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I came across a very interesting world clock counter on poodwaddle.com, (thanks to Joy Bringer at zaadz for finding it) showing world population increases, births, deaths and a whole bunch of other stuff. You can show increases on a yearly, weekly and daily basis - mot to mention the ‘now’ button, upon pressing which all the counters start off from zero. Within the first twenty seconds, there are 90 births and 41 deaths - including a couple of cases of heart disease, a traffic accident and a suicide - 27 marriages and 6 divorces. 8 hectares of forest have been cut down, 33 cars manufactured, 73 bicycles, and 58 computers.

It would be nice to see some of the more depressing stats here balanced out with statistics like number of smiles given, number of kindnesses performed (and so forth), but I suppose goodness has always been much less amenable to measurement than its counterpart. Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s old maxim comes to mind: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye….”

The most striking thing, for me at any rate, was going to the ‘daily’ button and looking at the number of deaths. It is only 1 pm here, and already 82,000 people have shuffled off the mortal coil today, replaced by almost 200,000 new souls eagerly embarking on their new world-adventure. In this age of standing out from the crowd, there is something very levelling about one being placed in the daily ‘outbox’ of the world along with over eighty thousand people you never met. For a few minutes, I looked in mute wonder at the game of birth and death being played out before my eyes; somewhere in these figures an invisible hand beckoned me, and fed my inner yearning to dig beyond the figures and find the meaning behind it all.

Hmm. Let’s face it, the amount of films out there that try to deliver high spiritual truth the audience can be counted on the fingers of one hand. (In fact, at the moment I’m struggling to count them on the fingers of one finger) So of course - we have to settle for the next best thing, which is: movies that don’t make me go to bed afterwards and have bad dreams about being hunted down by the CIA, or some variant thereof.

I just watched Oceans 13 - I do like that whole Oceans series; most action stories nowadays are relying on increasingly ruthless and sadistic villians to keep the suspense screws tightening, but instead the focus in these films is on always the ingenuity of the scheme, and the bonhomie between the cast, you almost even feel all the good and bad guys could sit down together over sushi and reminisce about it all afterwards. Another film I also like very much is Star Trek: Insurrection. “An appealing millennial throwback to the hippie dream that is part and parcel of Star Trek’s utopian ethos.”, wrote the reviewer in the New York Times. I always liked the utopian ethos of Star Trek, everyone getting along and all that. I never liked those sci-fi film where the future is just as messed up as the present is. Plus I’d watch paint dry if Patrick Stewart were painting it. In days gone by, I used to imagine myself directing King Lear with him in the lead role. What else? Ah, yes. Close your eyes and don’t laugh: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. There, I said it. I think because it’s just good storytelling, and good storytelling warms the heart. And some of it is extremely funny, like the bit where (at a time when the Arabs were like the Silicon Valley of the Middle Ages) the Moorish guy played by Morgan Freeman gives the technologically-backward Kev a little telescope to see the approaching enemy, and then the camera pans back to see Kev fearfully holding out his sword as if trying to prod the soldiers he sees in the telescope; Morgan then snatches the scope from him in despair and wonders aloud how these fools ever captured Jerusalem. Oh, wait, there’s actually a spiritual bit in this, where the little kid asks Morgan did God paint him, and Morgan says yes, because Allah loves wondrous variety. So there. I’ve kind of always had a soft spot for Kevin Costner, I have to admit, some of the films he’s done have had a very idealistic core.

(hmm, I believe the blog falls a little short of the comprehansive listing that the title might have suggested, but it appears these days you have to couch the title of your post in the words “the most..(insert something) Ever!!!” to get any attention, so who am I to disagree?).

My Lord says to me,
“My child, be not a beggar of what I have.
Be a chooser of Who I am.”

- Sri Chinmoy

(Photo taken by Prabhakar Street; the route of the marathon referred to in the previous blog entry made its way around this lake. I guess this picture was taken around 6.30am, shortly before race start. I wonder if she ran it.)

Giuseppe from Austria sent this to me today with the caption “return of the zombie” that forms the title of this post. This is my finish at the Self Transcendence Marathon in Rockland State Park in New York, which took place on August 25th. Basically, I looked up at the clock, decided 3:06 wasn’t going to turn into 3:07 anytime soon, and slowed down to a walk two metres before the finish line.

It looks like I had a pretty tough race; I did. (In fact, I decided not to publish some of my mid-race pictures in order to preserve the delicate aesthetic balance on this site.) Some of the toughness was actually quite a nice spiritual experience - you somehow realise that a lot of the pain is just you fighting and resisting and complaining inside, and as soon as you give all that up and just surrender to the experience, things get a whole lot better. I remember Suprabha Beckjord, one of the foremost women’s ultrarunners in the world and the only person to complete every edition of the world’s longest race, the 3100 mile Self-Transcendence Race, saying how ultrarunning “was a first-hand experience of God’s Grace and Compassion”. True that. It’s something you can very tangibly feel, when you let go of all the mental baggage; something reeling you in like a fisherman towards the finish line, something ‘closer to you than your own neck vein’, as the Koran would put it. In daily life, we live in the mental world, where all of these ideas - the soul, God, bliss - float around, capable neither of being proved nor disproved. It’s only when you take the plunge and do something outside the realm of the mind that some direct experience of these things can make itself available to you.

