We are all evolving: each of us, personally and collectively, socially, economically, culturally, historically, along with all species, our planet Earth, our solar system, galaxy and universe, every particle, light, time and space, all knowledge and understanding. We are all flowing with the current of time, the river of progress, the inexorable sweep of evolution. We may have no idea where we have come from and no concept of where we are heading, but that we are evolving – somehow and towards some destination – is unquestionable.
Evolution implies a journey towards a goal. Thus, the notion of traveling, journeying, progressing – running – towards a goal is intrinsic to our very being.
Running, then, is not just a metaphor for life – running is life and life is running. Inwardly and spiritually, we are constantly running towards a goal whether we know it or not. Unless and until you can stop the wheel of evolution turning, meditation is running, and running is meditation.
Running is the simplest self-expression, the purest revelation, the most natural manifestation in the physical realm of our very essence, an eternal, unquenchable yearning for progress through self-transcendence. We were runners before we ever ran; we are runners while sleeping, standing and sitting still; we shall forever remain runners after all our running is done…
We are all runners, whether or not we call ourselves “runners”, and we are all meditators, whether or not we imagine ourselves as “meditators”: as we are running towards our ever-elusive goal, so are we meditating below the surface of life with every breath and step. On a deep, intuitive level, we love running, for to run is to be one with our most natural state of being. While running, we can be and become truly ourselves, the very definition of meditation.
“Run and become.
Become and run.
Run to succeed in the outer world.
Become to proceed in the inner world.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Running and meditation are two of mankind’s oldest, most enduring, yet ever-new and ever-fulfilling pursuits.
In their essence, running and meditation are one, inseparable. They are parallel and identical quests: for truth, meaning, peace, happiness, satisfaction, self-discovery and transcendence.
Why is the connection between running and meditation so deep? Both go to the very core of our identity, our purpose, our aspiration, our being. We are spiritual seekers, eternally running.
It is common to imagine we are primarily physical and mental beings with a spiritual dimension somewhere in the background, as though spirituality comes as an optional add-on or bonus pack with our existence, something we can opt into or out of. Yet precisely the opposite is true: we are souls, spiritual beings first and foremost, living in and experiencing, perhaps transiting through this material, temporal world.
Running and meditation both access, explore and reveal our spiritual self. They complement each other.
Try meditating before you run; try running before you meditate. To focus yourself before running, meditate for a few minutes with utmost intensity and clarity. You will be more present while you run and gain more from the effort and experience. Running – especially running with full intensity – is also a most effective way to clear the mind, focus our vital energy and surcharge the body; an ideal preparation for a deep and fulfilling meditation. We may imagine that running will tire us out; yet ironically, going for a short, brisk run is a wonderful way to awaken and energise ourselves in preparation for meditation – far better than stimulants.
Run always with the poise of meditation; meditate with the flowing progress of running.
Though our breath brings us life, and sustains us, we have really no idea how it does this, or where it has come from. Our breath is an absolute miracle and eternal mystery, and it is here, within us, always. We do not have to go to a temple, to a church, to a monastery, we do not have to climb a mountain, go into the forest or ascend to the Himalayas, to find the sacred and the divine, for there is nothing more sacred in this universe than the miracle of our breath. As Sri Chinmoy wrote in one of his poems:
“Each breathing moment
Is a miracle.”
– and we are that miracle.
So while breathing, feel that you are in the presence not only of something wonderful, something special, something loveable but also, you are in the presence of something most sacred, the source of life itself, that spirit which infuses the entire creation. Feel not only love and gratitude for your breath: something more, feel reverence for your breath. Then you will be eager to spend time each day in silent communion with your breath.
They say in the martial arts, that whoever can control their breath perfectly, is in control of their life’s destiny. And it is absolutely true. Practising this exercise for five minutes a day will gradually improve the control of your breath, while simultaneously increasing your control over your thoughts and emotions, while deepening your self-awareness and furthering your self-discovery.
This simple exercise is supremely powerful, for it is the solid foundation of our meditation practise, the gateway to the infinite realms of self-discovery. As we enter these realms, we gain access to the infinite, eternal, immortal treasures that await.
You do not have any other duties or responsibilities – no study, no work, no family. Your only task is to breathe and count, and you are going to perform this task to the absolute pinnacle of your capacity.
Your breath is everything. Your breath is your life, your source, your nourishment, your breath is your most intimate friend, your favourite hobby, your art, your song, your child, your creation.
Some people express themselves through painting, poetry or music: you are an artist of the breath. Each breath is a new poem, a new song, a new painting; into each breath, pour all your heart’s love, your joy, your creative ingenuity. Strive to make each breath something absolutely perfect, and then make each next breath, more perfect.
