Hugh Cassidy: What about breathing?

Sri Chinmoy: As you know, when you want to lift up a heavy weight, it is easier to do so when you are breathing in. It is always good to take deep breaths, not shallow breaths. When I lift very heavy weights, I take three very deep breaths before lifting. The best thing is to feel the breath or the life-energy in your spiritual heart and in your forehead. While you are concentrating, you can feel the same life-energy inside your wrist or inside your palm. It is life-energy that enables us to lift. So when I breathe in, I always feel that my life-energy is inside my forehead and, when I concentrate, I feel it is inside my wrist.

Marty Gallagher: Are you talking about the spiritual third eye?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, the third eye. Always feel that your power is coming from there. Our will-power is not in our arms or in our shoulders. The will-power that is governing the whole body originates in the third eye — between the eyebrows and a little above.

Weightlifting students who have not been practising meditation should learn how to concentrate. For them that will be easiest. Then they should learn to meditate. In the beginning, if they do not concentrate, they will not be able to bring to the fore their own inner strength. Strength is always there inside us, but the way to bring it to the fore is through concentration and meditation.