What a wonderful feature of our spiritual path the focus on physical wellbeing – especially running – is!

I'm so grateful that here in Auckland we have so many wild and beautiful places – mountains, forests, lovely stretches of coastline – that offer peace and solace and a refuge to the spirit. Cradled in the vastness of ocean and sky, how can we not feel gratitude on those lovely morning runs as we stride down the wilderness of beach that stretches out to a far horizon.

This week has been 'aspiration week' in the Auckland Sri Chinmoy Centre, an invitation to each of our members to set and reach new goals, enjoy open nights and new activities in our meditation Centre and generally rekindle our aspiration. I have set running goals – not an easy task in this cold winter! – and I am delighted with the results already. This morning two of us met up at 5:15 am and drove 45 minutes through a wet and rainy pre-dawn gloom to a large area of forest on our west coast – a wilderness of pines and native forest inhabited by deer, the odd wild boar and lots of small wild life. We ran for 30 minutes along the blackness of roads, the sound of the sea in our ears and light rain on our faces, then as darkness receded we ventured into the forest and onto some of the narrow game trails that wind for miles through these hills. At one point two large black stags erupted out of a clearing in front of us, the white tines of their antlers gleaming in the rainy dawn and the flick-flicker of their white rumps receding away through the trees.

I was feeling such joy, exulting in an almost primeval sense of well-being and filled with gratitude at this enduring gift of speed and delight as we silently traversed the dark forest. We felt like indigenous man, all the artifice of civilisation gone, jubilant in the simplicity of life itself and the joy of being. Ninety minutes later we came out through dunes filled with tall ferns and grasses, crested a ridge of black sand and then out onto the beach where we swam in the freezing sea – the cold ocean filled us with a sense of physical and mental prana, the healing touch of nature, and we made our way back, bare feet in the rising tide, along the empty sweep of coastline.

This 'aspiration week' Sri Chinmoy's writings have provided a wealth of illumining insights into the benefits of exercise – and the unique benefits conferred by running in particular. One recurring theme is the principal of holistic living – the inter-relationship between mind, body, spirit. The runner can enhance his or her physical achievements by tapping into an inner power source, while the meditator can achieve a greater proficiency and stillness by first establishing a foundation of well-being, and of clarity in the mind, which running confers.

Consider some of these little 'gold nuggets' by Sri Chinmoy:

"When it is a matter of running, all the members of the family – the body, vital, mind and heart – have to work together. It is like a family party. The head of the family has invited all of the family members to come and eat. Through running, the soul wants to offer a feast to all it's children. What running is doing is keeping the body, vital, mind and heart fit, so that the soul can get complete happiness. The soul is happy when it sees that all it's children have come to enjoy the feast.

"We try to synthesize and harmonize the outer life and the inner life. The outer life is like a beautiful flower and the inner life it's fragrance. If there is no fragrance then we cannot appreciate the flower. Again, if there is no flower how can there be any fragrance?"

"The body's capacity and the soul's capacity, the body's speed and the soul's speed go together. The outer running reminds us of something higher and deeper – the soul – which is running along Eternity's Road. Running and physical fitness help us both in our inner life of aspiration and in our outer life of activity."

Sri Chinmoy demonstrates in his own life, particularly through his weightlifting, the truth of his comments on the relationship between power and strength.

"Strength is predominantly in the physical, with the physical and for the physical. Power has a higher and deeper source. Strength is an outer achievement. Power is an inner achievement. If there is a tug-of-war between strength and power, power will always win, for the source of power is infinitely greater than the physical strength that any human being can have. Power can be used in the physical, but it is not bound there. It's home is high, very high in the loftiest regions of the infinite Consciousness."

On the responsiveness of the body to the cosmic energy within Sri Chinmoy comments:

"We can draw upon the cosmic energy by entering into our deeper consciousness, the all-pervading consciousness, which is here, there, everywhere. It is the inmost consciousness that touches the springs of the cosmic energy. If we can have a free access to our inmost consciousness, the cosmic energy is bound to come to the fore. If you go deep within it comes like a spring, a never – failing spring. And when it comes it permeates the whole body."

And here is an unusual insight:

"Running has it's own inner value. While you run, each breath that you take is connected with a higher reality. While you are jogging, if you are in a good consciousness your breath is being blessed by a higher inner breath... each breath will connect you with a higher, deeper inner reality."

Sri Chinmoy encourages seekers on his own path to run each day, in so doing maintaining the body-temple as a perfect vehicle for the inner journey. Running cultivates aspiration, dynamism, physical excellence, clarity of mind, happiness, will power and determination – exactly the qualities needed for the inner-running toward the goal of God Realisation.

In one charming analogy he comments:

"Unless you touch something everyday it does not shine. Often I have told people to touch the furniture in their homes everyday. As soon as you touch something it gets new life... If you have good health, if you touch your health everyday it gets new life. By giving attention to something you give new life to it."

