On 20 September 2002, Sri Chinmoy honoured Ravi Shankar, the legendary Indian sitar player, in San Diego, California. Ravi Shankar was accompanied by his wife, Sukanya, and his daughter, Anoushka. To begin the evening, Sri Chinmoy read out the English translation to “Bindu eseche sindhu duare”, a Bengali song he had composed dedicated to the Maestro:
A drop has arrived at the heart-door of the ocean
To receive affection and compassion from the ocean.Ravi Shankar, Sri Chinmoy is absolutely enamoured
Of your nectar-flooded music.Sri Chinmoy then performed the song and garlanded Ravi Shankar. Afterwards, Sri Chinmoy chanted in Sanskrit:
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Asato ma sad gamaya.Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya.
Mrityor ma amritam gamaya.```
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(Lead me from the unreal to the Real.Lead me from darkness unto Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.) 1```
Sri Chinmoy then presented the U Thant Peace Award with the following remarks.
Sri Chinmoy: My highly esteemed friend, Ravi Shankar, and my deeply affectionate brother Ravi-da, my aspiration-heart and my dedication-life are telling me that every single day your colossal music-soul swiftly travels the universe and prayerfully gathers a huge bouquet of twinkling stars to place at the Feet of the Absolute Lord Beloved Supreme. His Joy and Pride in you are far beyond the flights of our imagination.
In the inner world, an irresistible music you are. In the outer world, a magnetic musician you are. No hyperbole, your music not only elevates our consciousness high, very high, very, very high, but also intensifies our aspiration deep, very deep, very, very deep. Something more, to our greatest delight, we see divinity streaming from your God-dreaming eyes, lightning-speed fingers and towering confidence-hands and arms.
When a God-seeker listens to your music, he in no time is blessed with a rare capacity to invoke joy, to breathe in joy, to radiate joy and, finally, to become joy unfathomable.
The joy of the heart and the peace of life are inseparable. Ravi Shankar the divine musician and God the Supreme Musician sleeplessly communicate through the language of love. This love is at once the Beauty of God’s universal Peace and the Fragrance of God’s transcendental Bliss.
Ravi-da, Ravi Shankar, to be in your blessingful and music-flooded presence is to reclaim our own vast cheerful and blissful heart-kingdom.
We are all God’s sweet children of music in His Heart-Garden. Alas, we have buried this infallible truth in stark oblivion. But you, Ravi Shankar, musician nonpareil, are the reassuring whisper that echoes and re-echoes in our hearts with God’s Message supreme: “We are all God’s sweet children of music.”
Here we are perpetuating the memory of U Thant, the third Pilot Supreme of the United Nations Boat, whose very life was to spread the message of brotherhood, harmony and peace throughout the length and breadth of the world. While offering you the U Thant Peace Award, 2 our Meditation Group at the United Nations and I are swimming in the ocean of infinity’s Peace and Bliss.
Ravi Shankar (after receiving the U Thant Peace Award): Sri Chinmoy, my brother, I am so over-whelmed and emotionally I feel choked with the love that you have shown towards me and by this great honour that you have given me. I feel so grateful and proud, more so after I saw the giants and some of the greatest people that have received this before me, that have been given this wonderful Peace Award by you. I am very grateful, and I am full of love and gratitude. Thank you again, Sri Chinmoy.
Sri Chinmoy then honoured Ravi Shankar by lifting him overhead with one arm, and then lifted Ravi Shankar, Sukanya and Anoushka together as part of his “Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart” programme. 3
Videos were then shown of Sri Chinmoy and his students singing his songs dedicated to Ravi Shankar.
Ravi Shankar’s parting words to the audience at the end of the function: You are so lucky to have him as your guide in life. And what wonderful work is being done! Please keep it up. We are all so tired of all the violence and all the negative things, all the discord that is happening. Amidst that, people like him and those who love him and follow him are doing wonderful work.
1. Traditional scripture, as quoted by Sri Chinmoy in The Upanishads: The Crown of India’s Soul.<em> New York: Sri Chinmoy Lighthouse, 1974.<p>↩
2. In honour of the third UN Secretary-General, starting in 1982, Sri Chinmoy presented the U Thant Peace Award on behalf of Sri Chinmoy: The Peace Meditation at the United Nations to individuals and organizations who, in exemplifying the lofty spiritual ideals of the late UN Secretary-General, offered distinguished service toward the attainment of world peace.
↩3. Sri Chinmoy was an avid sportsman from his youth and throughout his life. He took up weightlifting in the mid-1980s, and subsequently honoured numerous individuals with the “Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart” Award. As a sign of his deepest appreciation for their inspiring contributions to humanity, Sri Chinmoy would raise these individuals overhead with one arm from a special honorary platform – just as a star player at a sports event is lifted up by his grateful teammates.
↩From:Sri Chinmoy,Depend on Grace, Agni Press, 2023
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/dg