Question: By running marathons, are you running for our spiritual benefit?

Sri Chinmoy: I am doing everything to encourage you people and inspire you people. Otherwise, someone of my spiritual stature doesn’t have to do anything, anything. Sri Krishna was absolutely right when he said that he doesn’t have to do anything. But if he does not do anything, then the world will sink. When the spiritual Masters come, if they don’t talk, if they don’t do things, then the whole world will always remain in ignorance-sleep. People have been sleeping all along, but when the Masters come, if they are not active, then people will enjoy ignorance-sleep infinitely more.

So I am running to encourage you people. Outwardly you run much faster than I do; I am dying behind you, trying to keep up. But inwardly I am encouraging you all to come out of lethargy. With my conscious good will, my inner will, my oneness-will with your soul, I am trying to bring you beyond the boundaries of ignorance. I am doing this for my children; I am doing it for America; I am doing it for the entire world.

Those who have faith in me will believe me; others will say that it is because I have a big ego. “He wants to defeat his spiritual children. If he loses, shamelessly he challenges them and runs again. It is like a camel eating thorns. He eats thorns, he bleeds and then again he eats thorns.” Like this I am challenging some of my disciples. Every time I run, I lose; then again I challenge them. That is taking place on the outer plane. But on the inner place, I am inspiring the entire humanity to increase its inner speed.

There should be a race only for the spiritual Masters. And they have to be over forty.

Disciple: You would win, Guru.

Sri Chinmoy: Oh no, I won’t win, because there will be some Hatha Yoga teachers. They are terrific.

Disciple: But Hatha Yoga teachers won’t practice running.

Sri Chinmoy: It will be a “Masters’ masters,” for those over forty. Even if they are Hatha Yoga teachers, I am ready to compete.

Disciple: But Hatha Yoga teachers aren’t necessarily spiritual Masters.

Sri Chinmoy: True. In India they are just village boys, but here in America they automatically become Yogis. They have learned some acrobatics, and that is their Yoga. This is true in many cases. First they learn acrobatics very nicely, and then they read some Western books about Hatha Yoga. They don’t learn it from Indian books, no! From Western books they learn Hatha Yoga, and then they become authorities. I had four or five acquaintances who wanted to go and live abroad. So they read a book on Hatha Yoga, and now they have become self-styled authorities on Hatha Yoga.