Category Archives: Sri Chinmoy

Apr 19

The Sri Chinmoy Tulip

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Sri Chinmoy Tulip

Did you know that some tulip flowers are officially named after someone or something? Examples include presidents, royalty or famous people.

There are currently over 3,000 varieties of tulips and the Royal General Bulbgrowers Association in the Netherlands keeps careful track of all the new hybrids with the International Cultivar Register of Tulip Names.

Sometimes an unnamed tulip receives the name of a person, place or thing recognizable to many.

Some of these tulips with famous and recognizable names can be found in Keukenhof, an amazing huge garden located southwest of Amsterdam in Holland (or the Netherlands), the modern-day tulip capital of the world. If you love tulips, this is a must see place to go. It is the biggest bulb flower garden in the world with 4.5 million tulips.

Over 44 million people have visited it and it is the most photographed spot on the planet. New to Keukenhof in 2009 is the “Walk of Fame” which features tulips named after people and things. There you can find tulips named after the band Pink Floyd, the Disney character Donald Duck, the famous Indian actress Aishwarya Ray, 4-time Olympic medalist Inge de Bruin, Ferrari, Prince Willem-Alexander and more.

My meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy is one of these notable people with a tulip named after him. The tulip is is an orange/red colour with a yellow edge on the petals. It was cultivated by Jan Ligthart and was officially inaugurated as the Sri Chinmoy Tulip on April 30, 2005 in Keukenhof in conjunction with the World Harmony Run arriving in Holland. The tulip is “permanently listed in the International Cultivar Register of Tulip Names” according to the official certificate received during the tulip’s inauguration.

I was lucky enough to purchase some of these Sri Chinmoy Tulip bulbs in order to plant them in the yard of my home and I have flowers blooming right now this April.

It took two years for me to succeed (squirrels are a big problem in my yard) but it was worth the wait. In 2008, I planted my first Sri Chinmoy tulip bulbs brought all the way from Holland by some of Sri Chinmoy’s Dutch students. I tried my technique that worked like a charm in previous years where I waited to plant the bulbs in early December to thwart the squirrels from eating them. No charm this time – not a single tulip bloomed the following Spring.

So last Fall (2009) I switched it up and tried a different technique to protect the tulip bulbs from getting devoured by the squirrels. I put Shake Away granules to deter squirrels from coming around the area where they were planted. This time it worked! I have my first Sri Chinmoy Tulips blooming in my yard in Rhode Island. I would happily do a commercial for Shake Away, having used it to get rid of a mystery critter living under my shed and to get mice to move out of my house. But back to the tulip…

The tulip is quite stunning. I particularly like the way it looks like light is emanating from it when the sun hits it. For a tulip to look like it is giving off light is rather symbolic given that it is named after a spiritual teacher who dedicated more than 40 years of his life to helping seekers find divine light, truth and peace.

Here are some photos of the tulip:

Dec 26

Tis the Season – East Meets West

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Being the student of an Indian spiritual teacher offers the opportunity for a fascinating perspective when Christmas time arrives. My own Christian background finds me celebrating in traditional ways with a Christmas tree, exchanging of presents, sending Christmas cards to friends and family and a vegetarian version of a holiday dinner with all the trimmings. And yes, I even laugh out loud when I hear the song Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer on the radio.

My 2009 Christmas Tree

When I celebrate the Christmas season, I also infuse my old traditions with the Eastern spiritual perspective found in spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy’s own background. His youth was firmly rooted in Eastern spiritual traditions, having lived first in Chittagong, Bangladesh and then for two decades in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India.

From 1964 forward he made his home in New York and his own philosophy as a spiritual teacher transcended any particular religion. He frequently travelled and met with people from all corners of the globe and all faiths.

He also accepted students from all religions and encouraged them to honor their own religious background even as they branched out and embraced a meditative lifestyle that fostered interfaith harmony. In a book entitled My Religion, he explains,

My religion
Deeply and equally values
All the religions of the world,
For it knows that each religion
Is a beautiful, powerful
And fruitful branch
Of God’s Life-Tree.
-Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy’s respect for various world religious traditions and spiritual figures throughout history came through in his songs, prose and poetry on the subject of Rama, Krishna, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Buddha and Christ, to name a few.

Sri Chinmoy honored Jesus Christ in poems, in a full-length play called The Son, through songs he composed about Christ (75 alone published in December 1990 in a songbook entitled Jesus the Seeker, Christ the Savior) and in miscellaneous writings.

His body of writings and songs on Jesus offer a unique perspective on Christianity as seen from an Eastern perspective. Some of his compositions on Jesus are written in his native Bengali tongue and he refers to Jesus as an “avatar”. He explains, “An Avatar is someone who is the direct representative of the Highest Absolute, who embodies God’s Vision and Reality all at once.”

Hear one of his songs on Christ as performed by the European music ensemble, Mountain Silence:
Jishu Avatar by Sri Chinmoy performed by Mountain Silence

To find inspiration in blending East and West in your celebration of Christmas, look no further than Sri Chinmoy. His reverence and respect for Jesus Christ is readily evident and offers a lesser-known perspective on appreciation of the holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Dec 10

2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions

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The first World’s Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago in 1893 in conjunction with the World Columbian Exposition – a precursor to later World’s Fairs. On the occasion of the 100 year anniversary, another Parliament was again held in Chicago in 1993.

