I feel slightly embarrassed in the sense that my personal experiences of running are pretty lame.

I once did the Menston four-mile fun run. I would have won the under seven category except for half-way around; I stopped to take my number off my front and put it on my back (so it wouldn’t flap in my face). I got pipped on the line and finished 2nd. It was an early lesson in marginal gains. Put your number on properly.

Aged 14, I ran for my school – Bradford Grammar School. In those days, I doubt very much I was meditating on the spiritual significance of running – rather cross-country seemed a less bad choice than having to play rugby. Once I came last in a race, so I used this as an excuse to give up cross-country running and take up being a teenager instead.

When I joined Sri Chinmoy’s Path, I took up running for a short while. It was great for a few months, but then I got a knee injury for a few years, so I took up cycling instead.

Having related my lame-running stories, it is fair to say there is considerable overlap with being a cyclist.

Anyway, one thing worth mentioning in addition to this article. In the Sri Chinmoy Centre, I know a considerable number of people who have completed one or several marathons. Nothing too extraordinary, as it is more commonplace these days. But, I know quite a few of those who have completed marathons are outwardly quite unathletic in nature. At least, you would not guess they have a few completed marathons up their sleeves. I know that if they had never been inspired by Sri Chinmoy’s path, they would never have completed a half-marathon, let alone a full marathon. It is inspiring that where the will is willing, there is a way.

This is an aspect of Sri Chinmoy’s path – we (and other people) are always much more capable than our mind would let us believe.

Related

• Personal experiences of self-transcendence
• The role of genetics

External link

• New video with Nayak – First experience with Sri Chinmoy

I was in New York in August. Opposite my breakfast diner, the police closed off a street so Muslim worshippers could celebrate Eid on the road. There probably wasn’t enough room inside the small mosque.

It was an interesting sight. These tough redneck, NYPD officers and a hundred Muslims praying in the street. That’s America for you.

Daisies in lawn.

Looking to back of garden.

New extension coming up to meditation garage.

Front garden. Bit of topiary!

A couple of foxgloves

Nice geraniums in morning sun.

Inside extension. By position of chair, It looks like I am meditating on my vacuum cleaner.

Not quite sure why I had two doors put in! 

Nigella just finishing.May

New veg planters A courgete and marrow and some lettuce.

Cucumber, kale, broccoli, aubergine plant and leeks squashed into my new veg planter.

Another busy veg planter – peas and lettuce and leeks.

Neat vet planters.

From: BBC

I was amused to see in Oxford Blackwells my new economics book in between the great philosophers Immanual Kant and Søren Kierkegaard. I’ve always fancied myself as something of a philosopher.

But when I studied PPE at Oxford University, I was hopeless at philosophy. I couldn’t read a page of Kant for love nor money. One of the few rebelllious things I’ve done in life is when I worked out you could more or less fail philosophy, but still pass on to the second year of PPE where you could concentrate on just economics and politics. So I stopped going to philosophy lectures – never read a philosophy book and scrapped a third on the philosophy 1st year exams. Then I dropped the philosophy to a great sense of joy and relief.

In my second and third year, I did start going to lectures in economics and politics!

When I joined Sri Chinmoy’s path, a disciple told me that in his youth Sri Chinmoy read all the western philosophers. But, now he prays to God to be able to forget all this dry philosophy! I was so happy to hear that – because I don’t feel any joy in western philosophy. But, I hope there is a little joy in my philosophical economics book!

I got inspired by this article “I went on a news blackout the day Trump got elected”  (at Guardian). Ironically, I’ve never read the Guardian since.

Also, of interest – “News is bad for you”

A lot of news these day, is not actually news, but opinion designed to provoke strong reactions.

“The web shatters focus – rewires brain” at Wired.co.uk – though ironically I had difficulty reading because the web page was trying to load so many adverts and pop-up boxes

In the outer world, greed seems a powerful force, but as these Indian stories remind us – it is not entirely a modern invention – perhaps we just have the technology to do it on a bigger scale. These stories also remind us greed is built on the wrong foundations and will ultimately crumble.

I made a short video with musings on karma. It is an interesting challenge to practise speaking into a video camera!

Stories II includes

• Is your mind ready to cry? Is your heart ready to smile? (10 volumes)
• Amusement I enjoy; Enlightenment I study (8 volumes)
• Life’s bleeding tears and flying smiles (12)

Source: QI

In the western world, the number 13 is often considered an ‘unlucky’ number. But, Sri Chinmoy felt thirteen was a divine number (or words to that effect) – a number with special significance in his own life.

Many significant events in his lifetime became associated with the number 13. For example, his arrival in the West (New York) April 13th.

There are always so many ways of looking at the same thing.

In this case, we might think 13 and 666 are numbers representing ‘ignorance’

Alternatively, we can see the Creator’s hand in every aspect of life – hiding a few secret jokes, even in numbers.

If you take 13 as a divine number, you can see Belphegor’s prime as an example of how World ignorance (represented by 666) is perfectly surrounded by the divine.

Related

• God love’s solicitors
• The beauty of mathematics

External link

• 13 Guardian Angels of New York (song lyrics from Chandelier, part 2)