Tag: multi day

For 7 days I lived in a different world.  For 7 days I was in a place without oppressive heat, without pain, nor with discomfort of any kind.  It was a place where my clothes were always clean and showers could be taken at any time of the day.  The alarm clock never rang and I never heard any words spoken about suffering and hardship.

For 7 days I became part and parcel of the greater world as we all know it and moved about in drowsy silken comfort.  It was an almost dreamlike state and yet there were many times when I could still feel the powerful reach and pull of the 3100.

In the mornings I would run on this path that was created from an abandoned rail way line.  It lead for miles out of a small Canadian town where I was staying.  For most of the way it ran beneath cool trees, and the air, though sometimes hot was never heavy.  The path was made from gravel and was so inviting you could almost imagine running barefoot upon it.   I am sure there are many places in this world of ours equally as beautiful.  Paths that can compel one to follow and see which grand vista opens up in front of you around each new unexplored shady corner.

There were also many times when the call of the race was just so powerful that I could almost still feel the hard concrete under my feet even though I ran along on a soft path.  Now of course I am back home.  Back to the place which has a reality and divinity far more inviting and far more beautiful and fulfilling than where I was for those brief 7 days.

For me the escape was a unique opportunity to appreciate even more the self transcendence race and respect the efforts and sacrifice of the 11.  How many would not prefer to run under these cool green trees along a gentle path.  To enjoy tranquility over hardship, to accept relaxation over fatigue, to be able to rest easy instead of having an endless hard road of constant unyielding movement in front of you.

The race is so richly unique in what is.  An almost impossible struggle to reach a goal that can only be fully experienced within and almost never comprehended externally.  A divine opportunity to make a pilgrimage to a destination beyond our sight and certainly beyond our mind, yet somehow reachable only by our heart’s oneness.  You may never know if or when you will even arrive, and certainly no magic gate swings open even if and when you complete the distance.  It is a profound life journey in which so few are equipped and brave enough to take and yet they still do.

It is in this incomprehensible act of running 18 hours a day for 3100 miles that the runners here defy human logic and defy all the sane precepts of life.  The only way they can do this is simply because they have consciously chosen not to listen to the mind’s common sense at all.

A more powerful inner voice commands and they are somehow able to listen and to obey. It is within them just as it is within us as well.

My Lord do you ever think of me?

What else do I do?

What else can I do?

“It is beautiful,” Dharbhasana has just recited the poem of the day.  “I guess it shows that creator and creation are the same thing.  That we are not separate from the ultimate reality.  We are always being cared for and concerned for.  It is apparent in this race at times when you think you are struggling.  You still continue and carry on and know, that you are being carried through it all.  The Supreme’s concern and compassion, care, love, and blessings, are there all the time, constant and continual.”

Prayer of the Day

Continue reading “Carried Through It All”

To Surrender to God’s will

is to become God’s all.

Written by Sri Chinmoy July 9th 2007

This morning I asked Pranjal to read the poem of the day.  Like all the poems Sri Chinmoy wrote the summer of 2007 to inspire the runners, they are short, simple, and direct.  On occasion I have asked some of the runners to interpret what it means to them and perhaps how they feel about it.  It can sometimes lead to enlightening responses but most often the runners are just too tired to do much more than recite it.   Their life energy, frankly, is better  channeled into much more pressing necessities, like staying upright and moving forward, than to delving into the esoteric.

Out of curiosity I asked Pranjal about the poem’s meaning.  When I ask him if he is surrendering to God’s will he said, “you have to.” My next question was intrusive and prying.  Are you succeeding?  “I don’t know.  It is hard to say. I really don’t know if I am succeeding.”

Pranjal has run the world’s longest race already 5 times.  In this his 6th time here he is currently just 10 miles out of first place and has not seemed to have had a bad day since the start.  He never complains, never feels sorry for himself, comes before everybody else and stays until the last possible time has elapsed to squeeze in as many laps as he possibly can.  He never calls for attention to himself and simply focuses on pushing out his laps day in day out.  His life here at the 3100 mile race is reduced to the most minimal and simple of life’s elements: running, eating, and sleeping.

