ABOUT THE SRI CHINMOY CENTRE OF HALIFAX
The Sri Chinmoy Centre of Halifax was established in 1973. As in all Sri Chinmoy Centres throughout the world, our members come from a variety of walks of life and cultural backgrounds and are active members of the community.
We meet twice a week for group meditations and regularly offer meditation classes. Each member brings the benefits of their meditation practice into his or her daily life.
Sri Chinmoy visited Halifax on four occasions. He offered talks on spiritual philosophy at Dalhousie University, and on two occasions he performed Peace Concerts, both at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. During his Peace Concerts, Sri Chinmoy performed on many instruments including the esraj, flute, harmonium, keyboard, interspersed with a few moments of meditative silence. On his last visit he honoured a dignitary with his unique Lifting up the World program, held at Point Pleasant Park. He also played an extemporaneous piece on the organ at St. Mary’s Basilica. While in Halifax he continued his own daily running and commented on how hilly Halifax is (it turns out he ran up Citadel Hill!)
Sri Chinmoy dedicated his life to inspiring and serving those seeking a deeper meaning in life. Through his teaching of meditation, his music, art and writings, his athletics and his own life of dedicated service to humanity, he offered ways of finding inner peace, joy and fulfillment. As students of Sri Chinmoy, we are inspired and encouraged to live a balanced lifestyle that incorporates the inner discipline of prayer and meditation with the dynamism of contemporary life.
An avid athlete throughout his life, Sri Chinmoy encouraged all of his students to feel the importance of physical fitness as a means of establishing peace and happiness in their lives. Historically we have offered many athletic events: road races of various lengths from 2 miles to 24 hours and the first triathlons in Atlantic Canada, a half-ironman.
For 30 years, one of his students, Sarita Earp, owned and operated Satisfaction-Feast Vegetarian Restaurant. Sri Chinmoy’s students are vegetarians as it is considered an aid in meditation as fruits and vegetables have a very mild and sweet nature. Sarita is now offering cooking classes and cooking for people some of the popular recipes.
Halifax has hosted the World Harmony Run since its inception in 1987 as the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run. It is a global torch relay that symbolizes humanity’s universal aspiration for a more harmonious world, a world based on oneness and friendship. We volunteer to organize the Run. We partner with community groups and local officials in staging local ceremonies, relays and school events. It is based on the simple yet powerful premise that harmony begins within the heart of each of us and spreads out from there, from one to the many.
Sri Chinmoy was a prolific writer, poet, essayist, plays, questions and answers on spiritual philosophy and the Sri Chinmoy Centre of Halifax has offered books to many libraries around the province. Many titles can be seen and bought at the meditation classes. For an extensive viewing of his work see http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/