After 212 attempts, Sri Chinmoy finally lifted 300 pounds in August 1986. With the 300 pound weight, it seemed as if some kind of inner Rubicon had been crossed; some dam had been breached and a torrent of cosmic energy sent gushing forth. Within a month, Sri Chinmoy had reached 400 pounds. And then Sri Chinmoy's journey entered the stratosphere. Whereas beforehand Sri Chinmoy had advanced in increments of ten pounds, now each successive record fell in leaps of fifty and one hundred. 400, 450, and 503 and 604 pounds all fell in succession in September and October. On 1 November 1986, Sri Chinmoy moved the bar at over 700 pounds - a goal at which he had actually intended to be the ultimate summit of his weightlifting. But the inner command decreed otherwise - the journey must go on.

And hand in hand with these calf-raise lifts, Sri Chinmoy's progress in his one-arm lift continued exponentially. On November 7, six days after his 700 pound lift - Sri Chinmoy successfully hoisted aloft 806 pounds, and broke the 1000 pound barrier only three days later. One week later he raised 1317 3/4 pounds, and he next week, on November 24, he lifted 1515 3/4 pounds. And a mere three days after that, Sri Chinmoy faced a weight of 2,039 pounds with one arm and conquered it. The news of these lifts spread through the weightlifting community like wildfire. The World Powerlifting Congress created a special "Feats of Strength" category to accommodate Sri Chinmoy and fete him with world record status in his age and weight class. After a well-earned break during December, Sri Chinmoy asked his apparatus construction team to build him a 3000 pound dumbbell "to see what it looked like". The bar for the 2039 pound dumbbell had come dangerously close to breaking during that lift, and so the new weight was supported by an overhead freeemoving truss, and the floor and ceiling of Sri Chinmoy's gymnasium were reinforced. The total weight was 3081 pounds. On 20 January, on his second day of attempting, Sri Chinmoy lifted the bar even higher than the previous 2039 pound weight. The lift was accorded world record status by the American Powerlifting Federation.

7063 3/4 Pound Lift

And yet no sooner than that weight was set Sri Chinmoy was looking towards a goal that challenged human belief. By midnight of 30 January 1986, Sri Chinmoy's construction team led by Unmilan Howard completed the construction of the world's largest dumbbell - 7063 3/4 pounds - 68 100-pound plates supported by a giant steel frame spanning the full length of the room. At 1.25am Sri Chinmoy completed the first of three successful lifts of this enormous weight - such was the enormity of the weight that the whole room shook as the weight was dropped back into its receiver. Ashrita Furman, who holds almost eighty Guinness World records, was there to witness the event, and recalled his experience:

"We were all meditating, and then he got under it and lifted it. He pushed it a couple of inches off the loop so that he was actually holding it. And you know, we were not surprised because we've had such incredible spiritual experiences with him. When we see him do something like this, we're not surprised. We almost expect that he can do anything that he wants to do. And he's doing it to inspire us, to inspire people to transcend themselves. People are so limited by their minds. And he's just trying to say, 'Okay, you've got to break out of that mental limitation.'"

On its certificate of recognition the American Athletic Union termed it "surely one of the most incredible lifts of all time", whilst the British Amateur Weightlifters' Association said in their certificate that it was "the like of which surely has not been seen before"