My golden children19

I am so lucky! Dear runners, you are the ones who have run 3100 miles, and from you I get the utmost appreciation! In this life there is something called luck. I would like all of you to have that golden luck.

These are my golden children. When they run, every breath of theirs enters into my heart-affection, love, sweetness and fondness for them. How I appreciate the runners! How I admire them! God alone knows the depth of my appreciation and admiration.

Dear runners, I will have to take many, many incarnations to offer you all my gratitude and pride. But from next time on, when I give you prasad or look at you, if you can give me a smile, even if you are dying of tiredness and exhaustion, I assure you, immediately your smile will enter into me. Your smile means the increase of your receptivity. You know that when I give you prasad, such affection, joy, love and pride I offer. I know you are literally dying, but before you die, please give me your smiling breath. Smile at your Master! At that time I will be able to help you more. To one runner I said, “What are you doing? Can you not smile?” Since then he has started smiling, smiling and smiling! Even now he is smiling!

Dear runners, while taking prasad you have shown me most sincere, spontaneous love and devotion — all of you, absolutely each and every one. But one runner’s sincere devotion was most remarkable, most of the time. I know what false devotion is. False devotion we see here, there and everywhere. All the runners have shown sincere devotion, but one runner showed his most sincere devotion many, many, many, many times. At those times he received the utmost.

There are many ways to receive from the Master; but if you want to receive the utmost, either smile at me or offer your sincere devotion. When you smile, you give me everything. All your suffering-poison enters into me and I replace it with my affection, love, sweetness, pride and gratitude. Again, if you can show your sincere devotion, then also you are getting the utmost from me. Devotion is like a magnet. When you offer devotion, I get from you a magnetic pull.

When the Master speaks, you may say, “I can keep my hands relaxed and still I can keep my consciousness very high.” Unfortunately, that is not the case. You have to come to a higher stage of consciousness to do that. If you can fold your hands when I speak to you, there is a great difference. When I talk to you, please fold your hands and try to maintain a very, very high, sublime consciousness. When I talk to you directly, you have to feel your heart-breath. If you hear the “tick-tick” of your heartbeat, then you are bringing forward your utmost devotion. This applies when I am giving a serious talk. When I am cutting jokes, it is not necessary for you to fold your hands. But when I am giving a serious talk, when divinity is involved, if you fold your hands and feel your heartbeat, then you will get the utmost from my talk and your progress will be very, very fast. Immediate progress you will make. I do not get a thing when you offer me your devotion. It goes to the Absolute Supreme, who is your Guru, my Guru, everybody’s Guru.

Today we are celebrating your great achievement. Today is the happiest day for you and also for me, believe me. But we can increase our happiness in our inner life. You have completed the race, you have covered the distance, and now you are the happiest and the proudest. I am inside you. I am also the happiest and the proudest inside you. But our philosophy is progress, self-transcendence. There are ways to make faster progress, both inwardly and outwardly. Outwardly you know if your timing is better this year; that is your outer progress. But inwardly, how will you know? Inwardly you will know when you have devotion — devotion, devotion, devotion. Of course, the highest stage is surrender. You will try your very, very best. Whether you cover the distance the fastest or you take ten more days, you will do your very best. I shall never stop anybody from running for taking a longer time, right up to the end of the race.

This is our personal goal. Let the world think of us in a laughing manner. We know how easy it is to laugh. Even if the world laughs at us, we have our inner joy and our love of God. The Supreme alone knows how difficult it is for you to run such a long, long distance.

I have tried to be at the race twice a day, and sometimes even more often. When I look at you, the first thing that comes forward is my concern. CONCERN is the word, all in capital letters. I ask myself, “How are they doing, how are they doing?” It is like the mother and the little child. When the mother sees that the child is doing something difficult, the first thing the mother offers is her concern. In my case, I am your spiritual father. The very first thing I offer to you is concern. I may look at you for only a fleeting second, but in that fleeting second my concern-flooded heart I offer you. Then I pour my compassion, affection, gratitude and pride.

