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A complete collection of over 1600 of Sri Chinmoy's published books
In 2015, the Perfection-Glory-Press printing company in Augsburg, Germany embarked upon the project of reprinting all of Sri Chinmoy's published books up until that time - 1623 volumes in total.
The books were pre-ordered, and shipped to their owners in instalments over 6 years.
This year, they finally finished their goal, and now many of our Centres, students and admirers of Sri Chinmoy now have a complete collection of Sri Chinmoy's books.
I always was eager and ready to print more of Guru’s books. On the Christmas Trip in Sicily in 2015 the door finally opened wide, all of a sudden all pieces fell into place. During the evening function I saw myself making an announcement that Perfection-Glory-Press would reprint all of Guru’s over 1,600 published books in a period of 5 years. And everyone could subscribe to a set. I remember sitting down with a pounding heart and realising what “just had been said through my mouth.” I did not think or calculate. I felt that someone else had just spoken through me!
Projjwal Perfection-Glory-Press
Unfortunately this set is not available to the general public, however there is another project to make all of Sri Chinmoy's books available to the public by his birth centenary in 2031. To find out more and order books, you can visit ganapatipress.org
Performing for the UN Secretary-General
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
After a while, Guru began writing the avatar plays. He wrote plays about the Buddha, the Christ, Rama, and Krishna, and Chaitanya. Guru wanted to perform the Buddha play for Secretary-General U Thant of the United Nations.
Even before that, Guru was writing plays, and of course he wanted them performed. I would be the spiritual master in a play, and if another play came out, I was the spiritual master in that play also. I was typecast as the spiritual master, so I was given the part of the Buddha in the Buddha play.
Kanan plays the role of the Buddha
Tanima was the director of that play. She also played the part of the girl whose baby had died and the Buddha said to her, “Bring me mustard seeds from the house that has not been visited by death.”
Hashi, of course, got the part of Sujata. When the Buddha was starving, she brought him some food. All of his ascetic disciples left him when they saw a woman, a girl, feeding him.
Sri Chinmoy garlands U Thant prior to the beginning of the play
I feel it is a great privilege to be able to participate in this spiritually rewarding experience, and for this I am most grateful to our esteemed teacher, Sri Chinmoy, for this innovative undertaking... I find that Sri Chinmoy has done a most remarkable job in presenting the play in simple, understandable language for the uninitiated. His stress on the basic characteristics of Buddhism, on compassion, love, renunciation, peace, should stimulate the thought of leaders of men and leaders of thought everywhere.
U Thant 25 May 1973
It was really one of the highlights of Guru’s manifestation to get the UN Secretary-General to come out on a rainy night to a farm for the Buddha play. Everyone had prepared for it. The carpenters had built the stage, and so many people were in the performance. That was a very great play.
We just want to watch God's Cosmic Play,
But God eagerly wants us
To participate in His Cosmic Play.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
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I was blessed to have quite a bit of private time with Guru on various occasions. One time I approached him having allowed myself to be immersed by a sense of failure. I told him that I was feeling failure all around me.
He said, “It is not like that. You have to think of yourself as the lump of clay that the potter has. When the potter is working on the lump of clay, you cannot say that it is very beautiful. But he is working on it and it becomes something beautiful.”
Another example Guru used was the farmer who works in the field. He spreads fertilizer, and you cannot say that that is very beautiful. But eventually the farmer grows a bumper crop of food. So it was not that I was a failure, Guru explained to me―it was simply that I was not finished yet. I was witnessing myself in the process of being perfected.
Then Guru added, “If all else fails you and none of that works, just remember that you belong to me. You belong to me.”
He also occasionally gave me light-hearted advice. In the later years of Guru’s life, people would be regularly invited to his home, but this required an invitation. However, Guru had said to me, “Whenever you come to New York, you come to my house at 8:30. You don’t need to be invited.” This was really quite lovely.
One time I came to New York and went to Guru’s house as he had directed, and no one else was in the room we were in at the time. He said, “Oh, Pradhan, you are here! Come and work on my leg.” As a chiropractor, I used to work on Guru’s leg, doing chiropractic manipulation and also massaging it. On this particular occasion I happened to be exhausted.
“Guru,” I said, “Please forgive me. I know that I am not working on you with the same intensity that I usually do, but I am really exhausted and I just need a good night’s sleep. I will be fine tomorrow.”
Guru called out to the disciples in other parts of the house, saying, “Everybody, please come down. Please don’t ask Pradhan to do anything. He is working harder than anyone else in the Centre, so don’t ask him. Please, everyone, come down.”
I laughed, saying, “Guru, please stop!” There is a certain amount of self-indulgence in thinking that one is so tired and working so hard. Guru called me out on this lovingly and amusingly, and of course my tiredness immediately disappeared.
Patience Is Light
To please the Supreme
In His own Way
Is not possible overnight.
If you are sincerely and consciously trying,
What you need is patience.
Patience is light,
Patience is strength,
Patience is peace.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
In the early days often at night, Guru would go to someone’s house and there would be a party, a meal, and Guru would sit around. Everyone would eat and then people would ask Guru questions.
Everyone had Guru’s phone number. If you weren’t feeling well, you could call Guru up and say, “Guru I have a headache, I have a sore throat.” He would bless you, put a force on you. These were very, very different times.
People were often curious about what animal they were in their last animal incarnation. You could just ask Guru, and he would say what you were.
