Always there should be a goal. Having a goal does not mean that we have to try to defeat the world’s top runners, far from it. In the spiritual life, our goal should be our own progress. Progress itself is the most illumining experience. If we want to make progress, and if somebody else is with us, immediately his mind or our mind may think that we are competing. In the ordinary life we compete with others to gain supremacy. But in the spiritual life, we are not in competition with others. We are only trying to transcend our own capacity.
We can think of ourselves as two halves. One half is our imperfection and the other is our sincere cry for perfection. One side is weakness and the other side is strength. With our inner cry for perfection, let us run towards our destination and reach the illumination-shore. When our being is fully illumined, then dark, ignorant forces are afraid to come near us. Before we reach the destination, they challenge us. But once we reach the illumination-destination, the ignorant forces do not dare enter into us because they feel that they will be totally destroyed. They do not know that they will only be transformed and illumined.From:Sri Chinmoy,Pioneer-runners of tomorrow’s world-peace-dawn: ultramarathon running and self-transcendence, Agni Press, 1998
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