The Absolute: Collected Poems of Sri Chinmoy by Sri Chinmoy
Over 1,600 books of writing. A body of work containing well over 90,000 poems. The sheer volume and speed at which Sri Chinmoy wrote is breathtaking — one collection boasts 843 poems written in a single 24-hour span in 1975.
What’s even more incredible is the high quality of thought, language and emotion Chinmoy brought to his work, as well as his ever-evolving return again and again to favorite themes — the divine and human, heaven and earth, life and death — each time finding new insights and new ways to convey their subtleties.
You could spend a lifetime reading Chinmoy. But to enjoy the very best of it, look no further. The Absolute: Collected Poems of Sri Chinmoy (AUM Publications), edited with an introduction by Mallikarjun Rakala, has done the heavy lifting for you.
In this volume of just over 200 pages, you’ll discover the finest examples of Chinmoy’s poetry, spanning six decades of work than began at just 13 years of age and continued unabated until his death in 2007. The poems are a carefully curated cross-section, from the more formal metered and rhymed poetry of his youth to the free-form free-verse of his later years, with enough variety to appreciate his scope and enough thematic cohesiveness to appreciate his depth.
The selections range from short and insightful aphoristic pieces to a longer epic poem recounting an Indian myth about the sages Vasishtha and Vishwamitra. Most poems top out at around a dozen lines, but such brevity belies the depth of meaning to be found in these verses. Chinmoy chooses words with the precision of a surgeon, often creating neologisms in the form of hyphenated compounds that marry the abstract with the specific: the limitations of corporeality as “bondage-clay,” the vastness of the unknowable as “ignorance-sea.”
FORM AND MEANING
Chinmoy is fond of parallel structures as a formal device. These tease out unexpected insights, as in the poem, “Infinity Expands”: My soul-Immortality / Flies and flies. / My life-Eternity / Cries and cries. / My heart-Infinity / Expands and expands. / My mind-stupidity / Everything disbands.” The dichotomy between “the ideal and the real,” seen here, is a subject matter he returns to in many poems.
The themes that anchor Chinmoy’s poetry are predominantly spiritual and philosophical in nature. He tackles the “big questions” of our existence with an unwavering faith in a divine force or being that not only unites all things but is inherent within us. Many of his poems read like prayers or self-affirmations. There is a heightened sense of ecstasy in his desire and fulfillment of a sense of “oneness” with divinity and “the all,” which he spent a lifetime seeking. It is little wonder that his deep, multifaceted insights have led him to be viewed by many as a spiritual leader, one who has gained the admiration of world leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev and luminaries such as Mother Teresa.
At the same time, there are poems of frustration with the limits of the mind and heart, and sorrow over the unattainability of the ideal and divine. Chinmoy thus addresses the universal struggles of the human condition in relatable and accessible ways.
The curious reader will find a treasure trove of examples of Chinmoy’s work on his website. These are but a few of the delicacies of the mind and heart that you will find among the pages of The Absolute. Be prepared to pause often in contemplation. Be prepared to apprehend sudden truths. Be prepared to experience your own flashes of inspiration and insight. This is a book to be reread again and again.
Learn more about Sri Chinmoy on his BookTrib author profile page. The Absolute: Collected Poems of Sri Chinmoy is available for purchase at Book Depository.
About Sri Chinmoy:
A Renaissance man of our modern times, Sri Chinmoy was a poet, an author of essays, a composer, an artist, a sportsman, and a lover of humanity. Sri Chinmoy always considered himself a student of peace. He was always open to new ideas and implementing new ways to make our world a better place. He established a wide range of cultural, humanitarian and spiritual programs on every continent. In new ways, these projects foster the ancient and universal values which underlie all great cultures and faiths.
Sri Chinmoy wrote several books of prose and poetry, composed over 21,000 pieces of music, played over 777 Peace Concerts in venues like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and was an avid runner, tennis player and champion weightlifter. He had offered hundreds of lectures at universities throughout the globe. At galleries worldwide, including the Carrousel du Louvre and UNESCO in Paris and the Russian National Museum of Decorative Arts, selections of Sri Chinmoy’s paintings and 16 million “Dream-Freedom-Peace-Bird” drawings have given joy and inspiration to countless people.
