Run and Become
What is it that drives an athlete forward when they've hit the wall, past the physical and mental barriers and onwards towards a higher goal? What motivates people to race 100, 1000 or even 3000 miles on foot, or to complete a gruelling Iron Man? Endurance events often have the nature of a war against oneself. An athlete has to face and overcome numerous inner challenges to commit to a regular training schedule or finish a particularly tough race. When the body simply wants to sleep and the mind is begging us to give up, what gives us the strength to carry on?
In sports we put a lot of attention into growing and developing our muscles. But there is another type of muscle that also needs to be strengthened, and this is our will-power . An athlete may have a lot of physical strength and stamina and but he or she will not be able to succeed in an endurance event without abundant will-power. This is what will get us through our race, training session, or towards a new personal best.
Meditation has particular relevance to athletes because it is the most powerful exercise that we can do in order to strengthen our will-power. So it is little surprise that the founder and organiser of one of the world's largest running organisations is a teacher and practitioner of meditation himself.
Sri Chinmoy is a spiritual master from India who has lived in the West for more than 40 years. His teachings combine the essence of ancient Indian wisdom with the modernity and dynamism of the West. He founded the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in 1977 and it now holds a diverse variety of global athletic events each year. One of them, the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race in New York, is the world's longest ultra-marathon. To stay in the race, participants have to run 60.7 miles (that's nearly two and a half marathons!) per day for 51 days.
The Sri Chinmoy Centre, of which the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team is one branch, puts on a wide variety of activities including free meditation classes, music concerts and humanitarian aid. The biggest event held by the Sri Chinmoy Centre is the World Harmony Run, an international torch relay designed to spread goodwill, friendship and a feeling of unity amongst humankind. This year's World Harmony Run will take place in 70 countries. The New Zealand leg starts on 10 October 2005.
Meditation is often misunderstood in the West and regarded simply as a way of abandoning life in order to remain in a blank trance. This rather uninspiring conception of meditation would seem to be of no assistance to those who live an active life encompassing sports and family responsibilities.
In reality, meditation is a practise which enables us to exert a much greater degree of control over own lives by helping us to minimise negative, stressful reactions to external events while maximising our flow of creative, harmonising energy. This allows us to be more dynamic, which is great news for athletes, but at the same time reduces stress and negative thought patterns that constrain our ability to enjoy life.
"Meditation means the evolution of the body and the soul. The body's ultimate evolution is transformation and perfection. The soul's ultimate evolution is the highest illumination and complete manifestation." - Sri Chinmoy
Although it may seem unusual for an Eastern spiritual teacher to be so keen on encouraging physical fitness, Sri Chinmoy believes that sports and spirituality complement each other. Spirituality is about self-transcendence, which is a continuous expansion of our awareness of life in all its fulness and an eagerness to go beyond our present and past achievements.
Run and become.
Become and run.
Run to succeed in the outer world.
Become to proceed in the inner world.
~Sri Chinmoy
In Sri Chinmoy's philosophy life is not something to escape from. It is to be accepted, embraced and transformed. Sri Chinmoy believes that the potential of the human spirit is unlimited. Each groundbreaking feat of athletic endurance and world record smashing represents not simply the improvement of technology or the physical body, but a victory for the human spirit and for humanity's indomitable urge to continually evolve and push through all barriers on our ceaseless march forward.
More information on the web:
Sri Chinmoy Races in New Zealand
This article was republished in the August 2005 issue of Endurance Sport New Zealand magazine
(Copyright Media Unlimited 2005)
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