Category Archives: poems

Jan 29

The Golden Boat

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Most mornings after I finish meditating, I turn to a list of achievements detailing activities and accomplishments by my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy. The set of cards produced in 2008 (one year after Sri Chinmoy’s passing) provides a day-by-day view of notable moments in Sri Chinmoy’s remarkable and extraordinarily productive lifetime. Who else could find achievements noteworthy enough to populate all 365 days of the year?

This morning when I read the activities for January 29th – along with art exhibit openings (1975), new weightlifting records (2002), peace concerts in South Africa (1996) and Brazil (2000) – Sri Chinmoy began a poetry series entitled The Golden Boat on January 29th, 1974. He began writing these poems in Puerto Rico and the series eventually encompassed 1,000 poems in total with the publication of the 20th volume in October of that same year. Each of the 20 volumes contains 50 poems and they are available to read online.

The symbol of a golden boat traveling to a golden shore is found in Sri Chinmoy’s poetry, songs and artwork. I have a framed print on the wall in my living room which is called The Golden Boat – Sri Chinmoy painted this abstract image of a boat on the water in 1976.

Here is one poem from the series I especially like:

MY LOVE OF GOD

My morning love of God
Liberates me from the frets
And fevers of life.
My afternoon love of God
Protects me from world-dangers
And world-tragedies.
My evening love of God
Inspires me to stand
On the battlefield of life
To distribute the Breath of God.

Sri Chinmoy, The Golden Boat, Part 11, Agni Press, 1974.

Four days after he began the Golden Boat poems, he completed 208 poems in 22 hours. A book called The Inner Journey published in 1977 includes the transcript of a talk he gave to the disciples who helped publish and print those 208 poems students the same day they were written.

Dear children, the Golden Boat is not mine. This Boat belongs to the Supreme. We are all passengers on this Boat. You may say that I am an experienced passenger because I have been on this Boat for a longer time than you have been. But I wish to say that this Boat belongs to the Supreme. Right now He has only a few hundred passengers on this Boat, but a day will dawn when he will have seven thousand passengers or even more.

And in the near or distant future the Boat of the Supreme, where we are all now seated, will carry not only seven hundred or seven thousand individuals, but the whole of humanity to the Golden Shores of the Beyond. The Transcendental Supreme in His Golden Boat will carry all of us to the Golden Shores of the ever-transcending Beyond.

Sri Chinmoy, The Inner Journey, Agni Press, 1977.

Somehow when I think of the image of a golden boat ferrying human beings towards God, I imagine Noah’s Ark. As a child, I had a particular fondness for the concept of Noah’s Ark and used to imagine when I went to bed at night that my bed was the ark and that my stuffed animal collection represented all the animals brought onto the ark. This thought made me feel safe and protected by God.

Today I revisit the poems of The Golden Boat and dwell in a grateful space as I ponder the magical wisdom, life lessons, aphorisms and food for the soul overflowing in Sri Chinmoy’s poetry.

 

Sep 11

9/11 – 9 Years Later Remembered

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How can it be already 9 years? How can it be only one short year until a decade has passed? Although the years have flown by, I am still mute in the memory of this terrible, terrible tragedy for the U.S. and indeed for the entire world.

On this 9th anniversary of 9/11 I had to go to work. I work in a public library in Massachusetts and manage the library’s website. I thought about posting about 9/11 on it but instead was wrapped up in the minutia of daily work moments and ended up posting about the state’s primary election in 2 short days, feeling that we have an obligation to serve the voter’s information needs as much as their reading, learning and other needs. Yet perhaps most of all I didn’t do it because I cowered with a sense of overwhelming incapacity in how to pay tribute with due dignity and respect.

Because my day did not include taking an active part in 9/11 memorial observances, I am tremendously grateful that today CBS New York kindly placed on the Web their video footage of the ceremony held at the Reflecting Pool at Ground Zero. Broken up into 5 segments, the footage allows one to experience the entire observance at Ground Zero. I am always especially moved by the flowers and flower petals offered in the reflecting pool and felt it was vitally important to recite aloud the names of those who lost their lives on that day.