This was one of those meals. Hashi (my wife) and I were there, and Hashi was looking around at all the disciples. There were maybe twenty disciples, and she said to herself, “I know the last incarnation of everybody who is sitting here, but I don’t know mine.” After she thought that, Guru said out loud, “Hashi, what animal were you in your last animal incarnation?”
Hashi said, “Guru, I don’t know.”
Guru said, “It starts with an F.”
She sat there and went flea, frog, she started thinking of every animal that started with an F. Guru didn’t tell her that night, but the next day or a few days later, he told her she had been a fox.
When I first came to the Centre my head had been shaved. In those days after a function, there would be a meal, somebody would cook a meal and we would eat it. Then we would wash the dishes. Guru was sitting at the table in the kitchen, and I was washing the dishes. One of the girls saw that I had fuzzy hair and she said, “Kanan looks like a koala bear. Was he a koala bear, Guru?”
Guru said, “No, he was a cow.”
For some reason this was quite shocking to me. I think most boys want to be a lion or a horse or a bull, something like that, but not a cow. A cow is a female animal! Of course, Guru could feel my shock, so he said, “A nice gentle cow.”
Gentleness
Gentleness Is one of the roads
That leads us far,
Very far,
Towards our self-perfection.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
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This experience is kind of neat because spiritually if we open our eyes, which many of us are not able to do so much, we realise that there were many inner things going on in Guru’s life. It was not too often that Guru shared the inner level that he was operating on. But this is one example at Aspiration-Ground.
This was 1983 or 1982. We had finished Aspiration-Ground tennis court in 1981, and Guru threw himself completely into playing tennis for hours and hours on end. We would play that first year and a half or two years, probably three to four hours every day.
People would be sitting in the stands, and Guru would have a rotation of six or seven different disciples who would play Guru in tennis. They would rotate in for two games, and then the next player would come out and play Guru. So there was a routine and an organization. Guru would always be out there so you would always see Guru. To see Guru play and run and get such joy gave everybody tremendous happiness and joy.
It was usually summertime when we played. We were out there for one, two, or three hours playing. It got quite repetitive: we were chasing balls and playing tennis. This particular day, all of a sudden Guru stopped and put his arms down at his side and started meditating very abruptly, very unexpected. When we were around Guru, often he would meditate, and the meditations would go into very intense deep silence. The disciples recognised it for the most part when Guru was meditating on something serious inwardly.
I would compare it to Centre meetings, where you would be meditating and there would be a silence. It was very obvious that something else was going on. When Guru stopped like that, you felt that immediately.
He meditated and he was looking at the ground. Then he gazed up and was meditating beyond the trees at the sky. Two or three minutes went by. It was fairly quick. Then Guru just started playing tennis again. After Guru finished playing tennis, one of the disciples asked what was going on. Guru said, “There was a beautiful fountain of colour coming out of the earth. Beautiful colours going up to the sky.”
He pointed to the court exactly where the fountain was and asked us to place a marker that would stay at that spot.
About a year later we had an anniversary and we remembered certain things. The fountain was one, and I asked Guru, “Is the fountain still there?”
Guru said, “Yes, it’s always there.”
Fill the Heart
Empty the mind!
Lo and behold,
Right in front of you
There is a fountain of peace.
Fill the heart!
Lo and behold,
Right in front of you
There is a fountain of bliss.
This is one of the stories in our Story-Gems project, a collection of our experiences with our Guru, Sri Chinmoy. Project homepage »
Sri Chinmoy painted over 140,000 mystical paintings that he referred to as 'Jharna-Kala', which means 'fountain-art' in his native Bengali. This painting is the one selected by Aruna that Sri Chinmoy refers to as his favourite.
This was in 1984, I think. I was about 8 or 9 years old.
Guru was at Progress-Promise having a Jharna-Kala painting session. It was those big Jharna-Kalas, not the huge ones, but maybe 2 feet by 3 feet or something, not the little ones but the bigger ones, and quite a few of them.
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Normally Guru had Ranjana or Sanatan or a few Jharna-Kala girls assist him by taking the finished Jharna-Kalas from him. But on that day, I assume Ranjana was not there and Sanatan was not there. Guru called me to come up on stage and assist him with his paintings.
Every time Guru was finished with a Jharna-Kala, he signaled me over and gave me the big painting. I was putting them on the carpet on the stage so they could dry.
This went on for quite a while. Guru did quite a few paintings, and I remember whenever he was painting, I stood at the very corner of the stage so I wouldn’t disturb him. I just waited for my next moment when I could go up to Guru and get my next Jharna-Kala.
I remember that while I stood there, I took it very seriously. I knew this was a very big job that Guru had given me. I was very concentrated and I also felt very proud in a good way that Guru allowed me to do this and that he trusted me to do this.
After Guru was finished, the Jharna-Kalas were for sale. My father decided that we would buy one. We didn’t have a lot of money but we bought one. I was allowed to choose my favorite painting to buy. I believe I chose the middle one that was lying on the floor. That Jharna-Kala is now in our living room.
Later on, Guru asked me which Jharna-Kala I had chosen, and I pointed to that painting.
Guru said, “That is also my favourite.”
Just Keep Your Heart's Door Open
Just keep your heart’s door open.
At every moment
You are bound to receive
Something special From your Beloved Supreme.
In 2015, the Perfection-Glory-Press printing company in Augsburg, Germany embarked upon the project of reprinting all of Sri Chinmoy's published books up until that time - 1623 volumes in total.
Guru said, “No, he was a cow.” 
Every time Guru was finished with a Jharna-Kala, he signaled me over and gave me the big painting. I was putting them on the carpet on the stage so they could dry.