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12.07.05

"'Sleazy' Sri" Chinmoy has new book about his "wisdom"

Posted in Brainwashing, Sri Chinmoy at 3:48 pm by Rick Ross

According to an obscure guru some call a "cult leader" living in Jamaica Queens, New York, saying his name can get you to a "very good higher world." This sage advice and other supposed gems can be found in the book titled "The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy" reports the Queens Chronicle.

Here is another example of the guru's so-called "wisdom."

Guru Sri Chinmoy writes, "A young wife was terribly afraid of staying alone at night, so the Master said to the husband…I shall take care of her. That night she saw the Master in a corner of the room, not the Master's physical body but his luminous subtle body."

Hmmm.

The New York Post once named him "'Sleazy' Sri."

The now 74-year-old guru still has about 2,000 seriously committed followers. A core group composed of some of his most devoted believers has clustered around his house in Queens. They are known for frequently working long and hard hours at the guru's businesses, at times for little more than subsistence wages.

New York businesses associated with Sri Chinmoy include the Smile of the Beyond luncheonette in Jamaica Queens and the Oneness-Fountain-Heart restaurant in Flushing.

Chinmoy has a long history of staging self-serving publicity stunts, which include everything from "Peace Runs" to his followers performing feats in their guru's name to get him into the Guinness Book of World Records.

One devotee Ashrita Furman has held more than 86 Guinness records for such feats as pogo stick jumping, juggling while running 50 miles and playing the most games of hopscotch.

Last year Chinmoy had his faithful gather more than 1,000 roses to commemorate his 73rd birthday, no doubt hoping to set another record.

The guru teaches that overcoming ego is a spiritual goal, but apparently this doesn't include his own, which requires constant feeding.

Such staged theater took a dark turn when one of his disciples died apparently practicing a trick to please the guru.

In his latest book of "wisdom" Sri Chinmoy holds forth on the topics of "belief," "doubt" and "worry."

But Chinmoy doesn't have much to "worry" about with all his followers taking such good care of him. He lives a life of relative ease often leaving New York in the winter for balmy weather elsewhere.

Beyond "belief" though are Chinmoy's persistent claims that he can reportedly lift 7,064 pounds with his right arm and 7,040 with his left.

More amazing than this claim is that his followers don't seem to "doubt" such preposterous nonsense.

Anyone interested enough to scrutinize the guru's weightlifting will find out that he relies more upon machines to do the job for him rather than his muscles. But like so many devices used by this guru it seemingly serves to pumps up his ego.

"If one enters secret domains where the inherent powers of the cosmic realities exist, one can get the capacity to do anything," says Sri Chinmoy.

But it's hard to understand how the followers of this bizarre man continue to devote their lives to his various schemes and scams—is there some "cosmic" reason they seem willing "to do anything"?

Some say that Chinmoy's "inherent powers" are a form of "brainwashing." And that this is accomplished in part through a form of self-hypnosis, which renders them more suggestible and compliant, achieved through what the guru calls "meditation." Then there is also the so-called "cult" lifestyle, largely dependent upon living within what can be seen as a controlled environment dominated and defined by Chinmoy.

Maybe his disciples have bought into the proposition that their rewards from the guru won't be realized in this world, but rather in the next one?

In his book Chinmoy appears to cultivates this notion telling readers that as a teenager he followed his sister's soul "for about three hours in the world of death."

The guru also says he was once busy "fighting with three death forces that wanted to snatch away three of my close disciples…"

Hmmm.

Would those "forces" be families, old friends or maybe actually an attack of doubt and/or critical thinking?

Chinmoy wants readers to know that his "teaching is not a kind of miracle-mongering." Instead, his "business is to help the aspirant to reach God."

Perhaps it is a "business."

Famed musician Carlos Santana followed Sri Chinmoy for almost a decade and then left that "business" behind him.

"This shit is not for me–I don't care how enlightening it is," he told Rolling Stone.

Maybe that's a mantra that might help Sri Chinmoy's disciples "reach God." According to Deborah Santana, it didn't hurt her life, or her husband's life to get away from "Chinmoy's controlling ways."

Born in Kirk Sandall, Yorkshire, John Mclaughlin was surrounded by music from an early age. His mother, a violinist, exposed John to the classics of Brahms, Beethoven and Stravinsky and indeed his first musical lessons were on the piano. This early influence was to stay with him into his adult life ("I love strings and drums" he would say later when talking about his orchestral "Apocalypse" LP) although it was his elder brother's love of the blues and Spanish music that attracted a young Johnny to the guitar.

Blessed with an enormous appetite for learning and great discipline in application to study, John was gigging very early in life, picking up jazz influences from Tal Farlow that would become his trademark throughout his early professional life. It is believed that John had a variety of jobs as a delivery driver and working in music shops whilst he took every musical session he could. His somewhat anonymous style can be heard on very early recordings by such icons as David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, touring with The Four Tops and appearing with the orchestra on Top Of The Pops. Indispersed with this 'commercial' work, John was also fast making a name for himself on the british R&B scene with groups lead by Georgie Fame, Alexis Corner and later Graham Bond, where he met and played with Jack bruce, Ginger Baker and Jimmy Paige.

Certainly by the time of his mid sixties recordings ("Experiments With Pops" and "Hair at it's Hairiest") the trademark fast runs and advanced melodic and harmonic knowledge were in evidence, but there was something more. Yes he had the 'chops' of his idol Tal Farlow, but he had also began to study in earnest the philosophical writings which had so intrigued him since his initiation with Graham Bond and the London Theosophical Society. It was the goal beyond mere musical excellence that was to profoundly single out John from the profusion of guitar giants in the next decade and imbue his music with a spiritual message that went far beyond the commercial aspirations of his fellow axe wielders. Soon he found the magic link between music and spirituality which was to fire his questing soul and bring him out of the doldrums of life in Philip Lane, North london and into the Emerald Beyond of New York and his latest idol, Miles Davis.

It was John's great good fortune to find himself at the home of his idol almost as soon as he touched down in America and through his work on Mile's albums, "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" finally broke out into the world at large after his localised fame in the UK. This exposure was the key element in bringing John to the forefront of the jazz guitar world and in particular, the new jazz-rock movement of which Davis was rightly considered the Father. The financial and popular success John enjoyed here created the platform from which he was to launch his phenominal career, collaborating with his fellow Davis allumini, Tony Williams and Larry Young in the first real Jazz-rock band, Lifetime. After cream's demise, the trio became a quartet when Jack Bruce joined the most exciting band of the time.