Meditation teachers are masters at the art of seeing a golden opportunity where others would see a dead end. When Sri Chinmoy, a prolific athlete and tennis player, had to curtail his involvement in those two sports due to a severe knee injury, this became the launchpad for another surprising development, one that perhaps he did not even envision coming.

"Weightlifting was never my forte.", Sri Chinmoy recalled a year after he started lifting. "Right from my early years I disliked bodybuilding and weightlifting." This frank declaration immediately raises the question of why he would then take it up again at the age of 54 - but just as circumstances presented Sri Chinmoy an opportunity to enter into a new field, this question might also offer us an opportunity to gain a glimpse into the life of a meditation master. Since the dawn of human evolution, there have been people who have sought to enter and remain centred in the peace and stillness inside themselves, and there have been people who have succeeded. And in that peace and stillness, they can act on the voice of their soul, the 'Inner Pilot' as Sri Chinmoy affectionately calls it. "I always listen to the dictates of my Inner Pilot, and my Inner Pilot asked me to enter into weightlifting. That is the main reason, the inner reason, why I took up weightlifting. The outer reason, one can say, was severe knee pain, which prevented me from running. So I have to do something to keep my body fit. But the inner reason is because my Inner Pilot, my God, has commanded me to lift. For that reason I do it cheerfully."

Displays of strength have throughout the ages been associated with status and ego-proclamation, but from the outset Sri Chinmoy made clear he had no such desire. Quite simply, he was lifting weights for the same reason he engaged in all his other activities such as art, poetry, music, running - to inspire others to tap into their own potential. "If I can be of service to even one individual, I feel that it is a tremendous help in improving the standard of humanity. Whatever I am doing in the field of sports or athletics...it is all for inspiration." It is this mutual give and take of inspiration that keeps us all aiming for something higher in life.

Sri Chinmoy started in 1985 with only a 40-pound dumbbell, but as he made progress through higher and higher weights, he made good on his hopes to be of inspiration through his weightlifting,not only through the increasingly eye-opening size of the weights lifted, but also through his never-say-die philosophy. One particular example came just a year after he began weightlifting: he had reached the stage where he was attempting to lift 300 pounds with one arm. His first attempt took place on the eleventh of May, 1986. Before his lifts, Sri Chinmoy would spontaneously compose a prayer-poem invoking and dedicating his lifts to God, his 'Inner Pilot' as Sri Chinmoy sometimes refers to Him; it is a practice that continues to this day. The poem he composed on the opening day of the lift perhaps gives some intimation of the experiences were to come:

My Beloved Supreme,
You are my inspiration,
You are my aspiration,
You are my realisation.
If ever I can lift up 300 pounds,
It will be 100 per cent
Your unconditional Compassion,
Unconditional Blessings,
Unconditional Fulfilment.

On the first day, he attempted to lift three hundred pounds, to no avail. The day after, he tried again with the same result. And the day after that. May turned into June. And June turned into July. And Sri Chinmoy kept trying, with an equanimity, detachment and an indefatigable inner spirit to which the prayers he composed before the lifts testify:

In fact 80 days, and 214 attempts were to pass before Sri Chinmoy finally suceeded in lifting the 300 pound weight. On August 11, Sri Chinmoy spontaneously composed the following prayer:

My Lord Supreme,
My Beloved Supreme,
My body's strength
Comes from my mind's happiness.
My mind's happiness
Comes from my heart's gratitude.
My heart's gratitude
Comes from my life's surrender.

and then lifted for the first time the 300 pound weight, which was almost double his own body weight of 158 pounds. On the day he lifted 300 pounds, Sri Chinmoy's words were not of the joy of succeeding on that particular day, but of the joy of perseverance on all the days previously: "When we live in the progress-world, always there is tremendous joy. This joy comes not only from transcending one’s capacities but from the effort itself. Say I have set my goal at 300 pounds, and I cannot do it. The very fact that I have been devotedly practising and practising gives me joy, and the tenacity or perseverance that I am showing is itself progress. Anything that we do devotedly and soulfully helps us make progress."

Related articles on other sites:

• A Spiritual Lift [1] - early article on Sri Chinmoy's weightlifting, originally in American Fitness
• Volcanic Calf-Fire [2]: an account of Sri Chinmoy's calf-raise weightlifting performances, which were happening at rougly the same time as the 300lb life
• Table of Weighlifting Achievements" [3] - highlights of Sri Chinmoy's lifting on Australian Sri Chinmoy Centre site
• The World On His Shoulders [4] - an article about Sri Chinmoy's lifting in Vegetarian society magazines, showing vegetarians are certainly not weak!
• Why did you start weightlifting [5] - question and answer from SriChinmoyLibrary.com