Tag: Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race.

“Watching all the other people joining in on the running. They encourage other people.  I find that so exciting.”

Larry Washington knows this little block in Queens just about better than anybody else.  He has been a caretaker at Thomas Edison High School for 25 years and most mornings he is out around the school grounds cleaning up trash.  He is methodical about his job and takes pains to make sure all the garbage is cleaned up every day.  Proud to make his little bit of this world that he is personally responsible for neat and tidy, though most certainly by tomorrow surely more will come and take its place.

For 16 years Larry has had a front row seat on this little miracle, the Self Transcendence 3100 mile race.  A vantage point that very few others have and so because this race inhabits a big chunk of his universe he has noticed a lot, and more importantly, been impressed by what takes place here for 52 days each summer.

What he notices is how people from around the neighborhood are drawn to the block and exercise as well here.

“You can see them when they come out.  They don’t run as long as diligent and as dedicated as the runners who are running out there.  But watching them, and watching the others who may just come around and run once or twice, and the elderly who walk at the same time.  I find that very encouraging.  Because that gives people the inner strength that they can do it.”

When asked what he thought of it all when it first started.  He confesses, “I was not viewing it in a correct light.  (laughs) Because it wouldn’t be me.  Then I started growing a little bit, and I started equating it with when I was in the Service.  We had to run 5 miles before we started our regular duties.  So I said, these are diligent people.  They are really dedicated to their work.  Of trying to accomplish what ever it is, whether it is their health, or if it is spiritual, what ever it is that they are trying to do.  I can see that they are dedicated to it. ”

“I see their determination and the extra will that goes along with it.  Trying to see themselves through that long journey, and I find that very encouraging.  You can see the human spirit pushing forward when they know they can’t.  And they are saying , O yes I can, and they overcome it.  I find it to be a good thing.”

Click to play interview

Larry Washington

The heart knows
Not only how to encourage
But also how to help the mind
To lead a better life.

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“The physical is not the main factor in the race, although you use the physical to keep moving forward.  But something else is happening.  That soul’s world, that reality is what I am trying to think of more today.”….Arpan

For some months now Arpan has been dreaming about this day, his 60th birthday.   Clearly visualizing  how he would be able to celebrate his soul’s day here, by running 60 miles on the course of the 3100 mile race.  For quite a few years he would come by himself alone and start running here shortly after midnight. Run throughout the dark night and into the warm bright embrace of the dawn.  Keep on going, lap after lap, mile after mile until he had run the exact same miles as was his age.  He called this project, his Ageathon.

His birthday has always been an important occasion for him over the years. On that special date each year he saw it as a perfect opportunity to offer his gratitude to his spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy, by running a mile for every year he had spent on earth.

A task that becomes ever more difficult as the required mileage relentlessly notches upwards while simultaneously the strength and endurance to accomplish it flows towards an unforgiving precipice of diminishing capacity.

What distinctly and ironically separates this simple wish from any other year is that as of this morning he has already coaxed, coddled, cajoled, and literally begged his reluctant body into already running 1988 miles on the course.

He has forged an all consuming epic battle here on this cruel sidewalk for 36 straight days. A tremendous achievement and yet one that also brings into striking clarity an almost insurmountable mathematical burden.

What seems so unavoidably evident now is  that the trajectory of his dreams will now no longer be able to carry his uncooperative body victoriously to the 3100 mile finish line.  The ultimate distance, barring some true divine intervention, will still be spectacular, and quite possibly record breaking.  As he moves further into the depths of the final 2 weeks the glimmer of what that goal will actually be will certainly grow more bright and eventually be revealed and manifested.

As he starts his running this morning he is confronted with both a physical dilemma and a divine opportunity.  For the first part it seems almost as though his physical has abandoned him at this most precious juncture of his life.  Quickly surrendering to a now growing list of injuries when it has served him impeccably through decades of endurance running.   What distance it will relinquish and grudgingly allow will be ultimately revealed at the stroke of midnight tonight.

More importantly though is the reality that Arpan is a true aspirant and spiritual seeker.  Before him over the next 18 hours of his birthday will be his heart’s gift and his soul’s treasure.  Instead of diving into the murky depths of his body’s pain he will attempt to rise beyond and above the physical horizon.  Allow the dimensions of his world not be defined and limited by what his grumbling muscles are speaking just now, but by what melody  his grateful heart chooses to sing for all eternity.

