Interview with Czech National Television

Interviewer: I understand you have met with our President Havel. What did you speak about?

Sri Chinmoy: From the inmost recesses of my heart, I wish to say that we talked about peace and world harmony. I have the deepest admiration for President Havel. He is at once an intellectual giant and a most powerful leader. He is not only the leader of the Czech Republic, but also a leader of humanity. His wisdom, confidence and self-giving are most inspiring, most illumining and most fulfilling. This is our President Havel.

Interviewer: What is your feeling about offering a performance for people who have lived for forty years in totalitarian countries?

Sri Chinmoy: If we take this world as an outer reality, and not an inner reality, then we feel that the listeners are going to have a new experience. But if we take the world as something inner, something deeper, more illumining and more fulfilling, then our Peace Concert will be something absolutely natural. This is what the heart of humanity needs and what I need.

If the citizens of the Czech Republic dive deep within, then they are bound to feel that our offering is something absolutely normal and natural, like air, water and sun. Air, water and sun – natural beauty, and nature itself – we need desperately.

Interviewer: You have met Pope John Paul II. Can you tell us about this meeting?

Sri Chinmoy: I met with Pope John Paul II four times. My most recent visit was very prayerful and at the same time very fruitful. I offered him our Peace Torch, which we carry through many, many countries. The Holy Father was extremely kind to hold the torch, and in this way he blessed thousands of people outwardly and inwardly. This flaming torch of peace he held out of his boundless compassion for me, for my students and for humanity.

Interviewer: Tomorrow there will be a programme and a meeting with Czech musicians and artists.

Sri Chinmoy: Tomorrow I will also be meeting with the former Olympic champion Emil Zatopek. When I was young, I was a great admirer of this immortal runner, specially his performance in Helsinki, Finland. ²⁹ And I am so happy and fortunate to have Robert Zmelik, who is the current Olympic decathlon champion, as a very, very good friend of mine. They are both extremely kind to me. Tomorrow I shall be meeting with one former Olympian and one present Olympian. I will most probably also be meeting with Emil Zatopek’s wife, Dana. She too was a great Olympic athlete. She stood first in javelin in Helsinki, while her husband excelled in three events.

Interviewer: Among your recent concerts, which one do you feel was the most successful? You have been to Germany and France and all over the world. In which concert do you consider the atmosphere was most successful?

Sri Chinmoy: It will be a mistake on my part if I say only one particular Peace Concert has been most successful. I have had the opportunity of serving thousands and thousands of people at various places. Many, many times the experience was most successful, in the sense that people were extremely receptive. Eleven or twelve years ago I performed in Cologne, Germany. That was our very first experience of a large concert. Over 8,000 people came, and they were extremely receptive. So if I have to recollect one particular Peace Concert, I wish to say in all sincerity that that was our first and at the same time most encouraging and most inspiring concert. Again, in various places I have performed. In Canada our concerts have been quite successful. As a matter of fact, later this month I shall go to Montreal. There they are expecting about 13,000 seekers to attend our Peace Concert. ³⁰

I try to play all my instruments prayerfully, and the audience is also encouraged to pray. Our Peace Concert is not an experience of excitement. I have not come here to excite anybody. Our Peace Concert is an experience of enlightenment, an experience of oneness. Here we are not going to sing the song of supremacy, but we are going to sing the song of the heart’s intimacy, our intimacy with the whole world. Here we are going to establish an abiding feeling of oneness.

Interviewer: What do you think of the morality of young people nowadays, in the 1990s?

Sri Chinmoy: Regarding morality, I must appreciate the young generation. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, according to my inner feeling, young people unfortunately took a wrong turn. They took to drugs and the hippie lifestyle. But now they have given up that life. From the moral point of view and from the spiritual point of view, the young generation has made tremendous progress, and for that I am extremely, extremely proud of the young generation all the world over.

Interviewer: This programme is called Studio 6. It is a special morning broadcast of Czech TV. May I ask you, finally, for a short greeting or message for those who are watching this programme?

Sri Chinmoy: My sisters and brothers of the Czech Republic, I have only one prayer to my Lord Beloved Supreme. Prayerfully and soulfully I am requesting you to join me in my prayer:

O Lord Supreme, do bless us with Your infinite Compassion, so that we can become Your perfect instruments to serve humanity. While serving humanity, we shall please You and fulfil You at every moment in Your own Way. Your Way is the only way that can make us happy and perfect.

O Lord, O Lord, do give us the capacity to claim You at every moment as our own, very own. Only by claiming You as our own, very own, shall we be able to do everything in the right way and become perfect citizens of the world. By virtue of our self-offering to You, O Lord, we shall be able to inundate the world with peace, peace, peace infinite.