Don Kardong: Why do you think that runners often are able to achieve a meditative state while running?8
Sri Chinmoy: Concentration, meditation and contemplation are three members of the same family. When a runner focuses all his attention on a particular race, he is in a position to free his mind, liberate his mind, from uncomely distractions. Here one-pointed concentration is the pathfinder for a deeper meditative consciousness. Your personal experiences are in perfect harmony with the experiences of a seeker-runner.
RS 7-8. Don Kardong finished fourth in the 1976 Olympic Marathon in 2:11:16 and won the 1978 Honolulu Marathon in 2:17:04. For many years he won or placed high at the Bloomsday Race in Washington State, and later organised it and made the race into a mega-attraction for runners in the Northwest. He is currently President of the Road Runners Club of America and has written many articles about running and training for magazines and other publications, including Runners World, Footnotes and Running Times.↩
Sri Chinmoy, Run and smile, smile and run, Agni Press, 2000
