives to the United Nations of nine countries, including India's Ambassador Prakash Shah." In July 1999, he organized a memorial at the UN for the late John F. Kennedy Jr. which gathered in tributes from Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and other world figures, USA Today reports. The New York Beacon writes that in mid-2000 his "bird-scapes for peace" were exhibited in the UN Secretariat lobby. Later that year, he played for an audience of several thousand at Montreal's Molson Centre (now Bell Centre).

As a guest lecturer, Chinmoy was given the Dreamer of Peace award by the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research; the Student of Peace award by the University of Victoria's Centre for Studies in Religion and Society; the Peace Educator award by the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Sociology and Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies; the India's Peace-Service-Tree award by Florida International University's Department of Religious Studies; and an award from the Senator Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace (at the University of Hawaii at Manoa).

Literary awards include the University of Washington's World Peace Literature Award, and an Award of Excellence from the UN Staff Recreation Council's Society of Writers. In 2001 he was invited to participate in "Dialogue Through Poetry," a consortium of poets, writers, organizers, and UN officials committed to building a culture of peace through poetry, culminating in a reading at UN headquarters which also featured Joyce Carol Oates, James Ragan, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Yusef Komunyakaa.

April 2006 saw him back at the UN with "Paintings for World-Harmony." Kaumudi USA reports that the exhibit was well-attended by diplomats, friends and admirers, and curators of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. In May 2006, the University of Adelaide's Barr Smith Library hosted an exhibition of his prints, having shown his sketches and paintings in 1996. July 2006 saw an exhibition of his acrylics on paper at the Kotokuin Temple, culminating in a concert at which Chinmoy sang and played several instruments. The India Post reports it was there in Japan that he composed and sang his thirteen thousandth Bengali song. In late July, he returned to New York and performed at the Riverside Church. In November 2006, he began a five week visit to Turkey with a planned concert at Istanbul's Bosphorus University, according to the Turkish Daily News.

While he authored many books, his is more of a mentoring tradition than a "religion of the book." Hinduism Today noted that "Sri Chinmoy lives this teaching himself, as demonstrated by his herculean achievements - some without precedent - in the areas of music, writing, art and athletics." What is Enlightenment? magazine suggests that his "most extraordinary feat of all may be his near-miraculous ability to inspire in many of his students the same kind of limitation-shattering abilities that have marked his own spiritual odyssey."

A September 2005 news release from Cambodia's International University states: "After a careful deliberation and examination of documents and films of what Sri Chinmoy has done for humanity for four (4) decades, the Science Council committee of International University headed by Dr. Prof. Sam Sophean unanimously decided to award [a] degree" to Sri Chinmoy - an honorary doctorate "in Humanities in Peace Studies." In 2007, several college professors and political figures nominated Chinmoy for the Nobel Peace Prize, including Prof. St-Amand of the University of Ottawa; Prof. Oldrich Miksik of Charles University in Prague; and Halldór Blöndal, former President of Iceland's Parliament.

On balance, it would appear that he presented himself before authorities knowledgeable in matters spiritual, literary, artistic, and philanthropic, and that they accepted his bona fides. This is relevant to the "boundary issues" that sometimes develop between spiritual groups and society at large. Groups which are non-confrontational, eager to get along well with others, and founded by a respected teacher, are more likely to blend harmoniously in communities where they take up residence.

Sri Chinmoy lived in a modest home in the Briarwood section of Queens, New York for his last 39 years. He received a flood of international visitors around April 13 and August 27 - dates commemorating his arrival in the West and his birthday, respectively. These were marked by celebrations lasting about two weeks, with a flurry of meditations, concerts, humorous skits and plays, races and picnics. According to a Detroit Free Press article, in April 2006 "about 2,000 people from more than 60 countries [were] in New York to observe Chinmoy's 42 years of service for world harmony." A New York Times piece on neighboring Jamaica Hills states: "Residents say sect members are good neighbors because they are quiet and law-abiding."

Chinmoy would also congregate with his followers over the Christmas holidays in such far-flung locales as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bulgaria. During his travels, he met with world leaders, local dignitaries, and cultural luminaries in an effort to foster religious tolerance and cross-cultural understanding. (Photos show him with Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Mikhail Gorbachev.) There is anti-cult material vilifying him, but most reputable publications well-versed in comparative religion regard him as a qualified teacher of bhakti yoga, and a sincere exponent of global dialogue.

Upon his death at the age of 76, it was reported that his followers would hold "an eight-day vigil of silent meditation, song and poetry recitation in Chinmoy's memory."