US News 2009

All the news from 2009 – concerts, races, workshops, world records, special events, features

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Volcanic Beauty

December 24th, 2009. Every year members of our meditation group organize a trip around Christmas time and people come for different lengths of time or different sections as convenient. This past Christmas we were in beautiful Guatemala, the land of the Mayans. More...

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Season's Greetings/Sri Chinmoy's Writings on Christ

December 20, 2009. Queens New York. With 10 and more inches of newly fallen snow in Jamaica, Queens, New York, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the East Coast.  More...
 

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Snow Transcendence

December, 2009. Contributed by Suchitra Sugar. Our first winter trip was truly extraordinary! It was definitely a self-transcendence trip for at least a few of us. Unthwarted, my mother and I went down to our designated meeting area to see if anyone was ready to brave the cold and rain with us today. More…

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Thanksgiving Feast

November 2009. Members of the Sri Chinmoy Centres in America run enterprises that aspire to provide quality services to the public in uplifting surroundings.  Two of these divine enterprise restaurants host a special Thanksgiving holiday menu to eat in or take out. More...

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Fall Glory

November 1st, 2009. Contributed by Suchitra Sugar. On Sunday we took a trip to the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island. We had two full cars of people, many of whom had never come on these hiking trips before. More…

Meditation in Action

End October, 2009. Mohonk Preserve. Contributed by Suchitra Sugar. It was a gorgeous day for a gorgeous hike on Sunday. It couldn't have been more perfect. Our group of five women cheerfully piled into my Honda civic in Queens at 8:30 AM just half an hour behind schedule but one member richer. Our splendid journey started with a beautiful two hour drive through upstate New York's forested landscape … More …

Free Songs of the Soul Concert

October 14th, 2009, Unity in Chicago, 1925 W. Thome. Two free Songs of the Soul Concerts were offered in Chicago featuring sitar virtuoso Adesh Widmer and celebrating the music of Indian spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy. Adesh blends the ancient exotic raga rhythms of India with Sri Chinmoy's haunting melodies in seamless meditative improvisations. More …

Manhattan Meditation October Workshop

October 13 - 18, 2009. Manhattan. The final meditation workshop for 2009 was offered to several hundred New Yorkers seeking to discover peace within. Icelander Gangane Stefansson guided the seekers through 4 evenings of meditation, music and mantras in NYU Greenwich Village environs. Gangane directs a non-profit dedicated to serving the world's children in Iceland.  More …

Heart-Garden Race 09

July 18th, 2009, Jamaica, New York. Can you imagine signing up for a bus tour with no clue as to where you were going? Then to be let out at a random spot, having to figure out why you were brought there? That is just exactly what the organizers of 'Flux Factory' did to 40 'Fluxers' by bringing them to see the 3,100 mile race in a road trip entitled Quest for Immortality.  More... 

130 Song Celebration

July 12th, 2009, Jamaica Queens. In honour of Sri Chinmoy's completion of 13,000 songs on July 13th, 2006 New York area students held a marathon singing session performing 1% of his total works, or 130 songs. More…

4th of July Festivities - New York Style Joy Day

July 4, 2009, Jamaica, Queens. Sri Chinmoy Centre members celebrated the 4th of July in New York with a Joy Day brimming with traditional festivities of cookouts, a boat ride and fireworks, and a meditation function featuring songs, plays and writings by Sri Chinmoy about America.  The Sacred Fire was acted out in full costume.  More...

Ashrita in the New York Times  

July 3, 2009. Native New Yorker Ashrita Furman, holder of 101 Guiness World Book of Records appeared in the Sunday New York Times July Issue.  On the 14th of April [2009] he became the first person to hold 100 simultaneous records in the world-renowned book. More ...

Flower Shower

June 25th, 2009, Jamaica, Queens. Garland of Divinity's Love flower store has just relocated to 84th Drive adjacent to the Newness-Brightness-Happiness-Fulness Laundromat in Jamaica, Queens. Redecorated in light blue with turn-of the century charm ... More…

Songs of the Soul Concert, Seattle, WA

April 20th, 2009, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA. Elegant and prestigious Benaroya Hall was the venu for the Seattle Songs of the Soul concert tour as musicians travelled from New York to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver this April.  The capacity crowd listened in meditative silence to numerous ensemble groups and soloists performing unique interpretations of Sri Chinmoy's music. The evening ended with the thunderous performance of the Gandharva Loka Orchestra.  More …

Songs of the Soul Concert, NYC

16 April 2009 Songs of the Soul Concert. Riverside Church, New York City. Excerpts from Radio from Sri Chinmoy. Adarsha Kelly, a native Scotsman, is a long-time soloist of the Sri Chinmoy Centre and a particular favourite of Sri Chinmoy's. More…

One Poem, 100 Languages, 100TH Guinness World Record

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

April 14th, 2009, City Hall Park, New York City
In tribute to New York City's diversity and in honour of Sri Chinmoy's arrival in New York in 1964, the poem was recited in 100 different languages becoming a Guinness World Record in the process. More ...

Balinese inaugurate lifesize statue of Sri Chinmoy

February 9th, 2009, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. The Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA) dedicated a statue of Sri Chinmoy on the musem grounds. The ceremony was led by the head of Balinese Hindus, Ida Pedanda Gede Detut Sebali Tianyar Arimbawa, and hosted by Mr. Agung Rai, founder of ARMA. Sri Chinmoy had visited the museum in 2004 during an exhibition of his paintings, and for many of his students on a 2009 mediation retreat, it felt like a real homecoming. 

48,000 Candle Salute

August 27th, 2008, Jamaica. Queens. In tribute to Sri Chinmoy's birthday, who would have turned 77, a 200-strong team placed 48,523 candles on a colossal cake 52' x 17'.

The candles were lit in just two minutes with blow torches by another team of 80, and witnessed by 1,100 people attending traditional birthday festivities. A a new Guinness World Record was established in literally seconds in the process.  More…