Question: You’ve told us that you made that noise before. But I feel that it must have been for a different reason, like an inner reason.

Sri Chinmoy: The inner reason is that I wanted to forget the outer circumstances. I wanted to obliterate completely the memory of even the last five minutes. I did not want to hear anything, I did not want to see anything. The noise I made while running was in my speed, and also it was in my consciousness. And I was not looking this side or that side. Everybody was screaming, but it was not affecting me. But if I did not make that noise, perhaps it would have affected me because so many names were coming. Some were screaming “Chinmoy, Chinmoy.” Some were screaming the nickname of the person in second place, “Tiki, Tiki.” Right from 1944, I made that noise while competing.