Writings

Sri Chinmoy has over 1,600 books to his name – poetry, essays, lectures and talks, aphorisms, stories, plays, and answers to thousands of questions.

Poetry

“My spirituality was inside my poetry long before I became a serious artist, long before I was a musician, long before I took up weightlifting, long before I wrote so many books of philosophy.” ¹

Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy began writing poetry in his early years. He composed over 150,000 poems and aphorisms in a span of over 60 years. Many of the poems which he composed in his early youth and adulthood are published in his famous poetry collection My Flute (1972).

Apocalypse

Within, without the cosmos wide am I;
In joyful sweep I loose forth and draw back all.
A birthless deathless Spirit that moves and is still
Ever abides within to hear my call.

I who create on earth my joys and doles
To fulfil my matchless quest in all my play,
I veil my face of truth with golden hues
And see the serpent-night and python-day.

A Consciousness-Bliss I feel in each breath;
I am the self-amorous child of the Sun.
At will I break and build my symbol sheath
And freely enjoy the world's unshadowed fun.

Sri Chinmoy ²

When he moved to the West, he composed more poems in a shorter aphorism-like format.

Only two miracles are worth seeing:
The miracle of loving
And
The miracle of forgiving.

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Somewhere there should be some humility —
Humility is in serving
God in humanity
in God's own way.

Sri Chinmoy ³

Poetry collections:

• Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees: Sri Chinmoy began this poetry collection in 1998. He completed 50,000 poems in this series, in 50 volumes of 1,000 poems each
• Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants: 270 volumes of 100 poems each, written between 1983 and 1998.
• Ten-Thousand Flower-Flames: 100 volumes of 100 poems each, written between 1978 and 1983.
• The Dance of Life, The Wings of Light, The Golden Boat: - poetry collections of 1,000 poems each published in the 1970s.
• Transcendence-Perfection - 843 poems published in a single 24-hour span in 1975.

Lectures, talks and essays

Sri Chinmoy gave his first university talk on 10 January 1968, Kingston, Jamaica. Over the next four decades he lectured on spiritual topics at hundreds of universities around the world, including Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Harvard and Yale.

Most of Sri Chinmoy's university lectures were collected in the 3-volume series The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and Western Mind (available here in PDF format)

• Part 1 University talks around the world (excl. USA)
• Part 2 University talks in the United States, 1968-75
• Part 3 University talks in the United States, 1975-89

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Some of Sri Chinmoy's published talks were initially given to a small audience of his students. A beloved example is Everest-Aspiration (1977), a series of talks where Sri Chinmoy spoke extemporaneously to his students after entering into a high meditative state.

"Spirituality is man’s conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known."

Sri Chinmoy \\ ⁴ Excerpt from Everest-Aspiration (1977).

Questions and answers

Sri Chinmoy often sought out questions from his students, and from spiritual seekers who came to attend his talks. These answers can be found in hundreds of Sri Chinmoy's books, including the Flame-Waves series of questions answered at the United Nations, and the 38-volume Sri Chinmoy Answers series of questions answered by Sri Chinmoy in his later years.

Ultimately, all the questions that philosophy asks can be reduced to “Who am I?” Then the reply comes spontaneously, “Who am I not?” The question and the answer may be found at the same place.

Plays

Sri Chinmoy wrote several full-length plays, as well as books of smaller one-act plays. Eight of his plays are based on the lives and teachings of great spiritual Masters, such as Lord Buddha, Sri Krishna and Jesus Christ.

The plays have been performed by his students around the world.

Stories

Sri Chinmoy wrote numerous stories, often based on ancient Indian tales. He writes about his stories.

"The lessons presented are simple, yet they speak eternal truths: love God and serve Him inside humanity; seek inner peace; cultivate simplicity, sincerity, purity and humility; still the restless mind; expand the heart. Many are stories from India's ancient past, others relate episodes in the lives of some of humanity's great figures. I feel that these wise lessons from the East are timeless and truly universal. It is with great love that I share them with readers from the West."

– Sri Chinmoy

Anecdotes from Sri Chinmoy's life

These personal stories give a unique insight into the inner and outer experiences of a modern spiritual teacher. They include chance and illumining encounters during seemingly mundane experiences such as running, travelling and shopping.

They include series such as "Run and become, become and Run" and "World Experience Tree Climber".

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1. Sri Chinmoy, Poetry: My Rainbow-Heart-Dreams, Perfection-Glory Press, Augsburg., 1993↩︎

2. Sri Chinmoy, 207 Flower-Flames, Agni Press, 1985.↩︎

3. Sri Chinmoy, 207 Flower-Flames, Agni Press, 1985.↩︎

4. Sri Chinmoy, Everest-Aspiration, part 1, Agni Press, 1977↩︎