I was lucky enough to attend that 1993 anniversary Parliament and was present in the audience when my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy offered an opening meditation for the Parliament. Watch it here:
110-1-2.mp4

Since this 1993 centenary, Parliaments have been held every five years. This year’s event has been underway from December 3-9, 2009 in Melbourne.  I am acquainted with some of the presenters at this year’s Parliament because the International Sri Chinmoy Centres held various events at the Parliament as well as off-site.

What is the 2009 Parliament of World’s Religions all about? From the FAQ on the Parliament’s website:

Since 1993, a Parliament of the World’s Religions has convened every five years in a major international city (Chicago 1993, Cape Town 1999, Barcelona 2004). Sponsored by the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, the 2009 Parliament will take place in Melbourne, Australia. A multi-religious, multi-lingual, and multicultural city, Melbourne offers an ideal location for the 2009 Parliament. Culturally vibrant and global in vision, Melbourne and Victoria are home to indigenous and Aboriginal spiritualities as well as the major world religions – Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism among others. Over 10,000 participants will come to Melbourne for the Parliament. The 2009 Parliament will turn worldwide attention to Melbourne as a destination city with international appeal. The Parliament will run for seven days with approximately 450 events including keynote addresses, seminars, conferences, debates, performances, concerts and exhibitions.

This year in Melbourne you can glimpse the multifaceted events of the 2009 program on their official website, complete with video, photos and news.

Related: Sri Chinmoy meditates at the Barcelona Parliament in 2004 (video).

Oct 24

Butterfly Significance and Sri Chinmoy’s Samadhi

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photo by Sharani - Monarch Butterfly
photo by Sharani - Monarch Butterfly

photo by Sharani - Butterfly at Roger Williams Park Zoo

A poignant moment during the New York observance of the 2nd anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s Mahasamadhi (passing from the Earth plane) came in the form of a butterfly.

A group of the late spiritual leader’s students were standing in formation facing the samadhi shrine and a butterfly came up from behind them and lingered over their heads before finally flying towards the shrine.

This was actually the second time a butterfly appeared and hovered nearby at this location – the first being during his interment in October 2007.

These butterfly moments seemed to carry an aura of significance on their wings. That it happened twice made me stop and wonder what is the symbolic significance of a butterfly in various cultures?  When I pursued my curiosity about the meaning associated with a butterfly, what I discovered gave me goosebumps.

Butterflies are symbolic in many cultures with transformation, death, rebirth, resurrection, the soul and everlasting life.

These butterflies served as symbolic messengers to remind all present that while the body dies, the soul is eternal and everlasting. Don’t forget this inviolable truth spoke God in the form of a butterfly. I am awed and humbled to receive this profound message in the form of a butterfly blessing.

In Animal Kingdom, a book of Sri Chinmoy’s commentary on various creatures, he writes the following about butterflies:

Butterfly: Prosperity

Butterfly, my butterfly,
You are the harbinger
Of man’s prosperity-life.
Your sweet arrival
Devours immediately
Man’s ceaseless strife.

Excerpt from Animal Kingdom by Sri Chinmoy.

As a delighted observer of the natural world around me, I focused in on a different kind of insect during a week’s memorial observances in 2007 directly after Sri Chinmoy’s passing. Read about a praying mantis which also appeared carrying a mystique of symbolic significance.

Here, too, is a slideshow of some photos I took at the Roger Williams Park Zoo Butterfly Pavilion in Providence, Rhode Island last May.

Oct 09

2nd Anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s Mahasamadhi

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Gratitude Flower
Gratitude Flower
Sunday October 11, 2009 will be the second anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s 2007 Mahasamadhi. Several hundred visitors from various countries will shortly arrive in Jamaica, Queens, New York to observe this year’s anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s passing from the earth plane. Last year’s observance made a powerful imprint on me. I prayed and meditated through the entire night on the eve of October 11th at the site of his samadhi interment. Surrounded by flickering candles and an ocean of flowers,  fellow students of Sri Chinmoy chanted in unison for hours on end. Other musicians and singers soulfully performed.

  • Listen to Radio Sri Chinmoy to hear some of the performances at last year’s one year observance.
  • Read impressions from Kedar, a Swiss photographer, blogger and videographer who is a student of Sri Chinmoy.
  • Read and watch moving tributes to Sri Chinmoy offered immediately after his passing on his official website.

I will also make the journey to New York for this year’s anniversary observances. I just spent time there last weekend to pray and meditate on my own 49th birthday. I felt many inner and outer blessings and special spiritual experiences during that visit. These experiences create yet another example of the continued sense of his inner presence and connection in my life despite the absence of his physical presence.

This continuing sense of guidance from my spiritual teacher makes me think that a Mahasamadhi anniversary can be as much a celebration of his life and gifts to others than for it to be a time for sorrow and mourning. I know there will be at least a few tears – there already were a few days ago – but mostly you will find me in a choir of happiness and praise for the profound encouragement, inspiration and peace that he shared  so completely with each and every person fortunate enough to know him.