The political leaders who attended offered words of remembrance and observance drawing upon the poetic and literary wealth of many famous poets and writers, mostly, but not all American. Mayor Bloomberg quoted Archibald MacLeish, Matthew Shenoda, Willa Cather and Dana Gioia. Vice President Joe Biden quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York Governor David Paterson quoted Sri Chinmoy. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie quoted Langston Hughes. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani quoted Tennyson. Former New York Governor George Pataki quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I am touched that Sri Chinmoy’s quotes on hope were included in the ceremony. I have derived tremendous inspiration from his writings in my years as a meditation student of his teachings. Here is a video montage of footage from this year’s ceremony that includes Sri Chinmoy’s following words on hope:

Hope
Knows no fear.

Hope dares to blossom
Even inside the abysmal abyss.

Hope secretly feeds
And strengthens
Promise.

-Sri Chinmoy

Apr 17

Ashrita’s 100th simultaneously held record – Poetry Recitation in 111 languages

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Ashrita Furman is synonymous with Guinness World Records.  Trace back over the last thirty years of his life and realize that he has achieved over 200 Guinness World Records. His latest record set earlier this week on April 14, 2009 is like a home run with bases loaded.

On Tuesday, April 14th in New York,  he set a record for recitation of a poem written by Sri Chinmoy that was translated and read out in 111 languages. He was joined in this record by students of  meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy, themselves  from around the world, gathered in Queens, New York for a spiritual retreat. The record-breaking poem recitation took place at City Hall Park in Manhattan. Attired in sashes that displayed their language to recite, participants read the poem in 111 languages – some of which were completely unfamiliar – like Picard or Dzongkha. The previous record for multiple language recitation involved 79 different languages.

The Poem “Precious” by Sri Chinmoy from his classic book of poems entitled My Flute reads:

Precious beyond measure is God’s Will,
None can undo its Power.
Precious beyond measure are man’s tears.
They alone can hug God’s Hour.

Precious beyond measure is man’s love,
Unveiling his golden face.
Precious beyond measure is God’s Gift:
His all-fulfilling Grace.
-Sri Chinmoy

Why is this poetry recitation record like a home run with bases loaded? By setting this latest record, he also reached the pinnacle goal of 100 Guinness World Records held simultaneously. Through the years he has achieved well over 100 records, but some of the categories have been subsequently broken by someone else. Reaching this record on April 14th catapulted him into a new realm – the first person in the world to hold 100 simultaneous, active and current Guinness World Records. Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday, attended the event and commended him for his extraordinary footing in the world of Guinness.

Did you know that Ashrita’s world record breaking abilities warrant an entire chapter in a book written about the history of the Guinness Records phenomenon around the world?   Getting into Guinness : One Man’s Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World’s Most Famous Record Book by Larry Olmsted provides an in-depth look at Ashrita’s record-breaking activities in its opening chapter – “Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God.”

Read more about the record in this post at the blog InspiringNews.org and in the New York Daily News. Watch a short video of Ashrita’s poetry record at the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sep 13

The Best Kind of Beautiful

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Paper lace grace
flutters al fresco
a ticker tape parade
thousand happiness wish
-Sharani (July 2006)

I slowly moved forward in walking meditation, silent, reverent, linked in a seamless circle with others taking darshan from the teacher. With each completion of another time around in our circular passage, a rarefied and angelic feeling of happiness washed over my interior being, deepening with each step. My usual enchantment with beauty found mostly in nature stepped aside as the overwhelming beauty of this breeze of happiness dawning within fed my soul. What kind of fool must I be not to realise it sooner! Happiness is the best kind of beautiful. It feeds our myriad longings and banishes dissatisfaction. Now instead the centrality of abiding satisfaction bubbled forth from within into the bloom of a smile – or to be precise more like a wide and open grin.

Happiness is a complex and elusive wayfarer on my life road. It evaded me when I faced hardships as a child and as I wrestled with feelings of inadequacy. Now these many years later, unless felt as an authentic reality I am usually reticent to paint it on the surface of my life in some kind of superficial nod to its legitimate importance. If it doesn’t honestly dawn from inside up and outward, I shy from hastily donning this garment, however valuable it might be.

Therefore, the solid feeling of happiness that spontaneously graced this walking exercise in meditation struck me with its immensity and tangible power. One thing I know for sure – my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy offered a very special gift this day with a blessing in the form of kindled happiness. I felt ever so ready to jump up on a soapbox and eagerly declare that happiness is the best kind of beautiful. Not to worry. Maybe my smiling eyes did the talking for me. They can serve as shining testament along with the sweet memory of this experience now imprinted on the tablet of my heart.

My heart’s dawn has come.
Inside my heart
I see only one thing:
The happiness of a God-intoxicated
Beauty-life.
-Sri Chinmoy
Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 9