The ordinary human body is imperfection incarnate. This imperfection can be transformed into perfection only when the body voluntarily offers itself to the soul’s ever-growing Light, Wisdom and Bliss. A day is bound to dawn when the body will make this offering. Then the body and the soul will run together to fulfil the Supreme’s Mission—the mission of nature’s transformation, the mission of the revelation, manifestation and fulfilment of the highest Truth here on earth.

Sri Chinmoy, Eastern Light For The Western Mind, Agni Press, 1973.

Continue reading “July 23: To Make Progress”

“From my inner feeling from the first day for me this place is paradise.” Vasu

We all like to construct from time to time an imaginary perfect world in our minds.  Unleash the power of our thoughts and allow them to rise up to celestial heights and visit a fanciful haven of our own making.  An idyllic sanctuary and one also untethered to our current physical reality.  Unbound by all the restrictions and limitations of the human condition, and if we are so inclined, also leave the door wide open, should God ever be prepared to visit us there.

If we invent such a place it is unlikely that God would ever truly be impressed with our self styled construction of perfection.  Particularly when it is built entirely of thought and illusion.  God is after all the master builder and would much prefer we take up residence in places that he has already created just for us.  Ones in which instead of our mental power we use our hearts aspiration to rise up to and become one with.

For the most part we literally have to jettison the baggage of all thought and instead surrender ourselves to the inner cry of our hearts.   When we do this we find a path already clearly marked out for us.  One that if we follow rises up and leads us to our own perfect perfection.  The miracle of aspiration then is that in the moment God notices us trying he then willingly and gladly comes down to lift us even higher.

For 35 days Vasu has sincerely felt blessed to be here.  His heart aches with gratitude at the opportunity to run here while at the same time he is able to be detached from all the brutal physical aches and suffering that also have been heaped upon this 47 year old man from St. Petersburg.

If Self Transcendence were a simple math puzzle he would have succeeded at bettering his best running achievements weeks ago.  As of last night he had run 2121 miles which far surpasses any of the vast numbers he has run in competition before.  Never having run further than 10 days he has also been here already 35.

Now with just 17 days left the imposing journey still lying in front of him is not a small one.  He has yet a 1000 miles more to run.  But in his face and in his steps you clearly see a miracle taking place.  For he has found his paradise already, and it is running around a high school in Queens.

It is a little heaven that he shares with 10 other souls.  A place in which a grimy tide of pain and fatigue vainly tries to pull him down but he resists its relentless ebb and flow.  For Vasu has stepped free, just beyond its reach and instead rushes now towards his goal.  Enjoying a paradise along the way, that is all his for 17 full more days.

Paradise is the place
Where my heart wants to grow.

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Paradise is the place
Where my mind wants to know.

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Paradise is the place
Where my soul wants to sow –
Sow the seed of perfection.

Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 62, Agni Press, 1983.

Continue reading “July 22: This Place Is Paradise”

It is just a few minutes past 6 o’clock in the morning and Grahak, with his hands resting on his hips is walking up the ‘hill’ for the first time today. Until just a few minutes earlier he had been running smoothly and then, about 5o meters earlier, he simply down shifted his body into its lowest gears and slowed noticeably.

Practically nobody else in the city would dare classify this slight incline on this Queens sidewalk as a hill.  The change in elevation is barely detectable and yet when you bring your eyes down closer to the surface of the sidewalk, the change is noticeable, not dramatic, not Himalayan, but only really obvious from that vantage point.

Yesterday Grahak climbed this hill, going in the other direction 119 times.  In most other places climbing a hill usually means you can take advantage of the gained altitude and use it when you are then able to coast down the other side.  The strange thing about this hill next to the Grand Central is that there does not appear to be another side that ever leads downward to compensate for the effort of going up.

Surveyors could explain this better, gps devices could analyze the calculable  differences between distinct parts of the course yet ultimately if you are one of the 11 runners here this spot is indeed the hill.  No matter how fast you have been running prior to reaching the hill the moment you arrive there you stop and then start walking.

