NEW YORK, U.S., September 25, 2006: (HPI note: This article appeared in the “Talk of the Town” section of the famed New Yorker magazine. Swami Bua is reputed to be 115 years old. We can’t vouch for that precisely, but when we first met him in Paris in 1969 — 38 years ago — he was already an elderly person.)
Ever since Kofi Annan took on the role of Secretary-General of the United Nations, ten years ago, the opening day of the General Assembly has been accompanied by an interfaith prayer service at St. Bartholomew’s Church, on Park Avenue. And every year that service has commenced with a demonstration of respiratory virtuosity by Swami, Bua, says this article in the New Yorker magazine. Swami Bua is said to be a hundred and seventeen years old. He has many enthusiasms–swimming, boxing, breathing through the eyes–but the one that recommends him to the U.N. each fall is the conch. He can (supposedly) blow on a conch shell for eight straight days; one note, one breath, a hundred and ninety-four hours. Swamiji lives on the eleventh floor of a postwar tower on West Fifty-eighth Street. His apartment contains a studio, where he teaches two yoga classes each weekday.
At dawn, last Tuesday, on the morning of the service, Swami was seated in the studio, dressed in orange robes. A guest had been instructed to take Swamiji by taxi to St. Bart’s, where he was to issue the service’s call to prayer by blowing on his conch. A student of the Swami, Sanjay Attada, came along, carrying the conch in an embroidered orange leather bag. The chapel at St. Bart’s slowly filled with dignitaries of many faiths: Jain, Shintoist, Buddhist, HIndu, Sikh, Yoruba, Mi’kmaq, Christian, Muslim, Jew. The service was organized, at Annan’s urging, by the Interfaith Center of New York, as a way to conjoin delegates of the world’s religions in a prayer for peace. Each priest/monk/rabbi would have a minute or so in which to do his or her thing. Swamiji led a procession into the church and once everyone was seated, inched forward with his conch. He raised the shell and began to play. He held the note for more than a minute, and then finished with two short blasts.