Sri Chinmoy – Page 80 – Perfection Journey

Just Keep Moving

The very need to run is a primal aspect of our beings. It hearkens back to a long ago ancient time when the ability to run was an integral part of our makeups. Indeed necessary for our very survival. It is buried, in plain view, within our genetic blueprint. We are built to run.

Perhaps not as swiftly as nearly all of nature’s other animal creations but nonetheless in the very design of of our beings it is embedded there. Long long ago we needed to be able to run, both because of fear and because of hunger. It is a foundation of our beings that has not disappeared or failed, just because of the modern presence of fast cars and fast food.

Smarana Punigam 38 from Graz Austria showed up today and will start the 6 day race tomorrow. He carries about himself a calm and gentle presence. He has just brought his suitcase, and while there for a few hours, greets many of the friends he has met over the years. What isn’t so easy to discern about him, and which is unique about Smarana, is that he has run more competitive miles here than anyone else. He has completed the 3100 mile race 7 times along with a host of other multi day events and ultra races.

In the summer of 2008 he completed his 7th 3100 mile race and had not run another multi day, until that which he will start tomorrow. He says, “I have been running since 1994 nearly every year a multi day race. Last year I did not do any and I found that I was missing it. So I am really happy to be here. I really feel excited and I can’t wait to start tomorrow.”

He tells me that before coming he at first had a number of goals he wished to accomplish. But now that he has arrived, and the atmosphere of the race and presence of all the 10 day runners envelops him you can see everything change. “I just want to enjoy it and do my best. I like to have intensity but still I want to enjoy it. This is my real goal this time.”

When I suggest that for a man with all his running experience that the 6 day race could literally be a walk in the park he tells me that even a 100 meter race can be tough. “You can never know what the outcome will be.” He describes for me an inner goal that he is striving for. He wants to be able to apply all the intensity of his determination into the race, while at the same time fully enjoying the presence of his friends. To accomplish, what is perhaps the most significant purpose of todays runner, to awaken and listen to the deepest inner part of our beings and express it joyously and purposefully in and through our running.

Smarana Interview

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You Must Do Your Work Here

The race is heading into its 3rd day now and the sun bright weather of the past 2 days took a decidedly damp turn this afternoon. It is not unexpected of course at this time of year. The race always has a constant solution for not only the cold and damp but as well perhaps for a host of other ailments in a runner’s long long journey here. The simple answer is often a warm and satisfying visit to the food tent, in which these 5 ladies work tirelessly from the pre dawn darkness to well past the sleepy time of the sun.

Every volunteer here at the race has a crucial role to play, but without the tireless dedication of the cooks the fuel that fires the great running engine of the race would sputter out within a few hours. The runners of course have their own particular stash of treats and concoctions on their tables but inevitably they will come in through the door of the food tent many times each day. They may snatch a cookie or forage up a steaming plate, a cold drink or a hot brew, but there is more than calories to be found within its always open door.

There is a banquet of love and caring heaped here as well as food. You can feel it energize you even as you walk by on the road outside whether or not you feel tempted to swerve off from the course and enter inside. For many years Sushovita, holding Roxy, was the Queen of this realm throughout the great spectrum of the day. Now she holds court just for breakfast and has handed over the rest of the day to Nandana and her crew.

Tomorrow a long hard job will become even more challenging. The 6 day race starts at noon and this means there will be more than 40 more hungry bodies to feed and keep fueled. Nandana and her helpers have performed so far to delicious fulfilling perfection. They have demonstrated magnificently that their job isn’t about rolling out an endless assembly line of staggering calorie totals. Rather they have made their food tasty and beautiful and the runner’s reviews are not just in their smiles as they leave, but also in the number of their miles on the board, climbing ever higher as they run by.

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I am all Happiness

I don’t know what you did last night but I have a good idea what 29 ten day runners in Flushing meadow did. As the warm bright afternoon of their first day settled away and was replaced by a still cool night, the true enormity of their task truly opened up in front of them.

It is in the heart of the night, with its quiet black solitude, that the imposing challenge of how far they have to really journey becomes clear. It is in the night with its solemn stillness that the reality of the great gulf of time looming in front of them is revealed.

Sleep calls out enticingly. Fatigue or the false specter of tiredness dances in front of you and it is so easy to slip away unnoticed in the dark and find your bed and surrender to dreams.

