Practising what you preach²⁴

In Toronto there was a two-mile race. I had already run a lot early in the morning before the race, so I was very tired and exhausted. Also, I didn’t have any energy because I had not been eating solid food. But I started running anyway.

There were about twenty-five runners in the race. Four girls who were running started to pass me. I said, “I have no more strength to run. I preach all the time ‘surrender, surrender, surrender’ to my disciples. Now God wants me to practise it.” O God, one, two, three, four — the girls all went ahead of me. Then, after one mile, one by one I caught three of them. But one girl was still ahead of me. After a mile and a half, I had absolutely no energy left. I started walking very nicely and the girls whom I had passed went ahead. I said, “Oh, now I am practising and practising. Not only do I preach surrender but I practise it also.”

A young man, a new disciple who still had long hair and a moustache, came up to me near the end of the race and said, “Guru, I want to run with you because I want peace. I am getting so much peace from you.”

I thought, “Oh, he is getting peace and I am dying.”

So, near the finish line, when I started walking, he also started walking. Then about a hundred metres from the end I told him, “Now, please, you go and run. Finish it running.” So he completed the two-mile race running.