For the rest of the planet we are faced with a myriad of choices practically at every moment.  The selections in front of us don’t often require great moral or ethical debate but sometimes they do.  Selecting lunch or picking out clothes will never create any inner dilemma with any great karmic consequences.  But there are times when we are faced with choices that are either right or wrong.  How we choose, and what we ultimately do, or don’t do, can have enormous consequences in our lives. Sri Chinmoy once wrote, “if we do not fulfill God’s Will, then we enter into ignorance and we delay our progress.”

For all those who have answered the inner call to come and run here you have to salute their courage to face up to this task and then ultimately bear the enormous burden for such a long time.  There may be nothing more physically challenging in life to do than to try and run 3100 miles around a hot hard Queens block.  Their decisions to do this and then to carry on, and complete the journey may also be the sweetest blessing on their lives that they will ever receive.  If earth cannot recognize or appreciate them, than certainly the highest realms of delight will treasure their sacrifice and life’s selfless offering to Self-transcendence.

Pranjal and Poem of the Day

*there will be no new reports here for the next 7 days…apologies to all*

Continue reading “God’s Will”

Sometime yesterday, 39 year old Asprihanal Aalto was sitting in a Doctors office hooked up to an Intravenous drip.  On the previous day he had run more than 65 miles giving him a total mileage of 1677 miles over the space of 24 days.

The weather here has been horrendous for almost a week.  Other than having a freezing blizzard of snow, the combination of high heat and humidity are conditions about as intolerable as weather can possibly be for ultra distance runners.

In any other event, in any other place, today he would be sitting on the sidelines and wishing the other runners the best of luck as he headed back to Finland. Being glad at least that he had been able to complete this race 9 times before.  Taking his licks he could justifiably say a case of bad luck had somehow knocked him out of his 10th attempt.  This however is not the reality, far from it.

Today he has come back here to run once again. From the very start he runs as if nothing had ever happened.  As if he had not been stricken for almost a day by diarrhea, dizziness, and vomiting.  At the 3100 mile race our conventional sense of logic and practically just don’t stick to a surface polished shiny bright with limitless possibility.  The mind simply cannot grasp what happens here at every moment.  You can’t possibly comprehend the miracles popping up with blinding brilliance like July 4th fireworks.  If your eyes cannot believe, than maybe perhaps your heart can at least reach up and embrace this realm of impossibility.

I have a short discussion with Asprihanal this morning about Nelson Mandela and some speech that he once gave relating to fear.  He had listened to a talking book and was inspired by something he had heard said about this subject.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.” Nelson Mandela

Sometimes it is possible for me to almost take for granted just how remarkable these athletes really are.  For 25 days I have had the privilege of being able to try and share some of the things happening with them in this little protected universe of the Thomas Edison block.

There are many things that I see happening that I cannot believe, little alone understand.  Just one, in a long list, is how this slight almost frail looking Finnish man can find the courage to come back out here again after the day he had yesterday.   I know I will never ever understand, and he has more than 1400 more miles yet to run.

Fear beckons danger.

Fear is self-enslavement.

Fear is the eternal loser.

Fear is helplessly founded upon stupidity.

Fear secretly travels with the mind and openly travels with the body.

Because you fear, God the Satisfaction does not hear you and God the Perfection does not near you.

If fear knows how to grow quickly, then love knows how to glow soulfully, convincingly and perfectly.

ecerpt from Silver Thought-Waves, Part 2 by Sri Chinmoy

Continue reading “I Need To Be Here”

The World of reality shows thrives on melodrama, intrigue, and exposes the absolute worst of our human frailties.  It is however a cutthroat microcosm of how many people actually view the world.  One which is shallow, superficial, and the only thing important in life, it blatantly declares, is wealth and fame.

There is supposed to be at the end of the contest one person who is the winner.  Ultimately these kinds of shows offer nothing more fleeting than a pinch of glitter thrown in the dust at our feet.  If this is what is truly important in life than we all are going to be loosers.

In most of its 13 previous years the 3100 has not seen much great drama unfold over the long days.  There is precious little time or energy for noise and showmanship.  The big things most often happen quietly within and are are not exposed to the public, who doesn’t much care what happens here anyway.  Most great experiences take place within where a runner finds something to learn from and hopefully  treasure and then move on to the next one.  Today however was one in which the race saw its fair share of spectacle.

