Calvin Smith’s Smile
by Sri Chinmoy
Our prayer for Calvin Smith was fruitful. He stood third in his race in New York and also that was his best timing for the entire year. Usually he does not do well in just 50 or 60 metres. So God listened to our prayers.
Bhashwar has taken a very nice picture of Calvin Smith. Look at his innocent smile — how simple and childlike it is! His whole face radiates with his simplicity-smile. His smile comes spontaneously.
* Sri Chinmoy met with Calvin Smith, the week prior to the race.
Published in Run and Become, Become and Run, part 20
Sri Chinmoy’s 1,000-lb. Lift
Excerpts from an informal conversation between
Sri Chinmoy and his students about his 1,000-pound lift.
Question: People who do not know you, Guru, are wondering why you are doing this kind of strength lift which is outside the traditional weightlifting categories. They are scrutinising your lifting technique.
Sri Chinmoy: When you invent something, there will always be people to criticise. God’s creation is full of critics, but has God given up His creation because of the critics? Again, there are many people who love God and pray to Him because He is good. For us, let us say, the moon is so beautiful. We adore the purity of the moon. But a scientist will come with a telescope and point out the dark spots on the moon. Are we going to listen to him and have a negative feeling about the moon or are we going to use our own hearts and continue to get joy and inspiration from the moon?
My philosophy is to forget about the critics. There will always be critics. Is there anybody who is free from critics? On the other hand, there are many world-famous figures in the weightlifting and bodybuilding line who are encouraging and appreciating me.
Why should we remain always with the same lifts? If there is only the dead lift and other standard lifts, then there will be no newness, no invention. Should there be only one game? No, hundreds of games have been discovered. Then shall we play only football, volleyball and basketball? There should be more games. In a garden will we keep only four types of flowers? If another type of flower appears, we will not cry, “Oh, this is not a flower because for years and years in our garden there have been only four flowers.”
Unfortunately, when one invents something, it is frequently not accepted. Then a day comes when people forget about the criticism. At first, how much Newton and Einstein suffered! Afterwards, everybody accepted them. In the beginning, newness will always be suspected. It will not be admired and adored. But then, based on that newness, people go forward.
My weightlifting is also invention. When you invent something, people criticise it because it has not been practised for fifty years. They say, “Only our grandfathers’ way is correct.” The old theory is that whatever our grandfathers discovered is real. If we do something new, it cannot be real. If we subscribe to this stupid theory, there will be no newness in the sports field or in any other field.
If others are saying that my way of lifting is something very easy, let them try. When the Canadian boxer Donny Lalonde saw my lifting, he shed tears. He is such a strong boxer, but he knew that he could not do it. So people who are inclined to criticise my way of lifting should stand under 1,000 pounds and try to lift it.
I am reminded of a story of a 90-year-old Indian widow. When she heard that Hillary and Tensing had climbed Mount Everest, she said, “I could have done it, if I had practised!” I say, who asked her not to practise?
Who can silence the mouths of the critics? They always use the word ‘if’ — if they had been… if they had also practised…. Who asked them, for God’s sake, not to do it?
There will always be critics, but we have to go our own way. Al Oerter, a four-time Olympic gold medallist in the discus, has very kindly said that I am a new pathfinder. From the very beginning of my weightlifting career, I have tried to do new things. Why should I go on always with the old system as if that is the only way? I feel that people who come to break the traditional barriers are the ones who are the real heroes. They can make their contribution in any sphere of life.
For example, at first there were only rhymed poems. Then some immortal poets came who wrote epics in iambic pentameter blank verse. How they were criticised! But why should epics follow the form of sonnets or other rhymed poems? It is a completely different style. If these same critics had tried to write an epic, it would have taken twenty incarnations!
Anything new will be criticised, true. But should we allow our newness to be thwarted by the jealousy of others? If someone feels that the thing that is new is so silly, then he should prove it by trying to do the same thing. Once, when I lifted up people in Seattle, one bodybuilder was showing off his huge muscles. Then what happened? After I lifted him overhead, he came down, tore off his T-shirt and said to me, “I could not do it.”
