June 18: Go On, Go On

If Ashprihanal was the car you drove every day and not one of the greatest ultra distance runners in the world you probably would have traded him in a long time ago.  Don’t get me wrong, he probably still has a lot of miles left in his legs but the mileage on this 40 year old Finnish runner is shocking and incomprehensible if not incalculable.  At this Self Transcendence race alone, over 10 summers he has racked up 31,000 miles.  Also just this year he has run a 6 day race and 24 hour race.

Over the years he has run so many multi day races and gone for so many lengthy adventure hikes that he has lost track of them all.  Ironically his job in Helsinki is as a deliveryman who walks on foot all the time he is on the job.  Even from the beginning he really wasn’t too interested in recording numbers and totals.  He really just seems to want to immerse himself in whatever the distance experience is.  He is however far from robotic, it is not some endless mindless exercise in movement.  He seems to enter a rarefied world that only the very best distance runners can enter.  The mind is gently nudged out of the way and the heart takes over the wheel and drives him gently, with sweetness, and an incredible lightness as he flutters along, and just above the very hard concrete.

As he enters his 6th day here he has run 420 miles and though he seems to not yet have found his perfect form he is motoring along quite nicely just the same.  Barring something unforeseen he will almost certainly be able to finish the race again this year. He has of course won the race 7 out of the 10 times he has competed.  There is no simple analysis of how and why Ashprihanal is just so good at what he does.  He is such a comfortable and solid  fit into the environment here it is almost impossible to imagine that he would not come back.  Certainly at least not until he has run here 13 times, the same as the incomparable Suprabha.

His footsteps are always so light and his arm movements almost seem to effortlessly twirl and spin in an incomprehensible pattern that never seems to ever repeat itself.  When ever I try to slip into the same orbit as his, I cannot help but notice that he seems to just barely ever to rest upon the same mortal path that the rest of us  members of the human race have to slog along on.  The chemistry and mechanics of Ashprihanal are not to be deciphered by anyone, at least certainly not by me.  His heart at least is open to the world, and is much greater and vaster than the human form that has been granted the task of bearing it around and around this Self Transcendence race.

Ashprihanal running

Just a week ago today the runners were enjoying their last precious moments of stillness.  Whatever the nervousness and tension they may have experienced than that life of leisure is now just a distant memory.  One that was 7 days and hundreds of miles away.

They are now members of an elite fraternity in which above them now is only sky.  Nature will tempt, tease, and embrace them with both its beauty and its power and they will be obliged to come to terms with whatever it offers.

Hopefully they will listen most of all to the power within and allow it to draw them to the self transcen- dence destination they have set out to discover.

There is still lots of evidence about how heavy the rainfall was yesterday.

Purna Samarpan is taking advantage this morning of mother nature’s clear, warm, and bright side.  It will be a terrific day weather wise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very tired Ashprihanal pulls himself out of the car this morning but quickly becomes a runner once again.

 

For those who bike here it is not a dilemma that they can ever be caught doing.

 

 

Start

Day 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For now he is just a special visitor, yet still one who has the unique distinction of participating here 3 times, starting in 2008.  He tells me, “I feel very one with the family, with the runners.  I really know what they go through, and what they experience.  It is heart whelming for me.”

We have taken a very leisurely stroll around the course together and the beauty and peace here this morning is astonishing.  He tells me, “Every year was different.  Very often I realized afterwards what the main energy of it was for me.  Last year it was absolutely like the here and now.  Especially after the race.  When you are in the race, it is all dynamic and one pointed.”

He describes sitting at the finish line last year after he had received his victory cake.  “I was the happiest person on earth.  I didn’t need anything more.”  He mentions that sometimes afterwards he went on a long bike ride and was able to, in some way recreate the similar feeling of just being in the moment.  “I am riding the bike,” he says with emphasis.   “I don’t need anything else.”

I ask him if he ever compared running here to being similar to being a monk in a monastery.  The monastic life is certainly not for him, he says.  “I believe generally that it is easier to make spiritual progress while running.  Because of the dynamism you have the energy to go on, and go on.  It is outwardly but also inwardly.”

“Because if you struggle outwardly you are forced to look inside, and see what is causing the problem.  Then maybe you have to let go of something.  You have to change your mind.  You have to make progress.”

