Consulate Years
Up one levelOn April 13, 1964, Sri Chinmoy arrived at Idlewild (now Kennedy International) Airport and his manifestation in the West entered its first phase. For three years Sri Chinmoy worked at the Indian Consulate in New York City before he was able to devote himself entirely to his growing mission of spiritual service.
From Apartment to Apartment
An American disciple of Sri Aurobindo, Sam Spanier, was one of the sponsors of Sri Chinmoy's trip to the United States. Mr. Spanier also offered the thirty-two year old Indian lodging after his arrival on April 13, 1964. Soon thereafter, Sri Chinmoy obtained work at the Indian Consulate, and he moved into a series of residences in Manhattan and Brooklyn. These modest rooms and apartments in New York were the backdrop not only for important works of poetry and the origins of the Sri Chimoy Centre but also for a series of personal adventures, inner and outer, as told in many of these wonderful stories.
Consulate Stories
Within two months of his arrival in New York on 13 April 1964, Sri Chinmoy was able to obtain work as a Junior Consular Assistant in the Passport and Visa Section of the Indian Consulate General in New York City. He worked at the Consulate, which was located near Central Park in Manhattan, for about three years, until he resigned in order to devote himself full time to his spiritual work
Subway Experiences
With extraordinary eloquence, Sri Chinmoy describes both ordinary and not-so-ordinary experiences riding the subway to and from his workplace. Most of these subway stories were shared with Sri Chinmoy's students in 1972 and also published then in a small booklet. They were republished in 1996 as "My Subway Experiences" in "My Consulate Years," Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1996, pp. 77-91.
Early Friends and Admirers
Some of Sri Chinmoy's descriptions of his early visits to Minneapolis and Woodstock and the first friends he made in America
