About our classes
Meditation is very simple. What could be simpler than bringing forward
the peace and joy from inside your own heart?
Although it is simple, meditation does require practice. In the beginning, it helps if we can use some techniques to calm the mind and reconnect with our heart. The meditation classes offer a broad range of techniques including guided visualisations, breathing exercises, mantras and spiritual music.
Once meditation is interwoven into your daily life, you will reach a
point where technique is less important. Even then, when you adjust
your lifestyle to be more compatible with your higher goals you will
also find it easier to meditate. At every step in the journey our
instructors are happy to share with you their own experiences, tips and
support
Why are the classes free?
Sri Chinmoy believed that the value of meditation is infinitely more important than money. All our instructors learned to meditate for free, and they are more than happy to share this gift.
The joy of giving something which can change a person’s life for the better is more than enough reward. Once you feel the benefits of meditation for yourself, your friends and family will want to know why you look so much happier, healthier and full of life.
Our classgivers
Muslim Badami regularly gives classes in Wellington. Here he relates how he discovered meditation and Sri Chinmoy’s path…
Finding Sri Chinmoy’s Meditation Path
At the beginning, all those years ago, I was not really looking for a spiritual Master or a path. Like most people I knew, I was neither very happy nor unhappy, having just arrived from my hometown of Mumbai, India, eager to fulfill my lifelong dream of an overseas education and an independent life.
In New Zealand a nagging backache had started to bother me and I decided to try hatha yoga as a remedy. I called up a few places in the next week or so but found most of these either too expensive or too far away from home. Slightly dejected I remember walking down the main street in downtown Auckland on the way to my lunch shift – the streets were full of office workers rushing to and fro. I remember walking down the hill when I had the sudden and strange sensation of everything slowing down, as though time was suspended. A smiling face suddenly appeared before me, a young man with leaflets in his hand. Just as I was about to walk past him, something in my head said “take what he is offering”. The next thing I knew I had this bright blue leaflet in my hand, reading it on my way to work.
As luck would have it, it was a free meditation workshop offered by the Sri Chinmoy Centre. I knew it wasn’t the Hatha Yoga that I was looking for, but I intuitively knew of the connection between the body and the spirit and decided to explore this further. When I reflect back on that moment on the street on that long ago day, I can understand the quiet perfection of everything, the role of grace in our lives.
In India they say “when the disciple is ready the Master appears” and that is how it was with me. Why was it that I had been given this opportunity to follow a spiritual path? Swami Vivekananda, one of my country’s great spiritual teachers, used to say ‘Those who choose the Infinite have been chosen by the Infinite’. I have stopped questioning the reason behind it, but often offer my gratitude to my Guru for the wonderful years I have been fortunate and privileged to spend on his wonderful path. This poem by Sri Chinmoy expresses my feelings well:
‘Beyond speech and mind, Into the river of ever-effulgent Light My heart dives. Today thousands of doors, closed for millennia Are opened wide.’
Muslim Badami
Sri Chinmoy’s Path – service
Sri Chinmoy TV
