Back in 1980 on a Saturday morning in June, 20 runners assembled for a 7 mile race in Hyde Park, London.

The race consisted of 3 3/4 laps within the park. It started alongside the Serpentine lake and finished in pleasant parkland.

        Left: Ongkar in familiar pose recording at one of our races, and with daughter Dipika, who also runs for Sri Chinmoy AC, at our course in Battersea Park.

The winner was John Hensman from South London in a time of 36.17. Another runner, Mark Pickard, came fourth but could not stay for the prizegiving as he was scheduled to run the Woodford to Southend 40 mile road race later on that day! At that time, Mark was the most consistent ultra-runner in the UK, so a 7 mile race at 8am was just a warm up for the big one.

This modest race was the first ever organised by Sri Chinmoy AC in the UK and very quickly more races were organised until about 300 people participated in 5 mile, 10k and 10 mile races within the following 12 months.

Following on from this, the venue for the races changed to Battersea Park, where we still organise a large programme of races each year. Particularly popular are the 2 mile Monday evening races held every summer.

At the time of writing, the next race is a 10km on Saturday 11th September at 8am in Battersea Park, and if thats too short a distance then there is the 24 Hour rack race at Tooting Bec Track on 9 & 10 October.

Very soon after that first race in 1980, other races were held by Sri Chinmoy AC in Ipswich, Bristol, Oxford, Edinburgh and Cambridge. (Editor's note - more articles about our club's history coming soon, courtesty of Sanjaya our Ipswich race director).

Ongkar.

"Run and Become
Become and Run
Run to succeed in the outer world
Become to proceed in the inner world"

Sri Chinmoy
 

Sri Chinmoy and the Concept of Self-Transcendence

By Manatita


"You can always do more" says spiritual athlete Sri Chinmoy.   "Today's goal is only the starting point for tomorrow's new dawn.   At every moment we are transcending our previous achievements.........our goal should be our own progress, and progress itself is the most illumining experience."

This 73 year-old meditation teacher is himself a perfect example of his teachings.   Originally a sprinter, Sri Chinmoy began making his transition to longer races in 1978.   Within 9 months he ran his first marathon, and a year later had completed 7 marathons and two ultra-marathons (longer than 26.2 miles), plus a dozen or so other events.   He was then 48 years old.

Back in his native India, Sri Chinmoy was the decathlon champion for 12 years in the spiritual community in which he lived from the age of 12 to 32.   He was also the area's fastest runner, winning the 100 metre dash for 16 years in a row!

LINK:our USA web site has a gallery of early Sri Chinmoy pictures.

Sri Chinmoy says that we all have unlimited potential.   Nothing is impossible if we can get beyond the barriers created by our own minds.   To bring our capacities to the fore we need faith, discipline and the determination never, never to give up!   Life is not made for failure, but for progress.   We should never give up, no matter how many times we try and fail.   Eventually nature itself must surrender to our determination.

Sports, says Sri Chinmoy, bring dynamism and power into the body.   Physical fitness is also of great importance in our lives.   If the body is in good condition, we can perform all our life's activities well.   So it is important to run or do physical activities every day in order to become strong, healthy and dynamic.   If we are physically fit we are better able to keep ailments and other uninvited guests from entering into us.. This synthesis of outer fitness, accompanied by inner fitness through meditation, is present throughout the teachings ond activities of this spiritual master, sport philosopher and champion athlete.

In the act of competing, we are always competing to beat ourselves.   The other athlete is necessary, but only in so far as to bring out the best in us.   Success and failure are simply experiences that come to us along the way.   We can go beyond them.   Sri Chinmoy says:  

"The determination in your heroic effort will permeate your mind and heart even after your success or failure is long forgotten."

And on competition:

"We compete not for the sake of defeating others, but in order to bring forward our own capacity.   Our best capacity comes forward only when there are other people around us.   They inspire us to bring forward our utmost capacity, and we inspire them to bring forward theirs.   That is why we have competitive sports.   The seeker-athlete never tries to compete with others, but only tries to transcend his own capacity."

"Transcendence", for Sri Chinmoy, indicates a natural evolutionary drive that is part of the earth itself.   All levels of the earth creation, he teaches, are striving consciously or unconsciously to improve.   When this striving is conscious, as through meditation, progress is made more quickly.   Physical fitness is the quickest and simplest means to bring the qualities of endurance into an individual's consciousness.   However, the philosophy of self-transcendence can apply to any area of life's activities, from the physical to the cultural and spiritual.

Sri Chinmoy has excelled in many sports including football, volleyball, table-tennis, tennis (which he played for two hours daily until in his early sixties), and weightlifting.   He has also majored in the art forms of painting, music, poetry and writing.   To date he has written over 1,450 books, painted over 200,000 paintings and composed over 18,000 devotional songs.   He can play over 100   musical instruments and has performed around 700 free concerts around the world.   The list of his achievements is endless.

Today, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team are at work in over 300 centres in more than 50 countries throughout the world, providing the public with over 500 races a year.   The Team's longest race is an elite invitational 3,100 mile event.   They are also famous for the Self-Transcendence 2-mile races held on a one-mile loop in many countries throughout the world.   Acting on the inspiration of Sri Chinmoy, the Team tries to to bring forward the inner capacities of the runner such as cheerfulness, courage, endurance, and the determination to transcend their own capacities.

