Quotes about running by Sri Chinmoy.
Benefits of running
“The inner running and the outer running complement each other. For outer running, we need discipline. Without a life of discipline, we cannot succeed in any walk of life. So when we do outer running, it reminds us of the inner running.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Running helps us considerably. Running is continuous motion. Because of our running, we feel that there is a goal — not only an outer goal but also an inner goal.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“In the morning if we can energise ourselves with physical activities, then we can accomplish so many things during the rest of the day. That is why I say sports and physical fitness are of supreme importance. If we neglect the physical and let the body become weak, then the mind also becomes weak.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Runners deal with freshness, freshness of the mind. While they are running, nature is helping them. Every day, early in the morning or in the evening, runners go out to practise in the street or at a track. When you run, it is just you and Mother Nature. From the sky, light is flowing. Here, there, you get so much inspiration. Everything helps you to achieve your goal.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Running and meditation
“Before running, however, meditation is good to make the mind calm and quiet so that wrong forces do not enter. When you meditate, your mind acquires some poise. Then, while you are running, if you can bring forward this poise, it will help you overcome the mental frustration that often comes while running long distances.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“This is my simple suggestion. Before the race starts, meditate most soulfully for five minutes. Try to make yourself feel that you are not the runner, but that somebody else is running in and through you. You are only the witness, the spectator.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“In sports we need energy, strength and dynamism. When we meditate, we make our mind calm and quiet. If inside us there is peace, then we will derive tremendous strength from our inner life. That is to say, if I have a peaceful moment, even for one second, that peace will come to me as solid strength in my sports, whether I am running or jumping or throwing. That strength is almost indomitable strength, whereas if we are restless, we do not have strength like that.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“When a runner focuses all his attention on a particular race, he is in a position to free his mind, liberate his mind, from uncomely distractions. Here one-pointed concentration is the pathfinder for a deeper meditative consciousness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The meaning of running
“Running means continual transcendence, and that is also the message of our inner life.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“These long distance races remind me of our Eternity’s race. Along Eternity’s Shore we are running, running, running. We are running and running with our birthless and deathless hopes. We are running and running with the ever-transcending Beyond.””
– Sri Chinmoy
“Run and become.
Become and run.
Run to succeed in the outer world.
Become to proceed in the inner world.”
Sri Chinmoy,
“The outer running reminds us
Of the soul’s inner running
With Eternity, Infinity and Immortality.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“My outer running makes me unimaginably happy. My inner running makes my Lord abundantly proud of me.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Running is a symbolic sport in the sense that it reminds us of spiritual seekers continuously running towards the goal; it resembles the seekers running inwardly to achieve the ultimate goal in meditation.”
– Sri Chinmoy,
“I am running a marathon.
Self-pity, self-doubt, all gone.
The golden Goal is beckoning me.
I am now ecstasy-flood-sea.”
– Sri Chinmoy,
Winning and losing
“He is the great winner
Who wins.
He is the greater winner
Who is the cheerful loser.
He is the greatest winner
Who gives equal value
To victory and defeat.
He alone is the real loser
Who separates
Defeat from victory.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To cope with the disappointment of losing, you have to ask yourself whether the mind is disappointed or the heart is disappointed. You will come to realise that it is your mind that is disappointed and not your heart. The mind creates division; the mind is division itself, and division is another name for pain, devastating pain. The heart, on the other hand, creates oneness; in fact, the heart is oneness itself, and oneness is another name for joy, spontaneous joy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“If the runner is a seeker, then he has a special role. His role is to compete with himself and try to increase his own capacity. But he has to know that he will increase his capacity only by virtue of the infinite Grace of God, if so is the Will of God.”
– Sri Chinmoy,
“Competition is good,
Provided it is the competition
Of self-transcendence
And not the competition
Of ego-demonstration.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“I do not compete
With the rest of the world.
I compete only with myself,
For my progress is my true victory.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Ask me to run with the fastest runner and I will be nowhere. But when the person runs, I get great joy because I feel that it is I who have run the fastest. If you can identify with other people’s successes instead of envying them, you will get a great deal more joy out of life. And of course, if you can identify with their defeats as well, you will learn sympathy and kindness as well as enriching your own experience.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Life and sports cannot be separated; they are one. As a matter of fact, life itself is a game. This game can be played extremely well, provided the player develops consciously or unconsciously the capacity to invoke the transcendental energy which is always manifested in action.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Drugs in sport
“I am extremely happy that they are going out of their way to make sure the athletes do not take drugs. It is a great, great achievement. It is not only a physical or mental achievement; it is not only an achievement in the athletic world. It represents also a great advance for the spiritual life. People who take drugs are destroying their nerves and their health.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Footnotes
