The Puerto Rican Heart

(In September 1983, Sri Chinmoy attended the V World Masters Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sri Chinmoy entered several sprinting events, putting his nationality on the entry form as Indian. However, as he is also an Honorary Citizen of Puerto Rico, the officials changed his nationality so that he would be competing under the Puerto Rican flag. They then invited him to compose an anthem for the Games and to open them with a silent meditation at the official opening ceremony on September 24th. Sri Chinmoy was deeply moved by these expressions of love for him. He made these comments the following day.)

I have been in the West for almost twenty years. No other country has ever loved me and honoured me in this way. Let us say that love and honour are two different things. They are as different as the finite and the infinite. Love is infinite and honour is finite. Yesterday I felt honour in a very large measure, but the love I felt from the Puerto Rican heart and the Puerto Rican soul was in infinite, infinite measure. No other country has ever loved me and perhaps no other country will ever love me, including my Mother India, in this lifetime, the way my beloved Puerto Rico has expressed her love for me. This love comes from the inmost recesses of her heart, the Puerto Rican heart. Puerto Rico has accepted me, my realisation, long before other countries have even dreamt of accepting me. Puerto Rico gave me her highest honour, including her citizenship, long before others started to honour me in this way. Now, Puerto Rico has again done something unprecedented for me, something on an international scale. As long as I am on earth and when I will be in Heaven, only one thing I leave behind for my Puerto Rico, this enchanting land, the land that recognised me first as a God-lover and a God-seeker, and that is gratitude and gratitude and gratitude.

25 September 1983

![Sri Chinmoy offering the opening meditation before a vast crowd at the V World Masters Games in Puerto Rico, 24 September 1983.](media/10-opening-meditation.jpg)

![The march-past of more than 3,000 athletes from 47 countries. Sri Chinmoy marches with the Puerto Rican delegation, holding aloft the Puerto Rican flag.](media/11-march-past.jpg)

From:Sri Chinmoy,The Canvas of Time, Madal Bal, Czech Republic, 2019
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/cat