Ok, I believe I have some explaining to do…

I am in New York at the moment, with my teacher Sri Chinmoy, meditating and generally learning more about myself and the world. Saturday night meditation functions with my teacher are invariably given over to spiritual plays, and various groups take their turn to go on and perform. One of the newest groups is directed by Canadian Udar Robinson, and has gained quite a reputation over the past year or so for the quality of their plays: Sri Chinmoy gave them the name Udar: the Unbounded Troupe. There is a core of five people in the group, but they often need guest actors if there are many parts, and they are often in especial need of people willing to die quickly and without fuss. And that is where I came in.

Last Saturday, the play was a retelling of the ancient Mahabharata story of Drona and Drupada. As a child, Drona and Drupada were best friends, and Drupada (who was a prince) promised Drona (who was not) half his kingdom when he grew up. Of course, time and politics intervened, and Drona found himself out on his ear when he went to ask for his half, so naturally knives were sharpened in revenge. My job was to rush on stage to where King Drupada was holding court, announce that Drona’s army was making mincemeat of us, and then die (no better way to reinforce the point that Drona was making mincemeat of us.)

So my clothes were supposed to be all bloodied from battle, and I had these arrows stuck in my back. And I had a bottle of ketchup mixed with water. I was thinking about tipping the ketchup over myself just as I entered stage, but Dinesha also suggested I could take some ketchup in my mouth, and then when I said my first words it would all come out! Beside me in the photo is the king’s minister, played by Budhsamudra, who was shortly to suffer from a mild dose of stage death himself.

Note to self: Next time I die, I will try to die in a position where I can actually see what is going on in the rest of the play. Also, if I am dying on a gritty surface, I will try not to land ketchup side down.

Big thank you: Salil for taking these photos. He is actually one of the core group of five in the play, and was supposed to play the mighty Bhima, warrior of warriors, but unfortunately he came down with a most un-Bhimalike sniffly cold, and retired to bed whilst we were rehearsing all cuddled up with his teddy bear, who he fondly refers to as Cuddles. (All of this is said in the knowledge that Salil is too much of a gentleman to sue me for outright libel).

They do not sell your statues in the shops, O Mother.
Buddha, Ganesh, Lakshmi, all in vogue,
adorning lobbies of comfortable houses,
prosperity to those who already have,
a scent of spirituality to mask the rot

but you, Mother, are not in fashion.
no marketing niche for you,
no category
the analytic mind sees you coming,
scythe gleaming in the sun
to once and for all
cleave the Real from the unreal
it drops everything
and flees

Mother, we talk amongst ourselves
about how life is suffering
life is unfair
sometimes I imagine
that when I get to the soul’s world
I can write God a strongly worded letter
demanding immediate and radical changes
to the Cosmic Game
before I agree to come back down again

but you,
you are just having the time of your life,
are you not?

and those who come to know your dance
can see it everywhere

I bet that was you
with your arms around your long-suffering servant
as the car gracefully pirouettes through the air
with him in it
I see you taunting the forces of death
just try
i dare you
i double triple dare you
touch him
go on
cross that line
and see what happens

I bet that was you
coasting inland
atop a chariot of tidal waves
gathering souls to yourself
like a blackjack dealer in Vegas
ready to spread them out again
on freshly-watered soils

I bet that was you
standing on top of the crossbar in 1988
when Charlie Redmond took that penalty
and you were laughing your head off

I bet that was you
dancing with a fury
and a speed
that makes you seem everywhere at once
stampeding through opposing armies
like a Nebraska linebacker
as tanks shatter through walls
as men pierce through boys
and the game gathers pace

And I know that is you
standing behind your chosen sons
the great Masters
who like the Buddha
will not move
will not sleep
until your six billion children
one by one
awaken
rub their eyes
and wonder why it took so long
to truly live

your dearest, dearest, dearest sons
dearer to you than your own Life
yet you strap them to the leaden harness of a human body
as they hold their nose and take the plunge
immersed and alone in the sea of ignorance
but you stand beside their bed
as they lie hooked up to the machine of maya
you hold their hands
as they siphon the ingratitude and begrudgery of the world
out through their very bones
Oh Mother, often I marvel how they can stay on earth for so long
and when I do
in the silence
then
I sense the starlit footprints of Your Compassion.

