Day 34…Love The Whole World (July 19)

“Yes it also made me happy, because there were trees and elephants in the joke. It is always nice.”

Just a few minutes earlier Ashprihanal had told a joke to the Enthusiasm Awakeners. His partner in the joke telling was Salil who happily played the straight man.

“Salil, How is it we do not see all the elephants hiding up in the trees?”

“I am not sure. Why don’t we see the elephants hiding in the trees?”

“Because they are very very good at it.”

Ashprihanal, as an exchange student from Finland in the US had a chance to hike and appreciate nature like very few. He hiked both the Pacific Coast trail and the Appalachian trail. As you imagine those places you can almost smell the coolness of the deep piny woods and the inviting fresh cool lakes just a half more mile further down the soft mossy trail.

Which is to say these images compare not at all to the hard cruel concrete he has navigated in a never ending loop for the past 33 days. Yet when asked about this he points with delight at the Japanese Maple that Sri Chinmoy planted many years ago.

https://www.srichinmoyultraphoto.com/3100-mile-race/2019

There are tiny patches of flowers near the camp that he also notices and then there are of course the trees that he ever so gently pats most laps as he runs by. But then again enjoying nature was not exactly in the description of the race nor is it now in this his 15th hot summer in Queens.

“It is how we look at things.”

I wondered how he appreciated the heavy thunderstorms the other day. “The lightning kind of wakes you up. So something new is happening instead of the regular routine. A short thunderstorm can feel like a change.”

“But if it rains all day then it is never nice.”

“There are some problems I had before and also some totally new ones. There has been some limping but otherwise it has been quite good.”

When asked if being in first place helps. “It is all in the frame of the mind. It doesn’t matter which place you are in. If your frame of mind is heavy then it doesn’t matter where you are. So I don’t think it has to do so much with where you are. Then how your mind is and how you feel. That is most important.”

As we are running, which is already uncomfortably quick for me. Ananda-Lahari speeds by. With a smile of delight he says, “he is showing us the way to the Golden Shore.”