Our 6 day race in Sofia

For over 40 years, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon team has been putting on ultradistance races in the USA. Sri Chinmoy saw these races as a way to go beyond your boundaries, and also we get a lot of joy by serving the ultrarunning community in this way.

Since the 1990's we have been holding a 10 and 6 day race in Flushing Meadow Corona park in Queens, but we were not able to hold it in 2020 or 2021. This year, a smaller 6 day race took place in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The race was won by Andrea Marcato from Italy. Andrea also won the 3100 Mile Race last year.

Another runner, Ananda-Lahari from Czech Republic, stayed behind for a little while and gave a very well-recieved class on meditation and spirituality titled The Jewels of Happiness.

Later in the year, we also had another very special running-related event - Klaus Tiefenbrunner from Salzburg, Austria came to Bulgaria and gave a TEDx talk about his experiences in the previous years' 3100 Mile Race.

Other news from Bulgaria:

Television programmes about Sri Chinmoy's life Bulgarian National Television broadcasted two episodes of the program called “Paths” that featured Sri Chinmoy’s life. The program focuses on the spiritual, psychic and physical health. The production team aims to give to the viewers more information about the healthy lifestyle, about spiritual and physical well-being practices that will help them overcome stress on daily basis. The team puts focus on man’s virtues and values, good deeds, good people and man’s significant missions, nature and the environment, each person’s engagements with life-important causes. The first episode talked about Sri Chinmoy’s childhood life, his arrival in America, his lifelong mission and the activities of the Sri Chinmoy Centres in Bulgaria and around the world. The second episode presented the musical heritage that Guru left to the world and the connection between meditation and music.

Running for Peace We celebrated the 34th anniversary of the Peace Run by running a distance of 8,5 km by writing “PEACE 34”, following the streets in the city centre of Sofia. During this one hour run, we met so many happy citizens; it was inspiring to see how encouraging they were and how many people with smiley faces were happy to see the burning flame. People were stopping us to find out what was happening and wholeheartedly were supporting the ideal of peace.

Sudarshana On 29th May we had a musical concert of the new Bulgarian boys group Sudarshana.

During their first public concert they performed meditative compositions woven from the melodious sounds of harmonium, Indian flute bansuri, Persian santur and guitar.

Spring book fair 31st of May – 6st of June We took part in the Spring book fair organized by the “Bulgarian Book” Association. The event is part of the Cultural events Calendar of the capital’s municipality for 2021. We had the opportunity to talk to more people about Sri Chinmoy, to sell quite a few of his translated works and to talk about the benefits of meditation and the Path of the heart.

Musical tour Wife-and-husband duo Shamita and Dohai are musical geniuses from Vienna; they came to Bulgaria to give a tour as part of our programme of the International day of Yoga.

The enchanting music of the unparalleled old cello and the virtuoso tunes of the violin took us on a unique melodious journey in the cities of Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. A special guest to the concert in Sofia was the Ambassador of India to the Republic of Bulgaria, the Indian professor in Sofia University and the general coordinator of the International day of Yoga. The Ambassador Mr. Shri Sanjay Rana was deeply impressed by the activities of Sri Chinmoy Centre. In his speech he said: “This is a beautiful mixture of good music, yoga and the teachings of ancient India and world harmony. Yoga is not only a physical exercise, it is also something which builds community and builds unity. In a simple terms it means that it joins us to ourselves and it joins us to our society, it joins us in a world harmony, which Sri Chinmoy propagated.”