Mother, the PR department have been on to me
they say you are giving God a bad name
you are not projecting the right image
they have given me a 492-page manual on politically correct etiquette for cosmic gods
they want you to study it
they want you to put some clothes on
and behave yourself
maybe then, they say, they’ll even be able to sell your statues in the shops
but their stilted ideas about compassion
bind and blind compassion itself
because the more I discover you
I see your naked sword is indistinguishable from your cooling touch
your reaping is indistinguishable from your sowing
that the hour of death is as much your Compassion
as the hour of birth
and that the entire universe
is but a one-act play
of your Love

.

Anyone who has been on a juice fast, or other kind of detox program knows there is a general period of uncomfortableness whilst the fast releases all the toxins and they make their way out through your bloodstream. you could say the process of meditation is a bit like a juice fast for the entire being, and sometimes the process brings up various mental and emotional toxins that had been lying dormant deep within, and it can be definitely a trying time as they come to the fore and swirl around your system for a bit befire making their way out.

The mistake many people make is to identify with all these thoughts and feelings, and to feel that these feelings are actually part of them, and start blaming themselves for being such a bad person - all this does is give the negative qualities added strength and increase your helplessness about being able to do anything about overcoming them. All of the great meditation teachers have instead encouraged their students to instead always bring the more positive side of their being to the fore, by either invoking the opposite quality of the negative quality they are currently feeling, or to invoke their higher Self that stands eternally beyond the pale of any petty day-to-day thoughts. The great spiritual master Sri Ramakrishna used to say: “If you say, ‘I am a sinner’, eternally, you will remain a sinner to all eternity. You ought rather to repeat, ‘I am not bound, I am not bound. Who can bind me ? I am the son of God, the king of kings.’”.

The feeling of unworthiness and usefulness is something that has to be banished from a spiritual seeker’s life. All people search for truth unconsciously, but how many people aspire consciously to realise who they really are and what their trup purpose on earth is? Not very many, and if you are one of those rare few people, you are a very special soul indeed. Here are a couple of quotes I like:

“There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that.”

- Sri Anandamayi Ma

If you want to make the fastest progress,
At least seven times a day,
Perhaps for only five seconds,
But with a very strong inner intensity,
Be consciously aware of your spirituality.
You are on a very, very special path.
You are not an ordinary person.
You are a chosen instrument of the Supreme.

- Sri Chinmoy

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

(Jaaludin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks)

I came across this gem on poetseers.org. I like poems like this that lay down the gauntlet and prod you out of any complacency you might be feeling. The mind can make everything seem mundane, even the spiritual life. And the spiritual life is the greatest adventure there is. Living at the limits of the possible, challenging your imperfections at any turn, witnessing little miracles of growth and transformation happen when you least expect them. It’s important to remember that.

(I read another poem on the same theme, if not quite in the same vein, yesterday - it was written by Vikramaditya, an American student of Sri Chinmoy. It was called ‘The Wrath of Vikramaditya’. The wrath was directed at anyone who had been practising meditation and had allowed the notion to creep into their minds that perhaps they can relax and let enlightenment come in the next incarnation or the one after that….there is indeed wrath in this poem, a lot of it, two pages worth to be exact, a big stick to Rumi’s little carrot - but perhaps both are needed, stick and carrot alike. Vikramaditya’s poem is available in the August 2005 edition of Panorama, a compilation of poetry prose and art created by Sri Chinmoy’s students from all around the world. Actually, I believe that is Prabhakar Street, one of the editors of Panorama, in the above photo, which was taken by Jowan Gauthier)

“If your running is going well, it’s a sign that your spiritual life is in good nick.” - so a fellow student of Sri Chinmoy and long-time runner, Jogyata from New Zealand, likes to say. It’s certainly true that you can have experiences in running that have a life-transforming effect. My running has increased in the last few weeks as a result of the marathon training program myself and all my friend have been doing, so I have been having fair share of experiences - you can read about one race I had in Paris a couple of weeks ago on another blog post, but here are a couple of experiences I’ve had since:

The Sunday after the Paris race, I did a three-hour run in which the pace gradually increased towards the finish. I usually need to call on quite a lot of inner strength to finish these runs and I’m normally left with a fair degree of stiffness afterwards, but to my amazement and gratitude I enjoyed the whole experience from beginning to end, I felt I was just like a child running, not thinking about what pace I was running or how long I had left to go. And there were no bad after effects either, thanks to the warm-down routine I’ve recently adopted (I’ve actually just written an article about it on allaboutrunning.net). It was really quite something.

