July 29
Video from Sanjay Rawal
Sri Chinmoy lifts Joe Franklin, TV talk show host of the ‘Joe Franklin Show’, and tapes an interview with him in Secaucus, New Jersey.
July 28
NEW RECORDS SET AT 3,100-MILER
NEW YORK — Madhupran Schwerk, a 47-year-old instrument maker from Solingen, Germany, set a new world record when he completed the Sri Chinmoy 3,100-Mile Self-Transcendence Race on July 28. It was also his 47th birthday.
Averaging over 72 miles a day, Madhupran smashed Istvan Sipos’ 1998 record by over four days, completing the distance in 42 days 13 hours 24 minutes.
Calling the half-mile loop that marked the race course “a holy ground,” Madhupran said that when you go deep within and open your heart, “you get energy enough for everything.”
At a brief victory celebration, Sri Chinmoy told Madhupran that his performance was “an unprecedented achievement not only for you but for the whole world.” Running legend Ted Corbitt also showed up to congratulate him.
Afterwards, Madhupran returned to the course to complete another 13 laps to break the record for 5,000 kilometres. All told, he set 74 various distance-records since beginning his run on June 16.
Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 33, March-July 2002
July 28
Sri Chinmoy, ready for a match at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
July 28
Joy
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the Peace Room of the Church Centre for the United Nations
Joy within is always a rarity.
Joy without is almost an impossibility.
Joy in oneness with God is a constant certainty and an eternal reality.
Joy within is always a rarity. Most of us are living in the world of desire. We have no time to go deep within. There are people who feel that they do not have even one minute, one single minute out of twenty-four hours, to go deep within. Then, there are those who have the time to go deep within for a minute during the day. But when they go within for a minute during the twenty four hours, they may not get joy. Inside us is a vast field and we have to cultivate it like a farmer. We have to plough the inner field and, after we have ploughed, we have to sow the seed — the seed of our aspiration, the seed of our concern for the inner life. Then, after a few months or after a year or so, we may get a real glimpse of inner joy. Inner joy is always something rare. We think no matter how we meditate we get immediate joy. But this is not true. What we may get at times is only a kind of vital pleasure. Real joy we get only from our silent and profound meditation. In the outer life also, when we talk and mix with people, or exchange ideas with others, we may get a kind of satisfaction. But this is not real joy. It is only vital pleasure. Joy is something very deep, illumining and fulfilling.
When I say joy is always a rarity in the inner life, it means first of all that we are not crying for this inner joy. Once a day we don't have the time to go deep within even for a minute. And even if we do go deep within for a minute or two, we have to know that one has to meditate for hours, for months, for years in order to get real inner joy. If one tastes this inner joy even once, one is immediately transported into Heaven for a while. When one has real inner joy, one sees that Heaven is all around him. He is in Heaven or he has become Heaven itself. This is inner joy.
In Sanskrit we use the term amrita, which means 'nectar'. The gods drink this nectar and that is why they are immortal. When we go deep within, we also drink this divine nectar. When we drink this nectar just for a fleeting second, we feel that our consciousness is immortalised. But it is a very rare thing. Seekers don't get this amrita unless they are on the verge of realisation. Swamis, even yogis who are not absolutely realised or not of the highest calibre, may drink this nectar only once in their lifetime. Others say, "Oh, when you go deep within, you get tremendous joy." But real joy, amrita, is something else. This joy is pure. On those very rare occasions when we get real inner joy even for a fleeting second, it immediately expands our consciousness and makes us feel that we are really divine, that expansion is our birthright, liberation is our birthright.
In the outer world, what gives us joy is the fulfilment of desire. This moment I have a desire to have one house. Then, when God grants my desire, immediately I become a victim to the desire to have two houses. And when God grants this, the next moment I become a victim to still more desires. In the outer life we want only to grab — from one car to two cars, from one dollar to two dollars. All the time we are trying to increase our possessions. Each time a desire is fulfilled in the outer life, we become victims to a greater and more destructive desire, because in desire itself there is no end. A fulfilled desire gives us pleasure for a second, but the next moment another desire comes with tenfold power and puts us into the frying pan again. In the life of desire we are never satisfied.
The very nature of desire is to possess. If desire sees a flower, it will try to possess it. If desire sees something beautiful, immediately it wants to grab it, and the ultimate result is that the beautiful thing is destroyed. Even when we see some spiritual person with light, we try to possess that spiritual person with our desire. We don't want that spiritual person to act in the divine way with his inner light, with his inner joy, with his inner compassion. No, we want to possess him and try to regulate his outer life and inner life.
The difference between man and God is this: man is possessed by his little possessions and God is released by His infinite possessions.
When we remain in the outer world, we are taking conscious or unconscious part in the game of desire. Each moment we are opening ourselves to desire. Desire, the thief, is entering into our heart to steal away our faith in God, our love for God, our concern for God, our dedication to God, our surrender to God. When our own will is one with desire, it eventually ends in destruction. But when our will becomes one with our aspiration — which is desire purified and transformed, desire which has gone through a fire-pure change — at that time we can sit at the Feet of God. When we sit at the Feet of God and become one with God, our own will is one with God's Will. What is God's Will? God's Will is His Concern for humanity, His Love for humanity, His inner Cry for the perfection of humanity. When we establish our oneness with God's Will, we enter into a constant flow of joy. There we see that God the creator, God the creation and God the reality are all one.
