Sri Chinmoy
Poetry
Poet, writer, artist, composer, athlete and spiritual leader
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.
The following is a poem titled “Golden Mystic Sun” taken from Sri Chinmoy’s book The Wings of Light, Part 12:
GOLDEN MYSTIC SUN
The descending fire descends;
The ascending fire ascends.
The smile of Light
Watches their tasks divine
From across the empty space
Where the hands of ether
Salute the golden mystic sun.
Learn more about Sri Chinmoy on his website, and read our review of his posthumous poetry collection, The Absolute, here.
BOOKS:
The Absolute: Collected Poems of Sri Chinmoy (2022)
The question arises, can anyone write poems like Sri Chinmoy? The answer is — it has to be another Sri Chinmoy — a poetic genius, for Harold Bloom asserts, “Talent cannot originate, genius must.” So what is the genius in Sri Chinmoy’s poetry? The genius in Sri Chinmoy’s poetry is the song of his soul. You see the purity, innocence and the power of this song percolating all through his poetry. You hear this song in the sound of the language he uses. For instance, consider these lines in one of his aphorisms:
His heart is a most powerful
And soothing murmur
Of his soul’s dream river.
When reading Sri Chinmoy’s poems in his poetry books like My Flute — a collection of 90 poems, My First Friendship With the Muse – a collection of 58 poems, From the Source to the Source — a two-volume collection of 401 poems, The Dance of Life — a 20-volume collection of 1,000 poems, just to name a few, one is astounded by the depth, originality, diversity and the superb use of the craft — the powerful expression, in the poems.
Sri Chinmoy has also written extensively in prose. Even when he wrote prose, he was at heart a poet. Consider this passage from one of his essays entitled “My Mind:”
“O my mind, cast aside your long treasured arid reason. Welcome the ever virgin faith. Possess the naked sword of conscience. Far above the storms of fear you are destined to climb. Stay no more in self-created somber shadows of death. Don the golden robes of simplicity, sincerity and purity. Permit not the gales of disbelief to extinguish your inner mounting flame. Yours is the arrow of concentration. Yours is the soil of lightning intuition. Yours is the un-horizoned peace.”
In this passage, we clearly see that the form is prose but the expression is pure poetry.
—Mallikarjun Rakala