Of the 2,000 people that I have lifted, was there anybody to come and say, “Now I am going to lift you, Sri Chinmoy”? There were people who were much, much stronger than I am. Not even one individual said, “Now you go up the ladder. I will lift you.” Here is the proof. Out of 2,000 people that I have lifted, not even one individual challenged me. At that time I weighed 150 or 160 pounds. I lifted many people who were over 250 pounds and some even exceeded 300 pounds. But nobody, even out of sheer affection, came forward to do the same thing.
Once, in Germany, I went to a gym. I had had my breakfast and I was wearing my Indian garments. I was not wearing any kind of weightlifting belt. I wanted to try a particular kind of calf raise machine. Quite a few bodybuilders and weightlifters were there, and they were watching me curiously and laughing at my clothes. Then, when I lifted 800 pounds on the calf raise using one leg, they all went away. They could have made fun of it and said it was not conventional. They could have tried it. But not even one tried, and they were twice as large as I was. The gym did not have more than 800 pounds. Otherwise, I was willing to go higher. Who can forget that incident?
The world is for newness, not for oldness. New, new things we have to create. Then only the world will progress. If not, we will come to feel that there is nothing new under the sun. We have to create new things to keep our joy. If there is no newness, how can we have enthusiasm? And if there is no enthusiasm, do we make any progress?
There are so many musicians who are breaking the old systems. For a few years they are criticised. Then afterwards they are immortalised because they found a new road.
In my case, also, I am finding new roads. In my music-world, people criticised me. Now people in the audience are getting such joy. They say that I create a unique vibration or power. Similarly, in my art-world people criticised me in the beginning. Now in the art-world I am accepted. In everything, if you continue and continue and do the thing without caring for criticism, then you become something. If we have to depend on the critics, if we value their opinion, then there will be no newness in this world. Everything will be old, old, old.
Question: Wordsworth said that a genius has to create the taste by which he is to be enjoyed.
Sri Chinmoy: A real genius is not bound by any convention. A genius is a genius. He has to go forward like an elephant, without paying attention to the barking of the dogs. Swami Vivekananda used to say that when an elephant is on the way to the market to eat bananas, the dogs bark and bark. But the elephant does not pay any attention. He goes to the market and eats the bananas and then he comes back home. The dogs are unable to enjoy the bananas.
Student: Some weightlifters want you to play the game by their rules. Only then will they accept you.
Sri Chinmoy: They are saying, “If you eat my food, only then will you become strong.” But I do not agree. I feel I am strong by eating other food. And there are others who are on my side. As I was saying, there will always be critics who want us to remain stuck at one place. Look at the Guinness Book of Records. Each year there are so many new items. They could easily have stayed with only ten items, but they try to accept new things.
The most important message I am trying to convey is progress. I am not competing with others or challenging them to come and compete with me. I am doing this for myself. I am getting joy because it is my progress. My goal is progress. I started with 100 pounds, 50 pounds in each arm, and now I have come up to 1,300 pounds. Is it a joke? Others do not have to do the same thing. They do not have to lift in my way. They can try in their own way to go up to their maximum weight. Then they can try to increase the weight by 300 pounds in four days’ time. If people do not value my way, let them show their progress in their own way.
For me, it is not the technique but the progress that is the most important thing. Let them try to increase by the same increment. Mahasamrat says that records are usually broken by half-pound or one-pound increments. Here I am going up 100 pounds at a time or even more. So I am going my own way and others should go their own way as fast as possible. Then we will see the ratio by age, bodyweight, increment and so on. I do not think others will dare to do what I am doing at my age.
I cannot wait because of the critics. I have to go on, faithfully practising every day, doing stretching exercises and so on. In a natural and normal way I am going on. But even in this natural way, how much is God’s Compassion! To get up so early, after only two hours of rest, and to have the inspiration to do it — even this natural thing that I am doing is so difficult for ordinary people.
Then God’s Grace descends. The very first day I lifted 1,300 pounds, I said it was all Grace. On that day, I did not do even one warm-up exercise. I simply took a shower and then I started. I was depending 100 per cent on Grace. In the prayer that I offered before lifting, I said that it was a mystic journey. I said it was a very, very long way and with God’s Grace one day I would reach my destination. But God was laughing at me. The very first day He did it in and through me.