When we have established our oneness with God's Will we get joy, but humanity as a whole is still separated from God's Will. Every person wants something different. God has created millions and millions of people, and each one has a new idea, a new aim, a new ideal. When all the ideas and ideals become one and are still given the opportunity to flourish, to fulfil themselves in multiple form, then, too, we will get joy. The highest joy comes from oneness with God. When humanity as a whole enters into this oneness of God, we will feel that the multiplicity of God is also getting the same joy as the unity of God. We do not lose our joy if we also realise our oneness with God's creation. The joy of multiplicity and the joy of unity we must have. When we become one with humanity and go to God together, then we get the joy of multiplicity. And when we go directly to God alone, then we get the joy of unity. Again, from unity, if we want to come to God's infinite multiplicity, we also get true joy. Either by taking everyone to God with us or by going to God alone and then bringing God to the rest of humanity, we get this boundless inner and outer joy.
Right now the outer life and the inner life are like the North Pole and the South Pole. They will never meet together. The inner life has more light than the outer life, but this light is not enough to satisfy us. Right now the inner life is not strong enough to transform the outer life, which is like a stubborn child or even like a mad elephant. In spite of knowing that the inner life has more light, the outer life does not surrender to it. The outer life does not want to abide by the dictates of the inner life; it does not even want to co-operate with the inner life. The inner life has almost unlimited light and joy and the outer life has practically none. But a day will come when we can get joy from the outer life. When the inner life and the outer life have become one and are ready to be consciously dedicated at the Feet of God, at that time we will find joy within, joy without.
The outer life and the inner life have to become one. They have to feel the necessity of their oneness with God. The younger brother is the outer life and the elder brother is the inner life, because inside the inner life is the soul. If the inner life listens to the dictates of the soul and the outer life listens to the dictates of the inner life, then the inner life and the outer life will go together. At that time we will have abiding joy, everlasting joy, here on earth and there in Heaven — here in our outer life, which will be totally transformed, and there in our inner life, which will be constantly aspiring to be one with the infinite and ever-transcending Joy of God.
Published in Union-Vision
July 28
Sri Chinmoy plays a small wooden flute in New York.
July 28
Sri Chinmoy escorts Vinay Verma, Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, into Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York, for a reception in his honour.
Sri Chinmoy lifts His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, Head of the Drikung Order of Tibetan Buddhism, at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
The Buddhist leader described Sri Chinmoy’s lifting programme as:
“Symbolic of his own compassionate intent to lift all sentient beings out of their suffering state to higher realms.”
July 28
Sri Chinmoy achieves an 800-lb. lift using a seated one-arm lift at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
August 31
Video by Vasudeva Server
Sri Chinmoy uses a dumbell bench press to lift 800 pounds (400 pounds simultaneously with each arm) at his home gym in New York. The video of this lift is subsequently shown in a news interview, broadcast on Channel 2 in New York on 8 September 2000.
My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!
God's Clarion Call is only
For a sleepless God-gratitude-heart.
My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!
Sri Chinmoy offers this prayer at 9:13 a.m. before doing the 800-lb. dumbbell bench press.
Published in My Morning Soul-Body Prayers, part 15
Start Practising Right from Tomorrow!
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at Aspiration-Ground, Jamaica, New York
the day after the inaugural Self-Transcendence Marathon at Rockland Lake State Park
This time seven hundred ninety-nine disciples participated in our new marathon. More than two hundred have promised that they will join next year, so that makes one thousand! [Applause] I am not yet clapping, because I have to see what actually happens. All right, I trust you, I trust you, I love you. I am so happy!
Please start practising right from tomorrow. Now you can run two or three miles each day. Do it! Daily you can run or walk two, three or four miles, and once a week seven miles. Then, after the second month, from seven miles once a week you can try to increase it to ten miles. After another month you can bring it to thirteen miles. Once a week if you can complete thirteen miles, after four months you will be qualified. After thirteen miles you will have the strength, stamina and energy to run fifteen or sixteen miles.
The last four months of the year, you will try to do sixteen miles or seventeen miles once a week. You do not have to run twenty-six miles before the marathon. A maximum of seventeen to eighteen miles if you practise during the last four months, you will be able to do a marathon.
Once a week take rest, either Saturday or Sunday or any day you choose. And one time if you can do twenty-two miles, you will be ready, I assure you.
I am saying this from my personal experience. I may have been slow in running the marathon, but I was able to finish it, except perhaps once or twice. You people are quite young and energetic. Right now you can do this! Two miles, three miles or four miles you can complete daily, and once a week from now on try to run seven miles. If you are capable of running three miles or four miles almost every day, then seven miles easily you can do. I will be very, very happy. It will give me such joy if from seven hundred participants we can eventually go to 1,300 — and at least one thousand next year.
Only very good runners need to think of their timing. So-called bad runners should just think of finishing the race. But remember what your previous time was, and try to make it one minute better. If you did the marathon in seven hours this time, try next year to do it in 6:59.
At least one Indian disciple has to run! And if there are four or five members in a family, I would like at least one member to run the race. To my greatest joy and highest pride, all the members of one big family participated. And in another family, mother, sister and brother ran. I do not know if all the members of any other family ran.
The marathon was so beautiful, so peaceful! Mother Nature was so kind to us. There could not be a better, more ideal situation than this one. It was so nice, absolutely! The weather was super-super-excellent. The servers were super-super-excellent. The organisation was super-super-excellent. Everything was super-super-excellent. I was there for six or seven hours, and I was enjoying the panorama of nature's beauty immensely. There we saw water. Water means life-energy. And there we saw sky-vastness. Everything gave me absolutely unimaginable joy. Again, this joy came mainly from your participation.
So, dear ones, practise, practise!
Published in Our Sweetest Oneness
July 27
On Sri Chinmoy’s Path
the soul-fragrance
Of the complete
Guru-obedience
Is indispensable.
Sri Chinmoy
July 27th, 1994