Student: What Is The Deeper Significance Of...

Student: What is the deeper significance of your weightlifting?

Sri Chinmoy: Anything that I do will be valued, if it has to be valued, because of my spiritual life. Otherwise, if my spiritual life goes away, then my weightlifting, my music, my art, my poetry—nothing will remain. Spirituality is the backbone, the spine, of all my outer activities. Or you can say it is the trunk of my life-tree. In my case, because of the trunk, the branches also will be valued. If there had been no trunk, then nothing would have been valued, no matter how many things I accomplished on the outer plane. Nobody would have cared for them.

People know me as a man of peace and that is why they are encouraging my weightlifting and other activities. They see that I am a man of peace who is doing something good on another plane. If others who are much stronger than I am did the same thing, they would not pay any attention because they know it is in their line. They know I am not supposed to be in the weightlifting line. They think of a man of peace on a different level. It is because of my spirituality, my inner background, that they are valuing me.