Interviewer: Can You Tell Me How You...

Interviewer: Can you tell me how you came up with the idea for this project? How long ago was it, and why did you decide to do this?

Sri Chinmoy: Two years ago, while I was in Malta, all of a sudden I was inspired to draw birds. Since then I have been drawing birds. I used to get and even now I still get tremendous joy each time I draw a bird. Each time I feel a kind of inner freedom.

I wish to tell you that Canada has a very special place in my art-life. About 19 years ago I started my art-life in the West by doing some paintings and drawings at the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa. Also, last year 100,000 bird drawings of mine were exhibited in Ottawa. Our philosophy is the philosophy of progress, so from 100,000 I have come up to one million.

Interviewer: Are you sure that it is a million birds? How did you keep track?

Sri Chinmoy: Seven or eight students of mine have faithfully and devotedly counted them all, twice. It came to 1,001,919.

Interviewer: I imagine they were all doves. Is that correct?

Sri Chinmoy: No, they are birds of my imagination-in all different shapes and sizes. I have drawn them with ballpoint pens, felt tip markers, crayons, paint brushes and many other things.

Interviewer: Did you dedicate all the birds to Raisa Gorbachev?

Sri Chinmoy: I dedicated the Ottawa exhibit of 100,000 birds to Mrs. Gorbachev and I completed my one million birds yesterday, on her birthday. These one million birds will also be exhibited in Ottawa, around the end of March. I shall dedicate this new exhibit to my mother, who is now in Heaven. I would like to observe the centenary of her birth by dedicating this exhibit to her.

Interviewer: Why did you dedicate the first 100,000 to Mrs. Gorbachev?

Sri Chinmoy: She and President Gorbachev are very close friends of mine. I do not understand politics at all; I am just a truth-seeker and God-lover. But I feel that President Gorbachev is also a genuine truth-seeker and a true man of peace. That is why I have utmost admiration and love for him. I have met with him five or six times. My first meeting with him, strangely enough, took place in Ottawa four years ago.

Interviewer: What is your next project? Do you have anything else in mind now?

Sri Chinmoy: Right now, I have nothing in mind. Only I will do my regular prayers and meditations and, if it is the Will of God, I will embark on something else.

Interviewer: Sri Chinmoy, thank you very much. Sri Chinmoy is a New York-based spiritual leader and international peace ambassador. He spoke to us from Suva, Fiji.