And then, in total contrast, there was the training session a a few days after, a set of five 1km fast intervals on a nearby track. No zip in the legs whatsoever, and I was struggling just to put one foot in front of the other. In the middle of that run, the previous three hour run came to mind and I marvelled at how two runs could be so different, how one could be so easy and the other so hard. But then I remembered something my teacher, Sri Chinmoy said about good or bad experiences: “If we live in the soul, we will see that everything that happens here on earth has some meaning, because God does not do anything contrary to His own ultimate Fulfilment. With our human eyes we see unbearable pain and sorrow; the whole world is full of suffering. But when we pray and meditate, when we go deep within, we see that there is no such thing as suffering or joy. It is all the operation of God’s Will. When this Will is in operation, sometimes we call it suffering and sometimes we call it joy, or we use some other term. A spiritual person tries to identify himself with the experience that God Himself is having, and not with what is taking place in the outer manifestation.“ And so I realised that, similarly, Sunday and today are merely two experiences - one day an experience where everything goes like a dream, another day an experience where every step is effort. From then on the run became much better to handle - I could somehow stand aside from what I was feeling and treat it as just another experience, rather than be caught up brooding over how tired I was and any discomfort I might be having.

At the end of that week, seven of us from the Dublin Sri Chinmoy Centre were off on a four-day cycling trip around the county of Waterford. The trip included a stop by the village of Dunhill about ten miles outside Waterford city to run a 10k race (like the Paris race, it was exactly on the 10k race scheduled on our training plan this weekend). Cycling over to the race start, we realised one thing - it was going to be hilly - very hilly. I was doing my usual race warm-up when it occured to me that I wasn’t actually in much of an inner frame of mind to run a race - I was a little tired from the cycling, a little mentally scattered, and also it was shaping up to be quite a hot and sticky day. I realised perhaps the best warm-up I could do for the race would be to meditate for a few minutes! So I found myself a nice quiet spot and meditated; and a beautiful clarity of the heart accompanied me on my way out to the race start.

Then the race began. They told us it would be a bit of up and down hill at the start, flat in the middle, and uphill at the end. Well, I reached the first major climb and came down at speed, thinking that was the extent of it, only to find a second climb straight after. Everyone I spoke to after the race said the second climb is where they really suffered, and that was only at the 3k mark. It was strange, because we were running through some of the most beautiful scenery I can ever remember looking at, but it was kind of hard to appreciate any of it! But at one point I thought of the meditation I had before the race, and specifically I remembered how good I felt walking back from it…right then, I could feel something from that experience entering into me now, and giving me new impetus. When your inner attitude changes, everything changes. We were still running through some of the most beautiful roads, but now I could really take it all in and let the serenity of my surroundings enter into me - outer movement, inner stillness. (That isn’t the race trophy I’m holding by the way - its actually the prestigious Munster Cup which the Waterford hurling team had won the previous week, and which happened to be making a guest appearance for the race)

This same feeling came to me during another three-hour run I had only a couple of days ago. This one started and continued on at a faster pace than I would have liked, and when I finished, I had absolutely zero in the tank. And i mean zero. But what kept me going was my surroundings, and the feeling of moving at speed through them. I am increasingly perceiving during running how everything around us has a kind of energy we can use - for example, running through forests or near water always seems to pick me up, as long as my mind isn’t off on holiday somewhere and I can stay in the moment and attune myself to the surroundings. You can feel it most obviously in a race with plenty of crowds, as the pure goodwill of the spectators lifts you up and encourages you to keep going - plenty a marathon runner can vouch for that! Even on our lonely training run, there was people with kind remarks as we passed by - the guys working on a manhole who told us we were flying, the guys playing volleyball who joked about our speed, the old lady walking our dog who smiled and said ‘fair play to you!’ - sometimes this means more than all the energy drinks in the world.

(Photo by Pavitrata Taylor from London, you can see more of these aphorism cards on his photo gallery… )

In India, there have been a few select spiritual figures who have come to be known by the title paramhansa, among them for example, Sri Ramakrishna and Paramhansa Yogananda. Many translations of this Sanskrit word give it as ‘heavenly swan‘ or ‘transcendent swan‘.

As well as the obvious connotations of grace and beauty, the swan also evokes other spiritual qualities. It can live equally on land or water, a metaphor for the paramhansa’s ability to be at home both in the inner and outer worlds. According to Indian legend, the swan also is able to separate milk from water, and so the paramhansa is similarly supposed to be able to separate the Real from the unreal on the strength of his meditative awareness.

However, there is a school of thought that says that the literal translation of paramhansa is not ‘heavenly swan‘, but rather ‘heavenly goose‘. The goose, being mainly a farmyard bird in the west, is commonly ridiculed as having characteristics of foolishness and woollyheadedness (which is why the translators probably elected to to choose the swan instead!). But in India the goose carries those exact same attributes of grace and beauty as the swan, in particular the bar-headed goose (photo on right), which twice a year makes the arduous crossing over the Himalayas from Central Asia to India. During these migration, the geese have been observed flying at heights of 9150m, higher than any other bird; yet another analogy with the paramhansa, who flies to sublime meditative heights that the rest of us long to reach for.