When I come near you, even if you feel that you are dying, please give me the most beautiful smile or the most devoted consciousness, one of the two. Some runners, even though they were suffering so much, said to me, “Thank you.” They uttered the words, “Thank you.” At that time I was not imagining that they would thank me outwardly. Their very eyes and hearts were thanking me for coming to offer my blessing. When one or two runners outwardly thanked me, I said to myself, “Where is it coming from? Is it not from the inmost recesses of their heart?” One runner quite a few times came up to me and said, “Thank you, thank you!” Others thanked me with their heartbeat or with their eyes.

When it is a matter of a smiling consciousness, one boy stands first. So many times he gave me a smile while going around the course! I saw him smiling, smiling, smiling.

One runner shows his suffering when he is thirty metres away. I can see it. But when he approaches me, he comes quite smartly, running a little bit, and he gives me a very good smile. Everybody’s case I know!

Some runners are very, very serious. Among the serious ones, two boys, when they come to me, show me their dynamic spirit. I know how tired they are, but when they come to me, they are absolutely straightforward, like heroes. They come with such determination and seriousness, as if they have already won the race. One runner takes prasad very humbly. He bends completely. One boy is quite tall, but he bends very low and says to me, “Thank you.” Each runner has his speciality. Everyone I appreciate.

Suprabha’s heart knows and her heartbeat knows my concern for her. I give her much more time and much more concern, because her body does not run; it is her heart’s love for me that runs. Her heart’s love for me and her surrender to me say, “Guru has said that I can do it, he wants me to do it, and I want to do it.” Right from the first day it is her heart that runs.

Each runner has so many special qualities. When I looked at this year’s champion, from the very beginning, on very rare occasions he walked. Most of the time he was running — really running! Some long-distance runners carry their bodies with such difficulty. But our fastest runner was almost all the time really running. Almost like a marathon runner he was running!

Now I wish to say something about the main helpers. I am trying desperately to find some fault with our race organisers, but nothing is coming to my mind!

When some helpers came to take prasad from me, I was very, very pleased, very pleased.

I know the value of cooking. I may not be an excellent cook, but when I cook, all my love, concern and affection I pour into my food, into my meals. Those who cook for the runners have to be spiritually evolved. This is my very serious statement. The role of consciousness is all-important. My name, Chinmoy, means “consciousness.” Spirituality itself means consciousness. These are my disciple-cooks. If the consciousness of the cooks is not high when they offer consciousness to others in the form of food, it does not help. If the cooks remain in a high consciousness, it will be of help to the runners.

My dear disciple-runners, it is your love for me that runs, runs, runs and runs. I am telling you how you can make more progress, both in your inner life and in your outer life. I am your teacher. To each of you I wish to say that, for this month and a half or two months, in the inner world I am giving you the highest, highest, highest marks. No matter how many miles you ran per day, whether it was eighty miles or forty miles, according to your capacity you did your utmost. There is no runner who intentionally did not exert his full capacity.

Alas, one runner left the race after one day. For him to go without informing me I feel is a serious mistake in the realm of spirituality. Our longest distance he came to run. During our marathon or a shorter race, if you give up because you are tired, exhausted or injured, I will not mind. But our longest-distance runners have to take my permission before they give up the race. This is absolutely our longest race, our greatest joy and our greatest pride. If your mind is disturbed or something is dislocated in your inner life, I will be the first one to help you most sincerely and unreservedly. Then, if I see that you are not receptive, if you are not getting from me what I am trying to offer, I will say that you can leave; you do not have to continue. Again, after completing the race and informing me, does a runner need my permission to leave? No! After completing the race if someone leaves because he has to go back to work, there is no problem.