I ask him if even as a visitor this year if he is still able to get something from being here.  “When I am at the race I enjoy it very much.  “I believe the path of non running is more difficult actually.  Because if you run you know 100% that you are doing the right thing, in God’s own way.  If you don’t run than you always have to work on your sincerity, and your enthusiasm, and try not to go back to lethargy.  That you also keep moving.”

Before our walk Igor had asked him to help cut his shoes in the correct way.  I ask him if he enjoys identifying with the new runners.  “Because it is such a big spiritual journey, it is also how open you are.”  He feels that some enter a very private self contained experience while others feel freer about coming in contact with the veteran runners.  “Of course I am very happy and eager to help them, in every way I know.  To make it more easier for them.”

When asked when he goes home whether he will be thinking about the race.  “I am sure a part of me will be here.”  We finish a complete lap together and it took us just under 11 minutes.

Click to play interview

[audio:http://perfectionjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/pushkar.mp3|titles=pushkar]

Ashprihanal confesses to me that yesterday the Godess of sleep didn’t bless him the other night.  He then starts to joke that he doesn’t have her address otherwise he would contact her directly every night.  He then says the only person he can really can count on is that his brother will eventually show up here this year to help him.  “That will be nice.”

When I ask him about his toe problem which he seems to have been working on the last few mornings he then recites a poem that he wrote, “especially dedicated to my toe”.

O my toe pain

Every lap my blood you claim

and you are driving me insane

and all I do is complain.

“But now it is doing very good.  It doesn’t hurt at all, it just looks a little bit funny.”

When I ask him if the heavy rain yesterday created a problem for him, he says, “I always get disgusted when it is drenched.  I go into the van only when it is time to take a break any way.  Then I like to walk in the rain.  Actually it is good for the air.  It is very fresh and it cleans the air.  So actually it is a good thing.  But it should only rain between 12 and 6 in the night.”

I am curious what has changed for him since he first ran here 10 years ago.  He says back in his first year he would leave around 10:30, now he stays longer.  He says that the one thing that has definitely changed is his running style.  He then proceeds to demonstrate a more traditional arm movement and then reverts to his now unique fluttering style.  “My style I think is one of the best.”  Which then brings on another poem.

 

The miles are important

The smiles are more important

But the style is by far the most important.

He ran the 6 day race this Spring he says, “because it felt inspiring.  Because it is a big race.  This I do because I think this is where my soul and heart wants to be.  I know this is very good for me, and for my spiritual progress.  So that is why I do this.”

“Everything comes to an end at some point.”  I suggest that once he does 11 he is almost then committed to continue on until he does 13.  “You never know.  It is always one year at a time.  Whenever you think of next year you just mentally crash, because this year is hard enough.”

He tells me that he appreciates how Mahdupran used to always insist that each race he was in would be his last.  “This is it.  It is good to convince the mind and it is easier to push yourself more.  But if you think, soon I have another one, then you don’t feel like pushing yourself to the limit.”

As we run we have Atmavir running in front of us, who is currently ahead of him by 18 miles.  He is running extremely well and I ask if it is motivating him in any way.  “I think it helps everybody.  Not necessarily only me, but I think it helps the whole race.  It is very inspiring.  Pranjal is also very inspiring because he goes to 12 every night.  It definitely helps the race and it helps the standard of the race.”

click to play interview

[audio:http://perfectionjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ashprihanal.mp3|titles=ashprihanal]

Nisanga has shown up again this year to help out.  He will be here for a week.  He reads today’s race prayer.

Click to play

[audio:http://perfectionjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/nisanga.mp3|titles=nisanga]

I was able to meet 2 of the medical team who regularly help the runners almost from day one.

 

Gaurish was working on Pradeep when I came back this afternoon.  When he left Eklanta came and was also constantly busy.  Here he is examining Surasa.

 

 

 

 

Enthusiasm Awakeners

Click to play

[audio:http://perfectionjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/parvati4.mp3|titles=parvati]

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a time when I stumbled

and stumbled,

But now I only climb and climb beyond

And far beyond my Goal’s endless Beyond.

And yet my Captain commands:

“Go on, go on!”

Sri Chinmoy, A Seeker’s Universe, Agni Press, 1972.