One of the concerts on September 12, 1984 in Melbourne’s Dallas Brookes Hall attracted a large crowd – so much so that Sri Chinmoy had to give a second concert immediately afterwards for those who couldn’t squeeze in for the first for a total of almost 3,000 people.
Before the concert, Sri Chinmoy also offered a short silent meditation in silence and this invocation to Australia.

“Australia, My Australia,
My Beloved Australia,
I bow to your Inner Pilot Supreme,
I bow to your Fullness-Soul,
I bow to your Oneness-Heart,
I bow to your Vastness-Body
With my soulful Gratitude-Heart.”

Just day before this concert on September 11, the editor and publisher of Australian Runner magazine, Terry O’Halloran, presented Sri Chinmoy with a special award for his contribution to running in Australia. (The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Australia organizes a number of running events every year).

• Sri Chinmoy in Australia – 1984 by Animesh Harrington

Artist: Sri Chinmoy
Name: The Peace Concert in Melbourne
Release year: 1984
Duration: 0:51:57
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Page Created: Ashish Zubaty / Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

Agnikana’s group is a mixture of female vocals and instrumentalists from across Europe. They have performed at many locations around the world. Before this concert in Prague, they had recently visited Japan to perform in a free concert supporting those people affected by the devastating earthquake in Japan.

The last song on the recording “The Saint-Bird in the Political Sky” is dedicated to Czech President Václav Havel composed by Sri Chinmoy before their meeting on November 25th, 1993. In 1993, Sri Chinmoy met  President Václav Havel at Prague Castle where Sri Chinmoy performed a private concert for the President and the two men meditated together in silence for world peace.

More on Agnikana’s Group

Artist: Agnikana’s Group
Name: Live in the Museum of Music
Composer: Sri Chinmoy
Release year: 2011
Duration: 0:23:00
Acknowledgements: Agnikana’s Group
Tracks and Page uploaded: Ashish Zubaty | Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

Dear listeners, in this album by Pierre Lantuas we have an extraordinary musician sharing his talent with us in a unique way. Sri Chinmoy’s melodies are full of inner light, peace and delight, and Pierre succeeds in serving this divine reality with his talent.

Pierre’s arrangements have a certain candor, brilliance and sweetness. One feels like it is not an adult, but a divine child who is offering these jewels of inner reflection and beauty.

Here are some of Pierre’s own words about himself and his music:

"Music, in many ways, has lifted my life.

I have the greatest interest for world traditional music’s, Classical music from the North of India, the rain of notes with the Kora from Mali, Strange but beautiful musical universes with Indonesian gamelan and sure enough from my native France. Music has the power to tell what words cannot. I started Harp under the impulse of my dad, and then opted for guitar, I always loved strings.

When I compose an arrangement on Sri Chinmoy’s songs I often have the feeling that I can recognize myself in that music clearer than I would in a mirror. It is always a very spontaneous process, one can definitely hear it. I value more spontaneous melodies than thoughtfully orchestrated one.

Starting to record has been a very educational process, not an easy one, but a path of modesty and patience.

I am extremely grateful to Sri Chinmoy for offering us these melodies emerging from the core of existence, Love."
-Pierre Lantuas Monfouga.

We hope you enjoy these musical jewels as much as we do.

with gratitude, Kamalakanta Nieves

Notes:

Artist: Pierre Lantuas
Name: Sundara Hate
Release year: 2012
Duration: 55:42
Acknoledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Page created: Kamalakanta Nieves/Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

Sri Chinmoy began this epic series of poems in November 1978. In the first poem of the series entitled ‘A New Marathon’, he compared the journey he was about to embark on with the New York Marathon he had run the day before:

Who am I ?
A completely long lost tornado-speed.
Yesterday my supremely uncooperative body
Ran the New York Marathon.
The lightning-arrows of anxieties
And worries did not attack me.
I must say, they have
Always
Been very kind to me.
They do not knock at my heart’s door.
No, not even by mistake!
But cramps,
My unfailing friends, came and
Shook hands with me gently
Even before I had covered eleven miles.
Usually they come to befriend me
At the eighteenth mile.
But this time, after fifteen miles,
They desired to lavish
Infinitely more affection on me.
So they embraced me most avidly
And most powerfully.
Alas, alas!
From fifteen miles on,
I dragged my ill-fated body,
At times with my compassion-smiles,
At times with my frustration-cries.
To my great joy and sublime relief,
The worst possible nightmare
Finally ended
At the end of twenty-six miles.

One marathon-world
Leads me into another marathon-world.
To satisfy this new marathon-world,
Or to be satisfied by this new one, will be
Infinitely – I really mean it -
More difficult.
For here it is not just twenty-six miles
and 385 yards to run,
But to sow the seeds
Of ten thousand flaming flower-poems
Which at long last I shall place
Devotedly, unreservedly and unconditionally
At the Compassion-Feet
Of my Beloved Supreme.

The poems were published in volumes of 100 poems each – 100 volumes in total. The cover of each volume was dedicated to a different political figure or sporting luminary that Sri Chinmoy had met with and appreciated. Volume 50 – the half-way mark was commemorated with a special red-covered edition and the last volume – Volume 100 – was comemmorated with a special blue edition.

