Category: Interview

Ashrita Furman holder of the most Guinness Records at the same time (currently over 200) and a team of friends created the world’s largest tennis ball logo within 7 days. The ball composition shows the logo of the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run, the world’s longest and largest relay run for peace and has a width of 10.08 meter and a height of 5.30 meter. The sixty-three-year-old health food store manager of New York set this Guinness World Record to honour the 87th birth anniversary of Sri Chinmoy an Indian spiritual master, founder of the Peace Run and an avid tennis player. The 53.42 square meter ball logo consists of 12,393 tennis balls in the colours white, blue, green, orange and red.

The content is a factually accurate rendering of what it depicts and has not been modified or augmented except for standard cropping and toning.

The tennis balls were fixed on boards and the other day carried from a backyard down the hill to the birthday anniversary function, where over 900 guests from all over the world celebrated.

Ashrita Furman states: “This tennis ball logo expresses our sincere wish for world peace and is our modest offering of joy to the world. With thousands of tennis balls, we want to honour the memory of Sri Chinmoy, who was the founder of the Peace Run and an avid tennis player. After the record, we will give the tennis balls to people in the neighborhood.”

Ashrita Furman has been breaking Guinness World Records since 1979. His first entry in the Guinness Book he achieved by completing 27,000 jumping jacks. Since then he has broken more than 700 records on all seven continents, including building the world’s largest tennis racket, balancing a pool cue on finger for the longest continuous distance (7 miles 220 feet) in front of the pyramids in Egypt, racing against a Yak in Mongolia to set the one-mile sack-racing record and underwater Aqua Pogo for 3 hours 40 minutes in the Amazon River in Peru. As a teenager, Furman became inspired by Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy of self-transcendence. Indian born Sri Chinmoy also set many records, such as writing 1,301 poems in 24 hours and composing 22,000 songs during his lifetime. Furman attributes his success at breaking records to meditation, which he has practiced daily for over 40 years. Meditation helps him to keep his childlike spirit and the mental and physical power which is needed to continuously set new world records. Ashrita Furman started setting Guinness World Records 39 years ago and hasn’t stopped yet. “Going beyond your everyday capacity is such a fulfilling feeling. The day I break a record I’m just happy the whole day,” he says. “I’m trying to show others that our human capacity is unlimited if we can truly believe in ourselves.” After every record Furman wants to express his gratitude to Sri Chinmoy.

For more information please go to www.ashrita.com and www.srichinmoy.org.