Chapter One

Chapter One

BEYOND TWO MILLION DRAWINGS

When the source is deep, the flow is long. Thus runs the ancient wisdom. And yet, who could have foreseen that beyond the inspiration for one million, then two million soul-bird-drawings, Sri Chinmoy would discover another deeper wellspring?

Late at night, on April 21st, 1994, Sri Chinmoy took up a new sketchbook and once more opened the floodgates of his being to the world of art. It was the meditation hour and his crystal-clear vision, unimpeded by outside interruptions, roamed at will under the blue atrium of Heaven. Sounds, quick and eager like the beating of wings, surrounded him on all sides and before his gaze swam myriads of flecks of colour. The soul-birds had returned. For almost four weeks, the artist worked on his drawings in the privacy of these late night and early morning hours. He made no formal announcement of his project and so it became, in many ways, "the mystery million." Sri Chinmoy dispatched his completed works abroad to be counted, and he personally kept tally of the climbing total.

Perhaps, in the early stages of this third million series, he did not want the daily pressure of counting the birds that he had welcomed in the past. The unique characteristics of this million were still evolving within him and could not be rushed.

In unspoken oneness with their spiritual teacher, his students in San Francisco, Canada and other places sent him tubes and folios filled with sheets of rare, handmade papers from around the world. Sri Chinmoy took great joy in these arrivals but did not call any of them into service. He pressed on with his smaller notebooks and pads of concentric circles – a solo artist absorbed in his great project.

And, once or twice, he expressed the hope that he would finish the entire million by his 63rd birthday on August 27th.