You do not even have a name, or a form: you are a being who breathes. That is all you need, that is all you want. To breathe and to count is the sum of your happiness. You are full, you are complete, for you have your breath, you are your breath.
Feel inside yourself: “I’m so grateful to have this rare opportunity to spend time alone with that force which has given me life, that force which sustains me, that force which loves me more than anything, which sacrifices itself for me, my breath. In silent solitude I honour my breath, I respect, I give it my attention, my concern, my love, and above all, my gratitude. I’m so grateful to my breath, for all that it has given me, for through my breath I am able to experience life, I’m able to experience the world, all its beauty, all its colour, its vibrancy, its splendour, its love, its joy, its intimacy, its perfection – all thanks to my breath.”
If you were spending precious time alone with your best friend, and another person came barging in the door, you would send that person away. You would command them: “Go away! I’m alone with my best friend, leave us alone, go away.” So, while you’re practising your breathing and counting, any other thoughts or distractions that want or dare to approach you, are uninvited guests. Simply do not let them in. They’re not allowed. Put a sign on the door: DO NOT DISTURB.
After you’ve finished the exercise, these other thoughts can come in, if you will allow them, but for now, they have to stay away.
The number you choose really doesn’t matter, because we all have different lung capacity. All that matters is that it is comfortable for you. We’re not trying to break the world record for the longest breath, we are trying to control our breath, so choose a number that you’re going to be able to maintain, for ever – something that you’re comfortable with. So, sitting up straight, close your eyes.
We’re breathing through our nostrils, and breathing deep using our diaphragm. Let’s say my number is five: as I breath in, I’m counting – one, two, three, four, five and holding – one, two – and exhale – one, two, three, four, five; and breathing in again – one, two, three, four, five – and hold for one, two and breathe out – one, two, three, four, five. Count to your own number, in your own rhythm, but make the rhythm absolutely metronomic, absolutely steady, and continuous.
Nothing else exists, nothing else matters. The entire world outside of this room is dissolved, it’s gone. Your whole universe right now is your breath and the counting that is controlling your breath and keeping you focused on your breath.
Love your breath. Then you will so keen, so eager to focus on your breath. You will feel: “Oh, I’m so happy, because my breath is my best friend. I love my breath dearly, and this is the opportunity to be alone with my best friend, my favourite companion.”
Who doesn’t want to be alone with their best friend? Rather than being dismayed at the prospect of sitting still with our boring breath and mechanical counting, we are faced instead with the thrilling opportunity to engage in our favourite pastime with our beloved friend.
Our breath is the most essential reality in our lives: stop breathing, and we’re dead, so it’s very, very important. Yet how often do we give our breath any attention? Almost never. We take it for granted, the same way we take for granted that the sun shines, or the light comes on when we flick the switch. So many things in life which we take for granted, but they are amazing: and there’s nothing more amazing in our life than our breath. Our breath is a miracle. And it’s happening the whole time, right here. I’m looking here and there, chatting, reading, working, worrying, focussed on everything and nothing, while this incredible miracle is happening within me, at every moment.
Our breath is always giving to us – energy, oxygen, life-force, inspiration – it’s always feeding us and nourishing us, so let’s spend some time giving something back. Our breath is our oldest, most intimate, closest, most loyal friend. It’s the only friend who has never ever let us down in our life.
Everyone appreciates getting some attention and appreciation, and our breath is no different. So, let’s show our breath some love, let’s show our breath some concern, some attention, some focus.
Our most simple meditation exercise is breathing and counting.
When we meditate, we sit straight, to widen our chest so we can breathe more deeply, and to be more alert, more focussed, more in control. Choose a number that you will be able to count up to, slowly and silently as you breathe in. Then hold your breath for two counts in the same rhythm, then count to the same number as you breathe out. That is the entire exercise: do not think of anything else and do not allow any distraction to disturb your focus.
Some people find the very idea of just breathing and counting, dull and boring. If we feel something is dull and boring, we will not be inspired to practice at all. Or if we do practice, we will do so reluctantly and half-heartedly, and derive practically no benefit. So let us try another approach.
Love is the most powerful magnetic force, drawing all our being towards the object of our love. Think of anything that you love to do. If you love an activity, you are eagerly thinking about that activity and ready to dive into it, and once you are engaged in it, you don’t want to stop. Someone who loves to garden, just wants to spend all their time gardening, because they love it. People who love football, want to play football, and then when they’re finished, they can’t wait to talk about it, and then to watch the replays, then dream about it, and the next morning, it’s all football again.
