This album offers a series of live recordings by Sri Chinmoy from a Peace Concert in Toronto, 1984. The Peace Concert, held in the city’s new Metro Toronto Convention Centre, was the 19th concert in a series of 100 concerts.
Peace Concert in Toronto
Last modified July 5, 2013
Sri Chinmoy’s first peace concert was held in Cologne, West Germany on March 24, 1984. Originally intended as twenty-concert offering to commemorate Sri Chinmoy’s twenty years in the West, the series was later expanded due to the very positive response to the concerts, by sincere peace-seekers all over the world.
In this concert, Sri Chinmoy meditated and performed for an audience of 8,000 on November 10, 1984 (which Toronto’s Mayor Arthur Eggleton had declared Sri Chinmoy Day). The name of 100 concerts tour was called Peace: God’s Beauty In His Oneness Home.
Sri Chinmoy composed almost all of the pieces he performed during his concerts. In the year 1984, at time of this Toronto concert, he had written over 3,300 songs, many of which began as devotional poems to which he later set music. Some speak of joy and peace, others of the longing man feels to be united with his Source, which Sri Chinmoy variously describes as the Soul, the Goal, God, the Supreme, and the Beloved. Although he occasionally composed his songs in English, he preferred his native Bengali language because of its richness and subtlety.
While Sri Chinmoy performed, he entered into a meditative state, thereby intensifying the spiritual qualities of the composition.
“Silence is the source of everything. It is the source of music and it is music itself. Silence is the deepest, most satisfying music of the Supreme. Silence is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded.
“Consciousness will offer us the Music of the Supreme. What is the Music of the Supreme? It is the constant elevation of our consciousness. God-realisation itself is the supreme Music. The meaning of God-realisation is conscious oneness with the rest of the world and with God. Each seeker is one with God, but he is not conscious of it. We use the term ‘God’ at random. Even an atheist, who does not believe in God, will use the term ‘God.’
God is the Supreme Musician. It is He who is playing with us, on us and in us. We cannot separate God from His music. The universal Consciousness is constantly being played by the Supreme Himself, and is constantly growing into the Supreme Music. God the Creator is the Supreme Musician and God the creation is the supreme Music. The musician and His Music can never be separated. The Musician Supreme is playing his Music Supreme here in the universe. His creation is being fulfilled. The Music Supreme feels its fulfilment only when it consciously becomes one with the Supreme, the Creator Himself.“
– Sri Chinmoy, God The Supreme Musician, Agni Press, 1976
Selected Song Lyrics
I thank you, Canada (track 5)
I thank you, Canada, I thank!
Because you have shown me your compassion-bank.
I thank you, Canada, I thank!
You are your body’s spacious length.
You are your heart’s precious strength.
You are your soul’s oneness-light.
In you I have my trust-delight.
– Composed by Sri Chinmoy on October 11, 1981
Canada Pranati Janai (track 9,10)
Canada, Canada, to you I bow and bow.
In the inmost recesses of your flower-pure heart
I discover my Canadian sisters and brothers.
Supremely vast is your body’s existence-life.
In your vision-eye and on your determination-face
Wild unrest fails to breathe.
I lose myself, my very existence,
Inside the great unknown:
Your Immortality’s Nectar-Song.
– Composed by Sri Chinmoy
Related Pages
Artist: Sri Chinmoy
Name: Toronto Peace Concert, Peace: God’s Beauty In His Oneness Home
Release year: 1984 (MC)
Duration: 01:01:57
Acknowledgements: Sri Chinmoy
Page Created: Ashish Zubaty / Tejvan Pettinger
Format: Advanced Audio Coding
