June 27

Interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Question: Do you have a philosophy on physical fitness?

Sri Chinmoy: As a truth-seeker and a God-lover, I feel the supreme necessity of physical fitness. To me, the body is the temple, and inside the temple is the shrine. If there is no temple, then there can be no shrine. The shrine is our soul, our inner life, our inner hunger for truth, for delight, for beauty, for perfection. The body and the soul must go together, like the inner life and the outer life. If I have a good thought inside my mind, then I can express it to the world at large. If I have a pure heart, then in my outer actions and dealings also, I will be pure. The inner and the outer must go together. This is my simple philosophy.

Question: Which comes first — the inner life or the outer life?

Sri Chinmoy: God always comes first. The creation did not create God. God is both God the Creator and God the creation. Then they become one, inseparably one. But we have to say the Vision of God came first, then the manifestation of God. The manifestation cannot come before the vision. You envision something and then you try to give shape and form to it. So the Vision of God came before the manifestation of God.

The physical strength or physical capacity that we have is the result of our inner aspiration. That is to say, how we behave inwardly is of supreme importance at the beginning, and then how we behave and react in our outer life. Our inner life of aspiration must come first; then comes our outer life of dedication. They go together, but the one will lead and guide the other. If we are not guided by our inner thoughts, inner goodwill, inner strength, then we will be nowhere in the outer life.

Question: How does exercise and competition help the inner life?

Sri Chinmoy: In my case, I use the term 'self-transcendence'. I do not compete with anybody. I compete with myself. It is like a seed that germinates and becomes a plant. Then it becomes a tree and, finally, it grows into a huge banyan tree. I always try to transcend myself. In the weightlifting world, I started lifting 40 pounds with one arm and then I went up and up.

There are many athletes who get inspiration and enthusiasm only when they compete with others. I cannot blame them. If someone is in a position to compete with somebody else, that means he is inspired, he is enthusiastic. If he is competing with someone, then he can bring to the fore his utmost capacity. Otherwise he may be lethargic. He may not practise daily. The physical discipline in his life may come into existence only when he knows that he has to compete with somebody else. Otherwise, he may not take these physical exercises seriously.

But with God's Grace, I practise daily for physical fitness and at the same time I try to better myself, I try to improve my capacity.

Question: Is improvement and building on previous records important, or is the main thing to exercise daily?

Sri Chinmoy: I feel improvement is necessary in order for us to make progress. In this world we are happy only when we make progress. When I studied English, in the beginning I had to learn the alphabet, the ABCs. Now at this age, if I had not studied hundreds and thousands of English books, I would have felt miserable because my teacher taught me the ABCs so many years ago. So that is called progress. This progress is giving me satisfaction. What we want is satisfaction. If we are satisfied with what we have right now, and we do not want to go forward, then we will not be happy.

Again, we have to know that there is a great difference between competition and progress. When we want to compete with others, sometimes we adopt foul means — by hook or by crook we try to win. Then we bring to the fore our feelings of rivalry and almost animal propensities, animal qualities. We are only thinking of how we can defeat others, how we can lord it over others. But when we are competing with ourselves, we know that we have to purify our inner existence in order to improve. So here is the difference. When it is a matter of self-transcendence, we have to depend on our inner purity, inner love, vastness and oneness with the rest of the world. We try to develop universal goodwill, whereas, while competing with others, we may not have those feelings. At that time, we may see others as rivals, we are on the border of enmity with them. It can be as if we are fighting with enemies when we are competing. But when we are trying to transcend ourselves, we cannot fight with ourselves. If we can go ten steps ahead today, tomorrow we will try to cover twenty steps, and the day after thirty steps.

Question: Spiritually, what can we get from games? Volleyball, for instance, is one of those sports that they will be doing in the Senior Olympics.

Sri Chinmoy: Very good. I happened to be a volleyball player in my teens. I was the captain, the main instructor, in the place where I was brought up in India for many, many years. I used to play volleyball quite well.

