SUDHAHOTA: This year, Guru, I’m not going to do the long jump in smaller meets so I don’t have so much pressure all the time.
SRI CHINMOY: As long as you break the world record, it does not matter where you do it.
Dearest Sudhahota, you have to know that inner strength and inner inspiration are not enough. Aspiration also is of supreme importance. Many, many talented musicians, artists and others have inspiration. But if they don’t have aspiration as well, then their inspiration cannot go very far because there is no link between their inner life and their outer life. When aspiration is not there to support the inspiration, inspiration is weak and helpless, and eventually it gets completely lost.
It is like a tug-of-war. In a tug-of-war, if you can have aspiration along with inspiration, then it is like having two people on your side. Definitely you are going to defeat those who are only dealing with inspiration. Look at Narada, who has become the supreme musician. He has inspiration, but along with it he also has aspiration. This aspiration is like a volcano; it comes out and pushes forward the inspiration.
Aspiration is the inner food that we must eat daily. Whether we feel hungry or not, we have to nourish ourselves in order to live on earth. If you can consciously pray to God and meditate on God, this will help you immensely. You can do it at home, at church, or any place. And while praying, think of either a bullet train reaching its destination or a river flowing very fast towards the ocean. Imagine that you are the train and that you have this bullet speed. A few times you can even repeat ‘bullet speed’. It is not that you are using the bullet to kill someone. No, it is the fastest, fastest speed that you are invoking.
You may call this just imagination, but you have to know that imagination is the reality that is at the top of the tree. Right now we cannot see it; only when it touches the foot of the tree can we see it. I am at the foot of the Himalayas, let us say. So how am I going to see what’s on the topmost peak? It is impossible. Just because with our naked human eyes we cannot see something, we don’t take it seriously. But it is there. As the foot is reality, even so the peak is also reality. So please try to imagine that you do have this bullet speed. Now all you have to do is manifest it.
Similarly with the long jump, always feel that you have the capacity to become the world champion. Do not allow yourself even for one second to be intimidated by the thought, “Perhaps I can’t do it.” That ‘perhaps’ has to disappear from your mind totally. In fact, feel that you have already done it. Whenever you try either the 100 metres or the long jump, please feel that you have already done it. With that kind of confidence you will run; with that kind of confidence you will jump. Don’t for even one second think of the other runners or jumpers. No, no! You don’t have any time to think about them or even to hear about them. It is not that you don’t like them. It is just that whenever you think about them or hear about them, very often uncomely or distracting thoughts come. So do not think of others at all. Just feel that you yourself are your own best rival.
I have so much confidence in you. How I wish you would feel the same confidence in yourself when you run and jump, for you have to know that your confidence is your fastest speed; your confidence is your longest jump. And this confidence you will be able to bring to the fore through your prayer-life and your meditation-life. Each time you pray and meditate, just feel that you are transcending yourself. And once you start transcending, then naturally nobody else can come to where you are. You are always at your supreme height.
Every day you spend perhaps two or three hours practising your running and jumping. If every day you can also pray and meditate for just five minutes in the morning and evening and, if possible, at noon also, it will help you immensely. Prayer is your inner strength and your inner power, and this inner power is infinitely stronger than any outer strength.
When I look at the 7,000-pound weight that I lifted, I am the first person not to believe I did it. If I use my mind, I will be my own worst doubter. But I know that it is the Supreme in me who has done it because He wanted to express Himself in and through me in this way. In your case, it is exactly the same. If you can become the instrument of God and feel that you are going to break the record for God — in order to raise the standard of the long jump — then who will be able to defeat you? Please feel that when you transcend yourself in the long jump, God Himself is progressing in and through you. That is our philosophy. You don’t see this because you don’t yet have the inner vision to see the invisible. But when we develop the inner vision, we see that although God is infinite, eternal and immortal, He Himself is progressing in and through us. So if you can feel that your success is God’s Success and your progress is God’s Progress, then there can be nobody, nobody on earth who will be able to defeat you.
God means infinite capacity. The moment a drop enters into the ocean, it becomes the ocean. I am a drop, you are a drop, Narada is a drop, we are all drops. The moment we enter into God’s Ocean-Vastness, we become the Ocean-Vastness. The moment a flame enters into the sun, it becomes the sun itself. So while you are praying, please feel that you are a blazing flame that is climbing up higher than the highest and entering into the all-illumining sun. It is our prayer-life that connects us with the infinite Power. If we cannot connect with the infinite Power, then we remain just a little flame or a little drop.