On Sunday, July 3rd, 1983, Sri Chinmoy completed the final poem – poem number 10,000 – of this series. To celebrate, his students from of New York meditation centre made the world’s largest and heaviest drum on July 10th, measuring 15 feet 3 inches in diameter and weighing about 800 pounds. Then they beat on the drum 10,000 times with a mammoth-sized drumstick – in the photo on the right, Sri Chinmoy is shown hitting the first strokes.

The ‘Flower-Flames’ were the first of Sri Chinmoy’s three epic series of poem-aphorisms. Immediately after the completion of the Ten Thousand Flower-Flames series, Sri Chinmoy embarked on another series called Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants which he completed in 1998. A few days after the completion of that series, Sri Chinmoy began writing the first poems for Seventy Seven Thousand Service-Trees. By the time of his passing in 2007, he had completed 50,000 aphorisms in that series.

Related links on other sites:

• 207 Selected Ten Thousand Flower Flames by Sri Chinmoy at Shortpoems.org. These were a selection of favourite poems that Sri Chinmoy picked out of the whole collection of 10,000 flower flames.
• Ten-Thousand Flower-Flames, part 1 at Sri Chinmoy Library
• The last poem in the series, O My Sound-Life set to music on July 5, 1983 – score available on srichinmoysongs.com

Notes:

Artist: Sri Chinmoy
Name: Reading from 10,000 Flower-Flames
Release year: 1978
Duration: 28:59 (part 1),
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Page Created: Ashish Zubaty / Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

The musicians of Arthada & Friends play on a variety of eastern and western instruments to give a haunting and inspiring interpretation of Sri Chinmoy’s music.

Arthada & Friends have toured many European countries, performed in various countries in Asia, South America, the Caribbean, the former Soviet Union and had countless performances in the U.S alone. Their music has been aired by various European radio stations.

Artist: Arthada & Friends
Name: Prem Sagare
Composer: Sri Chinmoy
Release year: 2001
Duration: 0:58:23
Acknowledgements: Arthada
Tracks and Page uploaded: Ashish Zubaty | Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

The first organ performance was recorded on Gabriel Kney Pipe Organ with 5207 pipes in Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall on November 8th. The concert was part of Sri Chinmoy’s Peace Concert tour in North America.
The second recording is from St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia where Sri Chinmoy performed on December 2nd. The organ at St Patrick’s Cathedral had 4700 pipes. This recording was part of the Peace Concert Series offered for New Zealand and Australia in 1987. This series of concerts included playing on the world’s largest organ at the Sydney Opera House (November 30th), and his opening of the World Veterans’ Games in Melbourne with a silent meditation (November 29th).

“I find spirituality in the organ, more than I find it in any other instrument. Here I see that the organ is not only the King of all the musical instruments but it is also the Queen of all the instruments. It has a very subtle, delicate touch at the same time. When you think of a king, you think of somebody who is very powerful, like a sovereign and, when you think of a queen, there is softness and sweetness, a delicate touch. So the organ combines both God the Man and God the Woman.”

- Interview for David Rumsey, ABC (Australian national) FM Radio, 1987.

• A chronology of Sri Chinmoy’s early pipe organ performances.

Notes

Artist: Sri Chinmoy
Name: My Heart-Garden-Ecstasies
Release year: 1987
Duration: 0:48:07
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Page Created: Ashish Zubaty / Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

Recorded in Progress-Promise Studios and Buchman Hall.

Artist: Sri Chinmoy Vision Muse in Action
Name: Earth’s Cry Blossoms Into Heaven’s Smile
Composer: Sri Chinmoy
Release year: 1988
Duration: 0:50:40
Acknowledgements: Prachar Stegemann, Premik Russell Tubbs
Tracks uploaded: Ashish Zubaty
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

The arrangements are fulfilling and expansive, with elements of Indian and Classical music. Since the songs are very short, they have a mantric quality. When the melody is repeated over and over, its vibration expands our consciousness, allowing us to meditate.

We have other selections of recordings by Mountain-Silence, including the CD Harmonia Coeli, a collection of arrangements of Sri Chinmoy’s songs about the Christ, as well as O Dreamers of Peace, and Every Time You Love.

We are extremely grateful to Mountain-Silence for their soulful and illumining spiritual and musical offerings.

Artist: Mountain-Silence
Release year: 1992
Duration: 1:08:49
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy, Mountain-Silence
Format: Advanced Audio Coding

Dear listeners, we recently received two tracks of a wonderful recitation of Sri Chinmoy’s poetry. Phoolanjaya Beale, a student of Sri Chinmoy from New Zealand, recites with a wonderful soulfulness.

These are some notes from Phoolanjaya about this project:

“Both “Silence Descends” and “Children of the Supreme” are arrangements of Sri Chinmoy’s aphorisms. They are mostly selected from the Seventy-Seven Thousand Service Trees collection, although some are from other collections. The first one I did (Silence Descends) was a challenge to myself to learn and perform 50 aphorisms. I wanted the subjects and themes to flow and for it to have a feeling of telling a story. It has been a truly enriching experience learning these beautiful aphorisms! Gratitude.”

We hope you enjoy these selections from Sri Chinmoy’s poetry.

Kamalakanta Nieves

Artist: Kanala & Sadanand
Name: Live in Portugal 2010
Composer: Sri Chinmoy
Release year: 2010
Duration: 1:00:00
Acknowledgements: Kanala & Sadanand
Upload: Ashish Zubaty
Format: Advanced Audio Coding