The wobbling first steps of a young child are always one of the historic experiences in their lives. It is a unique and precious moment when they are able to pull themselves upright from the ground and move forward on their own, life ever afterwards is never the same. Their world, as they daily grow stronger and more adept, expands dramatically till gradually there is no place that they cannot go. The dimensions of their lives become unlimited when for many months their universe was defined only by what they could see from lying in a crib.
It is not so easy to define the absolute beginning of many other things in our lives or in the world around us. Sri Chinmoy saw in running a unique opportunity for people to explore and expand themselves in ways that are not so obvious until you actually put shoes upon your feet and then simply run. He would never become a great distance runner himself but by his participation and encouragement many others entered this distance running world and continue to be amazed and illumined by transcendent experiences.
In the spring of 1985 the Sri Chinmoy marathon team put on its first 1000 mile race in Flushing Meadow. 7 years earlier Sri Chinmoy first intensively began his own distance running. It would be followed by him inspiring the team to conduct many longer and longer races. Yet with this first truly monumental evet it would mark the real beginning of a giant leap in what was possible for runners to do and to accomplish. At that time they only had 16 days to complete the distance.
This morning one of the runners from that race came to the streets of Queens to watch and quietly observe what has come from that bold vision that took place 27 years earlier.
Nathan Whiting was 38 when he participated at that race. I asked him what he likes about these races.
“There is no sense of time. It is like spending 20 years like a monk in a cave. The race is a short version.
I ran 800 miles it was very difficult. I think only 3 people finished it. 2 years later I won a 24 hour race. That was my last year of running seriously.”
Being here he feels. “It is so long . They are here day after day, and they keep going. It is a full exploration of many aspects of what they are and what they are searching for.”
“You don’t know why you are doing it. You don’t know when you watch a person go by why they are at this moment or that moment. It is never known. 10 years after a race you don’t know.”
“You still are learning why you did it. You are still learning what comes from it. To watch these particular runners, compete, but not compete.”
“They are transforming competition into a more serene and aspiring feeling. It becomes aspiration, purely at certain points. The purity of aspiration is always hard to achieve.”
Click to play interview
Three people completed the full distance: 1,000 miles! Here is the proof that there are a few things the mind cannot understand-when the soul operates through the heart or through the vital. To run 1,000 miles is beyond the comprehension of the mind; the mind cannot imagine it!
Sri Chinmoy, Run And Become, Become And Run, Part 16, Agni Press, 1985.
Start Day 29
Sometime late in the afternoon or early in the evening Saragata will become the 2nd runner to have completed 2000 miles here at the Self Transcendence race. As I run by his side I am struck with just how beautiful and quiet this Sunday morning appears to be. Yet for him who has spent so much time here he notices all the minute changes in the weather and around the course. He agrees it is pleasant but there is a gradually gathering blanket of humidity binding the air and making it so much harder to run free and easy. He tells me I might not notice it now but in a couple of laps I will. “It is really very tough.”
His support team of Dimitry and his wife Sarvakamya are remarkable. By now in the race their presence is vigilant and always attentive yet at the same time also light and calm. “It is good to rely on somebody.” From another perspective he suggests that it also may allow him to relax a little too much. They are also the first responders to all his struggles and problems. Sarvagata is not a complainer by any standards but his support crew he feels are exposed to some of the darker moments that come with great ordeals such as the task he is trying to accomplish here.
This morning Ashprihanal is about to leave on a climbing trip to Peru. Last year Ashprihanal ran the race here for the 11th time while it was his first. “It was so exciting. He taught me lightness and easiness. Running spirituality. Acceptance. Open Heartedness. He is living the race. This is his natural environment. This race I miss him so so much. I miss his lightness and his free style of running.”
He tell me how each and every runner here has an effect on all the others simply by being present on the course. “We are one body. The whole run depends upon on how each of us is running. What each of us is experiencing. Style, mood, all these things, all effects. If there is a lot of pain on the route you start to feel this pain.
Like with Grahak, he is going through all these difficulties and problems and is still running. I start to realize that whatever he has, I also have. But in an infinitely smaller measure. Like this rash sometimes or his Achilles. For him it was 4 or 5 days that he was suffering. For me it was just one day. I wouldn’t say it was from Grahak, far from it. Because of oneness. I admire his determination and courage, and all this stuff. I see a real real warrior. ”
Grahak mentioned to me earlier how much support Sarvagata and Sarvakamya had given him. “It is not his problem. It is my problem too. Here the faster he runs the faster I run, because of his inspiration and his energy. It is not just Grahak it is all of us. If I can help somebody, I would rather help. I got all kind of help from all the runners in the last race. Unconditionally. This is what I learned last year. We are all one team. Moving in one direction.”
Tonight he will complete 2000 miles. I ask him what it will mean to him. He says, “ask me tomorrow.”
“Actually this race is going faster than the last one. I don’t know why.”
“When you live one day at a time, I really don’t remember what was yesterday. I started today.”
“This race is really different. Let us imagine a river, let’s say the Ganges. It started up in the mountains, with small streams flowing down. They become more and more, and faster and faster, but still it is small.
But any obstacle they meet in their way could destroy the stream. Then let us see this Ganges when it is closer to the ocean. It is wide and a little slower but it is more powerful, and whatever obstacle that is in the way of the Ganges now doesn’t really matter. It just flows around.”
“Sometimes in this race I feel that I am a river. The same river but closer to the ocean and obstacles don’t really matter. You are just moving kind of unstoppable. So this is my experience.”
Click to play interview
Atmavir Day 29
Pranjal
“I start to be more tired.” Sarvakamya is joking as she says this but after being here so much and often for the past few weeks helping her husband there is quite more than a faint glimmer of truth to he words. She then describes an intricate scheduling that she shares with Sarvagatas other helper Dimitry. “It is nothing if you are talking about what the runners have.” She tells me how Sutisheel’s helper Satyagraha wore a gps watch yesterday to track his distance while helping and it added up to 25km. “We are doing 10 meters here and 10 meters there, like nothing. But at the end of the day it adds up.”
“All the time I feel that I am here, even if I am at home. Sometimes even if I am sleeping. I feel that I am here and have so much to do. ”
“The most peaceful place is when I am here at 6 in the morning, and 7 pm when the sun goes down. It is really something. I have never felt so much peace. They are running and you are doing your job.”
This race, like all the races that Sri Chinmoy marathon team organize the consciousness of the race is oneness. If Sarvagata sees that Grahak is having some problems. We just give him what we have.”
I ask her about Sarvagata completing 2000 miles later in the day. “When I think about this I start to cry. I see how it is sometimes painful, and sometimes not really easy.”
Click to play interview
Russian comments
Pradeep talks to his Dad on his birthday in Holland
Stutisheel back on track
Grahak takes some calls from Australia
Inspiring words here and there and everywhere
An old friend returns to a warm welcome
And another friend hops into the spotlight
Ashprihanal recites the Poem of the Day
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| Enthusiasm Awakeners.Click to Playparvati |  |
My beginning was my end
When I thought
That I could do everything all alone.
My end was my beginning
When I felt
God’s Grace act in and through me.
My middle was fulfilling
When I realised
That my limbs were made of
God’s Compassion-Light.
Thank you for this beautiful post. And congratulations to Grahak for recently reaching 2000 miles! From here in New Zealand I felt all the 3100 mile runners in my heart as I did a long run along the waterfront today in rainy,windy weather. The spiritual journey they are all on is a Master plan of the Supreme’s in this blessed race. 🙂