About our Centre

The Sri Chinmoy Centre in Iceland was established in January 1974.  Later that same year, Sri Chinmoy visited for the first time.

Free meditation classes

For over 50 years, the Sri Chinmoy Centre has been a pioneering force in making meditation available to the public through our free classes.

At the request of Sri Chinmoy, the courses are offered free of charge, in the belief that spiritual life is the right of every person and can never be bought and sold. Over 10,000 people have attended our courses in Iceland.

If you are interested in learning to meditate or in expanding and deepening your existing meditation practice, please contact us for our upcoming schedule.

Concerts and cultural events

We organise exhibitions for the public on spiritual works of art, concerts, poetry readings and other events.

The Centre has published several of Sri Chinmoy’s literary works in Icelandic, and our members have produced four albums based on arrangements of his meditative music.

Sports and spirituality

Sri Chinmoy encouraged his students to practice sports as part of their spiritual life. Sports allows us to channel our dynamic energy in a positive direction, and also we can reach for something higher when we are trying to better our sports perforance.

We often run together, and we hold an informal two-mile fun run/walk around the Reykjavik city pond every Saturday morning at 8.30.

We also organize the 5km Vatnsmýrarhlaup for the public in the beginning of August.

Divine enterprises

Sri Chinmoy encouraged some of us to open businesses where they could serve the public. Sri Chinmoy called them Divine Enterprises, and asked those who there to take it as part of their spiritual life, and feel as if they were serving God within each customer.

The companies are independently owned by Sri Chinmoy's students, but often Sri Chinmoy would offer the companies names to reflect the high spiritual ideals that his path seeks.

In Iceland, our members have opened Ecstasy's Heart-Garden (Garðurinn) café and the Sangitamiya music store on Klapparstígur.

The story of our Centre in Iceland

• 1973 The first lecture on Sri Chinmoys' philosophy in Iceland
• 1974 Sri Chinmoy's first visit: he gave a lecture at the University of Iceland
• 1975 Sri Chinmoy gave a lecture at the high school in Reykjavík, and an opening meditation for a  conference in Akureyri. This year is also the first translation of Sri Chinmoy's books into Icelandic.
• 1985 The Swedish music group Akasha gave a concert
• 1987 The Centre offers 7 minutes of peace in cooperation with other peace groups
• 1987 The Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run begins its first journey around the coast of Iceland.
• 1987-1988 The Centre hosted a radio show
• 1988 Sri Chinmoy holds a peace concert at the University Concert hall.
• 1988 The Centre releases an album called Mantric Flowers
• 1989 Sri Chinmoy arrives for the closing ceremony of the Peace Run in Reykjavik, and holds a peace concert at Langholts Church
• 1993 Reykjavík (as peace capital), Mosfellsbær, Garðabær, Kópavogur and Hafnarfjörður (as peace towns) were all dedicated to peace as part of the Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms programme.
• 1993 Death and Reincarnation and Meditation: Questions and Answers by Sri Chinmoy are published in Icelandic translation. In 1995 Peace on Earth is also published.
• 1994 The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Iceland starts a 5 km race that has been running every year since
• 1997 The Centre releases an album called Power and Peace
• 1997 Singers from the Centre sing in front Icelandic churches in memory of Mother Theresa
• 1998 The center organises an exhibition of children's peace drawings in Kringlan.
• 1998 The Center begins planting 27,000 trees to commemorate 27,000 Aspiration Plants from Sri Chinmoy
• 1999 Iceland is dedicated as a Sri Chinmoy Peace Nation
• 1999 The health food store Goðheilsa, gulli betri (Health, the richest wealth) was established by Sri Chinmoy's students.
• 2000 Ecstasy's Heart-Garden was established
• 2000 Sri Chinmoy holds a Peace Concert at the University Cinema.
• 2001 Exhibition of Sri Chinmoy's art at Reykjavík City Hall.
• 2005 The musical instrument store Sangitamiya was established
• 2009-2013 Peace trees are planted in municipalities all over Iceland in association with the Peace Run
• 2011 Songs of the Soul, an international concert dedicated to the legacy of Sri Chinmoys music takes place in Harpa
• 2011 Screening of the film Challenging Impossibility about Sri Chinmoys lifting, along with an exhibition of the lifting equipment he used.
• 2011 The international singing group Oneness-Dream is founded by Snatak Matthíasson from Iceland, and holds their first singing tour around Iceland
• 2012 The Peace Run visits the Faroe Islands
• 2013 Joylato ice cream shop established
• 2014 Concert on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Sri Chinmoys' first visit to Iceland.
• 2015 Songs of the Soul concerts are held in Reykjavík and Akureyri
• 2015 Nirbhasa Magee, a member of the Reykjavik centre, completes the longest road race in the world - the Sri Chinmoy 3100 Mile Race. He has completed it four times between 2015 and 2020
• 2016 Peace Run visits Greenland; Nuuk is dedicated as a Sri Chinmoy Peace Capital
• 2017 The short film Seeker, about Snatak from the Reykjavik Centre and his fight against Motor Neuron Disease, is shown at the RIFF film festival.

• 2018 The center releases the album Many Many Lives Ago
• 2020 Suballabha from the center releases an album called My Gratitude-Heart