The last 2 days in particular have had their highs and lows of all kinds.  Not least, breaking through to the front page of race life, has been the weather, which once again hit triple digits.  Today 2 of the 11 runners could not stand on the starting line this morning.  Stutisheel did not come this morning at all and Asprihanal stayed in his van.  Yesterday Stutisheel was barely able to walk 18 grueling miles, at which point he could  simply could go no further.

For 5 days he has waged an epic war with his right knee, and for now at least he has retired from the race.  Dr. Mitch Proffman, who examined him today says that the pain there is officially called, “exquisite Pain.”  Which simply means that even to touch it gently will create spasms.  He is able to move right now only with the use of crutches.  His only plan for now is to rest the knee, and allow some healing to take place.  When asked what will happen next, his answer, “we will see.”

In Yesterdays 103 degree heat Asprihanal Alto ran nearly 66 miles.  Who can imagine how it is possible.  How could any of them stay out there at all and yet they did.  Horse race tracks all along the affected heat wave area have been closed.  Con Edison was gravely concerned that it might simply run out of power for the Metropolitan area.  The runners here however managed to go on and go on.

This morning Asprihanal arrives but goes to his van.  He had stomach problems all night and his infected toe is bothering him today.  In a short while he will go to a Doctor and receive an IV.  Exposure to heat may be only one of a number of elements that have collected to conspire against him.

It is possible that the infection in his toe has added to his woes and it is also possible he ate something that had quickly turned in the intense heat.  He tells me the story of an infection he had in the winter 2 years ago.  The Doctors treating him with antibiotics tried 3 times before they could get it right.  At that time they told him they were using the strongest antibiotic they had.  It was one that would kill anything in him smaller than a cat. (It may sound funnier in Finnish)

For Asprihanal and Stutisheel it is not over.  True today they will not run and tomorrow will be another day.  Soon enough they will find themselves once again on the long road forward.  Whether this journey takes them to the end of3100 miles or simply continues on the endless road of the Divine life itself.

Continue reading “A Very Sacred Place”

The weather is trying its hardest to be the big news at the 3100 mile race.  It is in some ways transcending itself from any of the previous 13 editions of the event.  It just may be the hottest race on record.  A fact that is impossible to ignore when you have to spend 18 hours a day out in it.  Yet for those who are truly committed to the race the heat and humidity are just part of a grand assortment of difficulties that can occur when you are running here.  If you thought you have never had a problem in your life you will undoubtedly find an opponent of dimension, and ferocity, that you never dreamed possible in your life confronting you at some timer or another while you are on the course.

Most of us would love to be able to achieve success easily and bask in radiant beauty at every moment. The race, like life itself, is not so generous with its sweet charms.  Without adversity there is no way of making progress or ever really appreciating what we have and what we really cherish.  2 runners, who for the moment, find themselves on the opposite ends of the success and adversity spectrum are Asprihanal and Stutisheel.

This morning Asprihanal will pass the fabled half way mark in the race, and so far, despite the heat is running consistently and strongly.  He does not have to look not too far back over his shoulder and see that the big man from Slovakia, Pranjal, is slowly inching his way towards him.  But barring catastrophe he is still almost a day ahead of him.

Stutisheel on the other hand is going through an epic bad patch in which his leg injury is causing him not only discomfort but also makes it impossible to even run.  His daily totals are about half of that of Asprihanal.  They are 2 experienced runners and between them they have run the race a total of 15 times.  It is so easy to celebrate for Asprihanal and be sympathetic towards Stutisheel, but in the grand scheme of things we can only see a fraction of the battles that are waging deep within them.

What is being conquered by smooth running and easy miles and what is being overcome by being able to push through adversity.  We all must plum the depths of our inner strength and reveal ever new invaluable experiences within ourselves.

Slowly, steadily, and unerringly

We are marching towards our destination.

Aphorism by Sri Chinmoy

“I just opened it and read it.”  This morning before coming to the race Stutisheel opened a book and read this aphorism.  For the past 3 days he has been in pain and been barely able to even walk smoothly, little alone run.  He tells me how much inspiration and hope reading it has given him.

“Not fast, not up and down, but unerringly.  That is the poem for my day.  Sometimes runners do face themselves with all problems.”  He says he has an inner feeling that he will be running again soon.  He says this experience inwardly than will eventually manifest itself outwardly as well.  “It is a matter of 2 days before I resume my quick speed.”

