God the Supreme Runner

I have been looking at my bedroom shrine this morning and giving myself a mark out of ten. A beautiful tall photo of my teacher soars over a miscellany of things beneath – a single white candle, some japa beads personally given out to us all on a Christmas vacation, several favourite unframed photos (curling at the edges), a small picture of myself aged four to remind me to be childlike and not an old grouch.

And then some poignant things as keepsakes too – a yellow lock of hair from a departed precious friend, some of her favourite wild mountain flowers, still honey-fragrant seven years after she picked them – and here a much loved carving of an unknown yogi, sublimely tranquil, otherworldly, perfect in pale yellow stone. Sometimes I hold this against my heart to emulate, to absorb as though through an osmosis of consciousness.

But there's dust, untidiness, signs of neglect, so I award myself a six out of ten. Can do better. Above my shrine the wall is almost hidden with random large photos, a little topsy-turvy and also showing evidence of an untidy mind. Unframed and stapled onto the plaster wall. Room for improvement.

One catches my eye, a group portrait taken at midnight way back in 1987 in Auckland. Twelve runners are lined up under dark trees briefly illumined by the camera flash, a suburban parkland setting. We were attempting to run fifty miles each, our salute to one of Sri Chinmoy's groundbreaking weightlifting records. I remember this night vividly. On the one-mile loop a number of candlelit poems and aphorisms had been placed to counter our fatigue and to provide inspiration, and one in particular was to give me quite an experience. It had been enlarged on white card, a poem from The Outer Running And The Inner Running:

Lord, I am tired.
"Since you are tired, My son,
Even before
Your journey's start,
I shall run for you."

Ungifted as a runner but endowed with a little doggedness, I battled away through the night but at mile thirty-four an old knee injury – along with sundry other aches and complaints – returned and reduced me to a painful shuffle. I had been repeating the poem over and over in my mind for hours, a mantra to concentrate my will, a prayer to break my strong identification with my poor distressed body – then all of a sudden this poem became a reality. Some powerful grace descended, all pain disappeared, I felt filled with light and galloped along at full speed, scarcely able to believe what was happening. For ten or twelve final miles I seemed not to be the runner, the body an instrument of a greater force, I a disembodied observer, tears of joy in my eyes at this extraordinary experience.

Nobody could believe my speed – I seemed to have wings on my feet and rushed around the one-mile loop in a state of exultant disbelief. A great joy filled my heart though I could not understand why such an insignificant person should be granted such an astonishing boon.

Sri Chinmoy often speaks of God as the real Doer – if we can feel that it is He who is experiencing life through us, then we break the strong attachment to our separate self and open the door to these random acts of grace. Spiritual masters have a free access to these worlds of possibility – they are themselves the bridge between them, the conduit through which God's grace constantly flows.

In all of his breathtaking and extraordinary life achievements Sri Chinmoy endlessly demonstrates the boundlessness of life, the power bequeathed through spiritual awakening, and that a life harnessed to the force and grace of spirit and God-love will be exemplary. Hence the foundation principle of self-transcendence in his teachings – there really are no limits to our capacity if we dare to try and have faith.

There is a second lovely verse to this poem, too, reiterating its message:

Lord, I am tired.
"Since you are tired, My son,
Even before
Your journey's start,
I shall sail your dream-boat
And reach for you
Your golden Reality-Shore."

– Jogyata.