But that did not happen last night to 29 runners in Flushing Meadow. Some or all of this enchantment called out and enveloped you and I but not them. They ran on and on practically throughout the entire dark night and the numbers beside their names today showed what great things happened to them while you and I dreamed our dreams.

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More than Miles

There are times when you just know that something special is happening. The Self-Transcendence 6 and 10 day race is just a few hours old and already 36 year old Igor Mudryk from Vinnitsa Ukraine seems to be doing something above and beyond everyone else in the field. The bow has been barely untied from this years running and yet, in just the few hours I was there, I felt I was witnessing from him, the early stages of a remarkable performance.

Last year he ran 712 miles which was a huge increase over his previous best, something in the order of 179 miles more. Today the weather Gods are smiling on Flushing Meadow and perhaps the whole east coast of America. The temperature is balmy and the winds are mild so at this point in the race everyone looks great. There are no great struggles going on and the jabs of pain and the shackles of groaning fatigue have yet to be felt by anyone. Unless perhaps it is the crew who have worked here for close to 5 days to make sure that all the bits of the great jig saw puzzle were neatly in place.

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Most of us expect, at some point in our …

Most of us expect, at some point in our lives, that we will take a journey. It may be something as simple as travel to distant lands, or one that is more difficult to assess and measure, an inner journey. Here there are no simple and reliable vehicles of transportation. The scenery we pass along the way, is the pure landscape of our own consciousness. There are paths we wander down that may seem predictable and others, in which the destination is just beyond the unknown. Snatak is one, who for me has taken a journey with his life, that is both profound and unique. It is one in which has seen the shifting goal of his life move from the improbable to what one can almost say is the impossible. Yet for spiritual seekers, and for those who have the benefit of a spiritual master like Snatak, impossibility is a just a word to be stepped upon, as they boldly move forward in the great adventure, we call life.

A native of Iceland, for the last few weeks he has been in Columbia with a group of Icelandic friends. They are here conducting meditation classes in various parts of the country. His visit here, which is just over 5,000 miles from his home, is not unique. For many years, he traveled for a few weeks each year, during the winter months, with his late spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy. It is a tradition that has continued on. Besides his 3 Icelandic friends he is also joined here with a group of about 100 fellow students of Sri Chinmoy from around the world, who are enjoying the groups first visit to Columbia. Over the years Snatak has visited dozens of countries, and he has seen his own spiritual life blossom. He has also attempted to share the philosophy and the teachings of Sri Chinmoy, wherever he goes.

“I am a spiritual farmer. God, out of His infinite Bounty, has entrusted me with the task of plowing the spiritual land. This is my first visit to your beautiful island. I have been here for about four hours. During these four hours, I have felt the Indian consciousness here in Iceland. India’s natural beauty I have observed here; India’s inner peace I have felt here. My presence here makes me feel that my life of aspiration and your life of aspiration in the inner world have built a bridge between spiritual India and spiritual Iceland. My Indian heart offers its soulful gratitude to your hearts of aspiration, for it is you who have given me the opportunity to be of dedicated service to you today. Nothing gives me greater joy than to be of dedicated service to the Supreme inside aspiring human beings.”

Excerpt from My Rose Petals, Part 4 by Sri Chinmoy. Continue reading “Most of us expect, at some point in our …”

Lelihana: The Climbing Flame

When she was a little girl lelihana says she used to look out from the windows of her music school and long to be outside with the children playing there. For 7 years however, from the age of 7 until 14, her time was caught up in studying the piano. The adventure and thrill of the sports world was always enticingly just beyond her reach. At that young age she was simply following the steady predictable path that many Russian children do if they want to be able to reach University. With her mom working in a kindergarten and her dad working as a cook the family did not have much interest in athletics. The rarefied world of international sport was far from being an easily anticipated option in her life. She admits that at the time, she just didn’t like music.

Of course great dreams and divine opportunities can stride into one’s life at their own time and in their own unfathomable way. It was the encouragement of one of her music teachers who was able to shift the focus of her life. He, along with others, saw in her an unquestionable wealth of talent that she had as an athlete, that far surpassed her musical abilities. It was clear to many that her feet could move her much further and faster than her fingers.

So at age 14 she at last found herself able to be outdoors, but it was not at playing frivolous games. Instead, she quickly became focused on the disciplined and challenging world of track and field. As she talks about it today she speaks with an easy confidence, as if she was destined for the life of a world class sprinter. She advanced very quickly in the sport and by the time she was 15 she was winning meets. When she was just 17 she represented Russia at a World’s junior competition in the 100 meters. She ran her personal best at this time which was 11.84. She says of this experience, “I was a little bit scared but otherwise it was okay.”

