Strange unreal shapes splash their way down the dim streets of a wet, and getting much wetter, Queens neighborhood. You can feel that the rain, heavy and ominous, is soon going to sweep with even more relentless power across the city. For many this imminent deluge would squash flat all sparks of brightness with its soggy gloom. Yet the rain will never succeed in its quest. Just as the cauldron summer days, which will surely soon come, succeed,in defeating the 3100 mile runners.
Petr exemplifies this morning the indominatable spirit of those who run. He ran 64 miles yesterday and is doing well. All the little jobs the runners attend to are much harder to accomplish in this weather. Purna-Samarpan is just 2 days away from completing more miles than he has ever run before. He has just performed a very elegant laundry handoff to Rupantar without slowing down.
My morning begins
And I see that my poor God
Is amazed at the endless confusion
Of my mind,
And my proud God
Is amazed at the endless supplication
Of my heart.
Excerpt from My Morning Begins by Sri Chinmoy.
He has run the Self-Transcendence race 4 times prior to this year. This distance alone would take him half way round the world and yet Pranjal Milovnik, 36, of Bratislava, Slovakia shows no signs of slowing down or giving up in his pursuit of inner progress through distance running. Last year he set a personal best here, and far from growing disenchanted or tired of the sport of running, he finds himself embracing the sense that he is becoming more and more like an eternal runner. Each step taking him closer to ever new goals, within and without.
He is typical in the way he slowly and inevitably came to become a veteran lover of the 3100. He tells me that he first heard about the race 10 years ago. He ran his first 10 day race in 2000 and the idea of doing this race started to take shape. He says that this race then was like a dream. Yet because of the expense of participating and the time off necessary to complete the distance it seemed almost unattainable.
Yet in 2004 he found himself applying and he was accepted. He tells me, that at that point, all the barriers dissappeared, he suddenly could afford the entry fee and had the time off to come and run. It was not easy then or is it easy now. He says, “I had a hard time in the beginning. It was really transforming.” On the 4th day of that first race he had a problem with an ankle that was he says, “swollen like anything. I couldn’t run. I was walking.”
A Doctor came to the course and he told Pranjal, “You have to stop. You have to stay in bed for 2 weeks.” His response to the Doctor was both disbelief and total nonacceptance of his recovery strategy. He wanted the Doctor to show him how he could continue to move and the Doctor wanted to cure his problem. Conventional wisdom would be to accept medical advice, such as this with appreciation and follow it diligently. Yet the 3100 mile runners are far from conventional just as their race is unprecedented. No one wants to risk their health or to incur permanent injury. In Pranjal’s case he was listening to a deeper truth that saw this experience for what it was worth. There will always be pain in this race. Yet do not be dominated or surrender to injuries that are phantoms of doubt and fear.
After a short while he become his own Doctor. He felt from within a confirmation that his injury was not as serious as the Doctor thought it was. He says, “I will break this ankle or it will heal.” Sure enough within 7 laps it was gone and he could run again. He says of the race, “all the time there are aches and pains. You have to know if it is serious, or if it is normal pain that is always there.”
“I am always learning about the race. This 3100 is something completely different. You cannot compare it to any other race. It is so long and so hard. In the shorter races if you get shin splints in the 6 day race it is all over. You walk for a few days. In this race you know that in one month you will be still here.”
There is also so little room for error or laziness. The need to keep accumulating laps which in turn add up the miles, is a relentless all consuming task. He says, “If you are missing 2 laps it is really hard to get it back, especially in the evening. Every day is its own race. Every day is a new race. You are constantly doing your best. “You are not worrying about what is going to be in one day, one week, one month. It is all about today and nothing else.”
He describes that if we are not doing our best then we are not putting everything into life. Into our outer life as well as into our spiritual life. For him this is what the 3100 is continually teaching him. “Here you have to go 100%. I am not some special kind of runner. There are many runners better than me. I always say to people, anybody can do this race. If I can do it anybody can do it.”
“This is how to make yourself happy. If you are doing something 100% only then can you be really happy. If you are living spiritually only 50% it does not work. It will not make you happy if you take this approach to your life. If you give 100% you get the true point of living.
As a student of Sri Chinmoy he relishes the inner connection he feels he still keeps with his late Spritual teacher. He has fond memories of the days when he used to come often to the race. He has many sweet and private memories that you can see are still feeding his fire of enthusiasm for running. All the runners who had the opportunity to run the race while he was still living had many sweet and intimate experiences with him. A few words and a soulful smile are small things that are over in an instant but on an inner level, when they come from someone like Sri Chinmoy, they can change your life he says and stay with you forever. Now he says it is outwardly different but inwardly the race is no different. For him Sri Chinmoy is still here. He says, “On the inner plane he is always taking care of us.”
“He who gives all, keeps all.”
Rabindranath Tagore
To me, the giver is something more than one who simply gives. The giver is always enriched infinitely more by God, the All-Fulfiller.
Excerpt from Choice Wisdom-Fountain-Souls by Sri Chinmoy.