Sri Chinmoy

Many of his relatives including his elder brothers Hriday and Chitta were involved with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from where he started his spiritual journey.

He died of a heart attack in 2007 at the age of 76.

He was the youngest of the seven children of Shashi Kumar Ghose and Yogamaya. His father was a railway inspector who later founded a small Chittagong bank.

His father died in 1943 and his mother also passed away a few months later. Orphaned at the age of 12, he joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry in 1944.

He became deeply involved in spiritual practice and studied Bengali and English literature. For around two decades he remained at the ashram and worked in the ashram’s cottage industries while practicing spirituality and meditation. He also became a skilled athlete during this time.

He went to the U.S. in 1964 at the age of 32 to share the teachings of India with a wider global audience. He found a job at the Indian consulate and received tremendous support from his colleagues.

He started to give talks on Hinduism and was soon invited to speak at universities. Eventually he started speaking at the United Nations.

He went on his first lecture tour in 1968 and had since then spoken at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton Universities. In 1974 he lectured at universities in each of the fifty states in the U.S.

During the 1970s, he became very popular and famous and people began to flock to hear him speak. A musician himself, he advised the musicians of the west to steer clear from drugs and alcohol and maintain a clean life. Several musicians like Santana, Narada, and Roberta Flack among others were influenced by him.

He was chosen as the director of the United States Meditation Group at the U.N. headquarters in New York in the 1970s. He had been invited to teach meditation at the U.N. by the then secretary general U Thant.

As a spiritual leader he advocated world peace and harmony through unconditional love, devotion and surrender. He was a prolific author, poet and musician who taught that human beings can reach greater spiritual heights through creative pursuits and athletic activities.