Stutisheel interview

Continue reading “Slowly Steadily and Unerringly”

On June 26 1976 Sri Chinmoy stood in front of the Statue of Liberty and meditated before 27 young men who were about to run across all of  America’s 48 states.  It was to be a journey of  8,800 miles and  for 46 days they would carry a lit torch the entire way.  It was a continuous relay run and 2 teams ran  in 12 hour shifts 24 hours a day.  America was celebrating its bicentennial that year and the mood and enthusiasm in the country was unbounded.

America is a place in which the word impossibility is unfamiliar to most lips.  It is a place in which doing, is not and cannot be replaced by trying.  To move fearlessly forward and not be intimidated by failure is an attitude that is common and accepted wherever you go in this vast beautiful country.  Sri Chinmoy himself came here in 1964 and felt that America was ripe to embrace the inner life, as it had so successfully accomplished so many things outwardly.   Running and America seemed to go hand in hand.

The Liberty Torch relay was followed in quick succession by other events and running contests.  The Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race is now the pinnacle dream of individual competition.  This year there are no Americans running the 3100, but on this day the 11 runners will feel an enthusiastic out pouring of American spirit all around them, as today is the 4th of July.  A time when America celebrates in a big way, and 3100 mile runners will find celebrate in their own unique fashion.

Stutisheel stands here holding a torch once used years ago during one of the earlier relay runs that crisscrossed over America. He once said that he always dreamed that he would like to be in America on the 4th of July.  Today marks the 7th time he has been able to say that he has done it.

If one were to add up all the mileage he has completed from his 6 previous races here, by himself he could have covered the same distance the Liberty Torch relay completed 2 times over.  Beside him the Enthusiasm Awakeners are singing the America song just for him  because he loves it so much and it touches his heart.

Sri Chinmoy: America is a young nation. It does not want to walk; it wants to run as fast as possible in order to breast the tape first.

I appreciate America for its dynamism. If you are dynamic, you run towards your goal. If you do not know where the goal is, then you may run from this side to that side. But it is better than to remain static. Americans are running. They may not be sure of the goal, but they are constantly on the move. They go to one side and run into a wall and get hurt. Then they go to another side and the goal is not there, so they get another blow. But at least they go.

The best quality in the spiritual life is not to hesitate once you know your goal. But even if you do not know your goal, it is good to run. God’s Compassion will dawn just because you are running, because you are on the move. Once you feel that your goal is not where you are, that your goal is somewhere ahead of you, then you have to run. And if you run, eventually you are bound to reach your goal.

Excerpt from The Outer Running And The Inner Running by Sri Chinmoy

Continue reading “I Can Learn To Be Everything Here”

“It is the one great school on how to be surrendered.”  For the past week Pranab has been a visitor to the race.  He has come from his home in Slovakia to support his friends, and at least for a brief while, be a part of the thing that has meant so much to him.  He has completed this race on 4 occasions and at each race he found ways to self-transcend.  Both by bettering his times each time and also growing as a spiritual person as well.

“These experiences, of knowing how to let go, and how not to be dependent on things that I want.  To be able to separate the things that should happen from the things I want to happen.  That helped me a lot with other things in my life.”

“Two years ago it got really bad and somehow I got through it.  Last year it started very soon and came back again.” It is enough for any runner just to battle the distance little alone combat health issues at the same time.  Pranab had been a fixture at this race for 4 years and last year he was running well here when a stubborn skin rash attacked him with a vengeance, and by June 26 he had to retire from the race.

“Running itself is a transformation process and this race is an embodiment of this.  You cannot really expect to run something long and not to be changed.  It is a very concentrated life.  Outer signs of self transcendence is just a number.  I do not really believe in comparing year by year.” He speaks about some of his fellow Slovaks and how much he admires what they are doing here.  Each uncovering unknown capacities and also gaining strength in other more recognizable areas of their lives.

He was able to run this race most years when Sri Chinmoy was still outwardly and integrally part of the event.  He still feels that he is deeply part of it now.  “It is his race, so how can you separate him from this.  I would not be coming here if not for him.”

“Inspiration works in mysterious ways.” He feels that the influence of the 3100 can be felt by those who are receptive, but as one who has experienced it first hand has no way of judging what it might be.  He had been thinking about doing it for years before he eventually came.  “I have been inspired by this race a lot.”  He said it touched him long before one could go daily and view the results on the internet.  Just hearing about it from others alone was enough to feel a thrill inside.