Sri Chinmoy's writings are filled also with references to happiness and self-transcendence:

"True happiness comes only from our increasing sense of perfection, which we can achieve only through self-transcendence. Self-transcendence gives us joy in boundless measure. When we transcend ourselves we do not compete with others but with ourselves. And each time we surpass our previous achievements we get joy."

"How I wish all human beings would run faster than the fastest, with unimaginable speed towards Eternity's ever-transcending Goal. Once we reach the highest transcendental Height with our fastest speed and consciously begin serving our Supreme Pilot at every moment, at that time we can and we shall create and absolutely new creation. At that time there will be only one reality, one song; the song of self-transcendence."

    – Jogyata.

Impression One:

You are standing on the Yellow Mountains in eastern China, 6,000 feet up in the clouds, waiting in silence for the dawn. Around you a small group of your friends are dim figures in the mist, their breath forming white plumes in the cold air.

Huge feathery snowflakes are falling in slow motion like the softest down of giant geese, and you catch one in your outstretched palm to marvel at it's beauty. Below you on the steep mountainsides you have just climbed, giant bamboos bow under the weight of snow and the pines are Christmas trees of white, each needle a stalactite of crystalline beauty. You stamp your feet on the icy path and your cheap crampons grate on the granite slabs.

Now suddenly the mountain clouds are parting and there before you, materialising like phantoms from the mist, the fabled peaks and granite turrets painted down through the centuries in countless water colours and Chinese scrolls, rearing up into the dawn sky like so many lonely sentinels.

We were here to explore an ancient culture, twenty members from the New Zealand Sri Chinmoy Centre joining our international family and Sri Chinmoy himself on a six week visit to China. Bejing, Xian, Nanjing... Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism. We would travel to many places and see many remarkable things. On the Great Wall near Bejing Sri Chinmoy would play the esraj in a spontaneous concert, the meditative sounds of this most haunting of musical instruments a perfect mirror of these endless jumbled hills and ancient landscapes.

Standing on those great ramparts, immersed in the silence of mountains and spirit of place, I was imagining the great armies of invasion and conquest marching across these remote wastes over the long sweep of centuries; marveling at the ambitions of the great rulers and Emperors and their dreams of dynasty. How perfectly Sri Chinmoy's music evoked these great struggles and sagas of our race.

In Qingdao in the half-light of dawn, we held running races two mornings of each week on the icy beachfront promenade above the freezing sea. In our function room later, Sri Chinmoy would personally award the fastest and often read out the times of all competitors, encouraging us not to grow old. Perfecting body and mind through running and meditation to better nourish the life of spirit. To realise God – the penultimate goal of all human life – every part of our being has to become surrendered and obedient to the divine task-master, the soul, the base metals of ignorance alchemising into the gold of a radiant Self.

And each morning, secluded in our function room like disciples or monks of old in their ashrams and temples, we would repeat the solemn and soulful prayer-chants of Sri Chinmoy, eyes half-closed in meditation. Here is a gem from Thursday, January 14, 2005:

O Lord Supreme,
Do dissolve me
Into Your Infinity's ecstasy.
O Lord Supreme,
Do dissolve me
Into Your Eternity's nothingness.

You can chant it slowly over and over as we did, like a Vedic mantra, or you can imagine you were there with us, hearing Sri Chinmoy deliver these lovely words with his unforgettable voice, a voice saturated in the consciousness of God.

Impression Two:

You catch the bus bound for Nanjing from the town of Huangshan, a six-hour ride that takes you at first through mountain passes and steep forested hills then out onto wide plains terraced with small fields and neat rows of crops. In the wintering fields, plastic bags flap on bamboo poles a poor man's scarecrow – and the pale green plains recede away into far-off silhouettes of mountains. You sketch a panda on your notepad and hand it to the old man across the aisle, pointing to the distant hills – are there any of those vanishing bears still left up there? – and he cackles with delight. His eyes twinkle and smile at you and looking into his face you know he is a survivor from a world you will never know or understand. Is he one of the old Taoist monks who took refuge in the mountains during the Revolution?

Now you are passing through ramshackle small towns where vegetable stands, bicycle shops, butchered animals and clothing spill out onto the footpaths and streets; onward through small villages where women wash clothes in brackish ponds and streams and dogs lie in the dust.

You doze and wake to find yourself at a dilapidated rest stop. Outside, the driver cradles a small puppy in his arms and the passengers crowd around him, clapping and smiling at his gentleness and taking turns posing for photos. The old Taoist stands alone, singing a song full of pathos, his eyes closed. He is free of all self-consciousness and dissembling and you envy him the depth of his feeling. Then onwards, south through fading light and industrial estates and fallow empty fields and far ahead in the growing darkness the lights of Nanjing are waiting for you, twinkling and pulsing like the heartbeat of this vastness land.