We are God’s children, but we feel our Father is far away from us in Heaven. We say, “Oh, I have made so many mistakes and blunders. How can I dare to claim God as my very own?” But that is not the right attitude. No matter how weak we are, we have to claim God as our own, very own. The more mistakes we make, the more eager we should be to run towards Him. But no, each time we make a mistake, out of embarrassment or fear we try to go away from Him. That is absurd! We have to act like a child who has been playing in the mud. Nobody wants to touch him because he is so dirty and filthy. But he runs confidently towards his mother and she cleans him. Then he is all purity.
In our spiritual life, no matter where we are, no matter what kind of consciousness we are in — even if our consciousness is in the lowest possible plane — we have to run towards our Source, God our Heavenly Father. At every moment He is more than eager to help us. Unfortunately, we try to rely all the time on our own capacities. We say, “I can do this, I can do that.” But the capacities that we have on the physical plane will not always help us. So let us say, “I can do this because He is doing it in and through me.” Then we will have boundless confidence.
This is not the ego’s confidence that “I” can do something. It is the confidence that makes us feel we can do something precisely because God is doing it in and through us. Otherwise, we will all be like Julius Caesar, who said, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” And where are Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire now? But when the Christ said, “I and my Father are one,” on the strength of his inseparable oneness with God, he became the Saviour. Now the whole world worships and adores him because he had that inseparable oneness with the Creator. In him, God the creation and God the Creator became one. So his confidence came from the feeling that he and his Father are one. That is the kind of confidence that you need, Narada needs, we all need.
So let us feel that we are God’s; let us feel that He is the doer and that we are only the instrument. If we become His instrument and allow Him to manifest Himself in and through us, then He gives us such confidence. The confidence of being God’s instrument immediately makes us perfect and makes the Creator supremely happy.
Whenever you come, I offer my oneness in the form of advice, but please feel that my affection and concern for your success are boundless, boundless, boundless. So wherever you are whether in Texas or Germany or any place — please pray three times a day most soulfully. It is especially important to do this before the Olympics. It is like being a student. The student studies throughout the year, but before the examination he works hard, harder, hardest — more diligently and more soulfully than before.
In your case also, your inner life has to come to the fore, your prayer-life has to come to the fore and your oneness with God’s Will has to come to the fore. Then nobody, nobody on earth will be able to defeat you. Your oneness-strength with God’s Will and infinite Compassion must come forward. Then there will be no such thing as impossibility for you. It will all be possibility and reality. The reality is there somewhere; you only have to bring it down. The mango is on the tree; you just have to climb up and bring it down and then share it with the world.
SUDHAHOTA: I just wanted to say that this is a really special time and special year for me. I really believe it is a year for me to put to use every tool that I have in order to be the best. Just saying “Thank you, Guru,” isn’t all that I have to say. I want to say thank you for knowing the needs that I have and for trying to enrich me and fulfil my needs. I want to do more than just thank you for the motivation you give me and for continually understanding my needs and fulfilling them and giving me energy when I need it.
SRI CHINMOY: The outer life is limited, but the inner life is unlimited; the inner energy that comes from the Source is unlimited. Again, the outer life also can become limitless if it establishes its inseparable oneness with the inner life. You were just speaking about energy. This energy is inexhaustible; it is birthless and deathless. But there is only one way to have access to this energy, and that is through prayer and meditation. There is no other way. To achieve an earthly thing in life there can be several ways. But if it is something really significant, abiding, everlasting — if it is some significant success, progress or glory that you want to offer to God — then you have to bring forward this inner energy. In the inner world it is at our disposal, but most people do not care to bring it forward. Those who do are able to offer something most special both to humanity and to divinity.
I am very, very glad that you have made the inner life part and parcel of your existence. So please, please, every day pray and meditate — just for five minutes in the morning and at night and, if possible, also at noon. Then you have your brother, Narada, who is constantly inspiring and encouraging you. He is ready to go to the farthest corner of the globe if he can be of any help to you. So his request and my request to you are the same: dive deep within, and from your own prayer-life bring forward your limitless energy. Then success will be all yours. ‘Yours’ in this case means God’s, for it is He who will be succeeding and progressing in and through you.
The Olympics means oneness — the oneness of nations. Rivalry is there on the outer plane, but on the inner plane it is all oneness. Once we see our oneness with people from so many countries, we feel the fulness and complete satisfaction of God the Creator inside His own creation.
CL 90. Sri Chinmoy had the following conversation with Sudhahota on 3 March 1988.↩
From:Sri Chinmoy,Carl Lewis: the champion inner runner, part 2, Agni Press, 1991
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/cl_2