Love is a superpower, the secret of success and progress in any field. We all have love within us, it is our very essence. So let us employ this superpower in our breathing and counting exercise.
We all thought Uncle Jack a bit peculiar. He would spend most of his days in the dense scrub behind the house, getting up to nothing in particular. Or so we thought.
Everyone in our large family was constantly occupied with meaningful tasks: going off to study, to work or look for work, heading out to travel, dashing to meetings, to rehearsals, training or sport, to engagements or entertainments of one kind or another. Everyone was busy busy busy: we formed a constant stream of traffic in and out. Our front door was a portal leading to all the promise and possibilities of life, for those who would go and pursue them. Which was everyone … except Uncle Jack.
Uncle Jack hardly ever passed through the front door. Only when he really had to. Or to help someone in need. And no-one else ever went out the back. Because, why would you? There was only scrub. Uncle Jack was sweet enough, and kindly, always with a smile which seemed to speak for him – so we left him alone. No-one ever thought to inquire about what he got up to all day.
Then the phone call came. Someone said they absolutely had to speak with Uncle Jack, and it couldn’t wait. Being the only one home, I’d have to go and find him. Out in the stupid scrub. Somewhere out the back.
And there it was. My heart stopped.
Just a metre behind the hedge: softly shimmering unearthly beauty, whispering leaves an ethereal chorus, a magical shaded pool of fragrant tranquillity; perfection fulfilled. Through the timeless breathless stillness, with a knowing nod, smilingly Uncle Jack floated off to the phone. He was never seen thereafter.
Nowadays, they look at me the way we used to look at Uncle Jack.
In meditation, imagination is our indispensable friend, guide, ally, confidence and assurance.
Like gratitude, our power of imagination is a gift from the spiritual realm, which in turn, guides us back to our inner reality, from whence it has come. When imagination arises from our heart’s cry, and not our confused mind or restless vital, imagination first shows us our possibility, blossoming into our future inevitability.
To make the fastest progress in meditation, an active and creative imagination is an unfailing catalyst to our love, eagerness, devotion and discipline.
Imagination fells forests of doubt; hurdles walls of fear; tames hurricanes of confusion; and charts oceans of the unknown. Imagination is the precursor of reality, parent of creation. Imagination shows us the sunrise before the dawn appears; offers the ripe fruit when the tree is but a seed. Everything that exists in the physical realm, started as imagination: the chair you are sitting on was first imagined, before it was designed and then constructed. Imagination shapes our meditation, and in turn our meditation shapes our life and our destiny.
Always imagine only the positive, the bright and progressive: just as imagination can be a powerful force for good, so too it can be a vengeful weapon of gloom and destruction.
Imagination enables transformation. Imagination gives form to prayer, shape to meditation and flavour to aspiration.
Imagine – thoughtless meditation. The thrill of imagining this fanciful impossibility, will before long, expedite this glowing reality.
Imagine – perfect bliss. This bliss, which shimmers already deep within, envelops you as it hearkens your imagination’s call.
Imagine – the transcendence of your ego. Over and again. Imagined with an unwavering inner cry, ego’s death warrant is sealed.
With utmost sincerity, imagine – pristine purity. In pristine purity, whatever you imagine, is foreseen reality.
Most of us are connected to a regional or national electrical grid, which stores electrical power from its various sources, and regulates and delivers this power to households, businesses and industry. To access the electrical grid, we need credit with a provider, and our house or apartment must be suitably wired and connected to overhead or underground power lines. Then, each electrical appliance must be plugged in to an appropriate power outlet or socket, and switched on.
Just as we have constructed a grid for electrical power, so all forms of physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual energy and power are each conveyed and accessed by their own form of grid. Like the electricity grid, these grids are within, all around and beyond us. The more subtle the energy, the more subtle is its grid, and the more finely we must tune ourselves to receive and utilise it.
Just as we must be connected with the electrical power grid to access electrical power, so to access the spiritual power grid of happiness, peace, love, devotion, enthusiasm, faith, joy and bliss, we must have an account, be connected, plugged in and switched on.
We are each a node of the spiritual power grid, either passive or active, dormant or awake. Our spiritual heart is a sub-station for receiving, storing and transmitting spiritual power, within and all around us. So, to activate our account with the spiritual power grid, and to switch on its limitless array of qualities, we must first access our spiritual heart.
How?
Meditate. Meditation in our spiritual heart plugs us directly into the universal and transcendental spiritual power grid, granting us access to the unfailing current of spiritual qualities and their capacities.
Meditate, to gradually uncover and grow into the universal power.
