Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

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Archived – click Post Title to view all. Last year Vasu set a personal best in this race by breaking his previous record by 1 hour and 15 minutes.  In fact in each of his 3 previous races he transcended himself each time.  For we impatient voyeurs on the sideline, a handful of minutes extracted from 47 plus days of struggle seems almost incomprehensible.  A blink, a mere wisp of time and space, a fragment that our minds can barely hold to, but is still one which we can so easily measure and calculate. To Vasu however, that 75 minutes was pure bliss, something that revealed the eternal.  That absolute act of self transcendence is at the core of why he continues to strive and struggle so hard, each and every time he comes.  That fragment of time for Vasu represents a kind of perfection of transcendence.  One that has inspired him to come again and again.  To seek out a glimpse of heaven in the hardest race on earth. “On the physical plane I am having some problems with my knee.”  Vasu reaches down and points to an area just below his left knee.  His feeling of late is that even though it has been so bothersome that he has had more than 4 days of difficulties he believes the source of the problem is a mental one. “I think this is my mind.” His idea for a cure is a simple one.  For nearly all of us his strategy is easier said than done. “I need to be more in…

Read more: http://perfectionjourney.org/2015/06/22/june-22-my-soul-running/#more-44149

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Day 9, 3100 Mile Race 2015​ from Stutisheel Lebedev on Vimeo.

Archived – click Post Title to view all.  “I really would like to come back.” I had just joked with Suprabha that Ashprihanal is going to tie her record of completing the race 13 times.  She laughs as she says this, but her comment is not far from the range of the possible. Suprabha has continually defied our notions of strength and determination.  A wisp of humanity that seems surcharged with boundless energy.  Its source, clearly not linked to her slim petite physique. Yet when you listen to her soft gentle words, as she speaks about her time spent so long upon this road you can begin to sense the origin of her unique and special gift. Suprabha has always dedicated each of her steps, her laps, and her miles to the divinity within.  An inspiration and a source not lost on any of us who have watched and appreciated her running year after.  Clearly  Suprabha has forged a unique connection to some form of higher power for many many years. In those 13 summers she ran the race she completed 40,300 miles circling the block.  When asked what kind of mileage she is putting in now she confesses, “it is really not enough.” Suprabha’s running since she last participated here in 2009 has not been without challenges.  In March she went with some friends to run the Chico half marathon.  The place where her late spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy ran his first marathon. By doing some extra loops they actually ran a full marathon.  “What a beautiful course.  I just loved it….

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