She has been competing internationally now for more than a dozen years. Her specialty has become both the 400 meters and 4×400 relay. The track and field world knows her as Olesya Zykina, but to those who are her fellow students of the late Indian Spiritual teacher, she is Lelihana, which means the Climbing Flame. When asked what her spiritual name means to her she says, “I like it. It is beautiful, this is my name. When it is difficult for me I repeat my name.”

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The Sweetest Item We Could Think Of

It has to be one of the humblest of all confections. The lollipop is simply a small piece of hard flavored candy on top of a stick. With absolutely no nutritional value. Its sole purpose is to offer a modest measure of sweet joy to the consumer and perhaps allow them some brief time to enjoy its diminishing glistening sweetness in their hand as it is slowly licked into oblivion.

For Guinness champion Ashrita Furman, who has often taken on simple child like pleasures and escalated them into herculean accomplishments the task of constructing the world’s biggest lollipop seemed like a worthy challenge.

On the anniversary of his spiritual teacher’s birthday he has often turned to creating extraordinary sweet treats to honor him. In what would have been Sri Chinmoy’s 77th birthday last August 27th he and a large group of students created a birthday cake with 47,000 lighted candles.

http://heartlotus.blogspot.com/2008/10/lighting-up-world.html

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The 47 Mile Race 2009

Somehow it was slipping away from me. Like it always does, the 47 mile inspires and touches my heart like no other running event. This year the night of the race was perfect. The evening air was cool and light as the midnight start approached. An impressive group had turned out to participate in a run that has now taken place on every August 27th for the past 31 years.

I had taken hundreds of pictures in and around the track lit bright by candles and dangling light bulbs. Out on the still twisting streets I flashed even more shots of the smiling faces of the intrepid runners who ran with light and determined steps, at least during the early laps.

Throughout the long night more and more precious moments from the race where being captured by my camera and my microphone. Those fragments of joy, of determination and of selfless service had inexorably gathered into a mountain of data stuffed onto digital memory cards. After the race I faced the daunting task of unraveling a story that now seemed much more difficult than tying on shoes and running the 47 miles itself. A persistent case of nagging procrastination dogged my heels for weeks. I felt myself almost uncontrollably sliding towards a precipice where the story was heading towards some digital oblivion.

Then on a recent bright Sunday, which seemed to be gilded more by the soothing promise of Spring than the gray dullness of late Autumn, I found myself out running on the 47 mile loop. On an afternoon flooded with light and warmth I felt myself caught up in fervent tide of sweet memory. From whence it came I do not know but soon my dawdling middle aged footsteps were feeling the selfsame effortless lightness and unbridled hope of all those many times I had run the 47 as a much younger man. It was though my own countless cherished memories of running the race were reaching out to me from my own not too distant past. But it was not just my own memories that were calling out to me it was as well as though the inspired experiences of those who had just run weeks earlier were calling out to me to bring that magical night back into focus. To find a voice for a magical event in which impossibility itself becomes banished in the boundless enthusiasm of those who take part in this most sacred of Sri Chinmoy Marathon team running events.

As I rounded the corner near goose pond and made the sweeping right hand turn, across from Jamaica High school and looked ahead, I had a profound moment. It was a vivid experience in which I felt as though I could clearly see Sri Chinmoy running on the road ahead of me. He had run the full race himself on 2 occasions and had run on the course during the race at least one more time. I remember clearly, during one race, coming round this same corner only to be shocked to see the familiar form of my Spiritual teacher bobbing along under the dim street lights in front of me.

At the time he would have been either 48 or 49 years of age. I was in my running prime and gradually I was overtaking him. As I came up behind him, each step I took I felt myself repeating his name in silence to myself.

This was after all his birthday and it was in honor of him that I ran. It could not escape me what a beautiful experience it was to thus find him there on the course as well. I can remember my slow and inevitable approach from behind him and then my sweeping pass on his right side. I can remember saying something as simple as, “Way to go Guru, way to go.” I am not aware of any comment or remark that he may have made in return. Nor do I remember any other time that I passed him again, though most certainly through the night I must have passed by him a few more times. What I do recall however is how so much I wished to carry him with me throughout the night and lighten the burden of his steps. Yet inevitably in time I would understand, that all along that it was he who was actually carrying me.

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