Remarks by Dr. Ananda Guruge: Your Holiness Sri Chinmoy, it’s always a great pleasure for me when I get a chance to speak. And to speak in front of Sri Chinmoy is one of the greatest pleasures that I have enjoyed for the last eighteen years. We met in Paris eighteen years ago, and ever since it has been a wonderful relationship. He has been our brother, our friend, and more than everything else, one on whom we could always depend whenever we had a crisis in life. Whether it is a crisis of a small nature or of a health nature or whatever the nature, there he is. And his timely telephone calls and his prayers have always proved to me and Darshanika to be the greatest of benefits that we have had from this longstanding friendship.
When I mentioned a while ago that I had just come from India, he said, “Oh, you must tell about India and what you did in India.”
Dr. Guruge spoke about being invited as a Special Guest in the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Buddha Jayanti 2500, as one of the few living officials who participated in the 2500th anniversary observance of the birth of the Buddha in 1957. For the 50th Anniversary, Dr. Guruge addressed the crowd of 250,000 untouchables who were changing their religion to Buddhism, at a ceremony held in the Mahalaxmi Racecourse in Mumbai.
It was a great thing to address a crowd of 250,000 people. How many heard me, how many understood me, I don’t know, but the very feeling is great, that you are speaking to such a crowd!
Sri Chinmoy: They did feel you. They did feel you. That is of paramount importance.
Dr. Guruge: All these people were looking for something that we all value, the value of dignity, the value of being accepted in society, the value of being treated as a human being. That’s what they were asking for. They were not changing their religion for any other purpose. It was just to say, we are human. Please treat us as human.
Our Guru-ji comes from that part of the country wherein the ideas of harmony had been developed. In fact, in my speech I mentioned Chaitanya, who said that the whole world is one family. Every human being belongs to one single family.
Over his career, which extends to forty years, Sri Chinmoy has brought harmony and peace through inner understanding, through inner peace within us. The importance of this is clear especially when you see the people who have not had the benefits, who have not had the education, who have not been able to have the wonderful opportunities that we all have and be a part of the kind of societies in which we live.
I came back a completely changed man in the sense that all this work we have been doing has a human face now, not just one face – 250,000 faces are telling me, work for peace, work for harmony, continue to carry this dream.
Sri Chinmoy brings India’s spirit to the world, and this is the deep root of the love and the affection that Darshanika and I have for Guru – because we are tied together by great social, religious and spiritual ideals. He is a great example of people who are working towards that wonderful aim: making the life of another individual better than it could have been otherwise.
Please continue your services for humanity. We are always with you, and our blessings and best wishes are always with you. Thank you very much.
Sri Chinmoy: My dearest brother, my most respected brother, your blessings and your love, your goodwill, your compassion, your affection, I cherish in the inmost recesses of my heart. You give me strength when you talk to me. When you inspire me, encourage me, I feel the strength of ten elephants. Seeing your confidence in the comity of nations, I get such joy and I feel enormous, enormous pride in you. There is not a single subject that you cannot speak on, any subject, anywhere. God has bestowed upon you such a gift that you can be in front of anybody, in front of thousands of people. You can express your inmost feelings, and illumine each and every human being. From your very presence people get such confidence and joy. For that I shall remain eternally proud of you. You are an exception, a very rare soul. Lord Buddha has showered upon you his choicest blessings.
Dr. Guruge tells Sri Chinmoy about an upcoming keynote speech he will make in Colombo, as one of the activities of the Golden Jubilee of the Buddha Jayanti.
Sri Chinmoy: Everybody needs you, everybody. You were talking about the untouchables, these Harijan people – they are Mahatma Gandhi’s pride. Who is touchable and who is untouchable? Untouchable is one who has no faith in God. And you were talking about Sri Chaitanya. Sri Chaitanya embraced every-body. For him there was no caste system, no caste. Once you sing the Name of Lord Hari, you are purified. His very Name purifies you.
Following is a song Sri Chinmoy dedicated to Borobudur,4 the largest Buddhist temple in the world and a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. The Guruges traveled with Sri Chinmoy and his students several times to Buddhist World Heritage Sites, such as Lumbini Gardens in Nepal, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, and other places which Ambassador Guruge had been instrumental in securing for UNESCO, and revisited on occasion to reconfirm protection of sites with presiding government authorities.
Sri Chinmoy, My Aspiration-Heart’s Country-Life-Salutations. New York: Agni Press, 1994.↩
From:Sri Chinmoy,Concern: A Reality of the Heart, Agni Press, 2025
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/crh