Your typical mind is a dense, impenetrable thorny thicket of thoughts.
Every thorny thicket was once upon a time a clear space. And can become so again. Just as time and neglect conspired to allow the bushes and brambles to proliferate and entrench themselves, so time and dedicated effort can slowly untangle and eradicate them and return the space to its former beauty.
There is no easy way to clear such a thicket. It is hard work. Just as the tricky thicket of our mind has become ever denser and thornier over a lifetime of constant distraction, stimulation and ‘education’, so to clear the mind, requires years of patient, determined, disciplined effort in meditation. To clear the mind, just start your meditation journey, continue and persist cheerfully with relentless purpose and unwavering faith, till the task is complete.
*************
Some mountains are almost never seen. Their summits are perpetually swathed in clouds, mist and fog.
So also, are the summits of our inner life, the peaks of spiritual experience, almost never glimpsed through the swirling cloud and fog of our mind’s thoughts, theories, conjecture, distractions, obsessions, fears, fantasies, illusions and delusions.
Yet once in a rare while, even the most elusive peaks peek through their veil, bearing bright sunlight through a break in the clouds. So also, in flashes we glimpse moments of pure bliss, sense perfect peace, feel universal love, and perceive the inner oneness of things.
The mountain is always there. And so are our inner heights. To see the mountain, we must wait for rare breaks in the weather: just imagine if we had the power to remove these clouds at our sweet will.
Such is the power of meditation: dispersing the mind’s clouds, our inner mountain heights are revealed.
Our mind is a mirror. A mirror shows not reality, but a reflection of reality.
Just as a misshapen mirror will offer us a grotesque or distorted image of ourselves, so a mind contorted by dogma, fear, pride or prejudice, will show us a bizarre caricature of the real. Whoever harbours strong beliefs and opinions, perceives and projects a confronting world, as though walking through a hall of weirdly distorting mirrors.
Only when a mirror is perfectly clear, with no cracks, chips, smudges or stains; and perfectly flat, with no surface convolutions, does it offer a faithful and reliable reflection of whatever stands before it. Even so, only a perfectly clear and still mind can offer a fair apprehension of what it perceives as the world.
*************
Water is essential to life. Indeed, it may be said that water is the essence of life. Water cleanses, cools, sustains, revives, refreshes, nourishes and energises us. Yet impure water can drain our energy, make us sick and even kill us.
Our mind is like water, which we are constantly drinking and bathing in. A pure mind, absent of thoughts, desires and distractions, is a life-energising drink for our fastest progress, deepest self-discovery, furthest expansion and surest illumination.
Yet a mind carrying the impurities of false, limiting, binding, destructive thoughts and ideas, is as enervating, debilitating, stifling, crippling, cloying and ultimately fatal to our inner health and happiness, as impure water is to our physical wellbeing.
We know the value of pure water to our outer health, and take great care to avoid impure water, well aware of its potential destructive power. Even more so, for our spiritual health and happiness, must we be super-cautious and vigilant to protect and safeguard the purity of our mind.
Cataracts develop slowly, and gradually cloud the lens of the eye, blurring our vision and making the world appear less and less clear.
Opinions, prejudices and beliefs are cataracts of the mind.
Just as cataracts scatter and block light as it passes through the lens of the eye, so our opinions, prejudices and even innocuous beliefs, obscure and distort reality, preventing our mind from perceiving the clear light of truth.
As we age, cataracts take hold and expand; the lenses of our eyes become thicker, harder and less flexible, just as our opinions and prejudices tend to become more rigid and obdurate with time. So, the clarity of our vision and our mental acuity often decline in parallel with each other.
It used to be thought that cataracts were an irreversible condition, our declining eyesight irredeemable, but a surgical procedure can now remove cataracts completely, restoring our vision to near-perfection, seemingly miraculously. The problem was never our vision, but the cataracts obscuring our vision.
So also, the most fixed of opinions and prejudices can be removed by the surgery of meditation, and the mind’s clarity and perspicacity restored to its natural perfection.
*************
We are surrounded by and immersed in an infinite array of vibrations, frequencies, waves, signals and rays, including multitudinous thoughts, concepts and emotions.
To enjoy music on the radio, our receiver must be perfectly matched to the frequency of our desired channel. Unless the receiver is precisely tuned, we get only static and jumbled sounds. Our mind is this radio receiver, subject to constant bombardment by hordes of perceptions, thoughts and impulses.
To focus our mind requires that we be concentrated precisely on one frequency; and insulate ourselves from all others. Only in a perfectly tuned mind, is meditation attainable.
