Ghose, Chinmoy

views updated

Chinmoy Ghose (gōs gōsh), 1931–, Indian mystic and poet. Orphaned at the age of 12, he went to live at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in S India, where he stayed for the next 20 years, practicing spiritual disciplines. In 1964 he went to the United States, where he lectured and established meditation centers. In 1970 he was appointed director of the United Nations Meditation Group. His numerous writings describe his Yoga of "love, devotion, and surrender" as a swift and safe path to union with God or the Supreme. He stresses the development of the spiritual heart as a human faculty higher than mind and emphasizes the necessity for manifesting God in one's daily life rather than withdrawing from the world.

See his Yoga and the Spiritual Life (1970), Meditations: Food for the Soul (1971), and Songs of the Soul (1971).

More From encyclopedia.com