New runners usually adapt to this strategy immediately on their very first day.  Either they simply follow the example of the veterans or some part of their beings recognizes that is a really good idea to slow down right here.  It is a tactic that has been in practice for 16 years.

Out of curiosity I took out a calculator just to add up all the laps that the runners have completed here so far this summer.  As of this morning the total is just over 43,000 laps, and counting of course.  Grahak has the biggest chunk of that since he leads the field with 4,424. (5649 is the goal)

Practically every aspect of the race offers an important message and significant lesson to anyone trying to reach a new goal for themselves or change or transform some aspect of their lives.  When we loose hope and give up on anything difficult then we become our own worst enemy.

Yet not even trying at all means the ultimate victory of our own ignorance.  What these runners prove and demonstrate is the irrefutable importance of simply always going forward.  Slow down if necessary, speed up when you can, for the goal  always grows closer each day, when at least you try.

There is not a single human being on earth who does not need patience. And we who are seekers of infinite Light and Truth need patience more than others, for we are consciously, soulfully and devotedly aiming at the highest Goal. We want to climb up Mount Everest in the spiritual life. So naturally we need conscious, constant and unending patience. It is not like climbing up an ant-hill or even an ordinary hill; it cannot be done in the twinkling of an eye. The higher the goal, the more patience we need.

Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy Speaks, Part 1, Agni Press, 1976.

Continue reading “July 21: Conscious, Constant, Unending Patience”

“I think that it was after a short rain, I had just the feeling or I saw it inwardly that they are not just bodies moving on the track, but I saw 12 beautiful birds flying around the course.  Like soul birds flying flying, and flying.”…..Atmavir

When you ask most people what kind of gift they would like to receive on their birthday the average person, when given enough paper and enough ink could tear off a list that could stretch into endless futile tomorrows.  When you are feet are planted firmly on the earth than often you want only want what the world has and what the world is.

Atmavir, whose 34th birthday is today, has feet that are not stuck fast to the earth but instead are swiftly skimming lightly across the face of the earth.  And there are days surely when he and all the others who run here must and do rise up from this tired painful earth and take flight towards quite a different world.  Our eyes and minds can’t see it but in some bright lit corner of our heart we can be aware of this miracle.

When you timidly cling to the earth or allow the world to bind you to it, there can be no flight.  Golden dreams can pass just above your head and yet you cannot see them and do not dare to even reach out.  For 6 summers Atmavir has run here seeking out that other world.  He has clearly heard its call and by running each day and each summer attempted to seek out and become one with the inviting whisper of tomorrow.  No one can say how far really he has come but today at least he radiates contentment and his face beams with delight and joy.

Before coming here this morning he meditated and offered his gratitude to his late teacher Sri Chinmoy for the opportunity of once again being able to take part in this journey of Self Transcendence that he created 16 summers ago.

On this day 34 years ago his soul began its life journey here on earth.  Now with each step and each new mile his soul draws closer to the place from which it sprang.  A place you can arrive at only when your hands are empty and your  heart is full.

Question: What do the birds teach us?

Sri Chinmoy: We all want freedom and we all need freedom. The birds teach us to liberate ourselves from earth’s bondage. This teaching of the birds is indeed sublime.

Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy Answers, Part 3, Agni Press, 1995.

Continue reading “July 20: Like Soul Birds”

“I don’t know how and why but I know there is someone who knows.  God knows, so I know this is my way.  I want to love God more.  I want to pray more.  I want to cry more for God.  I want to have more purity, simplicity, and devotion.  To please God in his own way.  I have hope and I have faith in God, and I know that one day I will run.”….Ananda Lahari

Over  last 12 days Ananda Lahari has barely run a step and yet he never stops and continues to walk on, hour after hour.  His chances of completing the full distance flew off long ago and yet his cheerfulness and quiet calm commitment have not.  Where many would become despondent and desperate when confronted by such a fate Ananda Lahari seems to increasingly continue  to gather up inner strength and poise.  Something not so apparent when you see his slight sweet smiling presence glide past.

This is his 8th summer here.  Like very few others he knows all too well the challenges thrown up in front of all those who approach the starting line.  On 5 previous occasions he has felt the ribbon break as he crossed the finish line.  He has been applauded and cheered and had songs sung in his honor.  Some years back he realized that running through a blue ribbon after circling the course 5649 times was not really why he needed to come here.

