Running - why do it?!

I remember when Jogyata – who took my meditation class at the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Auckland, explained to me the importance of running. He explained how the outer running can represent the inner running that we all do along the spiritual path. He also spoke of the unwillingness of the body and the resistance of the mind telling you that you can't do it. Now that's what struck me. The mind and the body are two totally different things and even though they try to rule your thoughts and shape what you do, you are someone different from your thoughts.

Sri Chinmoy once said:
"Both outer running and inner running are important. A marathon is twenty-six miles. Let us say that twenty-six miles is our ultimate goal. When we first take up running, we cannot run that distance. But by practicing every day we develop more stamina, speed and perseverance. Gradually we transcend our limited capacity, and eventually we reach our goal. In the inner life our prayer and meditation is our inner running. If we pray and meditate every day, we increase our inner capacity." Read more here...

I wanted to take my spiritual life seriously and decided to challenge myself. I decided to give up something I enjoyed at the time... smoking (it’s really not that good for you anyway), and start something I hated – running!

With limited lung capacity from years of smoking and still a lot of resistance in the mind, my running started slowly. A friend would run with me around a rugby field, I would walk the longest side and run the shortest side – about 50 metres. We slowly increased our distance over the weeks until we could run around the field once without stopping. My confidence was building and I started to realise the reason I found running horrible was because my body took a few minutes to warm up. Once the body is warmed up running is so much easier and (I hate to admit) enjoyable.

With new confidence we decided to enter a race. Not just any race but a full marathon! What better way to connect the inner running of my prayer and meditation with my outer running. Because running was new to us, we had no idea of the amount of training we needed to do before a marathon. Looking back I can see that more training would have been helpful.

I broke the exciting news to my mother that I was going to run the Auckland Marathon and her reaction was "you can't do that, you will never finish". Now this coming from my mother was BIG! She supported everything I did, including at the age of 17 travelling to Japan (by myself) to work on a remote ski field for 6 months - and then travelling to America for a year and a half again by myself. Her reaction gave me that little bit extra determination that I needed to really go through with it. Just to prove to her that I could.

Race day arrived and off we set - our hearts full of joy as the starter's gun went off.

Now is the time that I am supposed to say I had the most amazing experience and loved every minute of it. Not true, it was hard. There were times when it was great, I would have this permanent smile on my face and I could clearly see the spiritual aspects of running. At other times it was tough. I wanted to stop - never to run again. Even though it was tough it showed to me the inner determination and dedication needed to continue with my meditation practice even when I feel I am losing an uphill battle... of course this realisation came after I had finished the race.

The finish always seemed too far away, a goal I would never reach. I vowed I would never run a marathon again, once was enough – I could tick that off the 'things to do' in my life.

After finally reaching the finish line, five and half hours later I was elated! I had just accomplished the impossible – in my mother's eyes at least! Within about 15 minutes, while gratefully sitting with my shoes off, I was planning my next big race. I now run about three marathons a year and a 45 kilometre run in honour of Subarata, a founding member of the Sri Chinmoy Centre in New Zealand.

To read about other inspirational running stories from Sri Chinmoy's students see some of these links below.

Subarata's Run of Faith - Subarata's 700 mile journey.
Some Reflections on Running - by Jogyata.