All of you here have completed the race. Right from the very beginning, how sincere, how dedicated, how serious you have been! During our marathon or one of our shorter races, many of the runners are jokers, including our disciples. When they run our races, except for those who are going to be first, second or third, many enjoy talking and joking. All right, enjoy, enjoy! I also enjoy our races. They feel that they can relax. Perhaps some people do not practise throughout the year. Some do not do even a seven-mile run before entering the marathon. They are like morning walkers. Many do not take the marathon seriously. For the marathon I am desperately trying to increase the number of runners. Now I am concentrating only on the number. No matter how long people take to complete the marathon, when the number increases, I get tremendous joy. But during our longest race, such seriousness is involved. You were all showing me such seriousness.

I am so grateful to each and every runner here for this seriousness. Seriousness I was seeing right from the beginning. Nobody was joking, nobody was laughing; everybody was serious, serious, serious. For two months to maintain this kind of seriousness is a most remarkable achievement, a most remarkable achievement. Some of you were concentrating so intensely. The way you were concentrating, I felt that you were going to run a sprint! The kind of concentration that is needed to sprint, to run the fastest, I have seen many times in your faces. Your faces were shining so brightly. I am very, very, very grateful to you and very, very, very proud of you.

If possible, next year also please join the race! But if it is not possible, I shall not impose on you. I shall never say, “You must run.” That I will not do. No! I will only beg everybody, all the disciples, to run the marathon. There I need the greatest possible number of runners. But if you can run our 3100-mile race next year as well, I will be the happiest and proudest person.

Indeed, you are my supremely chosen long-distance runners. When you run such a long distance, I feel and I know that in the inner world you are also running a very, very long, unimaginably long distance. For that I am extremely grateful to you all and extremely proud of you all.

To a few individuals who served the race I have given some criticism. It is for their good. This is my way. If outer softness does not work, then I become strict, with the hope that I will be able to be successful. When love fails, power comes into the picture. I know that power never wins. Ultimately power fails, fails, fails and fails. It is love that succeeds right from the beginning to the end. But when love does not work for some time, power comes to awaken the dormant souls. Some get up cheerfully, feeling that they are doing the right thing, while others become upset and annoyed, because they have their own plans, their own way, In some cases when I use power, it works so well. Then the disciples again enter into the world of love. My power does not hurt them. They enter into a very right consciousness and again they start to love. My love they accept with their own love.

Dear runners, when you go around the course, try to discover two or three special places where you feel that you are getting joy. Even on a 400-metre track when you do long distance, there will be a few special places. You do not know why, but when you reach those places you get automatically a new burst of energy. Try to remember where you get energy or joy. At that spot, Mother Nature is helping you. That is the spot where you are receptive to the Mother Earth and the Mother Earth is also feeling your receptivity. Have you ever had this experience? If you have not observed it, next time try to see at which corner or in which place you are automatically getting joy. You have no idea why you are getting joy there, whereas in other places you do not get joy. If you can find two or three special places while running, there you can express your own joy and receive joy from the ground, which we call the Mother Earth. Try to find two or three places, and each time you pass by those places, you will be consciously happy and receptive. You are bound to feel it! Even long-distance runners who do five or ten laps around the track find one or two special places, at least. There your life-energy will be replenished.

Very good! Always try to keep your mind happy and cheerful, cheerful! Cherish all your sweet memories. Since you joined the path, how many good things you have done in your spiritual life! You can memorise these things. Every day, the way seekers recite from the Upanishads and the Vedas and slokas from the scriptures, you can also do the same by recalling your divine experiences. And if you are a singer, then inwardly sing and outwardly sing. In as many ways as possible, keep yourself happy, happy, happy, happy! Just see in how many ways you can make yourself happy. This happiness is of utmost importance. When you are unhappy, no matter how sincere you are, no matter how hard you try to improve your time, you cannot do it. But when you are happy, your timing automatically improves. Happiness is strength, a new supply of energy.

My divine pride, divine pride, divine pride in boundless measure I am offering to each of you — my divine pride, divine pride.


19. 15 August 2005, Ceremony for the runners Self-Transcendence 3100-Mile Race Aspiration-Ground Jamaica, New York.