Not that he wouldn’t want to achieve this honor but perhaps more than most he is also aware of the real rewards and goals that can be experienced when you nudge and shift your focus from the glaring outer realty to the glowing inner one.

There is an obvious intensely difficult athletic competition and then there is the inner journey.  One with no finish line and no obvious reward.

Perhaps if he is still clinging to one tiny desire is that he once again find the strength and energy to be able to lift up his knees and run again.  But if it doesn’t happen it will not be any kind of tragedy at all.  For above and beyond everything else is much larger and all encompassing heartfelt wish,’To please God in his own way.’

If you want God,

open your heart and run.

If God wants you,

open your eyes,

close your ears and run.

Sri Chinmoy, A Hundred Years From Now, Agni Press, 1974.

Continue reading “July 19: Someone Who Knows”

“Sometimes you are injured so what, you do your best.  Sometimes it is hot and you do your best even if it is only 100 laps.  The next day is nice weather and you can do 130.  I always say the most important thing is to do your best.“….Pranjal

For most of  humanity the idea of doing your best is a lofty theoretical concept yet it is something that is all too rarely practiced in every day life.  It is something that we all treasure and whole heartedly believe in.  In truth it is an abstraction that we think about a lot and yet so rarely actually perform ourselves.  Conveniently we are often disappointed when we don’t witness it in others around us and yet are reluctant to be critical when we ourselves give some significant percentage of ourselves that is less than 100%.

There may be some great task or endeavor in the future that we determinedly have every real intention of giving our all.  Then when that moment arrives we are assailed by doubt and insecurity and make some feeble pledge that most definitely next time we will rise up to meet the challenge.  Perhaps we might feel embarrassed to see our actions judged critically by others and use the excuse, ‘but o yes I can do better.’

As well we think that if we really unleash the full power of our capacity than we will be diminished and weakened because of it. Instead of realizing that only by giving our all can we actually expand our capacity and then ultimately transcend our achievements in the not too distant future.

4o year old Pranjal Milovnik is a rare and special individual who, when he uses the phrase, ‘do my best’, backs it up and authenticates the words with powerful and practical action.  When he came here 8 years ago for the first time it was his credo and it is one that he has yet to abandon or waiver from an iota.  Come early and stay late.  Don’t waste time.  Don’t worry, don’t analyze,  just open the door of your heart and go.  If the day is hard and you are hurting great.  If the day is good and you feel well also great. Either one is fine.

For Pranjal the present moment is the only moment.  The important thing is not the finish line ahead, it is not tomorrow, is not the next lap, or even the next step. It is now. The opportunities that exist in the future mean nothing if you simply do not take all the ones that are right in front of you.

His spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy lived this way, taught his students to attempt it, and felt all of the world could be a better place if in fact that giving and doing your best, is not just important, but essential for all our lives.  Eventually when we discard all the binding chains of our limitations we just might realize who we are within.  Find ourselves at the summit heights of perfection and realize that ultimately we had to do so little to arrive there.  That it is our inner pilot who is waiting patiently, to not just lead us to the goal but also to take us there as well.   We only need to allow him to act in and through us.

HERE and NOW
God tells me:
“Cry not like a beggar
For your own liberation.
Smile and strive,
And strive and smile
Like a hero supreme
For My complete manifestation
Here on earth.”

Continue reading “July 18: Here And Now”

“I enjoy the race most, all its good qualities and everything when I am completely down.  That amazes me every time.  I had zero energy, I was walking all day and then everything came to me.   All the sympathy from the other runners.  How I love this race.  All the memories from the past.  Wow so inspiring. It is not inspiring to be down but somehow you are more inward.”     Stutisheel

This morning I found myself slipping spontaneously into the same light easy pace and rhythm that Stutisheel was running.  We have run many miles here together over the past 9 years and also had many conversations.  As each runner has their own distinct form and style of running each also has their own unique way of trying to interpret just what it is that brings them here and makes them do this most remarkable thing.

Even if I were to take each and every explanation I have heard about the Self Transcendence race over the years sifted and sorted  through all the enlightened and thoughtful insights and images I doubt any of it would really convey what it is actually like to be here.  What it is to run effortlessly along on a sun bright day with a man from the Ukraine who is nipping at the heels of 2000 miles and with a smile and a nod is still 3 carefree weeks away from another 1100 more miles.