When he leaves today and heads back to Slovakia, “I am going to miss it.”  Then he laughs and adds, “But I am not going to pretend that I will be crying into my pillow.”

Complete Pranab interview

Continue reading “Running is a Transformation Process”

“Right now I am trying to get them and their shadow lined up.  There is a nice shadow that they are casting, and I am trying to get the runner and their shadow following them.  I am trying to get each runner before the angle of the light changes, and it won’t work any more.  It is changing quick. “

“In the morning, the runners are different you know. They are really open.  They tend to really have unguarded expressions.  They have honest looks on their faces.  It is definitely the best time.”

For many years Jowan has been coming to the race at all hours of the day and night.  His photography reflects the ironic world of the race in which so many things are changing rapidly and yet constantly remaining the same.  Close by you can hear his camera shooting off hundreds of pictures and its clatter mixes interestingly with the whir of traffic below us on the Grand Central.

He is patient, focused, and trying to see a glimpse of something about the race that he has not already seen in the 100’s of previous visits he has made here over the years to the race.  A single photograph is just a frozen moment of reality captured in some digital realm that we can examine, admire, and identify with.  The race is always about movement. Nothing stops, nothing slows, in some ways as each day advances towards the goal there is almost a sense of time subtly speeding up. His pictures just help us hit the pause button on the incredible world that is unfolding here.

When you look at Jowan’s pictures you feel like he has captured a brief glimpse of heaven.  These are not just slow runners ambling around the block.  There is a inner divinity here that he is somehow able to reveal in ways that our eyes cannot.  He is showing us pilgrims on an ageless quest.  With beauty, with pain, but with a timeless urgency to move on and demonstrate, that self transcendence truly does exists for a world thirsting for transformation.  He also somehow captures the spirit of the founder of the race, Sri Chinmoy, like I cannot do.

There are shots that he has taken, in which I feel, that just out of view, is Sri Chinmoy’s little red car, just about to speed into the frame and make perfection itself even more transcendent.

Jowan interview

http://gallery.srichinmoycentre.org/members/jowan/3100/2010/

Continue reading “I Am Happy That I Am Happy”

Just to be an Olympian and attend the Olympic games is a tremendous achievement.  To attain a medal of any sort places you on a lofty stage in world sports.  To win the gold medal in 4 consecutive competitions, setting an Olympic record each time, places you on the loftiest rarefied pinnacle of World sport champions.

The legendary Al Oerter was a sport figure, whose achievements in discuss competition, from 1964 when he was just 20 until his last competition in 1968 at age 32 are unlikely to be matched.  In each of those competitions he was never favored to win, and was never selected as the first man on the US Discus team.  Yet in him burned an inexhaustible spirit to transcend himself. He once said, “You die before you quit.” And, “I didn’t set out to beat the world.  I just set out to do my absolute best.” photo courtesy of http://www.aloerter.com/pages/olympian.html

He was a admirer and friend to Sri Chinmoy and this past weekend his wife Cathy visited NY to pay her respects to Sri Chinmoy’s weight lifting anniversary and also enjoy a visit to the 3100 mile race.  One morning at the Smile of the Beyond restaurant I had a chance to speak with her and she said that after her visit there she was planning to jog with the runners on the course of the 3100.

“I see the inspiration it gives.  I almost want to bow to them when I see them going.  That feat, well we can’t wrap our heads around it at all, because that is not where it is coming from.  It is coming from the heart, and a kind of inner spirit that they have.  I think Al had that spirit too.  Because he broke through all kinds of barriers.  And loved the event for just the sake of the event itself.  I think the people out there running have that same kind of passion.  Just their ability to dedicate themselves to this event has won my heart, and I applaud it. “

When she talks about what she and Al saw in Sri Chinmoy she says, “the ability to keep going.  It was the effort over a lifetime really.  Al did the same thing.  He broke all odds.  He was never the favorite, but he always came through.  I think because Sri Chinmoy and Al had this in their heart, that they were very focused on what they were doing and could push through anything.”

When asked how this influence is still felt, “It is the spirit isn’t it, and the spirit never dies.  They have left that to all of us to carry on.”

Cathy Oerter interview

Continue reading “The Spirit Never Dies”