My connection with God is like that. I will proceed as far as possible in a normal way. Again, I know I am able to practise in a normal way because of His Grace. Year after year I have been getting up early in the morning, doing all kinds of exercises. Then once in a while if I do not want to take warm-up exercises, He says, “All right, let Grace operate.”
In the Ashram I stood first in the 100-metre race for 16 years. One year I said, “I want to identify with the sufferings of the ones who come second or third or even last.” So I decided to give myself a fever. It was so easy for me. I developed such a high fever that I could not even see properly. Then I said, “Today I will definitely lose. I may even become last. Let people laugh, but I want to feel the pangs of those who do not win.”
Usually, I used to warm up for 40 minutes, but on that day I did not warm up at all. I was 100 per cent sure that I would be last. I thought I would fall down, and I was only praying that I would not disturb anybody because the lanes were so narrow. That was my only fear. I could not withdraw from the race because people would have said, “Oh, this time he has not practised. He does not want to lose.” Instead of that, I decided to start in the normal way and then people would see that I did not have the capacity to stand first.
When the starter said, “Get on your mark,” my whole body was shaking, not out of fear but because I was not feeling well at all. Then, when he said, “Go!” out of the blue my Beloved Supreme came and carried me all the way to the finish. I had not done any preliminary jogging, nothing, but I stood first.
My will was to become second or third or even last, but God did not listen to my sincere prayer. His Way is the only way. Here I was trying to become such a saint: I wanted to feel the sufferings of others. But God did not want to have their suffering in and through me.
Coming back to my 1,300-pound lift, if you are planning to lift such a huge weight for the first time, do you not think of your shoulders? Do you not think of your chest or knees? Usually I take stretching exercises for 45 minutes. Then I work out on seven or eight machines. Only then am I fully prepared for my lifting. But yesterday I did zero, zero. You can call it peculiar or you can call it miraculous.
So I am showing my progress report. Others can show progress in their own way, in their own field. If my way is meaningless, let others shine in their field, in their own way. I do not think that other weightlifters who lift heavy, heavy weights will weigh under 300 pounds. I am 170 or 171 pounds. Again, is there anybody who will be lifting heavy weights at the age of 68 or 69? People have to think of what they did at the age of 20, then at the age of 50 and now at this age. Did they reach their peak at the age of 68 or at the age of 32, like the immortal Carl Lewis?
Jim Smith, who is the registrar of the British Amateur Weightlifters Association, has made this point. He said that people generally give up weightlifting after school or college. If they continue, eventually they are “horribly beaten.”
In my case, I have not yet reached my peak and I am nearing 69 years of age. Thirteen is my lucky number, so I am planning to practise my 1,300-pound two-arm lift until April 13th.
It is so difficult to lift simultaneously with two hands. When you lift with one hand, all your concentration is on that hand, on that wrist. How much strength and energy you get when you use only one hand! When you use two hands, your concentration is divided. How can you give full concentration when you use the right and the left together? I have to concentrate on the right and left sides at the same time so that both sides go up. The push has to go from right and left simultaneously. Bill Pearl has said this lift is so difficult because it has to be balanced.
I am not competing with anyone else in the weightlifting world. I am doing this for my inner progress, my oneness with God. I am saying, “I am doing so well in this field. What is wrong with you in your own field?” Specially for my disciples, I am saying, “You do as well in conquering your insecurity, your jealousy. See how fast you can decrease your jealousy or increase your purity. I am studying one subject to show you. Then you have so many subjects to study. You try to do as well in those subjects.”
To some, I am a source of inspiration. When they see how hard it is for me to lift, then they also try to do something in their own life, in their own field. When they see the determination on my face, they try to have the same determination. They can also compete with themselves and show their progress report.
Published in A Mystic Journey in the Weightlifting World, part 1
“Indeed, a Mystic Journey.”
Sri Chinmoy makes the following additional comments
at a function held at P.S. 117 in Queens, New York
Needless to say, there will always be critics, but I strongly believe that by seeing the negative side of humanity, we cannot make any progress. By seeing the positive side of humanity, we make progress and we see others making progress. If something is in my domain, I shall be satisfied. If something is in the domain of somebody else, I shall also be satisfied.