From the spiritual point of view, there are many things we can learn from games. One is fellow feeling. Then, in volleyball there is something called a serve. Let us take the term 'serve'. By playing, we are serving mankind. You will say, "How?" Let us say you are playing volleyball, and I am in the audience. You are giving me joy and inspiration. You are playing so well, you are smashing the ball and doing all kinds of things.

Why do we watch sports? The world needs inspiration and enthusiasm. You play volleyball extremely well, and I am inspired by it. Then I go and play tennis. You have given me the inspiration, and I go and play some other game. But you gave me the joy, you gave me the inspiration, you gave me the courage. Like that, each person can get inspiration from another person to do better in their own respective fields.

Question: Why is the development of the Senior Olympics important?

Sri Chinmoy: I am very happy because those who participate in the Senior Olympics are utilising time in a divine way. There are two kinds of time. One is fleeting time. Another is eternal Time. Here these people who are advanced in life are trying to defy the attacks of self-doubt, frustration, failure and so many negative things. As we advance in age, incapacity lords it over us. We can no longer do this, we can no longer do that. Ten years ago we did it, but now we cannot run fast, we are unable to do so many things. Then we become frustrated.

But the Senior Olympians are saying, "No! We are still walking along the same road. Sometimes we are sprinting, sometimes we are running, sometimes we are jogging, and sometimes we are crawling. But as long as we keep to the same road, we will reach the destination." We often see a marathon runner running very fast. Then, to wards the end of the race, how difficult it is for him to run. He is obliged to walk. But when he reaches his destination at the end of 26 miles, he gets tremendous joy. So here also the Senior Olympians, after the age of 55, may not run as fast as they did in their prime. But the fact that they are still willing to run and eager to run deserves tremendous appreciation and admiration from us.

Question: In your remarks tonight, what do you anticipate saying to the Senior Olympians?

Sri Chinmoy: I only wish to encourage them and inspire them. I will tell them that they have developed wisdom. I use the term 'wisdom-light'. These senior athletes do not belong to the fleeting time. They belong to Time eternal. They are running along Eternity's Road, challenging the giant pride of self-doubt. Self-doubt so proudly declares, "I cannot do this, I cannot do that." The giant pride of self-doubt stands against us in the battlefield of life. These Senior Olympians are challenging their own self-doubt. They are shaking hands smilingly and proudly with impossibility. People say, "It is impossible — a person of that age cannot do pole vault. They cannot do shot-put or hurdles." But these Senior Olympians are proving that there is no such thing as impossibility.

Question: Could you talk about the concert that you will be giving?

Sri Chinmoy: It is a Peace Concert. This world of ours has everything save and except one thing: peace. And this peace has to start from within. If I have peace of mind, then only can I be of help to you. If you have peace of mind, then only can you be of help to me. This peace of mind we can get from our peaceful meditation and our prayerful life, not from political talk. Not by talking, but by praying and becoming something good can we offer peace to others. So I play quite a few instruments and offer soulful music — not the music that stimulates our vital, but the music that increases our inner hunger, which is love of God.

Question: What is the relationship between meditation and sports? I know in martial arts, which is something I've done for many years, there is a direct relationship, but does it also exist with sports?

Sri Chinmoy: In sports we need energy, strength and dynamism. When we meditate, we make our mind calm and quiet. If inside us there is peace, then we will derive tremendous strength from our inner life. That is to say, if I have a peaceful moment, even for one second, that peace will come to me as solid strength in my sports, whether I am running or jumping or throwing. That strength is almost indomitable strength, whereas if we are restless, we do not have strength like that.

Look at an elephant. An elephant has tremendous strength. It is not restless like a monkey which is moving here and there. It is exactly the same for us. In our inner life if we have the strength of an elephant, then only in our outer life can we be peaceful. A lion is very peaceful. Then when something happens, he starts roaring. But its strength is the peace that it has. It has confidence. But a monkey and other animals that are very, very restless, what kind of strength do they have? Meditation gives us inner strength. Once we have inner strength, we are bound to be successful in our outer life.

Published in Run and smile, smile and run