The running in these drowsy early dawn hours feels effortless and I literally  have to tear myself away lest I be captured up in his cheerful relentless orbit and never ever leave.  It is in these sublime and deeply moving personal moments that I feel the soul deep impact of what the Self Transcendence race is.

When its world and it message resonates within me with crystal clarity.  That I have made, if only briefly, a leap from my rather ordinary mundane life into the one the runners inhabit totally.

Sample the ambrosial experience that sustains and illumines them here at every moment.   Deliberately push aside all thoughts and notions and simply observe the profound capacity of the race to uplift, to inspire, and to transform anyone who enters its always wide open door of universal acceptance.

And yet these sweet moments are as fleeting as the twinkle and glow of a firefly here on a hot July night. I will cover barely a mile while Stutisheel goes on and on.  The rest of the day I bask in the glowing memory of sharing a few laps with him.

Replay the words and thoughts and feelings that continued to swirl around inside.  To recall what it was like to be immersed in a luminous sea of unlimited divine possibilities.  Eventually the call and snare of the harsh material world would once again draw me back up onto its o so familiar pebbled shore.  Yet a hope within still burns bright that maybe tomorrow I can step away from the hard defined reality that binds us, and once more freely journey just a little farther and deeper into the life of the beyond.

The Beyond

Is in my heart’s cry

For my nature’s transformation

And

For the constant Satisfaction

Of my Beloved Supreme.

Sri Chinmoy, Silence-Seed And Sound-Fruit, Agni Press, 1975.

Continue reading “July 17: Life Of The Beyond”

Once you get in, it is like life, you have to accept the blows, and there are a lot of good things that come along with it. Once you learn how to focus.  The bad things pull your psychic energy and your emotions.  But eventually if you take the right attitude, with a lot of support and help from friends.  Reminders of what you should be doing or thinking. “..Arpan

Sometime a little over 2 weeks ago Arpan’s 3100 mile race experience drifted radically off from the familiar ground that he has known and been accustomed to now for more than 30 years of distance running.

For the first time  he found himself veering off what he hoped would be a total sun bright course that he could follow all the way to the finish line.  Instead when his shin splints showed up out of the blue he found himself suddenly shoved into a hard dark place that did not seem like it was ever going to let him free.

With his lengthy experience in running he always knew that the 3100 could not be conquered without some suffering but certainly not with the intensity and the relentless ferocity that he has been pummeled with thus far.  For just after the shinsplints lightened their tenacious grip his Achilles problem roared up to take its place.

The world which Arpan found himself inhabiting was a place in which pain has become a most intimate and constant companion. It is not that he has not been here before.  When you have run so hard in so many races over the years it is inevitable that just about all the hardships of our life’s physical reality will find some way of tormenting you and try and chase away your dreams. This time though the life lesson he has been given is a master class in how to transcend the physical limitations of the body.

Over the years he has guided and inspired countless other runners as they too battled with tremendous adversity.   Help them find some unique formula too push beyond the clutches of injury or adjust tactics in how to discipline the mind and open the heart.  To renew their acquaintance with faith and hope.

In just one weeks time he will have his 60th birthday here on the course.  There is not a single person that does not wish for him that on that day he have a joyous celebration like he has never had before.  That indeed all his days be joyous and bright right up to and including that glorious moment that he victoriously crosses the finish line.

It is easy to look at all this playing out here on this very public and very visible wedge of concrete in Queens.  It is quite another thing to even catch a faint glimpse of the inner reality not just for Arpan but in fact for any of the other runners as well.  For we can at best only perceive a faint wisp emanating from the surface of this vast world of self transcendence.  We can only ponder while they the runners live and breathe the totality of the 3100 mile race.  The true destinations of each of their journeys is well beyond the farthest reaches of our speculation and perhaps beyond our dreams.

Do not allow circumstances
To frighten you.

Do not allow situations
To torture you.

Look beyond appearances.

Yours will be
The unmistakable happiness.

Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 19, Agni Press, 1981.

Continue reading “July 16: Inwardly Find A Way”

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

Nathan

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.

Continue reading “July 15: Beginnings”