Table of Contents
Part I
- Sri Chinmoy: Congratulations on your marathon! You did so well! Was it your best time?
- Nils Lodin: I always try. Do I understand correctly that activity and meditation form the essence of your teaching?
- Nils Lodin: I have read that you write hundreds of poems every day. Is that true?
- Nils Lodin: You seem to try to accomplish as much as possible every day. Are your outer achievements related to your inner beliefs?
- Nils Lodin: How does running relate to your philosophy?
- Nils Lodin: Running has no value in itself?
- Nils Lodin: I understand that you sleep very little. Why do you not sleep more?
- Nils Lodin: Then, may I ask you, why do you not need it? Other people need to sleep seven or eight hours.
- Nils Lodin: Do you think that meditation is a kind of sleep?
- Nils Lodin: You are a Guru, but what is a Guru?
- Nils Lodin: Are you quite sure that your advice is always right?
- Nils Lodin: When you tell your students that they should act like this or like that, have you got the message from the other shore?
- Nils Lodin: When you are running a marathon, are you suffering?
- Nils Lodin: But I think that you benefit, not only as a Guru, but as a person. I always say to my friends that you do not know anything about life until you have run a full marathon. It gives a dimension to life that I have never encountered before. The pain in those last six or eight miles is a pain that you cannot meet in other situations.
- Nils Lodin: When you say that you get messages from the other shore or the other side, what do you in fact mean? Do you get them from God? What is on the other side?
- Nils Lodin: But can I not reach that experience without any God?
- Nils Lodin: I agree with you, but in another way, because I think that we are part of the world. I can reach the highest point only by fulfilling myself, and that is not to be an egomaniac, but to do things that I feel are right, that are real. But all the same, I feel that in a way we are just lumps of clay.
Part II
- John Hanc: How does running fit in with your teaching?
- John Hanc: While running, is it also a time to meditate?
- John Hanc: You mentioned that when you first came up with the idea of 1,300 miles, people said, "What kind of an idea is that?" What are you thinking about now? Have you got any other ideas?
- John Hanc: Does it give you joy to see the increasing number of runners who come to your races here?
- John Hanc: As a long-time athlete and observer of the sport of running, do you have any feelings about where the sport itself is going?
- John Hanc: I have seen you sitting and watching many of the Sri Chinmoy races — both "Runners Are Smilers" and the ultras. Many of the people running are not followers of yours, but they all seem to be having a good time.
- John Hanc: On the ultra-distance side, you and the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team have been leaders in expanding the limits of what people can run. Do you think there will be any limit to the distance people can run? Ten years from now will we be talking about a 2,000-mile or a 5,000-mile run?
- John Hanc: You lifted me, so I know it is true. Did you ever run ultra-distance?
- John Hanc: One last question — when talking to some of the runners at your Thanksgiving Day Half-Marathon, I found that many of them have been coming to your races for a long time and enjoy running here although they are not your spiritual students. Some of them have never even met you, but they were saying how well organised your races are and how nice the people are. The thing that some of them find surprising is that nobody tries to recruit them to become a follower of yours.
Part III
- Question: Can the old scriptures still help us?
- Question: What makes a perfect worker?
- Question: What is God's relaxation?
- Question: How can I please the United Nations soul?
- Question: How can disciples make correct decisions?
- Question: For a disciple of yours, is two hours of meditation per day too much?
- Question: When is laughter spiritual?
- Question: What makes one truly beautiful outwardly?
- Question: Will ignorance ever leave me?
- Question: Do a soul's qualities remain throughout Eternity?
- Question: Will you continue lifting people?
- Question: Has Hawaii become inwardly American?
Part IV
- Question: Are you a Hindu?
- Question: Could you say something about the New Year?
- Question: What should be our prayer?
Part V
- Question: Is there a question we can ask ourselves to see if we are keeping our motives pure, so that when we are doing something, we are doing it for the right purpose and not for the ego?
- Question: What is the difference between God's Grace and God's Compassion?
- Question: I feel lost about how to offer love to God. It seems that unless God enters into you, you do not have love to give.
- Question: What is the best way to create very powerful dynamism to inspire more seekers to accept the spiritual life?
- Question: When you say that a person's soul has a special connection with the soul of a country, what does it mean?
- Question: Sometimes when we are working on manifestation, I have an idea which feels inwardly totally right to me and somebody else says it is not so good. Then I feel insecure and I do not want to hurt the other person.
- Question: How important is it spiritually to express what we feel? Should different emotions only be expressed inwardly to you or to the Supreme?
- Question: Do you always receive everything that we offer you inwardly?
- Question: This year we are supposed to offer our bad qualities. How can we know if we have offered them completely so that they will not come back?
