A Puerto Rican runner⁴

On the plane coming back from Puerto Rico I was sitting in the first seat of the front row. One of the stewardesses said, “Please let me take the bag that is in front of you until the plane is in the air. Then I will bring it back.”

So I gave it to her. Then there was an announcement that the plane would be delayed for twenty minutes. When I went to the stewardess to get some books out of the bag, a tall man came and stood in front of me and said, “Master, Master, why didn’t you run yesterday in the half-marathon?”

I said, “I couldn’t do the 400-metre dash. How could I have done the half-marathon?”

He said, “Your races are so good because they are held early in the morning. I always enter your races. Early in the morning I run.”

There the half-marathon was held at three-thirty in the afternoon, so he didn’t run. And he is Puerto Rican! Puerto Ricans are accustomed to that kind of heat.

So you see, if you start races early in the morning, there will be at least one person who will be happy and grateful.

He said, “Your students, your disciples, are so good.”

Another stewardess happened to be there and she said, “Because the Master is good, the disciples are good.” Then she said, “Master, I have been to your meetings quite a few times, but now it is different. At the meditations you are very distant. It is good, but you are somewhere else. Now you are talking.”

I said, “At that time I meditate.”

She said, “Yes, that’s why you are so distant.”