81.

SUDHAHOTA: Very moving! It’s good to hear that, because it kind of lets me live through the moments as well. It’s strange, but throughout the Olympics, nobody asked why I bowed or who I was bowing to. It’s good to hear somebody write exactly what I was doing and where my heart was. It just feels good to hear the whole thing because of how much everybody here has meant to me. It’s really special, and I’m glad that people can share it with me.

(Sudhahota presents chocolates in the shape of sea shells to Sri Chinmoy.)

SRI CHINMOY: I am taking a conch. The spiritual significance of the conch is divine victory. In India we blow the conch to announce the Victory of the Supreme. So let us announce our mutual victory. I am announcing the Victory of the Supreme inside your heart, and you will announce the Victory of the Supreme inside my heart. The same Supreme is in your heart and my heart. So we shall announce the Victory of our Beloved Supreme.

When are you going to take up the cello again? Your childhood memory does not haunt you?

SUDHAHOTA: I went home for Thanksgiving and saw it sitting in the corner of my old room. I told my parents to get it ready and send it to me.

SRI CHINMOY: One day I would like to play cello with you on the stage — both of us together.

SUDHAHOTA: Keep your microphone louder than mine!

SRI CHINMOY: Narada will keep reminding you to practise. Sudhahota, I wish to offer you a piece of good news. Just before you came in today, I completed the first 10,000 poems out of the 27,000 that I am writing, which are called Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants. I am growing 27,000 aspiration-plants inside the hearts of truth-seekers and God-lovers. Previously I wrote a series of 10,000 poems called Ten Thousand Flower-Flames. It took me four years and a few months. This time it has taken me a year and four months to complete 10,000 poems. So I have made progress.

Now that you are the supreme athlete, you have to compete only with yourself. For you there is no Calvin Smith and no Ron Brown. Now you only have to transcend your own capacities. Your only rival is your own self.

SUDHAHOTA: I hope other athletes are listening to what I’ve been saying about this, because I think it’s going to help them become better athletes. But I hope they don’t listen too well! Now I have to move on, go farther and farther.

SRI CHINMOY: Their aim was to defeat you. Your aim was to reach the destination sooner than the soonest. Our philosophy is that the destination is never static. Once you reach your destination, at that time a new destination appears. We are constantly on the move. Other human beings are not your goal; your goal is the Beyond. By defeating them, you will not reach your goal. Only by constantly going beyond yourself will you achieve your goal. So you have reached your first goal, and now you have a higher, deeper, more illumining and more fulfilling goal in your life.