Dec. 15, 2024 — by Parvati. Our 25th anniversary! On 19 December 1999, Sri Chinmoy invited me to form a small singing group. He was aware that I was not musical and had difficulty learning the beautiful songs which he had composed in Bengali, his mother-language. He kindly told me he would ask us to only learn the songs that he would compose in English — and was very gracious about our limited singing capacity. Nearly eight years later, with the help of a few members who are good singers, we had learned over 1,500 songs that Sri Chinmoy had composed during that time*. While we were always known as the ‘enthusiasm group’ it was not until July of 2007 that Sri Chinmoy gave us the spiritual name “Enthusiasm-Awakeners”.
*Note: Sri Chinmoy composed over 13,630 songs in Bengali and over 7,840 songs in English in his lifetime; so our collection of 1,500 songs is a very small sampling. Please see srichinmoysongs.com for a collection of most of his songs. Or see all ‘our’ 1,526 songs here from of a 90-day project that we did in 2021.
For the 25th anniversary of our singing group, we had a sing-along in New York. Many people came and together we sang 25 songs. These 25 songs are divided into 2 sections and feature ones which I personally consider (set 1) ‘mantric’ songs — short, inspiring and endless repeatable; and (set 2) ‘devotion’ songs which we feel to be particularly significant in our spiritual lives.
The practice recordings are here below each page of the booklet’s sheetmusic.
Or scroll down to the very bottom of this page for the “live (and imperfect)” sing-along recordings as a playlist (i.e. the recordings play concurrently).
With gratitude to Sri Chinmoy on our 25th anniversary and for the tremendous kindness he showed to us.
Here are the “LIVE (and imperfect :)” songs from the Sing-Along.
Please remember that these recordings are intended to be played only if *you* yourself are singing along.
Also included are the readings and poems we read during the sing-along. Note that the recording was very informal and there is much background noise — especially during the readings.
The first section (songs #1-14), we repeat these ‘mantric’ songs many, many times.
See below for songs #15-25.We begin with chanting ‘gratitude’ seven times.
Below is the second set of songs (#15-25) — ‘devotional’ songs that we found to be significant in our spiritual lives.
Also included are the poems we read during the sing-along — as well as other readings, specifically about the personal relationship between the seeker and with either God or with their spiritual teacher (in our case, Sri Chinmoy). Note that Sri Chinmoy often referred to God as “Supreme” or —in its purest terminology— “Master”.
Please remember that these recordings are intended to be played only if *you* yourself are singing along.