I would like to finish this article with two inspirational sayings of Sri Chinmoy:

"Every day, when morning dawns, we should feel that we have something new to accomplish.   We are running and every day we are advancing.   If we are aspiring, we are always in the process of running.   When we start our journey in the morning, we should feel that today is the continuation of yesterday's journey; we should not take it as a totally new beginning.   And tomorrow we should feel that we have travelled still another mile."

"Determination can change your mind.
Determination can change your heart.
Determination can change your life altogether."

One of them even made it back! The protagonists are all still active club members, and if you take part in our "Self Transcendence Races" in Bristol, Cardiff, London or Oxford you may well have met them: Richard (London), Purohit (Bristol), Kaivalya (London) and Sarvosmi (Oxford).

I have not yet been able to track down pictures of the event, though rumour has it that some do exist in a subterranean vault in the Wandsworth area, but here are a couple from that same era for you to enjoy: Sarvosmi (from an early international torch relay) and Kaivalya (from an aid station on the Masters and Maidens Marathon - accompanied by ever-youthful son Devashishu, who hasn't changed a bit).

Hopefully Richard and Purohit will add their memories at some point and supply equally charming photos from the 80s.

Until that point, members of our club here in the UK had rarely ventured beyond the marathon; this early journey of ultramarathon discovery heralded a new era which saw several teams make the trek to Brighton over the following fifteen to twenty years. In recent years the flow of such epic runs by club members has dried up a bit (with notable exceptions such as Tarit and Abichal, how many of us are out there running ultradistance?) so I hope this article inspires a new generation of Sri Chinmoy AC members to take on the challenge.

OK, enough from me, here are the stories!

Kaivalya's London to Brighton story
Sarvosmi's London to Brighton story

 

Roger, Sri Chinmoy AC Cardiff, Summer 2005

The 100-mile London to Brighton run (1984,5 or 6?)

That summer Sri Chinmoy was encouraging us to transcend ourselves in our manifestation as he himself was doing. I got a call from Purohit suggesting a 100-mile run to Brighton and back over a weekend. We had five weeks to prepare. The girls were going to play netball for 24 hours! Purohit worked out the course and support vehicle and I got together a running programme. On the road we had four runners - Richard, Sarvosmi, Purohit and myself. The runners had a variety of long distance experience. Whereas Purohit and myself had attempted 4 or 5 marathons, I think Richard had suffered only one or two and Sarvosmi none at all! He was the really brave one.

We started running at midnight on Friday just outside Her Majesty's Prison on Brixton Hill. Purohit had worked out the distance to be exactly 50 miles to Brighton. Our programme allowed us a 20 minute break every two hours. We hoped to cover 9 to 10 miles between breaks and reach Brighton at midday. The summer night was beautiful and everything went well as we ran southward through Streatham, Thornton Heath, past Croydon, away from the built up areas and onto the A23. The breaks were threatening to become longer than the prescribed time and I had to play timer and encourage the runners back onto the road.

Gatwick Airport was about half way and almost a marathon distance. While the temperature remained cool the increasing weariness in our legs and the blisters did not seem to deflect us from our goal. The dawn brought in an increasingly hot day. The cars on the road could see us now more clearly and the fear of traffic dissipated. We had to stay together as a group and not allow anyone to fall behind. We were all really tired by 10am. Doubts about making it started to plague my mind and I comforted myself with visions of the sea and the healing effects of soaking in the brine. At midday Brighton was still a few miles away. We crawled through its suburbs wishing the sea to be around the next corner. We had to fight our way through the many tourists strolling idly along the narrow pavements and finally there it was..the pier, the pebbly beach, the sea! I could hardly walk on the beach..my blisters hated the pebbles. It was a great relief to fall into the caressing arms of the sea and let my bodyweight be supported by agencies other than my legs. We all needed to shower so we decided to go to the local swimming pool, swim and then shower and then,,,,,,,,,,eat a good meal. All this took time as the runners moved slowly and tried to keep the thought of the return run out of their minds.

We cheered up considerably after eating a cooked meal but the lack of a night's sleep was affecting everybody, even the support group. We agreed to sleep for an hour or two and then start the return run before sunset. Amazingly I felt quite revived and my blisters seemed to have subsided. Within 5 miles Sarvosmi dropped out. He had not taken the opportunity to swim in the pool, which we all felt had been restorative. The run back in the dark was quite hair raising because of the traffic and the bright headlights. We could not keep up the pace we had maintained on the way out and the group started to spread out. All three of us started walking at different times. I could see Richard in front of me wandering across the road rather dangerously. He was suffering from a lack of sleep. He decided to give up and take a seat in the car. Progress was slow and just before dawn outside Gatwick Airport Purohit decided that he could not go on. It was around about this time or soon afterwards that a strange change came over me.

It became clear to me that I was feeling no pain or fear in my body. I was running without making an effort - not fast, but freely and easily. I was floating on air. I could not believe it. I had covered 75 miles and I was now running as though I had just started. Pavitrata joined me for a couple of miles. Sweat was pouring off me like raindrops. I was bubbling over with happiness and joy. The support car passed me and Rod stuck his head out and shouted, "Take it easy, you've still got a marathon to go." Immediately fear took hold again and the pain I had felt earlier in all parts of my body returned. The joy vanished and the struggle started up once more. It was a crawl back to Streatham..We finished in Clapham instead of Brixton. It was 2pm, Sunday.