Question: How do you run through inner pain?

Sri Chinmoy: Inner pain is a joke. Outer pain I believe in. Sometimes I cannot place my foot on the ground without getting such pain! But inner pain, which comes from frustration, depression, jealousy and insecurity, is a joke. Inner pain should be discarded like a filthy rag! Outer pain you cannot so easily ignore, but inner pain must be discarded.

If you have inner pain, if you are jealous of someone or are in an undivine consciousness, then the outer running will actually help you. When you are running and perspiring, when you are struggling, at that time the inner pain goes away to some extent. Otherwise, if because you are depressed you do not go out to run, then you are just a fool.

If you feel depressed while you are running, you can sing loudly and deliberately try to sing wrong notes. Then laugh at yourself. Some of my friends used to do this. They were good singers, but deliberately they would sing wrong notes while they were walking, and it would make them laugh. In that way they got rid of depression.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Pioneer-runners of tomorrow’s world-peace-dawn: ultramarathon running and self-transcendence, Agni Press, 1998
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/prt