Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose was born in his family home on the 27th August 1931 in the small coastal village of Shakpura in East Bengal, India (now Bangladesh). He died at his home in New York on the 11th October 2007. Sri Chinmoy was the youngest sibling in a family of four brothers and three sisters, raised in a humble mud-brick cottage by devout and loving Hindu parents.

Before his birth his Mother Yogamaya prayed to Lord Krishna that she would give birth to a great spiritual figure. Around that time Sri Chinmoy's eldest brother Chitta had visions that a great spiritual soul was coming into the family. Yogamaya's prayers were soon answered, and it was Chitta who loved his younger brother and saw him for who he truly was, named him 'Chinmoy', meaning, 'Full of consciousness - consciousness all-pervading'.

Then when only twelve years of age, the happy and energetic Chinmoy was orphaned after the death of his parents. At a prior wish of Yogamaya, the young Chinmoy who had affectionately been given the nickname Madal, became a permanent member, with his brothers and sisters of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, southern India. Over the following twenty years with the support of his family, Sri Chinmoy devoted himself to the expansion of his spiritual realisations through the study of the Hindu scriptures, meditation, selfless service, prose, art, poetry, spiritual singing, contemplation and athletics. All of which Sri Chinmoy would later foster in his life of service to humanity. 


See also: Stories of the young Madal,from Chitta's notebook.

Sri Chinmoy's poem: The qualities he inherited from his family.