In January 1998, Sri Chinmoy began what was to be his largest collection of poems, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service Trees; he wrote 50,000 poems in this series by the time of his passing in 2007. Here we present 10,000 of these poems, read by Prachar Stegemann from the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Canberra, Australia.
10,000 of Sri Chinmoy’s poems, read by Prachar
Last modified October 20, 2018
Sri Chinmoy began this series only hours after writing the last poem of his previous epic poetry series Twenty Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, a collection which had taken him 14 years to complete. In his early morning meditation, Sri Chinmoy had had a significant inner experience where the Supreme – Sri Chinmoy’s favourite term for the Highest – had commanded him to embark upon this new collection of 77,000 poems.
‘I said to Him, “I do not think I am going to live on earth that long.”
He said to me, “My child, I command you to start, I command you to start. You know and I know how long you are going to be on earth, but I want you to start. This is My absolute Command.” ‘
The poems in Seventy-Seven Thousand Service Trees were published in volumes of 1000 each, which now number 50 volumens. Many of Sri Chinmoy’s students value these poems as an important part their daily meditation practise; reading these poems and allowing the simplicity and purity of their message to sink into your heart can have tremendous inner value.
The 50 volumes in the series
Sri Chinmoy spoke often on the power of spiritual poetry:
‘I always say that man writes prose, but it is God who writes poetry in and through man. In poetry, each word carries us into the Unknowable, where there is tremendous joy. We may think that when we enter into the Unknowable, we will be totally lost. But we are not lost; we are flying.’
The inspiration behind these particular recordings came at the beginning of the year, when Prachar Stegemann from Canberra and Jogyata Dallas from Auckland started reading out poems for their friend Snatak Matthiasson from Iceland, who wanted to read the poems as part of his daily meditation but could not due to physical illness. Prachar and Jogyata are both members of the music group Oneness-Dream, which was founded by Snatak to sing in places of worship and spiritual significance all over the world. (We have included the part 25 recordings as a bonus addedendum)
Later on, Prachar started to read volumes 26-35 as part of his own daily meditation practise, and sending the audio files on to Snatak so he could also enjoy the poems. The 10000 poems mentioned in the title are taken from those recordings.