Unfortunately, the world does not want to come out of its boundaries. The world believes in old things, old discoveries. But there is something called invention. If we want to invent something, it has to come from a high, higher, highest source. My weightlifting does not fall into the traditional categories, true. But if one is going to do something great to inspire mankind, then he has to go far, far, far beyond the boundaries of the traditional way of thinking about human achievements.
Anybody who does something great in a new fashion is subject to criticism. Last week, the world’s greatest maestro in tabla, Ustad Alla Rakha, passed away. He broke down the traditional barriers. His technique was not the classical technique of the past. He invented his own technique, his own way of playing, but he charmed people and threw them into the world of ecstasy whenever and wherever he played. So our Indian government gave him the highest award and when he passed on, the Prime Minister and President said such nice things. The whole firmament of India blessed him with superlative feelings and superlative words. But he did not follow any tradition.
So in this world, if a genius takes birth, he is under no obligation to follow in the footsteps of the people who have gone before him — in any field. The weightlifting field is very, very limited. In other worlds there is great scope. In the weightlifting world there are only seven or eight kinds of lifts — dead lift, snatch and so on — then it is all over, while in athletics, so many items are there. If somebody discovers something new or invents something new in any field, naturally he will be subject to wild criticism. But we have to seek only one thing in our lives: inspiration-encouragement.
Many people have encouraged me, but of them all, how much Mahasamrat Bill Pearl — World’s Best Built Man of the Century, five-time Mr. Universe and so on — has helped me you will not be able to feel. Al Oerter, Frank Zane, Mike Katz, Wayne DeMilia, Jim Smith and others have really helped me, but Mahasamrat’s contribution to my weightlifting world is unparalleled.
In life, God encourages us when we do something good and great for humanity. There is always a positive world and a negative world. Some will criticise. They will say, “My way is the real way. Your way is always the wrong way.” What can you do? Again, there are many, many people who will appreciate, like Jim Smith, Al Oerter and all these people. Our international judge, Wayne DeMilia, stood right beside me, only one metre away, and he watched me lifting.
When I do something, I know that my Supreme is 100 per cent responsible. Just yesterday, in my weightlifting prayer I said, “Indeed, a mystic journey.” I know that if I can lift these heavy weights, it will be out of God’s infinite Bounty. He alone knows when I will be able to complete my journey, but with each step forward, I shall offer Him my gratitude-heart-tears.
I want to make it very clear that I am competing with myself. Let others compete with themselves. When they reach their pinnacle-heights, if they want to make progress in big increments like 100 pounds or 300 pounds, in whatever they are doing, let them try in their own way. If they are doing pole vault or long jump or something else in their own field, let them try to increase the increment. My field, you may say, is something negligible. It is not worth trying. But others can try to achieve what I am achieving in their own field.
Some people cannot identify with my weightlifting because they feel that there is no spirituality involved. They feel that spirituality is something else. No, spirituality is in everything. Spirituality encompasses and embraces everything in life. Spirituality cannot be separated from the physical. If the physical is discarded from the spiritual, then there is no spirituality. This physical has to aspire, the way the spiritual aspires in its own way.
In my case, God is giving me a good lesson. In my adolescent years, I disliked weightlifting. ‘Dislike’ is an understatement; I hated weightlifting. In my entire Ashram career, when I was champion supreme for 16 years, two days per year I lifted 20 pounds so that I could do well in shot put. I stood first for many, many years. Then somebody came who was twice as large as I was and, O God, I lost for the last two years.
Coming back to the point, those who want me to lift according to what others are expecting or demanding should stop feeding that kind of opinion. If you want to be a true disciple of mine, then think my way, feel in my way, do everything in life in my own way. Justify me at every moment; defend me at every moment. But do not say, “Oh, I believe you, but others do not, so I am trying to perfect you.” Here perfection is your oneness — oneness with my will, oneness with my determination, oneness with my achievement. Do not look at me with others’ eyes. Look at me with your own heart. If you want to identify yourself with me, do it not by thinking the way others think of me but by feeling the way your aspiring heart feels me. That is the only way that you will be able to make progress. Otherwise, the outer world of criticism will devour you. Even though you are in the boat, you will miss everything, you will lose everything.
Published in A Mystic Journey in the Weightlifting World, part 1