Sri Chinmoy at the start of a local race in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
Newsday Interview
with Sri Chinmoy
at the Sri Chinmoy 3,100-Mile Race in Jamaica, New York
Interviewer: Sri Chinmoy, the runners who are your students talked a lot about meditation, your philosophy and how that helps their running. What do you tell them to help them find the strength they need to go on day after day and run 16 hours a day?
Sri Chinmoy: Our philosophy is very simple. We love God, and we would like to serve God. There are many, many ways to please God. Right now we cannot please God in each and every way. But when we pray and meditate, we feel that there shall come a time when we shall be able to please God in each and every way. Why do we have this feeling? Simply because He will give us the capacity. So right now we are praying to God for the capacity to please Him in His own Way.
When we take the next step, then we tell God, “We would like to please You cheerfully, eagerly plus unconditionally.” If He wants me at this moment to converse with Him, I will do it happily, gladly and proudly. The next moment if He asks me to play tennis, I will gladly play tennis. Then, the following moment, if He asks me to do something else, that I will also do, happily and proudly. Ultimately we would like to do everything for God unconditionally. We shall not set any condition: “God, if You give me this, then I shall do that for You.” That is not our philosophy. We tell God, “We shall give You happily and self-givingly what You want from us. To please You in Your own Way we came into the world.” This is our philosophy.
We also have something else in our philosophy, and that is self-transcendence. We shall not be fully satisfied with our past or present achievements. We must go forward, we must go upward and we must go inward.
Interviewer: I am curious about what happens on the day-to-day level.
Sri Chinmoy: Self-discipline is of paramount importance. Self-transcendence comes into existence only by virtue of self-discipline and meditation. In our day-to-day life we like to derive happiness from what we do and from what we are. Here, although outwardly these four runners are completely tired and exhausted, they feel that this is a new way to make themselves happy and to make themselves proud of their own lives.
We give all importance to happiness, happiness, happiness! In happiness abides peace, and vice versa. The runners are running, and at the same time they are happy and they have a peaceful frame of mind.
Interviewer: The one time I did my longest race, ten miles, I remember it was a little bit of an emotional roller coaster. After perhaps three miles I thought, “This is great! I can run 26 miles. I can do a marathon.” And then after six miles I thought, “Oh my gosh, my knees are going to ache; my feet hurt. I’m totally exhausted!” I just went up and down. What would you tell your disciples to help them deal with the low part?
Sri Chinmoy: I tell my disciples that they have to use their wisdom at every moment. Sometimes we are physically tired. Sometimes we are mentally tired. Sometimes we are emotionally tired. Sometimes we are tired without any rhyme or reason. Often our mental lethargy makes us feel that we will not be able to complete the race or, if we complete the race, nothing special is going to happen. There are so many ways that our mind can convince us that it is useless and unnecessary to continue. The mind makes us feel, “I am just killing myself without any specific purpose.”
If mental lethargy or our own unwillingness tortures us, we must not surrender to these wrong forces. Our motto is, “Never give up!” Only after we have given everything that we have and everything that we are, can we give up if it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, we are making the most deplorable mistake. Most of the time there is every possibility that we shall be able to arrive at our destination. And once we arrive at our destination, it is we who will be the happiest and the proudest person.
Interviewer: What makes sports and athleticism such an important part of spirituality for you?
Sri Chinmoy: As I told you before, each individual has to get happiness from what he is doing and from what he is. If I am not physically fit, I will not get up early in the morning. Let us say I am supposed to get up at six o’clock, but physical ailments compel me to stay in bed until nine, ten or eleven o’clock. At that time I enter into the hustle and bustle of life. Then, because I could not take physical exercise, I become a victim to certain other ailments. The supreme necessity of physical fitness is to help us become choice instruments of God. I am not saying that we have to become the world’s greatest athlete. Far from it! I do not have to become the world’s strongest wrestler or boxer. My goal is only to keep my body fit so that early in the morning I can pray, meditate, run or do whatever divine activity I would like to do.
The body, vital and mind each have a special role to play in our lives. If the vital is not dynamic, then we shall be lethargic. We have to be dynamic with our vital, not aggressive. Then we have to be mentally pure. We have to have pure and illumining thoughts in our mind and not indulge in doubt. Otherwise, one moment I will say that you are a very bad woman. Then the next moment I will tell myself, “What right do I have to say that? She is a very good woman.” So, this moment you are very, very good, but before you leave here, my mind can say that you are very bad. Now look at this! Who am I? Am I in a position to judge whether you are good or bad? No! But I am in a position to offer you good thoughts, kind thoughts.
You are being so kind to me here, and I am also trying to be kind to you by offering you good thoughts, illumining thoughts, fulfilling thoughts. The mind has to take the positive attitude and say that you are a very good person. By thinking that you are a bad person, what am I gaining? I am just wasting my precious time. But by thinking and feeling that you are a good person, I am clearing and purifying my mind. And if I have a clear mind, a pure mind, I will be able to achieve many, many encouraging and inspiring things in my life.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 12