Like a lamp shining through a thin veil of cloth, the light of God shines through a realised Master, through every action, every moment of their life. They spread like a giant tree the pollen of enlightenment and if this pollen falls on you, your life will never be the same. Look at what happened to me this morning. At 6:30 am I was standing on the eighteenth floor of our hotel in Xian when the elevator door opened and there was Sri Chinmoy, standing alone in the lift. He beckoned to me without speaking and I joined him on the ride to the lobby. What is it about such an encounter that makes this so unforgettable? In the 20 seconds of our downward ride in the elevator, Sri Chinmoy simply looked at me smiling and meditating on my soul. Suddenly I felt breathless with the feeling of spirit, filled with light, elevated to another realm of being. My consciousness was catapulted upwards like a dove tossed into the sky to fly, and all day long a feeling of profound peace and stillness lingered inside me. How strongly I could feel my own soul! I could hardly speak and rushed back to my room to meditate. It is hard to describe such things. This is one of the things that a spiritual master can do for you in the twinkling of an eye.

Impression Three:

When you first hear the rolling thunder you stumble from your bed to the window and peer out into a midnight sky bright with splashes of colour and light. You go downstairs, out into the street, and the air is blue and pungent with smoke and fireworks are exploding across every part of the night sky, across the battlements of the old city wall and the high-rise apartment blocks, across the river that ferried troops at dawn during the wars and insurrections, across the downtown canyons with their skyscrapers and neon lights.

You think to yourself, why am I so comfortable here, why is it so familiar, have I been here before in some forgotten time and you turn away from the growing sounds of New Year revelry and the dancers in the hotel lobby draped in dragon costumes, leaping and swaying to the banging of drums and music and you walk along the nearly empty streets while the fireworks crackle in the alleys and explode over your head and all of your unlived lives are stirring inside you, all your secret longings squeeze your heart, and all your nostalgia for what you will never be and do tumbles down on your head like the spent casings of falling skyrockets.

I remember well our last day in Nanjing. Those who have not already departed wait in the hotel lobby, spread out along the fifty metre route that Sri Chinmoy will walk from the elevator to the waiting van and the first leg of his long journey home. At 6:15 am he emerges from the lift, sees the gauntlet of his students awaiting him. He accepts this and begins walking very slowly, with tiny steps down the parallel lines, looking at every single person in turn for four or five seconds. "I hope I can see you all at least once in this incarnation," he had said of disciples living in far off countries, "so I can expedite your progress, your soul's journey." Many here come from such places – when will they see him again? – and this moment is intense and poignant. To each face Sri Chinmoy turns, smiling yet concentrated, a lingering, loving, farewell benediction, wordless yet powerful with the full force of an inner blessing. Yes, expediting the progress of the soul. Other hotel guests stand motionless, sensing that something sacred is taking place. In some part of their being they too will benefit from this encounter. The pollen of God, spreading to every heart and life. At the end of the line, Sri Chinmoy turns and waves one last time, not with a sense of goodbye but casually – to the Master there is no separation, time and space are creations of the mind, part real, part illusion. Then he steps into the van and is gone.

    – Jogyata.

I can recall only one occasion in my life when, ever so briefly, I fondly imagined that I was about to become enlightened. It was way back in 1978 and I was sitting in the cold winter sunshine on the shores of Rabbit Island, near Nelson in New Zealand, looking out across the great sweep of tidal flats and water that stretched out beneath an immense vault of blue sky.

For some months I had been soaking up the little gold nuggets of Zen Buddhist teachings and now, beguiled by a soothing breeze and the calm emptiness of sky and sea, I began to feel some otherworldly, existential joy stirring deep inside me. It was an inner ecstasy, a glimpse of the soul's delight and its freedom from all of the things of this world, and I hunkered down in the warm sand and the afternoon sun to wait for this great joy to engulf me entirely. Seated in some absolute stillness – a frail monk peering into eternity – I watched as out of the matrix of silence, the beautiful pageantry of life unfolded – the simultaneity of a million events, lives, causes, all interconnected in the river of being and time. High up against the blue sea birds crossed the sky then vanished into the void, the sounds of the waves lapping very quietly, a soft persistent cadence. Ego, mind, body all fell away – I felt I was only spirit, enraptured in my new-found oneness with all of life.

Alas, as the hours wore on my euphoria receded, along with my expectation of an enlightenment experience, and I realised that I was about to rejoin the great Multitudes of the Unenlightened. The tide had come in and one of my discarded shoes, mocking my dismay, bobbed past me in the tide, enjoying its own brief liberation from worldly constraints. But the doorway had opened and I would never forget this sweet feeling of the inner life, like the distant memory of a happy childhood awoken by the fragrance, half a lifetime later, of a single tiny flower.

And years later as well, Sri Chinmoy's lovely words would validate my experience when, in response to someone's question "When will I realise God?" he replied; "How do you know that you have not realised God? Everybody here has realised God. But there is something called conscious realisation of God and something called unconscious realisation of God. Unconscious realisation you already have – now you have to realise God consciously."

Sri Chinmoy then tempered these reassuring observations with a final delightful proviso. "There is an earthly calendar and there is a Heavenly calendar. In terms of Heavenly time, you will realise God very soon. In terms of earthly time, perhaps you will have to wait for a few more years."

    – Jogyata.

Related Links

• Swan: Realisation
• The Great Buddha and pictures of the Great Buddha (Diabatsu), Kamakura